These are my house-rules
for Magic in the Weird Opera
campaign. Most of the rules are cobbled together from various sources, mostly Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord.
In Weird Opera, there’s no distinction
between arcane and divine spells. However, many spells are kept secret by the
Guilds or other powerful groups. For example, most spells on the Druid spell
list are kept secret by the Druids of the Ancient Mother. Often the only way to
learn such a spell is joining the group, or steal it.
Spells and Spellbooks: A spell is an
semi-living thing with a disposition and instincts of its own. When a Mage
memorizes a spell, it actually leaps off the parchment into the wizard's mind,
where it waits impatiently to be released. During that time it’s no longer in
the Mage’s spellbook, leaving behind a blank page.
When it’s released,
the spell reappears on the page of the spellbook, unless in the meantime
something else was written on that page. If a spell is unable to return to its
page, it starts wandering and is lost to the Mage.
Spell Casting: The number of
memory slots a Mage has is equal to the sum of his INT bonus and his experience
level. All memory slots have equal value. The higher the spell level, the more
slots that are required to memorize it. One slot equals one spell level. For
example, to memorize a 4th level
spell a Mage must use 4 slots.
If you don't have
enough slots to even memorize the spell, then it's too advanced for you to
attempt to memorize it. Otherwise, there’s no restriction to what spell levels
a Mage may memorize. A Mage of 1st level with an Intelligence score
of 18 (INT bonus +3) may use his 4 memory slots to memorize a single 4th
level spell, for example, as long as he has that spell in his spell book or on
a scroll.
Knowing Spells: A beginning
Mage’s spellbook contains detect magic plus four other first level spells,
determined by the DM. Since the Mage received these spells as an apprentice,
the DM should take the Mage’s teacher into account when selecting these spells.
Beginning spells do not require a roll to see if the Mage can understand them.
New spells are found
during play; a wizard must find the higher-level spells in dungeons or musty
libraries and copy them into a spellbook, or trade copies with other Mages. If
a Mage finds scrolls of spells or other Mages’ spell books while adventuring,
these spells can be added to the Mage’s spellbook. There is no limit to how
many spells a wizard can learn at a given level.
Check each new spell
to see if the Mage can learn and know it, by making an Intelligence check
modified by the spell's level. For example, to learn a new 5th level
spell, the Mage must make an Intelligence check with -5 penalty. Each time the
magician gains a level (if the DM permits) he or she may re-check the spells not
understood before, to see if increased experience has granted new understanding.
High-level Magic: In Weird Opera, spells go up only to 6th
level. All the higher-level spells are rituals. To learn and cast a ritual
spell is a serious undertaking of magic, requiring research, adventuring, and
the expenditure of huge quantities of gold. There are books to be found and
studied, expensive arcane components to locate, particular times of the year or
lunar cycle when the magic can be performed, runes to know, circles to scribe,
and other strange and forbidden knowledge to be researched.
As a rule of thumb,
learning a ritual should cost at least 1,000 gp, and casting the spell would
require about 500 gp per spell level.
