GLAUGUST #3 - Futility of categorization (Microfiction)

"The first thing you must disabuse yourself of is that there is any such thing as magic." Spake the old wizard Kaitos. It was, his apprentice thought, not the most auspicious start to his first true magic lesson.

"But master, how can you say that when I have seen you work magic before?" Abe wheedled.

"Oh, have you?" The old sophist smirkingly condescended, stroking his grey beard as he regarded the boy sitting crosslegged on his workroom rug. "What magic exactly do you remember me working?"

Abe bristled at the tone, and struggled not to let it show on his face; though he was sure it did. Just when he thought he had proven himself capable and responsible enough to be let into the wizard's confidences and gain the wondrous treasures of knowledge he had been promised, so it turned out to be yet another opportunity for the lore-miser to humble him further.

"I have witnessed you brew potions for castle lords going off to battle that can do in moments what takes a physicker weeks or months to heal, I have seen you bewitch the mind of a peasant who darkened your door, I have seen you call unwholesome spirits into a chalk circle and scribe amulets with celestial figures that can turn away any blade or arrow arrayed against the bearer." Abe said, arms folded resolutely. "How can you do such things and tell me there is no such thing as magic? You cannot expect me to believe that such feats are all mummery!"

"Mummery? Who said anything about mummery!?" Kaitos cried out, drawing himself up to his full height in indignation. "You reckon me for an actor? Lower even than a harlot, whose work at least has the virtue of truth? Is that what you think my implication is, boy? Or was I wasting my breath teaching you what rudiments of rhetoric will fit in your peasant skull?"

Rhetoric? So, this was a test, not a lecture. He had missed something vital in his master's meaning.

"So... the works you enacted are true, but magic is not? So, they are not magic but part of natural philosophy?" The boy hazarded. At this is master let out a bark of derision.

"Philosophy? No, no, no, boy. There is no philosophy to it. What constancy can one expect of djinn? What can you learn about God from the hypnotic Will? Philosophy forms a corpus, a chain of wisdom in which each link must be bound to its neighbours." The greymaned flummoxer decreed. "Think, boy, prove I haven't been wasting my wisdom on your misbegotten ears."

Abe frowned at this, and set his chin upon his fist as the woodcuts showed great minds of antiquity in thought, as if that too would act as a talisman. After a long moment of silence, his eyes lit up.

"There's no link between them at all! That's what you mean!" The apprentice cawed, delightedly.

Kaitos gathered his beard in the ring of his thumb and forefinger and swept it to a point, as he was want to do when mildly pleased, and Abe knew he had hit the mark. Nevertheless his master commanded "Expound."

"The distillation of virtues into forms that can be imbibed, the empowerment and projection of spiritus to influence that of another, the geometries and resonances that can call up and command all manner of creatures of the upper air, and the correspondences that can entangle a disc of pure metal with the influence of the stars. The one thing these all have in common; nothing. They are all distinct and divisible acts, in no way related to each other in theory or practice. There is no such thing as magic, for magic is a blanket thrown over a collection of unrelated mysteries." Abe folded his arms in satisfaction, sure that was right.

"At last, we come upon the exactitude." Kaitos responded, his beard having been smoothed into a fox's tail. "Yes boy, let it be known that every spell cast, every philter poured from your cauldron, every meditation and eastern art, all of them are singular mysteries, clawed from the baffling darkness at the edges of the world."

"So you are an actor then, pretending at scholarship." Abe replied, so buoyed up was he by his triumph over his master's pettifoggery. Correct though he was, there was a second part to the lesson - that even though there was no such thing as magic, there was such a thing as the Spell of Batrachification.

-

TLDR; D&D (by which I mean OD&D, BX and AD&D derivatives) already does this. Some spells use words, some use gestures, some use components, some use a combination of the three. Some last all day, some are over in a flash. Some have weird esoteric little exceptions and caveats, like needing to use a powdered luckstone - a magic item in its own right! - as a spell component to get the best results out of an Identify spell. There is no true systemisation of magic in D&D, and it's better that way.

GLAUGUST #2 - Books As Treasure. No Spellbooks.

This picture just screams "Adventurer in a Library"

This picture just screams "Adventurer in a Library"

The second GLAUGUST post. Time is running out, so I'll keep this one short;

When a party or individual acquires a book, they gain a Library rating. Most books supply +d3 Library, but particularly comprehensive works such as whole sets of encyclopedias might provide a great deal more. The uses of Library are as so;

Research: Roll under your Library rating to uncover a useful fact relating to a particular topic you're researching. This can be either a Short-Term or Long-Term study, depending on the topic. Examples include;

• Short Term: The attributes of a monster species, what would be the outcome of two given spells or items interacting, the genealogy of a public figure. Takes 2d6 hours.
• Long Term: Leads to the location of a lost dungeon, a way of improving a common piece of equipment such as the telescoping 10' pole or the paracord rope, the location of a specific magic item. Takes 2d6 days.

