Core:Elder Sorcery

Elder Sorcery is the raw "language" of creation used to create new spells and forms of magic. It is not purely a language in the strictest sense, but a generalized encapsulation of concepts and forms that can be represented through many different mediums of creative expression. It is most often expressed in verbal, written, or symbolic forms, but has also been cast as music, visual art, and even culinary arts. Anything spoken or otherwise cast in Elder Sorcery either is or becomes "true" in some sense.

Incantations

No matter how Elder Sorcery is being cast, it requires a mastery of the particular concepts that make up spell. These are referred to as "words" and make up the fundamental pieces that spells are composed out of. The actual form of casting the spell, be it verbal, painted, brewed, or otherwise is akin to the "grammar" which strings these words together. The specific composition of words and grammar for a spell is referred to as its "incantation".

The Role of Words

For instance, say a Nature Mage wanted to create a spell that turns them and their allies into a animals. The words available to them for constructing the spell would be the words they knew through abilities such as Nature Elder Sorcery. These would be words from the nature and celestial word lists. These words in turn are divided into an "order of power" (OP), which corresponds to the difficulty it takes to master the corresponding ideas in Elder Sorcery. The caster may want to speak the Elder Sorcery incantation "we transform into animals". But, if they only have access to OP 1 words, they might have to make do with "you me are this" and require an extra step of including the actual animal they want to turn into as part of the casting process. However, if they have access to OP 6 words, they know the words to string together "we transform into animal". This is much closer to the ideal incantation, but still differs in that "animal" is singular. At this point, the spell's grammar becomes relevant. The Elder Sorcery words themselves cannot be freely pluralized and modified, but the medium of casting could provide context clues that suggest a meaning.

The Role of Grammar

If the Nature Mage is casting the spell using a dance, perhaps they put particular emphasis into the plurality of "we". If they are painting the spell on a canvas, whatever they use to represent the word "animal" could be depicted in such a way as to suggest plurality. However, if they are simply speaking the spell aloud, they might want to use the wording "we transform into many animal" to better convey the intended meaning. Or they could leave the incant as is and hope the meaning is still clear enough and that it doesn't just merge everyone together into a single animal.

Regardless of how the spell is cast, the words themselves remain constant. In painting a spell, the brush strokes or colors could be used to represent the words. In dancing, it could be particular movements or gestures. In cooking, it could be specific ingredients. In speaking, the words themselves can be spoken aloud. No matter how a spell is cast, the player doing so must actually do the incantation to the extent that is reasonable. So someone casting via art, should actually produce the art to do so. But if a spell involves ritual sacrifice, the GM should not expect their player to actually kill a goat. This difference in representation is the main pro and con of different grammars of casting. Speaking is relatively quick and easy, but may have unclear incantations or the risk of stumbling over words. Painting a spell could be time consuming, but it allows for more flexibility in putting words together and involves creating a physical object which may make for a more stable long-term effect.

An Elder Sorcerer does not automatically have every possible grammar available to them. Typically mages are taught spoken Elder Sorcery. These are spells that can be written down, but must be said aloud to be cast. A caster may specialize into some form of art or other grammar, but then that would be the medium they use to cast spells instead of speaking them. A caster will have immense difficulty using or interpreting a grammar that is unfamiliar to them. If someone casts a spell in their vicinity using known words but a foreign grammar, an Elder Sorcerer can still understand the wording that was used, even if they couldn't easily replicate the spell. Someone who does not know those words would still get a general sense of spell or the ideas behind it that they "feel" internally, but they would not be able to separate the distinct concepts of each Elder Sorcery word.

Creating a Spell

Just because someone knows Elder Sorcery words, does not mean they can freely create any effect imaginable. A Necromancer cannot just say "I eradicate each city" and destroy every city in the world. Elder Sorcery spells need to be balanced like any other ability. To this end, any player creating an Elder Sorcery spell should provide their GM with the following:

1. The incantation for the spell which clearly shows which words are used and how they're implemented.
2. The intention of the spell. This is the player's intended effect of the spell. And should include any flaws which might balance the spell out.
3. A casting cost that must be paid every time the spell is used.
4. A creation cost that must be paid when the spell is first made.

The GM will take all these into account when deciding if the spell is appropriately balanced and has the freedom to reverse their decisions later if they think they made a mistake. Every spell must be created before it can be cast.

