With all these new official books out now with brand new magic mechanics I end up feeling a bit overwhelmed and my first reaction is just to shove them off somewhere and ignore them.
It's not that I wouldn't like more depth or some new interesting elements in my settings--I'd love it! It's just I don't know how they should fit in, where they'd come from, or if a kind of magic is even right for my games within a certain setting.
It would be nice to have some good articles relating the new magic types to different settings to ease them in a bit (the way Monster Manual III gave entries on many of the monsters separately for Faerun and Eberron). It'd be nice to see some signature characters of these new arts in the settings (this would help lots!) and some nice flavor about how the magic is used and where its used and how they are reacted to by other kinds of divine and arcane spellcasters and by various nations.
I think that could really make a difference in whether these new kinds of magic flourish or just die on the vine because no one knows what to make of them.
To introduce a new magic system or similar into the game, there are generally two ways to do it.
The first way is to assume it's almost unheard of, and ask yourself why. Your player might help here. Perhaps it's simply a new thing. Entire adventures and plots might be built around investigating what it is and where it comes from. Perhaps it's not new, but it's a closely guarded secret that your player character has stumbled across or been entrusted with. From here, it might remain a secret or might become increasingly more popular in the world.
The other way is to assume it's quite well known in your game world, and to integrate it accordingly. This does require that you understand the system yourself at least as well as your player does, preferably better. For example, there may be psion guilds in your world, or military leaders might frequently use incarnum.
I agree, it would be nice to see an article on these alternate magic types. With a limited budget I have to prioritize my purchases and an article explaining some of the basics of each new system would help me there. I suppose you could do an article on eldritch, another article on incarnum, a third on psions etc. An article was done on binding(?) magic which was good.
However I think something like the campaign classics articles would be nice. One article that touches on psions, warlocks etc. Touts strengths weaknesses, differences etc. The races from spelljammer article a bit ago is a good example. As you said a sample organization or character for each would also help. These can be dropped into an existing campaign for playtesting.
I Sir Litmus, smite thee and thine green glowing gem...
I agree also. They did it with Player's Guide to Faerun, for example, with psionics. They integrated psionics using psionic guilds and organizations, NPCs, a new prestige class, and explained its connection to the Weave.
I wish they'd have done so with the magic from Tome of Magic. Granted, they did explain just a little that Truename magic could easily have always been studied by Deneir worshipers, and also the Word Archons do reside in The House of Knowledge plane where Oghma and Deneir reside. I saw Truename magic and immediately thought of Deneir and my thoughts were correct.
Pact Magic can fit anywhere, it's supposed to be a rare magic studied and used for ages yet never brought to light because of the strict taboos. In a religious campaign like FR, this is difficult to do at all.
Shadow Magic they also explained just a little, pointing out that these practicioners go beyond what Shadow Weave users deal with, and that it is also a rare art not studied or even known by many. Something like Shadow Magic seems more mysterious to me anyway, and thus it's subtle inclusion in a campaign fits best.
Of course, this is for FR, as for other campaigns lik Greyhawk and Dragonlance it may be harder to integrate properly.
Incarnum is the hardest of them all for me to fit into FR. I'm still deciding on what to do with it, maybe even state the practicioners come from the Terra Incognita Lands
Totally. It's not that I can't integrate these new magic types on my own--I just think it'd make a good, meaty article to see how these types of magic already exist in the various published settings.
Particularly I would love bios on some of the various mages from various settings who use these different magics. It makes things feel a lot more real and imbedded in the setting if there's featured NPCs out there using the stuff. It would also make a neat jumping off point to personalize the classes a bit. I love the signature characters that D&D has always created, Mialee and Lidda, Kelben Blackstaff Arunsun. It'd be cool to see some new guys for the Tome of Magic and Incarnum classes.
Totally. It's not that I can't integrate these new magic types on my own--I just think it'd make a good, meaty article to see how these types of magic already exist in the various published settings.
Particularly I would love bios on some of the various mages from various settings who use these different magics. It makes things feel a lot more real and imbedded in the setting if there's featured NPCs out there using the stuff. It would also make a neat jumping off point to personalize the classes a bit. I love the signature characters that D&D has always created, Mialee and Lidda, Kelben Blackstaff Arunsun. It'd be cool to see some new guys for the Tome of Magic and Incarnum classes.
Exactly, I'd love to see a powerful, reknown NPC Truenamer in FR (with a few new utterances to boot as a plus side, developed) or that one of Khelben's archnemsis' is actually an esteemed and highly mighty Shadowcaster. These new systems need at least a cornerstone for each campaign setting for others to work on.
I would LOVE to see some Incarnum support in Dragon, perhaps even a special issue. There is definite room for more soulmelds and spells that tap essentia, and an Incarnum creature catalog would be super sweet too.
