wizards of the world
Oct. 6th, 2018 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatellipoking around at how the wizards get their spells. . . where I'm going at least partly old-school D&D. Getting spells is hard.
Not too far, the story is not how the wizard hunts for spells as if they were rare artifacts, but it's going to be a major factor in social structure, where there are three kinds of mages.
There are church mages vowed to the service of the church. Where they will exchange the spells freely as they are needed for church missions. And the price of learning any given spell is a quest where its use would be plausible. Or retrieving a new spell on the quest, or researching it yourself, and requesting another spell as reward. They are usually reasonable about needing to master more and more spells because you never quite know what you might need -- but they collect on their obligations.
There are guild mages. A loose term. Big cities' guilds are most typical, some nasty. inbred, and prone to exploit outsiders with false promises of more spells (this can backfire as it's possible for them to research, oh fireballs on their own). some more orderly, and some not really guilds. Large clans of wizards that exchange spells. All of which organizations have duties for members. Not a total commitment as the church wants, but a lot less generous.
Then there are free mages who have to pick up where they can. Research, theft, quests into ruins, spell exchanges on a quid pro quo basis -- most free mages are either very weak or very wicked. And prone to alliances that make them very informal guild mages.
Not too far, the story is not how the wizard hunts for spells as if they were rare artifacts, but it's going to be a major factor in social structure, where there are three kinds of mages.
There are church mages vowed to the service of the church. Where they will exchange the spells freely as they are needed for church missions. And the price of learning any given spell is a quest where its use would be plausible. Or retrieving a new spell on the quest, or researching it yourself, and requesting another spell as reward. They are usually reasonable about needing to master more and more spells because you never quite know what you might need -- but they collect on their obligations.
There are guild mages. A loose term. Big cities' guilds are most typical, some nasty. inbred, and prone to exploit outsiders with false promises of more spells (this can backfire as it's possible for them to research, oh fireballs on their own). some more orderly, and some not really guilds. Large clans of wizards that exchange spells. All of which organizations have duties for members. Not a total commitment as the church wants, but a lot less generous.
Then there are free mages who have to pick up where they can. Research, theft, quests into ruins, spell exchanges on a quid pro quo basis -- most free mages are either very weak or very wicked. And prone to alliances that make them very informal guild mages.