Maximum Number of Words

Just because a spell may be "balanced" in a mechanical sense does not mean that it can be created. After all, an archmage that's been casting for millennia should be better at creating spells than a level 11 Flame Mage, even if their spells both use OP 1 words. This will manifest in several ways. The first in the number of words that be used in creating a spell. For the best chance of success, a character can only create words with 5 new words or less. So the new Flame Mage could cast "use this torch for warmth" to try and empower a torch to provide the warmth needed to survive a harsh polar night. But their next spell could be "use this torch to immediately burn you to ash" to make it so their torch immediately ruins any creature it touches. This spell is nine words long, but Elder Sorcery relies on the number of distinct concepts the caster can hold in their head at once. So, the second use of the word "to" doesn't count towards their limit. And since the words "use", "this", and "torch" were present in a spell they already made, they have practice with those ideas already and they don't count towards the limit wither. Thus the five new words are "to", "immediately", "burn", "you", and "ash". In this way each spell an Elder Sorcerer makes expands the dictionary of words they can work with. And if an Elder Sorcerer wants to create a long and complex spell in the future, they may want to make lots of smaller spells to build up to their ultimate vision. In addition to this scaling word maximum, the maximum total number of words cannot exceed the caster's total level.

Prepared Spells

There is no theoretical limit to the number of a spells an Elder Sorcerer can know or create. However, a player can't just hand their GM a list of 100 spells and expect to have them all available. The first limitation is that creating a spell typically takes at least a long rest. In addition, a caster that knows lots of spells doesn't have all of them available at once. Know Elder Sorcery spells count as "rotators" for the purpose of prepared spell lists.

Spell Creation Rolls

Since creating and casting Elder Sorcery is working with raw magic itself, it caries substantial risks when compared to conjured spells. Any time someone creates an Elder Sorcery spell, there is some chance of "fumbling". To determine if a spell fumbles, roll 1d100 four times, once for each of the following categories. For each category, the GM rates the spell on a scale from 0 to 10, based on the answers to the corresponding questions.

1. Incantation

   How well does the incantation match the intention of the spell. Are there other interpretations that the incant could have? Is the intended meaning the most obvious meaning of the incant?

2. Intention

   How doable is this intention in and of itself? Is it simple, clear, straightforward, and manageable? Or is it sprawling, far-reaching, vague, or metaphysically impossible?

3. Creation Cost

   How appropriate is the creation cost for this spell? It must be at least 1 MP per OP of each word in the spell plus triple whatever the casting cost of the spell is (see Elder Sorcery Creation). If these criteria are met, the creation cost has a score of 8. Putting in more resources can push the creation cost up to 9 or 10. If this basic criteria is not met, the creation cost score is automatically 0. There is no downside to putting additional resources into the spell's creation cost when it comes to the spell creation roll itself. If it seems appropriate, the GM may allow other players beyond just the spell's creator to put resources into the creation cost.

4. Casting Cost

   How appropriate is the casting cost given the intention of the spell? If it seems perfect, then a score of 10 is possible. If spell is under-costed or over-costed, then the score goes down.

For each category, you will need to roll at least the corresponding "spell creation DC" on your 1d100 roll. The base DC is 25 + 10 * (10 - score) - LVL. However, the GM can choose to give bonuses or minuses for spell creation. These are categorized as a "experience bonus", an "assistance bonus", an "effort bonus", and a "metaphysics penalty". The experience bonus, is based on proficiency and fluency. The assistance and effort bonuses have a maximum of +25. And the metaphysics penalty is typically negative and can take on any value. Some possible modifiers are outlined below.

Spell Creation Bonuses

Category	Bonus	Circumstance
Experience Bonus	+(10 * F)	This is an area that the character is particularly fluent in based on other spells they've created, things they've done, and certain abilities they have. This bonus should only be given out under truly exceptional circumstances.
Experience Bonus	+(10 * P)	This is an area that the character is particular proficient in based on other spells they've created, things they've done, or certain abilities they have.
Experience Bonus	+(10 * P)	The incantation exclusively uses words the character has used in spells they've already made.
Assistance Bonus	+25	The spell creation is being overseen and assisted by some other powerful Elder Sorcery caster or supernatural being that is taking on personal costs from the spell and has direct power over the spell's subject matter.
Assistance Bonus	+15	The spell creation is being overseen and assisted by some other powerful Elder Sorcery caster or supernatural being that has expertise in the spell's subject matter.
Assistance Bonus	+5	The spell creation is being assisted by other members of the party.
Effort Bonus	+25	There was immense out-of-game work put into creating the spell's design and incantation.
Effort Bonus	+15	There was significant out-of-game work put into creating the spell's incantation.
Effort Bonus	+10	The creation cost is substantially greater than it needs to be given the spell being made.
Effort Bonus	+5	The in-game time spent creating the spell is significantly greater than a long rest.
Metaphysics Penalty	-25	Beyond balance, the spell's intention would be breaking new metaphysical ground outside the scope of the character's knowledge.
Metaphysics Penalty	-50	Beyond balance, the spell's intention or wording has some contradiction in it.
Metaphysics Penalty	-100	Beyond balance, the spell's intention would violate some minor metaphysical guideline of the universe.
Metaphysics Penalty	-250	Beyond balance, the spell's intention would violate some major metaphysical rule of the universe.

