From: mfterman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Mutant for Hire)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Amber Sorcery: V. Spell Creation
Date: 4 Sep 92 19:53:09 GMT
Reply-To: mfterman@phoenix.princeton.edu (Mutant for Hire)
Organization: Mutant for Hire, Inc.

Every spell is broken up into two parts, a power supply and an 
effect. The power supply tends to be ignored a bit, but is quite 
important. Unless one has a spikard or some local external power 
supply, powering a spell from the caster's energy can get quite 
draining after a while. Especially for an Amberite magician, who 
has to deal possibly with the draining effects of the Pattern. 
Chaosite magicians have it slightly easier if their spells deal 
with Chaos energy, which they can draw from the Logrus, but to 
manipulate it requires a separate power supply as well.

The powering of a spell can occur at two times, at spell creation 
and at spell invocation. In many cases, the two are at the same 
time, unless the caster stores the spell for later usage. There 
are advantages and disadvantages to either side. A spell that is 
pre-powered, ready for casting will decay much faster than a spell 
that is powered at the time of invocation. On the other hand, the 
caster doesn't need to worry about tiring out in the middle of a 
duel of magic. Tiring out and then resting or tapping into a power 
source to hang powered spells is a good concept, but spell 
staleness becomes an issue. Batteries fade out if not used in a 
while. Spells are the same, only faster.

External power supplies can be used for magic. The Keep of Four 
Worlds is a good example of something that is used purely for 
external magical energies. The Keep has the problem that if you 
aren't at it, you can't tap into the power source. Its a great 
place to live, but you lose the advantages of the place when 
leaving it. There are various magical sources in Shadow. Most of 
these places require some work or attunement in order to tap into 
them, and the generic rule is that anyone can tap into them, so if 
you wander to a place to recharge a lot, someone else can discover 
that place and use it too.

Magical items can be used to channel power from such places into 
the bearer. A spikard functions this way on one level, but has a 
lot of additional help. The creator of a spikard went out and 
found lots and lots of places like the Keep and created lines to 
the places that flow into the ring. The advantage is that the 
source of the magic becomes more secret as you have to have the 
item in order to seriously trace the line of magic back to its 
source. The disadvantage is that if you lose the item, you're in 
trouble.

The other alternative is to gather up magical power from an area 
or from a living creature. The latter is sacrifice and the former 
covers a more generic class of magical ritual. Both of these are 
rather awkward and aren't used all that much by initiates of the 
primal powers, who prefer Shadow sources for power supplies. Or 
using personal energies, as they are much stronger than your 
average shadow magician.

A character wishing to have a Shadow power supply must buy a 
Shadow and then spend additional points to specify that the Shadow 
has a magical source. More points spent, the stronger the power 
is. The character need not tell anyone else about the power 
supply, though it may be hard to conceal the fact if the character 
uses it a lot. The points may be reduced if the power is specified 
to be specific to a certain type of magic, such as fire magic, or 
scrying. The more specific the power gets, the cheaper it becomes.

In order to have a magic item that taps a Shadow power supply, it 
is necessary to buy the Shadow as well. Spikards aren't 
purchasable by players for the reason that they are worth more 
points than the players can reasonably spend for a single item. 
Having an item means the character doesn't have to go near the 
Shadow itself or have a Trump of it or anything similar, making 
the use of the source by anyone else extremely difficult. It could 
even have things like a poisonous atmosphere and other properties 
that would make going to it dangerous. However, it must be 
reachable by sorcery and Shadow walking and Trump. The blockages 
needed to stop those powers would also sever any connection 
between item and its power source.

In any case, the power supply has to be specified at the time of 
spell creation, either at time of casting or invocation, where the 
power is coming from, external or internal. One that's done and 
the spell is cast, it cannot be altered. Power cannot be fed into 
an existing spell unless the spell specifically allows/requires 
power fed into it periodically. Once the power supply is 
determined, the amount needed is determined from the spell 
creation process itself.

Creation of a spell is a lot more complicated than figuring out 
how to power it. Power can be the more critical problem, but the 
options are a lot simpler. The system for spell creation works on 
the principle that given enough time, a magician can be able to 
create any type of spell, as opposed to being limited to a known 
grimore of spells. Of course, a magician can't create time travel 
spells because of a lack of power over time, but would be able to 
come up with a spell to turn a prince into a frog, to be broken by 
a kiss, or create a fireball.

Spells can incorporate primal powers like the Pattern and Logrus, 
and anything that can be accomplished with those powers can be 
used in a spell as well. Of course, one needs to be an initiate of 
those powers in order to invoke them. There are certain 
limitations. Shadow walking via spell wouldn't be possible, since 
its a continuous process of visualization, but a spell to 
duplicate a Trump movement is possible, or a spell to try to bend 
a Shadow, though the spell would need an incredible power supply 
to work in any decent amount of time. A spell to gradually alter a 
Shadow over time would work. Corwin's blood curse helped twist 
Shadow to let the Black Road through.

