Just wondering how people have decided that arcane magic fit into the Olman empire?
The PC wizard in my party is the ambitious type (aren't they all?) and was only tempted away from his political ambitions in Sasserine by the prospect of being the first to sift through the lost lore and magic of the Olman empire. I'd like to give him something to sink his teeth into, and I'd like to make it distinctive enough to seem interesting and exotic when compared to 'regular' magic.
As far as magic items go, I've pretty much decide to introduce runestaves and augment crystals from the Magic Item Compendium as artifacts of Olman magic (instead of crystals the augments are more likely to be feathers, fangs, or gemstones, but the principle stands!), and Dread Necromancers are going to show up in the guise of Olman zombie masters, but I'm not sure how to handle spells. Perhaps all Olman arcane casters went into a particular prestige class or something, and their spell list will reflect that? Maybe this prestige class could be based on the deity they worship - the above Dread Necromancers for Mictlanteceutli, Rainbow Servants or Initiates of the Seven Veils for Quetzalcoatl, and so forth. And that way, the arcane casters would be tied closely to the existing religious structure, so the existing flavour of the Olman culture would be preserved.
Has anyone else given any thought to this? The feeling of the exotic and unknown is really important for the tone of the campaign once the PCs reach the Isle of Dread, and I'd really like to preserve and enhance this any way I can. I should also mention that I can't really just leave it mysterious since my PCs will actually be time-travelling to the last days of the Olman empire eventually, so I'll need to work out something before then...
Well if you want good Olman flavour you could work in some kind of "Blood Magic". I'm not sure exactly what blood magic would be, but it could involve making blood sacrifices as a substitute for xp and valuable material components for certain spells. The Blood Magus prestige class also might give you some inspiration. Maybe some of the spells could be scribed on great stone slabs or something in part of the ruins of Thanaclan, and you could introduce some spells that are not currently common in the game- perhaps some stuff from the spell compendium or another source that you haven't yet given your player full access to. You could even create some new spells. I could see some transmutation type magic that gives you the powers of various predatory animals being popular.
Just wondering how people have decided that arcane magic fit into the Olman empire?
The PC wizard in my party is the ambitious type (aren't they all?) and was only tempted away from his political ambitions in Sasserine by the prospect of being the first to sift through the lost lore and magic of the Olman empire. I'd like to give him something to sink his teeth into, and I'd like to make it distinctive enough to seem interesting and exotic when compared to 'regular' magic.
As far as magic items go, I've pretty much decide to introduce runestaves and augment crystals from the Magic Item Compendium as artifacts of Olman magic (instead of crystals the augments are more likely to be feathers, fangs, or gemstones, but the principle stands!), and Dread Necromancers are going to show up in the guise of Olman zombie masters, but I'm not sure how to handle spells. Perhaps all Olman arcane casters went into a particular prestige class or something, and their spell list will reflect that? Maybe this prestige class could be based on the deity they worship - the above Dread Necromancers for Mictlanteceutli, Rainbow Servants or Initiates of the Seven Veils for Quetzalcoatl, and so forth. And that way, the arcane casters would be tied closely to the existing religious structure, so the existing flavour of the Olman culture would be preserved.
Has anyone else given any thought to this? The feeling of the exotic and unknown is really important for the tone of the campaign once the PCs reach the Isle of Dread, and I'd really like to preserve and enhance this any way I can. I should also mention that I can't really just leave it mysterious since my PCs will actually be time-travelling to the last days of the Olman empire eventually, so I'll need to work out something before then...
Well, I have not played or read fully the Savage Tide adventure path, but I have seen the articles in Dragon about the Olman. I wouldn't use "universal" prestige classes as not all members would have been strong enough to enter them, with that in mind I would custom tailor their spellbooks. Have the players find ancient stone tablets scribed onto the sides of temples or broken on the jungle floor; if the players find and bother to decipher them they discover the ancient's equivalent of spellbooks filled with acid-focused and necromantic spells. As a bonus you could use "spells from the jungle" or "spells from the wetlands" that appeared on the WoTC website several years ago. There are also “magic items of” and “monsters of” articles that appeared as well which you could use.
Link to the Far Corners of the World articles wherein the spells and magic items may be found. Hope that helps.
A buddy of mine is playing a warlock with Olman ancestry in my game, so I'm going to suggest the presence of warlock-type powers present in the Olman tribes. Warlocks have enough of that "voodoo" mystique to make that fly, I think. Probably throw some spirit shamans in the mix, as well. (They're not arcane, but hey...)
On the surface, you could go for replacing mundane spell components with more exotic ones - feathers, animal hides, corals, pearls. (Pearls are an especially nasty idea within the context of the savage tide...)
One step further, you could give out some kind of ritual magic needing sacrifices - human sacrifices are especially nasty, but even animal sacrifices are questionable if done for personal gain, I´d say.
If you have access to it, look into the 2dn Ed AD&D Complete Necromancers Handbook, it has quite some ideas on evil ("black") necromancy, with the accompanying "side effects".
Perhaps the Ur-Priest prestige class could be interesting - basically, priests stealing spells from the gods, something like this could work for the Olman Mages.
Stefan
Based heavily on Aztec characters I've been developing, I've mucked with the Olman quite a bit. All of the following would be rather rare, with low-level artisans and binders the most common:
Olman "Daykeepers" cast spells as wizards. They are barred from evocation and necromancy spells, but also get a bonus spell of each level every day. These spells come from one of 20 spell-per-level lists resembling cleric domains, which are cycled through in order, each matched with a particular "day sign." (For example, on the day of the skull, the list looks a lot like the death domain.) Obviously, if an evocation or necromancy spell is among these bonus spells, they are allowed to cast it on that day. Not many are left (they were tasked with keeping the world safe from "tzitzime" (demons), and they failed. Their magic is based on different (astrological) theories than "standard" arcane magic. Since I've done very little playtesting with this guy, and I suspect he's not going to seem overly powerful, I'm hoping my players won't want to multi-class into "Daykeeper." (I wouldn't disallow it, though, I suppose.) I might let the group wizard pick up an interesting feat or two ("arcane focus" feats or something astrological) if she wants her foray into olman magic to leave its mark.
"Zombie Masters" are deathmasters of orcus, retooled to be a bit less evil and a bit more tribal. The "Artisan" works a lot like an Eberron Artificer, with some bits replaced with dashes of druid. The works of these artisans will allow me to introduce new magic items. Players could multi-class into Artificer without the playtest problems, though I suspect nobody will want to.
DIVINE ASIDE
Teotl Priests are divine spellcasters, a lot like the cleric, and the Speaker of the Gods is a lawful bard with a list of divine spells rather than arcane. The binder also exists as a voodoo "horse" character - I'll probably have to make up the "spirits" (new personalities and stories for vestiges) on the fly, as needed. Non-Olman probably couldn't take any of these classes as the Olman spirits do not hear their supplications.