From: nasato@wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu (Neil Asato)
Subject: Variant magic systems for BTRC
Organization: University of Engineering, College of Engineering
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 04:28:16 GMT

     The following is some alternative rules/notes for the WarpWorld
magic system. Note that this is not for the baseline system, so
it may not be appropriate for low-magic worlds. 

     Another note is that this campaign differentiates between
magic items that were well-crafted and those that were not. 
Those that are well-crafted (for enchanting purposes anyway) get
to hold there enchantment in levels (attribute or skill), and those
that are not hold there amount in points (attribute or skill).
Normally, those that are designed to hold levels are subject to
disenchanment due to damage as in the rules, while the others only
lose it when the proportional unused "enchantment space" is used
up from damage (the idea is that there is more error tolerance, but
this is off-set by the relatively low efficiency).

    Schools, Disciplines, and Spells
     As noted in the rules, there is an organization of spells grouped
under disciplines, and disciplines under schools. In general, different
magic systems have very different arrangments and are not compatible
with one another. While the end results and the game mechanics are
similar, the processes are rather different. For this reason, someone
who uses "generic" magic would not be able to use ritual magic. This
does not prevent magic-users from knowing about the principles, strengths,
and weaknesses of other types, but it would require learning it as if
that person were just starting out usually (GMs might allow some magic
skills to be considered closely related for use, possibly "generic" and
"gismo" or some other GM consideration). This would generally require
getting separate Magery skills and Concentration skills. This can lead
to jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none wizards, but they are rare as 
each magic system tends to be large enough as it is.
     Here are some examples of these arrangements:
Religious: domain school(like fire/heat for fire deities, with
               disciplines going into types of use)
           ceremony school(like making "holy items", sending Power
               to the deity)
           spirit school (a limited version of spirit magic; for
               asking for the aid of divine beings, or exorcism)

Spirit: (basically the schools would be based on which reality
        you are contacting, disciplines would generally depend on the
        type of creature you want). By the way, those who want to use
        this type of magic and want to have a long life expectancy should
        try to be on good terms with the beings, give them Power (preferably
        a conversion spell from some non-living energy to Power) ahead
        of time as consideration in a contract without the being controlled
        by the user. Of course, this means not associating with untrustworthy
        beings.

Plant magic (described later):
          Plant manipulation school(disciplines of shaping, healing, etc)  
          Enchanting plant material school(only works for one type)
          Environment (mainly concerned with weather and soil alteration)

     Variant magic systems
Plant magic
     Evolution of magic often encourages colony and symbiotic relationships,
especially in plants (most of which individually have very little Power).
Some plants can share Power within the same species (generally the shared
Power is is combined Power Aptitude, with the range of sharing as in 
the rules regarding transmitters and receivers with the "main" group
Pow equal to the shared Power and the "remote" or other group having a 
Pow equal to their shared (or Aptitude) Power. This shared Power extends
only about a meter from the plants (or in a straight line between groups).
This Power is applied against magic like normal (this protects the plants
against spells like Denature, which can wipe out all plants in the area).
These plants often will have a symbiotic relationship with a magically inclined
being, like the plant magic-using wizard. 
     These wizards will generally act as either farmers (for grain type of
plants) or woodsmen (for tree type of plants). They normally have skills
associated with growing, tending to, using, and breeding of the plants.
Their magics should not be confused with earth magic. They cannot use
any Power outside of their particular plant type of Power without the
Power loss being permanent, even if it is below Aptitude. The maximum Power
that they can channel is equal to their personal Power (they do not lose
Power if they use above their Aptitude in this case). One side effect
of their attunement is that if they are surrounded by a shared Power
of 100 or more at death, they become something like deities, but they are
restricted to the area of their plants (they draw upon this for their
energy, but they are still limited by their own personal Power by how much
they can draw off). Even if they cannot use the full shared Power, they still
are treated as having that Power with respect to attacks like the wizard
was of that plant type. For similar reasons, the plants are treated as
their own personal Power against that wizards spells against them (this helps
the plant, and is "in tune" with the Power of the plant). When enchanting
items made from their plant type, it is automatically treated as being
"finely crafted" but any unused "enchanting space" is treated as
non-finely crafted magic items. These items tend to be spears, darts,
cloth, and paper items.
     For the sake of simplicity, the Power is assumed here. Each tree
has roughly 22 Power each. A shared 8 Power per 10 m^2 for trees.
Grains only have 1 Power per plant. For grains, there is a shared
Power of 13 per 10 m^2 (I took it a fraction of the power, and the
rather high density of grains in one area added up). Farms generally
have growing areas around 1.5 million square feet (rather frightening
levels for an opponent). Power used for enchanting items or those
by the spirits of plant wizards ("permanent loss") are regained
at a rate of 100 Power per 2000 shared Power normally available.
     It should be kept in mind that these wizards lives are centered on
their plant type. If it were possible, they would probably cover entire
worlds with their plants. They generally have an aversion to leave
their domains as they are generally helpless elsewhere, though their
children are generally sent off to start their own domains. Most deities
do not like them, since they approach the sheer power of a deity, but
they do not normally say so. Plant wizards with different plant types are
rarely friendly to one another, since they are competing for the same
spaces. They both generally try to indoctrinate strangers into the
benefits of their plant types (Roleplaying fun for the GM). 
     Pros: This makes for an interesting NPCs who are extremely powerful,
but are limited to certain areas.
     Cons: Not normally available for PCs due to limited mobility of magic.
     Limitations:  Use Power of a certain plant type only, *0.7
                   Minimum 1 turn concentration time, * 0.8

