Alright, so I'm creating a campaign setting that is set in the age of legends period of the world. The PC's (and significant NPC's) will be the ones that create the mythology of the world. Mythic Adventures is gonna be key in this campaign setting.
Now, for my question. The setting is actually set in a time BEFORE the different planes of existence have been separated. The outer planes, the elemental planes, and the material plane are all still one, and the transitive planes don't exist as a result yet. The very nature of the reality of this world is infused with powerful, and chaotic, magic. Wizardly magic is slowly being formed (actually taught to the humans by the devils, but that's something different), and eventually, after the planes rift, a steadier, more set kind of magic will take precedence. So while I don't want to change how Wizards work, at all, I want to change what Sorcerers do (there won't be bards, as the combination of music and magic hasn't been made into a discipline yet, though a multiclass fighter/rogue/sorcerer could be the creator of it in this world), and divine magic other than Druids doesn't exist, as there are no deities yet (some of the PC's and NPC's shall become the first gods). I'm thinking to emulate the nature of magic for the druids, I'm going to make them into spontaneous casters.
Anyway, as I said, the real issue is the sorcerer. I want to do something that creates the flavor of chaotic magic that these sorcerers can tap, at great risk, to be able to create effects that they don't already have in their spell list, or to cast spells of higher level than they normally can, and things of that nature. I'm not much of a game designer, so I was wondering if anyone here might have any ideas for how this could be executed. Thanks for helping out.
Anyway, as I said, the real issue is the sorcerer. I want to do something that creates the flavor of chaotic magic that these sorcerers can tap, at great risk, to be able to create effects that they don't already have in their spell list, or to cast spells of higher level than they normally can, and things of that nature. I'm not much of a game designer, so I was wondering if anyone here might have any ideas for how this could be executed. Thanks for helping out.
You could use the Primal Magic rules found in Inner Sea magic or any number of wild magic rules (Wild Magic from WotC) that are out there. Conan d20 also had a "magic event" mechanic that could cause catastrophic effects.
Truth be told, I think you'd be better off designing a system that used the words of power or standard spells and in the event of one of these "surges", increased the effects of the current spell being casted to the "next level" in terms of damage, effect, and so on.
Word of Power Example (off the top of my head): A component of the spell is Fire Blast. Triggering surge event increases the die by 1 step, i.e. 1d8 instead of 1d6 per level.
To illustrate the dangers of the magic being used, you could have the sorc take damage based off the level of the spell affected by the surge (such as 3 x spell level - unpreventable). So in the example of fire blast & fireball, he would take around 9 damage with the surge event.
This is just brainstorming, and in no way balanced. Hope it helps.