Mountain Clams

Magic Styles

Compiled/Written by Brett A. Paul

This document was last updated on April 28^th, 1997. 

I had recently started a discussion on the ADND-L list regarding different possible magic styles.  This is a summary of the responses I got.  The ranking does not imply any sort of scale.  It is simply the order of information as I put it into this document.  If anyone can help me flesh out any of these summaries, it would be appreciated.  Also, if you can think of a better name for something, let me know that, too.  I'm just kinda winging it here. :-)

For quick reference, the different magic styles come from AD&D, Stephen R. Donaldson’s “The Mirror of Her Dreams” and “A Man Rides Through,” Robert Jordan’s “The Wheel of Time,” David Edding’s “Belgariad” and “Mallorean,” Terry Goodkind’s “Wizard’s First Rule” and “Stone of Tears,” Weis and Hickman’s “Deathgate Cycle,” Galatea in 2D, Weis and Hickman’s Darksword trilogy, Magic:  The Gathering, Square Softs Final Fantasy 3 game

Å [Standard AD&D magic] The first style of Magic is the standard PHB style - you control magical energy through incantations and gestures (verbal and somatic components) using various tools, fuels, or foci (material components). 

Å [Wild magic] The second style of Magic uses none of these, but instead tries to release a burst of Magical energy and shape it in the process, which resembles wild magic. 

Å [Bonded magic] The third style of Magic is when the mage voluntarily allies himself with an extra-planar entity (usually evil), who provides the mage with power for spells.  The unfortunate side effect is that this magic uses souls to power it, sort of like a defiler, but vs. people, so the mage has to trap victims and use their life energy. 

Å [Defiling magic] The fourth style would be a standard defiler from Dark Sun. 

Å [Imagery] The fifth style I know about is imagery (as in "The Mirror of Her Dreams" and "A Man Rides Through" - excellent series, by the way) using mirrors to conjure images which you can reach into or extract elements from. 

Å [Gem magic] The sixth style is gem magic, in which you store magic spells in gems which, when the command word is spoken, release the spell as prepared.  Spell preparation usually takes a long time, but the release is instantaneous. 

Å [Bardic magic] The seventh style is something along the lines of the Forgotten Realms' Spellsingers or the Bardic Gypsy. 

Å [Elemental channeling] The eighth style is from Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series. This is a rather complicated system of channeling the elemental flows of the Five Powers (Earth, Wind, Air, Water, and Spirit). Different combinations and amounts of each result in different spells. For example, healing is a combination of Water and Spirit. 

Å [The Will and the Word] The ninth style is The Will and The Way: From David Edding's "Belgariad" And "Malloreon" series. This consists of the gathering of one's Will into an image of the spell you want to use, or the desired effect, and to release the Will with a Word (any word you choose).  The desired effect happens. The only 'disallowed' effect is to Will someone or something to die or fade out of existence. The powers of Nature do not allow this, and reflect the Will back to its source, thereby killing the intended destroyer/murderer. 

Å [Shamanism] The tenth style, which closely resembles Shamanism from the Complete book of Shamans, would be to have conjured spirits provide magical effects. These spirits need not always be visible; in fact, this works better with invisible spirits, when only the spellcaster knowing where his power comes from. It's been posted lately as "Spirit Mages". This might be basically the same as the Shai'ir from the Al-Quadim setting. 

Å [Inner magic] The eleventh style comes from GoodKind's Books "Wizard's First Rule," and "Stone of Tears".  These books define magic performed by tapping the forces that come from within the caster.  It uses internal forces to control the world around you.  This force is called Han.  In the books, there are two types of magic: additive and subtractive.  Additive is the creation of magical events using the power within you to tap other elements to create the desired effect.  Subtractive magic, a.k.a. destructive magic, is considered evil.  This magic uses the power within to tap surrounding elements to cause destruction.  To make a beard grow is +, while making a beard disappear is -.  To create a fireball, you would extract all of the heat from an area.  and then form that energy into a fireball.  (i.e. if you did it above water, then the water would freeze.)  If an individual has both types of magic, then they do not have to use any external forces.  They can just tap their own energies.  These type of mages are very powerful, and are as rare as they are powerful (in the book, they state that there has been only one mage gifted with both in 3000 years.)  These wizards are known as War Wizards.  They control their Han through their emotions.

Wizards can be taught magic, or they can be born with the gift.  Those with the gift have an innate ability to use magic.  For the gift to emerge, the "wizard" must do three things unknowingly with the gift.

        1) they must use it to do a mundane task

        2) they must use it to save a person's life,

        3) they must use it to kill another.

