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Well, you'll definitely want to bounce it off your GM.
I'd probably allow it, saying that you trained under the local sage in Sandpoint and have been figuring stuff out yourself. So, you don't necessarily know any more, you're just putting it into practice.
The important part is that your character won't have encyclopedic (or even cursory) knowledge of Thassilon at the start of the campaign unless your DM wants to modify things. That doesn't mean you can't be studying the magics of an ancient civilization you don't fully understand, though, and it gives you a nice secondary motivation to investigate them.
That said, it fits the themes of Shattered Star much better, so I'd consider saving it for there if your group is planning to run both.
Cheers!
Landon
I'd not allow it myself unless you start it AFTER partway through the Skinsaw Murders (multi-class character) and gained access to a certain spellbook and notes of a wizard you encounter partway into that adventure (if you're even moderately lucky). There are a few notes on Thassilonian spellcasting... but I honestly can't see how PCs could acquire the notes.
The exception is if you took the Thassilonian Scholar trait AND started your character out as middle-age or older. Then it would make more sense as you've been studying this for much of your life.
I'd be right on the edge about this one, myself. I'm typically not one who would tell a player they can't play something, but a Thassilonian specialist wizard seems almost too intrusive in a campaign where so very little is actually known about Thassilon!
However, it would certainly be possible that someone could convince me. There is an NPC scholar in Sandpoint named Brodert Quink that--in his long research of Thassilon--might have dug up just enough to realize the difference in theories between Thassilonian specialty and magic as it's currently understood.
Granted, even if I allowed this, there's no way the player would know a great deal about Thassilon historically. No way. However, if the backstory is designed within reason, I could be persuaded to allow it.
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I could see a specialist being mitigated a bit by simply being wrong about some of his facts. Talk with your GM about making your understanding begin as incomplete but get more accurate over time.
And if you trust him or her, have them roll for you behind a screen. That way they can lie to you about the result and you can run with it. "This doesn't make any sense but the walls seem to have WRAITH written on them over and over."
As I pointed out, if the player just waits 'til after partway into the Skinsaw Murders and if the PCs encounter the Thassilonian Necromancer in question, then that necromancer's spellbook includes the pertinent information required in order to become a Thassilonian Specialist. Prior to that I would not allow it. (And yes, that means if the player had spellcasting levels prior to that, he'd have to start over as a 1st level Thassilonian Wizard.)
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Because Quink's knowledge is mostly conjecture. He has outlandish theories about Thassilonian society that fly in the face of everything that learned scholars agree upon. Moreover, he's not a wizard, so while he might have academic knowledge of how the Thassilonian specialists weaved their magics, he has no way of translating that to something the PCs can use. The only person that the PCs will run across that can teach this branch of specialty magic is the gentleman Tangent refers to, and that seems very unlikely.
In short, the option shouldn't be available when the campaign begins, and there's very little time to change to the new option as things progress. I suppose that if by some miracle, the specialist wizard in your group already managed to choose the appropriate opposition schools, then a case could be made for intense study and increased specialization, but that's a relatively unlikely scenario. Assuming the players know nothing about the option, that's a 1:42 chance they've picked the appropriate combination of schools for their wizard.
Quink isn't a Thassilonian Specialist Mage. His knowledge is of Thassilonian ruins and the like... and he has gotten stuff wrong in the past.
A PC can take Knowledge (History) with a specialization of Thassilonian lore... and if the GM is using the optional Traits system, then the Thassilonian Scholar. But that doesn't do more than provide a groundwork to comprehend things. For instance, you see a mural in one place... and the difficulty level to know it's a depiction of Xin-Shalast is DC 30. A 10th level Wizard with a 20 Intelligence and 10 ranks in History would need to roll a 12. Doable, but not guaranteed. (Mind you, the PCs are NOT 10th level when they see the mural in question.)
So even having knowledge doesn't mean it'll let you know everything.
I could probably be convinced with the right background story.
I could probably be convinced with the right background story.
As could I . . . but it better be a wail of a backstory, cuz it would have to blow my mind for me to allow this. Rarely do I ever rule anything out, however. Gotta give the players a chance!
Being raised by Cyphermages probably wouldn't be enough to convince me though. ;)
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How bout being taught by cyphermages after accidentally touching a Thassiloinan artifact that burned a tattoo of one of the sins on your hands and screwed with your head so the school of magic for that sin came remarkably easy to you while you had some kinda mage dyslexia with it's opposed schools, so you could never figure out how they worked?
Nope. But then, I pointed out at which point I'd allow it, and it's in the game itself. It just means you won't have a 17th level Thassilonian Mage fighting the Big K.
I allow the idea of a thassilonian specialist if the character can make a good enough story.
Ex. The PC in his youth discovers an old thassilonian spell book in the acadamae library detailing the idea of thassilonian specialisation, with a little tinkering work and further study they actually unlock the principle becoming the first thassilonian specialist the the modern age.
Otherwise the character will need to be a regular wizard.