Depending on the circumstance, the GM can decide which, if any, of these or other modifiers are in place, whether they stack, or if these modifiers have a greater or lesser impact than the baseline numbers outlined above. If the character passes all their spell creation checks, then the spell is created and the character is free to rotate into it. If they fail at least one, then the spell fumbles. No matter the spell creation DC, the LVL of the caster, and whatever modifiers are in place, there is always a chance of a fumble. Rolling a 1 or 2 always causes a fumble of some sort. A 2 could be a "minor fumble" but a 1 is always a "major fumble".

Strain Penalty

If the GM allows it, a character can attempt to create Elder Sorcery even if they don't meet all the rules and criteria outlined. This adds an optional "strain penalty" to the Elder Sorcery creation roll. A character could use more words than would typically be allowed, in which case -3 times the OP of each of the additional words should be added added to the strain penalty. The character could try and "snapcast" the spell and make it over a short rest instead of a long rest, in which case a -25 strain penalty is automatically added. Or they could try and improvise a spell during combat and have a -75 strain penalty applied. All strain penalties are optional rules that the GM can decide whether they want to allow or not.

Fumbling

If a spell fumbles, then it is not successfully created as intended. If all the spell creation rolls where within 25 of the spell creation DC, then the creation merely fizzles, whatever resources were put into creation are consumed, and no other costs apply. This is called a minor fumble.

If at least one of the spell creation rolls rolled more than 25 below the creation DC, then this causes a major fumble. In such circumstances, the GM decides on something novel that occurs based on which roll or rolls fumbled, the severity of the fumble, and the design of the spell. Since Elder Sorcery is a "language of truth", the GM may think about the fumble through the framing of what was cast instead of the intended spell. Perhaps the spell casts early partway through the creation process and turns the caster into some mutated creature instead of the simple animal they intended. Maybe it summons some odd being the caster has to fight. Maybe the spell took more resources than intended and the caster was withered to some degree. If there was immense MP or other resources spent on the spell, some strange metaphysical phenomena could occur. Fumbles could leave lasting scars on casters or the world. Nevertheless, the GM should consider what feels appropriate given the risk the player took in creating the spell and what would make for a fun game when deciding what happens. An unlucky roll on a well designed spell shouldn't permanently cripple a character and a poorly designed spell trying to destroy the universe shouldn't leave its caster unscathed. Oftentimes a fumble marks the beginning of a new adventure or challenge for the players to overcome.

If the GM allows, a major fumble could result in a significantly modified spell that the character still gains and can rotate into. It might not do what they originally intended, but it could still be "interesting".

Even if an Elder Sorcery spell is successfully created, it can still fumble on casting. How this happens depends on the spell's grammar. In the case of spoken Elder Sorcery, this happens when the caster misspeaks while casting the spell. Each time a player casts a spell, they must recite its full incant. If they mess it up, this causes a fumble. Typically this is minor fumble. But if the mistake is particularly severe then the GM may rule that a major fumble has occurred.

Learning Spells

If a character stumbles upon a spell in the wild, they may be able to study and learn it more easily than if they are making a spell on their own. The spell's wording limitations still apply That is, the spell must not use more than five words that the caster studying the spell hasn't already created spells with. Learning spells don't unlock new words in this way. In addition, the baseline creation cost of three times the casting cost must still be paid. However, no spell creation rolls typically need to be made. If the GM wants, they may attach some additional metaphysics or other check to learning a new spell if its creator was substantially higher LVL than the caster learning it, if it's in a foreign grammar, if it uses some archaic version of Elder Sorcery, or if its especially challenging in some other way. As with creating a spell, it takes a long rest to study one.