Spells that work across Shadow, or alter the nature of the Shadow 
they work within, need one of the primal powers in order to 
function. It can be the Broken Pattern, but still it needs some 
connection to the generators of Shadow to work.

Spells are first categorized by their main result, the basic 
objective of the spell, broken down into one of several 
categories, listed in order of decreasing Order and increasing 
Chaos.

Communication - scrying, communication, detection
Transportation - translocation, shadow-walking
Alteration - rearranging the components of one thing
Transformation - turning one thing into another thing
Creation/Destruction - something into nothing, or vice versa

In general, the less a spell alters what is going on, such as the 
transfer of information that the Communication class is, is the 
easiest for the Amberite, since nothing is changed. Chaosites find 
it very very hard to do any sort of information magic. Its easier 
to alter something to a determined quality rather than to 
determine the innate quality.

Transportation is less easy, but since it is merely alteration of 
location, it isn't terribly difficult either for the Amberite, 
though near the Pattern it gets very very hard. Chaosites have to 
use the Black Road, which is Transportation via Transformation of 
a path through Shadow. It gets messy.

Alteration is merely mass translocations and is of average 
difficulty for either order or chaos magicians, since the former 
has to worry about large levels of change, and the latter have to 
worry about getting all the changes done correctly. A lot of magic 
falls into this category. For example, most bolts of mystic power 
are simply alteration of energies from a stored source to a bolt 
aimed at someone, as are a lot of magical shields as well.

Transformation is not only where something is rearranged, but 
transmuted in the process. Chaos people find this sort of magic 
fairly easy to do, but Amberites find it very very difficult. Of 
course, the former do shapeshift all the time, so it would seem 
natural to them. Note that most magical energies being turned into 
other forms of energies do not fall into this class, 
transformation of raw magic power into power of another type is a 
freebie that any magician can do for no cost in complexity.

Creation/Destruction is extremely difficult for anyone but a full 
fledged Logrus initiate or someone using chaos derived magics. 
Amberites find it near impossible. Its easier for them to find 
what they're looking for in Shadow and simply bring it to them.

I get around the Logrus tendril search/move effect by claiming 
that  Zelazny wasn't trying to create an intellectually unified 
system, he was trying to tell a story. This system only requires 
minor mods of the actual events in the stories.

Spells can combine types, such as the creation of the Black Road, 
which is Transmutation and Transportation, since it alters a chunk 
of Shadow, and extends it through different Shadows. The more 
types, the harder the spell gets.

A subclass of type is whether the spell is physical or mental. Of 
course, a spell can be physical and mental, but that's effectively 
like combining different types. The difference between physical 
and mental is whether it goes against 
Constitution/Strength/Warfare (depending on the particular type of 
physical spell) or against Psyche. Mind control is 
Transmutation/Mental. Locating Greyswandir in a distant Shadow is 
Communication/Physical.

Complexity is another feature of a spell that determines the 
difficulty in coming up with it and with the base energy cost. For 
example, transforming something into a lump of granite is a lot 
easier than turning it into a painting. Transforming it into the 
Mona Lisa is harder, and making it a perfect copy is harder still. 
Likewise, detecting iron is easier than detecting iron swords and 
a lot easier than looking for a specific sword. (Greyswandir would 
be easily detectable under "Pattern-based objects")

The last two features of a spell are Range and Area. These affect, 
of course, the distance that a spell works over. For determining 
range when working across Shadow, use hellriding time, assuming 
that the person can move at top speed, and its purely the rate of 
altering the Shadow around the person.

Area ranges from point to Shadow. In theory, one could increase 
the area across all Shadow, but even the Pattern would have a 
headache on that one, and for the most part, even transforming 
part of a Shadow drains Chaosites and Amberites. In practical 
terms even, only the area around the caster is doable in a short 
period of time. If one cares to spend more time, it becomes 
easier.

So a spell designer works out exactly what the spell will do in 
practical terms. Special effects are a freebie on this one, feel 
free to make the spell look neat so it can be given an impressive 
name. Type or types, subtype or subtypes, complexity, range and 
area. Sum these up to get the basic cost of the spell, and then 
determine strength of the effect.

Now some tradeoffs can be made. The power needed to generate the 
spell and the complexity of the spell can be traded off. That is, 
one can increase spell efficiency at the price of being more 
complex to cast, or one can waste power and get the spell 
castable. Similar results go for casting time. This fact is why a 
good Psyche is needed for magic. The smarter you are, the sneakier 
your spells can get. Its also why having a source like the Keep of 
the Four Worlds is handy, you can get sloppy and just burn power 
in wasteful magic.
-- 
    Martin Terman, Mutant for Hire, Mad Scientist, Priest of Shub-Internet
    Disclaimer: Nobody else takes me seriously, why should you be the first?
mfterman@phoenix.princeton.edu mfterman@pucc.bitnet terman@pupgga.princeton.edu
"Sig quotes are like bumper stickers, only without the same sense of relevance"
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc