The Tome of Magic

[Tobias Blackburn]

I recently picked up the Tome of Magic, Wizards of the Coasts latest offering. It's a beautiful book, with top notch art, that introduces three new systems of magic: Pact, Shadow, and True Name. Skimming over it, I can see numerous places where this system would fit easily into Ravenloft.

Pact Magic carries the flavour of Faust with it, but leaves behind the "you made a deal, now you're screwed" aftertaste. You bind yourself to entities known as Vestiges, spirits that have gone beyond the realm of the Gods. The previews on the Website have examples Like Greyon (a deposed Demon Lord), The Demi-Lich from the Tome of Horrors, and the latest Dragon Magazine included Primus and Kas (Kas even has a reference to his stay in Ravenloft).

I've been looking for a way to include Conjuration as a dark art into Ravenloft (as it's current application seems to make it rather deadly to anyone that wants to try it) and this system seems to be a nice approach. I'm already considering taking former darklords and turning them into Vestiges (such as Bakholis, the former Queen of Timor, and possibly even Camilia Borsti).

Shadow Magic isn't the same thing as the Shadow Weave in the Forgotten Realms. It works on the idea that the Shadow Plane is dark copy of the Material Plane, and that the forces of it are capable of creating anything.

Here's a sample spell from the Wizard's of the Coast site:

ECHO SPELL
Initiate, Black Magic
Level/School: 5th/Universal
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect: Repeat a previously cast spell or mystery
Duration: See text
Saving Throw: See text
Spell Resistance: See text

Even as you recoil from your enemy's spell, you reach into the Plane of Shadow and draw forth the spiritual reflection of that spell. With a grin, you manifest it in the physical world and hurl it back at him.

You can "echo" a mystery or spell cast by anyone other than yourself, causing it to remanifest under your control. Both the caster and the effect must have been within echo spell's range, and the entire casting must have occurred in the previous round. You choose the mystery or spell's target, and make any other choices involved in casting it. You cast the mystery or spell using your mystery user level (use your Cha modifier to determine the mystery or spell's DC; its duration, saves, and the like are as normal for that spell). You cannot echo a mystery or spell of a higher level than the highest-level mystery you can cast, and you can never echo a mystery or a spell of higher than 4th level.

I think that I'm going to overhaul the Fraternity of Shadow a bit to include this kind of magic. Illusion is fine, but this stuff takes it to a whole new level.

True Name magic seems to be fairly interesting, and makes sense for less flashy, scholarly characters. It doesn't strike me as being particularly Ravenloft-ish in flavour, but I haven't had a chance to digest the entire section yet.

[Jasper]

*VERY evil grin*

If the Shadow Plane is a copy of our world...what keeping our shadows from summoning us?



Also, whats a Mystery?

[Lord Cyclohexane]

I'm interested in the True Name magic whenever you get the chance to read it. Since it's based on knowing the True Name of an entity, which is the basis of power in many mythologies (if you know an entity's name, you have power over it; Isis was more powerful than Ra because she knew his true name) and in real world demonology (can't bind a demon unless you're using its name in the circle).

Plus, it just seems like it'd work well for the "perils of knowledge" stories, where some stuffy scholar learns the True Name of a being, thinks to bind it to make his own life better, and disappears...

Also, it seems like mixing in knowledge of True Names (not necessarily at all related to this proposed magical system) could make the permanent "rituals of dismissal" (or whatever it was called) for Rank 5 Ancient Dead and Ghosts a touch more interesting.

[Spiteful Crow]

Azalin's obsession with hiding his name might make truename magic kinda interesting...

Also, whats a Mystery?

It's a shadow magic spell.