But just based on the response to this thread and other Incarnum threads on the WotC boards, I wouldn't hold my breath. It seems Incarnum fans are even more marginalized than Psionic fans. Perhaps time will change this. An issue supporting the Tome of Magic would also be very welcome; at least the ToM seems to have some groundswell of interest.
Chapter 8 of the MoI was very helpful to me in integrating Incarnum into my campaign. I was able to incorporate the Pentifex Order without too much trouble, as well as the Bastion of Souls and other locations by making it a lost magic art from a distant age. But it does take some thought to unveil Incarnum in a campaign. Personally, I think it works best if you introduce it as part of the campaign's story arc, slowly and incrementally. Otherwise, you have to retroactively incorporate how this magic balances and interacts with the forces and powers already at play in your setting.
A great article would be an alternate way of portraying soulmeld effects. Many people complained about the neon video game aesthetics of the MoI. Word of mouth just seems to be killing this book, and that's a shame. People don't seem to want to give it a chance (with the exception of the people posting on this thread, obviously). I think it's great, but something has to be done to make people take another look.
Unless WotC gets around to producing Complete Incarnum or Expanded Magic of Incarnum, Dragon is the best hope Incarnum fans have of seeing anything expand on this interesting magic system.
Here's how I've done it (campaign set in the Forgotten Realms):
Around Toril, there are ten temples of incarnum (representing the ten chakras) that were built to watch over particular races (this was way-long-time-ago), but they fell into disuse and were forgotten, buried or destroyed. The characters literally fell into one of these lost temples when the found out the Shadovar and Zhentarim were poking around in some very unusual places. The "accidentally" activated the Temple, which is not something that goes by unnoticed. The Guardian of the Temple informs them that there is more than one temple - but there is a catch. The Guardians have been asleep for so long, who's to say how they'd be influenced by those that awaken them? Will the Guardians drift so that instead of remaining (mostly) neutral and teaching the ways of incarnum they'll bend their powers towards evil ends? What would the Shadovar or Zhentarim do with such power as these? (Can we say...necrocarnum??)
To prevent incarnum's misuse, the party is now on a mission to find and revive all the Temples. What effects, political and cultural, will have on this region, will be something that they will have to find out...So far, they have found three and awakened their Guardians. Seven remain, but where are they to be found in Toril's vast landscape? Do they even still remain? Have the depradations of time rendered them useless? Can they find them before someone else does?
Tune in next time...oh, wait, this isn't a TV show...
Anyway, I did find a way to work it into my campaign. It did require some jiggling around to work with preexisting stuff, but 'twas no big thing. One player was very very excited about the concept of Incarnum, so we plotted and planned (he's a good GM as well) and brainstormed a way to work in incarnum for his character without making him overly powerful. It's worked out pretty well so far and has opened up a lot of stuff so far.
I've presented incarnum as not-quite arcane magic, not-quite divine magic, but something different. It's more like monk training - anyone can learn how to do this, it just takes time. Flavor-wise, anyway, mechanically it's how it's presented in the book.
I doubt that Dragon would run an entire Incarnum-themed issue, since that would be relying too heavily on a non-core mechanic.
Not really looking for a whole issue. I'm just thinking an article or maybe a short series of articles would be nice. And in thinking about it, I'd vastly prefer that the articles only take the perspective of these magical traditions as being retroactively always in the worlds described. If I want to introduce something like this as a new thing fallen like a meteor into my setting I know how to do that. What I'd really like here is some canon on how these magics exist in the published D&D worlds, who uses them (both in terms of famous NPCs but also nations) and how they've made their mark.
But even more than my need for it--I just think it'd be a fun series of articles really, and I have to imagine finding new things to write about after all these years, that its nice to toss the Dragon guys an idea or two when they come to mind and would really help me out.
Lilith, a truely inspiring post, consider your ideas officialy stolen and transfered to the far off land of my Eberron campaign.
Given a bit more time to study the books I'd be willing to send in a query for this. Few questions though. First off, which type of new magic would interest the most people? Incarnum, Binding, Shadow-magic, or Truenaming? I love psionics and would enjoy writing a psionic article, but I would rather try to get something published for a new mechanic that has never seen the inside of Dragon magazine. Secondly, are the folks at Piazo interested in this? Which would you like to see queries on?
First off, which type of new magic would interest the most people? Incarnum, Binding, Shadow-magic, or Truenaming?
Offhand I would say Incarnum, just because it seems the furthest out there from conventional magic and because it'w weighty enough a topic that there's an entire book done on it.
Truth be told, because I'm not sure what to do with any of these new types of magic I haven't bought any of the books yet--so I'm mostly going off of what I've read out of them while standing in the aisle at the bookstore. My knowledge of them is not good enough yet to know which ones are totally something completely new, and which are more just expansions of traditional arcane magic. I'd like to start first with that which is most out there, however, the stuff that's hardest to figure out where it came from on my own.
