I really liked the direction I was going in with the different colors of magic, but mechanically, it felt like it was incomplete. I'm going to build off of those seven write-ups, but I'm going to use a spell-based approach instead of effects-based. To begin, I've added every spell from GURPS Magic into an excel. The columns are Spell, College, Color, Key 1 and Key 2. College will be dropped, but that gives me a little guidance as to which color to place each spell under. The key fields are going to line up somewhat as a verb and noun, though in some cases, spells might need more keys. I still need to go through and add the color and keys to all of the spells in the list, but I'll also be eliminating a lot of the spells that I don't want to be present in the setting.
The first alternative idea:
- Arrange the spells by color, and sort by tiers
- Each tier will be a package of spells and will be a prerequisite for the next tier
- Some colors could have duplicate spells, though they may be re-skinned
The second alternative idea:
- The entire spell list will be arranged in a web
- There will be either six or seven starting points in the center of the web (one for each color, with silver potentially being separate)
- Spells would branch out from those colors, but would be somewhat independent from the colors
- Each landing spot in the web would have something like techniques under it; the techniques would not be prerequisites for other branches of the web, but some would increase affinity to a color
- Spells cast with the correct affinity would gain a bonus to cast equal to all of the points of affinity accrued throughout the web
- Color affinity may serve as a bonus to spell casting when using that color
- The parent landing spots would be prerequisites to other spells, but there may be multiple ways to reach another spell
The third alternative idea (another web):
- Spells will be independent from color and will be treated (mostly) as verbs, with the noun provided by the color(s) of magic used
- Access to colors will govern how powerful you are with magic, but is independent from skill
- Parent spells will have titles like divine (for divination) or project (for launching an attack)
- Parent spells will be cast at a major penalty (maybe -5 or -10), but will cover a wide range of effects
- techniques will have names like seek (under divine) or cone, ball or lance (for project)
- techniques will be extremely important to get spells up to usable levels
- A caster with access to red magic, could use the project skill with the cone technique to make a cone of fire; this would be possible without the cone technique, but would be cast at the full penalty
The first idea is probably the simplest, with the second probably being the hardest to design. I think the third one is my favorite, but I'll wait on feedback before I actually start writing anything out. The second idea was inspired by the technology web in Civilization: Beyond Earth, and the third kind of grew from that, but without the affinities. I do like the idea of the color affinities, but it doesn't really fit the tattoos theme as well as the third idea.
edit: you can see by the time I get to idea #3 that I've already shifted away from using a true spell list, but we'll see where things end up.
I should probably add something here.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Sharing:
