Ways of Magic

Fantasy games have a tendency to treat magic as a very mundane thing. In a way, it’s unavoidable. There is no mystery of the arcane when you can say that your fireball does exactly 8d6 damage, or that sustaining the spell will cost you one fatigue point every second. However, the lack of mystery in the rules bleeds over into the way magic is treated in the story. Spellcasters treat their spells as something they just know because their class level or points allocation dictate that they do, rather than arcane knowledge that sets them permanently apart from the uninitiated.

As an effort to remedy this, I have pieced together a list of possible ideas for ways of focusing magic. Some change the entire feel of a magic system by adding specific criteria and things to search out for power; others just add flavor.

(CW: self-harm)