Lilith, a truely inspiring post, consider your ideas officialy stolen and transfered to the far off land of my Eberron campaign.
Fraust, what you could do if you are setting it in Eberron, is have Incarnum come from Sarlona and the Kalashtar. Maybe a differing sect of ideas that the standard Path of Light. Another thing I did with my campaign was there was an Order of magic users that combined Incarnum & Magic but was stamped out by the Netheril Empire (Nether the Elder to be exact) for its "heresies."
On the other hand, I think ways to tie in Incarnum & the Dragonmarks would be a heck of a lot of fun. I may have to write up a article submission for Dragonmark-Incarnum soulmelds. :-D
Lovely idea! I'd like to see how these "new magicks" could be integrated as "always been there" systems for the published settings.
Grim - do you mean sample users like the "Critical Threat" columns in Dungeon did? Basically, just create a full-blown NPC for DMs to work into their campaigns as appropriate? Or do you mean more tied into published settings?
Grim - do you mean sample users like the "Critical Threat" columns in Dungeon did? Basically, just create a full-blown NPC for DMs to work into their campaigns as appropriate? Or do you mean more tied into published settings?
Well the thought wasn't so much to the tie-in NPCs as "threats" per se, though I would very much like the idea of full-blown NPCs, ideally campaign specific ones (the equivalent of Elminster or Khelben "Blackstaff" are for Faerun--or really even like Greyhawk's Mialee or Tordek really) that are in rooted in a particular setting, with their own alegiences and agendas, so that the feeling that the magical paths have always been around can be firmly established. I'd also like a bit of background on how these alternate magical traditions came to be, and what their basis is, in each of the main supported settings. That's the hope behind the request anyway. What comes of it is largely up to the staff and/or contributors I suppose.
Lilith...actualy I'm not overly fond of the whole kalashtar/inspired(?) thing, not sure why though. I think what I'll do is have a temple in the jungles of Q'Bara (think that's what it's called) and get the party to stumble accross it while involved in an unrelated quest. Reveal just enough to make them curious and get them to come back once their prior engagements are taken care of, then from there go along the rout of what your doing in the realms. Once word spreads amout the new "magical" texts found in this temple the varous organizations of Eberron are going to start paying attention and nosing into the PCs business.
Lilith...actualy I'm not overly fond of the whole kalashtar/inspired(?) thing, not sure why though. I think what I'll do is have a temple in the jungles of Q'Bara (think that's what it's called) and get the party to stumble accross it while involved in an unrelated quest. Reveal just enough to make them curious and get them to come back once their prior engagements are taken care of, then from there go along the rout of what your doing in the realms. Once word spreads amout the new "magical" texts found in this temple the varous organizations of Eberron are going to start paying attention and nosing into the PCs business.
That would work too! You might have some pretty interesting people chasing after your PCs (gods know I do). But will you have incarnum docents? ;-P
That's the hope behind the request anyway. What comes of it is largely up to the staff and/or contributors I suppose.
Gotcha! Thanks for the clarification. (not that *I* know enough about any given setting to actually produce something like this!!)
Some ideas I was mulling after flipping through Tome of Magic again:
I was thinking--since vestiges are the remains of dead mortals, celestials, or gods, what about Bhal (the Lord of Murder from Faerun) as a vestige? What about playing with some of the dead pantheons of lost civilizations? What about the archmages of Greyhawk who apparently died when Rary betrayed them? It would be neat to see some setting specific vestiges and whatnot...just a thought really.
I've only been able to give a glance at Truename magic (enough to know its more about verbs than nouns--reminds me of the Symbol and Power Word spells). I know almost nothing about Shadow magic (well except that it reminds me of the Shadow Weave from Faerun). As I get more informed, I will be of more use I guess.
I was thinking--since vestiges are the remains of dead mortals, celestials, or gods, what about Bhal (the Lord of Murder from Faerun) as a vestige? What about playing with some of the dead pantheons of lost civilizations? What about the archmages of Greyhawk who apparently died when Rary betrayed them? It would be neat to see some setting specific vestiges and whatnot...just a thought really.
I don't see why not - they did do Karsus in the Dragon Magazine a couple of months ago. And he's really really really dead.
I say go for it and have at thee!
Incarnum docents?
Incarnum docents?
'Twould make sense, seeing as binding a soulmeld to a chakra essentially taks place of a magic item. Why not have soulmelds that take the place of docents?
Hmm...plot plan plot plan....
Actualy I was asking because I didn't know what a docent was, but I think I got it. The magic items warforged meld with right? If so then yah, it would mesh well.