The gift manifests it self in different manners, the ability to of the mind (prophets), the ability to create items magically, the ability to cast spells, or the ability to imbue objects with magic.

Å [Runic magic] The twelfth style comes from the "Deathgate Cycle" by Weis and Hickman.  They have two ancient spell using races, which create runes/sigils.  These runes basically are created based on harnessing the available possibilities of things that could happen.  Once a possibility is found, a rune is traced on an object or in the air, and raw energy flows into the rune, making it operable. Barbara Hambleys Armies of Daylight series uses runic magic to some extent, although she doesn't really flesh it out very much. 

Å [Elemental magic] The thirteenth style resembles the Imagery style mentioned in the fifth style.  Mages draw solely from the elemental planes, using micro-gates to elemental plane of fire for fireball and burning hands, plane of wind for gust of wind and so on.  This type of mage would pretty much be limited to natural type magic (effects which manipulate Earth, Wind, Fire and Water). 

Å [Shadow magic] The fourteenth style is one in which the mage summons power from the plane of shadows, and all such spells would be temporary and more along the lines of illusions.  As a mage gets higher and higher level, you could have his skin slowly change to a smoky hue.  He is weaker in light and strongest in darkness. 

Å [Linear magic] The fifteenth style is the ley line approach where a mages power depends on his location.  This gives some possible adventure hooks as mages seek out the intersection of the ley lines. 

Å [Artistic magic] The sixteenth style is also similar to imagery (fifth style), but deals with art.  It could possibly be incorporated into a sort of Bardic magic.  It comes from a book by the name of Galatea in 2-D (although, the first word may be Galetea or Galetia or Galatia). In the book, a down and out artist of fantasy/science fiction genre is depressed by his losing another contract, despite having good quality work done on time. To make matters worse, he saw his no-talent roommate from college days, who is now a big time artist in fantasy circles, who asked how he was doing.  He's idly doodling, when he upsets his ink bottle right where the figure he was drawing was. It moves. He experiments. He manages to pull the little image out of the paper into 3d life.  There is a knock at the door...an attempt on his life...and somehow he ends up in his own artwork...  In the book a person can animate/3d only their own artwork. They can also use their artwork as a sort of a teleportation, by envisioning themselves inside the art, then coming out of it. They can create items/guns/zappers/etc. However, the more powerful the item is, the more difficult it is to bring out of the picture.  They can also put others *in* their art, which can be just as nasty as the mirror mages opening a gateway to bring forth flame or whatnot from the Mirror of Her Dreams series (see the fifth style).

Å [Channeled magic] The seventeenth style comes again from Weis and Hickman, from the Darksword Trilogy.  One person sort of channeled the energy of the universe, and those who would wield it had to rely on these channelers to give them the energy. 

Å [Necropotence] The eighteenth idea is to take one type of magic, particularly necromancy, and declare it a separate magic type.  This type of mage draws his power from the dead and/or the realm of the dead.  (I think) _Wolf of Winter_ by Paula Volsky, had mages whose only power lie in controlling undead, mainly ghosts.  For instance, a mage would have to trap a ghost to his will to glean information from it, or send it after someone as an assassin.  The mage himself had no true power except to bind the ghost to his will. 

Å [Manduban magic] The nineteenth style of magic was inspired by Magic: The Gathering (oh, quit gagging).  In this style, the mage has representations of the spells he can cast in the form of a deck of cards or trinkets or etc., etc., etc.  This is somewhat similar to, and could be an offshoot of, Gem magic (sixth style).  Ever want to explain where a deck of many things comes from?

Å [Voodoo] The twentieth style of magic is voodoo.  Kinda self explanatory.

Å [Animal magic] The twenty-first style of magic relates to animals.  It would involve bonding with animals, speaking with them, tasking them with things to do, and perhaps mimicking animals. 

Å [Esper magic] The twenty-second style of magic comes from Square Softs Final Fantasy 3 game.  The ancient gods took humans and turned them into magical biological creatures named espers.  After The War of the Magi, human drained the power out of the espers by beating the esper and infused humans and machines and weapons, armor, etc.  Doing so turns the espers into a crystal form call magicite.  All magic comes from espers.  New espers would come either by divine intervention or the mating of two espers.  It is possible for a human esper cross,  which looks human but naturally has magic and can do special morphs and so on.  New magic would also come from mating of espers. Some espers have battle magic were others are healing espers.

Finally, thanks to everyone who wrote in:

Dana Harrod, Bruce Sponagle, Spes, Paul R. Haust, Jonathan Reed, Brad Samek, Michael Hadler, Kyle, Brenton Miller, Adam Lowrey

Thanks for reading!