Der PigDog's PigBlog

I've been trying to drum up a Marvel Super Heroes game for a few weeks now, but my schedule has not been complaint. Nevertheless I am going to  keep  trying, dammit, because it has so many cool things. Here's an example: rules for magic use that are unique, flavorful, and downright badass. I read these rules and I cannot wait to get them in action. I'm doing some slight rephrasing and renaming here.  Any hero with Magical Training and Good (10) or better Psyche can use magic. If you start with Magical Training, don't start with any other powers. If you don't start with Magical Training, spend a year or more in study under a master to gain it. This master should be played like any other NPC with beliefs, wants, and needs, affected by the hero's Popularity, blah blah blah; in other words, you play out an ongoing relationship, part of the situation, you don't just press a "get magic now" button. Once you can use magic, you simply declare what you do, ...

The Muspelli are are Hyberborian magicians who worship the giants and aim to bring about Ragnarok. They have specific giants as patrons. They learn to take on the form of a giant, at least the size of a bear. Creating your Muspelli Muspelli advance and roll HP as other magician classes. They do not memorize or research spells. Instead they commune with a giant to master their transformation into giant-form and improve their ritual ability. Roll for a patron: Aegir Sea-King. You know Storm's Eye, Twisting the Sight, Threads of Fate, and Dowsing. +1 bonus die on all casting rolls if you are crippled (legs smashed on rocks while swimming) Gullveig the Wicked. You know Entrancement, Hex, Summon Animals, and Magic Sensitivity. +1 bonus die on all casting rolls if you are blind (plucked out own eyes) Gymir Frost-Father. You know Storm's Eye, Winter's Breath, Wildfire, and Wilderness Sense. +1 bonus die on all casting rolls if you have three heads. Leikin Hel-Queen. You know Hex, ...

This post gives new magic rules inspired by Ars Magica. It's written for my own fantasy heartbreaker, but it should be compatible with most or all OSR games. Try using this in place of your Magic-User's normal magic rules, or add these as variant casting and spell-learning rules for a different casting class. These rules offer supreme flexibility and extensibility for a sort of magic grounded in magical traditions. I provide links to the traditions at the bottom of the post. These rules also model spell research, including the creation of brand new spells, better than any I have seen in any OSR game. What a spell is A spell is a combination of a noun and verb, spoken out loud, plus some gestures and effort. Your specific magical tradition is going to give you the specific list of nouns and verbs that can combine to form a spell. The same noun-verb combination can be used to cast a bunch of different spells; the noun and the verb just give the basic family of effects. For instan...

Skimmed through the Ars Magica book Hedge Magic this morning. Pretty much every hedge tradition listed there is more interesting than the default Hermetic magic. It's a better use of my time to adapt these cooler magic rules than the main ones. These are simpler, too! An image of a Gruagrach from the Ars Magica book on hedge magic. Might as well pretend this is "fair use" You won't be able to use this without the material in the Ars Magica conversion basics . Gruagrachan (how do I decline this noun? gotta look it up at some point) magic is inspired by the Picts and druids and all that. Roll 4d18 (lol) for your starting spells (see below for spell descriptions) and take "some practice" at every skill necessary to cast the spells. If you've got two spells using the same noun, bump up the skill level by 1. If all your spells use the same verb, bump up the skill level by 1. Blessing of Urban Wisdom for the Rustic Blessing of the Swordsman's Expertise St...

The magic rules in D&D are deficient from a literary perspective, and played out from a wargaming perspective. (To be clear, I think Vance is great, but D&D's "Vancian" magic is not particularly Vancian.) So I'm looking for replacements for my fantasy heartbreaker. Most likely I'll try to assemble lots of different rules for magic. We'll choose whatever combination of rules fits the setting for an individual game. I'll make no attempt to harmonize or balance them; we'll simply see how they interact. A set of magic rules that come highly recommended I skimmed Ars Magica once. The magic rules seem really cool, though I have little interest in the game itself. So let's try reconstructing it for the heartbreaker. Here are some salient facts about magic in Ars Magica: Spells have levels/magnitudes. There are guidelines in the book on making new spells at a given magnitude, or finding the magnitude of a given spell. Must review these. The magnitu...