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Monday, August 20, 2018

Rules for Wizards and a Sorcerer Mutation Table

This post is part of my series about character generation for adventures in the Meager Country. Here are my wound and encumbrance rules, an introduction to the Besharan empirethe peoples of the Bronze citymy rules for practicing Besharan religion , new backgrounds, and finally some small rule adjustments for wizards and sorcerers. This should be my final word about the Bronze City. I'm excited to move on to greener, colder pastures.

So after screwing with how all the other classes cast spells, I thought it would be rude to let wizards and sorcerers off free. But I didn't want to go with the traditional way of portraying magic users for Beshara. Instead of modeling Besharan wizards off of academics, complete with different schools and academies, I've decided to see being a wizard or a sorcerer as a kind of trade. The different Wizard schools are just different specialties. Sure there are plenty of bakeries but if you want those almond pastries you go to Hassan in the Great Market and if you need to know if you'll be killed in battle, you go to Iza in the Foreseer's tent next time you're near the Arcade of the Scribes.

Nubian Prayer Book


The Craft of Magic:
Magic is considered more an art than a science. The skill of casting spells, and more importantly making scrolls, is passed down through families of wizards, just as the craft of blacksmithing is passed down through the generations. Powerful spells are copied down for centuries without ever being cast. Wizards are also responsible for creating magical items though most wizards try to avoid making them. All the most skilled wizard-artificers are in the employ of the Sultan, as slaves or as freemen. Magic is a taxing trade. Master wizards can be identified by their gnarled, arthritic hands and their poor eyesight. They suffer from frequent headaches and chronic back pain from hunching over the desks of the scriptorium. Sorcerers work freelance, they cannot make scrolls and their magic items are famously unstable. They too pass down their skills from generation to generation, trying to keep their bloodlines pure and magically potent. Understandably, they are often inbred. Wizards: -Spellbook takes up 1 inventory slot. It contains all the spells a wizard can know, including ones they cannot cast, painstakingly written in the hand of a parent or guardian. (Arcane Tricksters and Eldritch Knights must carry spell books as well). When you level up and gain spells, you achieve mastery over spells which you once couldn't cast. -Wizards cannot cast the same spell multiple times a day -By using a sheet of fine vellum (4 GP) and a selection of special inks (10 GP/ per 3 scrolls), a wizard can copy a spell they can cast from their book to a scroll. Doing so takes 4 hours of work. As long as this scroll is usable, the wizard cannot cast the copied spell and loses a spell slot of equal level. -Anybody holding a spellbook or scroll who is hit with an attack which deals fire or acid damage must make a concentration save, if they fail a random scroll or spell is destroyed. If soaked with water, they must also save to avoid losing a spell/scroll. Rewriting a spell in the spellbook takes 4 hours.
Image result for coptic manuscript
This is probably what knock looks like 

Sorcerer Mutation Table: Magic runs in the blood. Unfortunately, gills, tails, and scales run too. In sorcerer families, both tend not to just run but sprint. Whenever you reach a sorcerer level which is odd (1,3,5,ect), roll a d20 to determine which mutation you gain. 1. Vestigial tail 2. Webbed hands 3. Glowing blood 4. No pupils 5. Body is covered in downy feathers 6. Fingernails tougen into claws if not trimmed 7. Use long blue snake tongue to smell 8. Pot belly which contains a second stomach 9. Fangs 10. Glowing eyes 11. Your flesh is cold to the touch 12. One vestigial wing 13. Afflicted by splitting headaches 5 hours before it rains 14. Vestigial gills 15. Vestigial 3rd eye 16. Voice always echos 17. Gain an itching rash which grows and shrinks with the cycles of the moon 18. You smell like oranges at all times 19. You can hear trees and plants breathing 20. Touching precious metal makes your skin break out in hives


This post is dedicated to Agathon, whose works are no longer recorded

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