Biological/healing magic
     This concerns itself with cell structures and metabolisms. These
users normally have appropriate medical and academic skills. They have
an advantage over "generic" magic users in using entropy and transformation
schools, in that their effects can be permanent and used cumulatively
(they use the genetic structure as a template instead of entropic
settings). The draw back is that they normally can't use their magic
directly on non-living structure (some still acquire skills to perform
non-biological augmentation though). Most are well-payed, though some
perform charity work. A few will do anything (and keep secrets) if they
are paid enough, for no-questions asked changes in appearance or
augmentation not normally allowed in the area.
     Pros: A specialized magic-using doctor.
     Cons: Healing is easy, if treated in time. 
     Limitations: Affects only living materials, * 0.7

Instinctual magic
     An alterate version of Heroic magic. This makes up most evolved forms
of magic (like the dragon flight). In general, they treat themselves
as having a Power 1 against themselves (not others of their own kind)
and often get some multiple of their effect (less than 10). Some
wizards who have a natural ability to use certain magics due to blood,
is actually derived from this.
     Pros: A neat explanation for magical monsters
     Cons: Low power creatures and player characters will not be
too happy with this.
     Limitations: As for heroic magic, except that they are consciously
controlled, and do not normally have a "weak point" in the magic.

Magitech(often called Technomagic)
     This is a kind of Gismo magic, except that it concerns items being
made from scientific principles rather than magic principles, at least
technically. It involves using the atomic and molecular bonding and
structures to store, channel, direct, and process Power. Depending
on the TL background and understanding of the magic, it may require
a non-magical energy source to operate (or convert it into Power).
The items reflect the TL and background of the creator (examples:
steam-engine-like mechanisms, plastic and metal structures, crystalline
and ceramics works, tubings or wire or circuit patterns). They often
have a distictly scientific artwork feel to them, but there are exceptions.
They are built like normal items of technology, except that Magery skills
of this type are needed, and the builder has the appropriate "spell" 
knowledge. They generally run on the users Power Aptitude along with
the user's available Willpower. Exceptions, will just get the base effect
from their power source, but it is known that there are some items that
are made to get the Willpower from the user and the Power from a separate
source (something like a magic item or an equivalent Power source).
     Some computerized systems can include its own concentration
skill to get the base effect (the maker has to have this level to put it in).
For items with multiple powers (like some power suits), it is up
to the user or the computer to allocate the base effect around. Note that
"all-magic" systems will generally need 1 base effect to run the magical 
computer systems. These types will not be detectable to "anti-technology"
items like the Orbs of Carnos,nor will they be detected by magic sensing
when they are not in use. The costs to make these items are generally 
somewhere between the cost of making all-magic and all-technological
items with similar features.
     Concept for a power suit: When not in use, it looks like an unusually
hi-tech-looking thermal underwear(the items are considered "finely crafted").
When activated, the user-suit combination might have 100 base effect to use
among its sub-systems. These sub-systems might include virtual armor
(like the entropic school, often having a hi-tech appearance), virtual
missiles (acts as an appropriate spell attack; it does not disappear
like virtual bullets usually do when fired like when using the entropic
power), sensors, etc. It will probably have a weapon that uses magic
indirectly to affect non-magic using, but high Power, creatures by magically
accelerating bullets. 
     Pros: It has a very hi-tech flavored magic. These items are based on
technology, so they do not lose their abilites automatically when damaged
like "normal" magic items (but they do not get the strengthening effects
either), but are treated like standard technological items.
     Cons: Magic is limited to the items made (cannot be cast normally).
Items limited by the player's Power or some surrogate Power source.
     Limitations: general Power focus, * 0.9
                  only for making magitech items, * 0.7

     That's all the new magic systems that have been tested to work.
I probably will be limited to just posting up articles once a month or
so from now on due to time limitations. I might post up an article on
magic items, their materials, manufacture, and costs (far less than the
base-line system, the costs and difficulty of making them are comparable,
if somewhat higher, to the costs of technological items doing the same
job) next time.

     By the way, GMs do not have to crank out spells for each of the
magic systems, unless it is really necesary. Just use the regular magic
guidelines for area, use, and others to get the base effects (which are,
of course, compared to the resisting Power to get the modified effects).
GMs should not pack their worlds with the above systems (or with the other
types of magics listed in the WarpWorld book). It is best to have them
as regional (or even reality) dominant in some areas, but not in others.
This allows a certain amount of interplay of magic types, while allowing
them to develop separately in other ways. This will allow the use of
commerce and trade in the campaign, and the attendent effects that would
result from it. Other GMs should feel free to devise their own magic
systems and rules, too. Notice, that the above is focuses more on the
philosophy of that type of use of magic and how they interact with
others. Scenario's for them can include the standard "burn the evil
magic-users" to the more subtle "we must improve the understanding and
use of magic to compete in a trans-dimensional economy" (so to speak).