Identification: You can determine the exact properties and history of a magic or historically significant object, including its approximate value. Success also identifies any possible curses and the means to break them. Takes 2d6 Turns.

If successful, subtract d3 from your Library, as that topic is now exhausted from your available research materials. If unsuccessful, that topic cannot be researched again until you have increased your Library rating.

Trivial questions such as the location of a well-known city or landmark, only 10 minutes and a roll under the current Library rating is required, and nothing is lost in the event of success. However that subject is still off-limits until the Library is added to.

GLAUGUST #1 - KING OF LIES - Spells of the Evil King

GLAUGUST GLAUGUST GLAUGUST

The most terrible wizard-king in all of history wasn't a necromancer, or a diabolist or anything like that. If he had been his reign would have been shorter, we would have seen what he was doing and opposed him sooner. No, he was an illusionist.

Mark of the Beast
It all seemed innocent enough at first, just a way of keeping in contact with his officials. It seemed modern, convenient. But this is where it all started to go wrong.
The subject, who must be willing and have HD no higher than the [dice] of the spell at the time of casting, acquires a permanent psychic connection to the caster, physically manifesting in the form of a symbolic tattoo in a location on the body chosen by the caster. The subject can specify circumstances under which their connection will be suppressed or broken at the time of the casting, typically to permit them a period of privacy and a way of permanently breaking the connection. The mark need not be in a place immediately visible, it can for example be located on the inside of an eyelid or under the tongue. This connection allows the caster to at any time appear before the subject, to speak and listen as if they were in the same room, though the caster is only visible to the subject and any others in the area who bear the same mark.

DoppelGangstalking
Imagine how powerful a wizard you have to be to make politicians worse.
Any of the Evil King's inner circle who were insufficiently loyal were subject to this spell. None of them were sufficiently loyal. The spell produces a living illusionary copy of someone bearing the caster's Mark of the Beast. This doppelganger is absolutely obedient to the word of the caster's commands, but they are ontologically evil and will twist any order to the goal of maximizing human suffering if it is given any leeway to. The doppelganger discorporates into mist by the next dawn if it does not kill its original, so that is usually its first command. As an illusion, it can only exist while observed by another living being, but once it kills its original it is able to inhabit their body and thus gain permanent observation by the caster through the Mark. All actions taken by the doppelganger are illusory, but can still result in harm or death of others through psychospiritual shock. Victims of the doppelganger with HD that exceed the [dice] used to conjure it may Save vs. its attacks and abilities (typically identical to those possessed by its original), even if those abilities would not normally allow a Save, due to their phantasmal nature.

Skillshare
Fundamentally, he didn't want to rule a kingdom, but a clock made of interchangeable gears.
The caster transfers [dice] skills or abilities held by any subjects bearing his Mark of the Beast to either himself or any other, for [sum] Turns. The original loses the abilities and skills transferred for the duration.

Antimemetics
Inconvenient truths had to be pruned to maintain the system he had created.
The caster spiritually poisons an idea, which they then convey to another. This could be the memory of a person, an event, a piece of media, an idiom or a philosophical or political stance, or even a language. Very basic primal core concepts, particularly those that are biologically essential, are too resilient to be targeted, at the DM's discretion. The person initially subjected to the spell must Save or find the idea gradually fading into incomprehensibility over the course of a week, until it eventually becomes a mental blindspot they cannot even imagine. Any time they discuss it even in passing with another person capable of understanding them, that person too must Save or have the idea poisoned for them too. This continues on for [dice] degrees of separation. Antimemetics does not permit a Save to anyone bearing the caster's Mark of the Beast.

Perception Filter
Eventually, prophylactic measures had to be taken.
The caster can designate any number of immobile features of the world that the subjects become unable to perceive or conceptualise. Against unmarked subjects this lasts [sum] Turns, Save negating. Bearers of the caster's Mark of the Beast are not permitted a Save, and can all be freely made subject to perceptual filtration for as long as the caster chooses to keep 1MD dedicated to the task.

Loophole
And so the illusion of choice came crashing down.
The caster can fundamentally alter [best] clauses of some binding gease or contract established through magic, without being subject to the normal penalties for breaking it. The cost is that this places the caster into spiritual superposition for 1 year per clause altered, during which time if they are slain their soul is utterly obliterated beyond the possibility of revival even through divine intervention. There is however nothing stopping the caster stacking the time they spend in this state infinitely.

Eidolise
Eventually the only people he trusted were figments of his imagination. That didn't hinder him much.
The caster manifests a sublime thoughtform, all but indistinguishable from reality. This is similar to a doppelganger but is perfectly obedient to the caster's will, not just their stated words. It can be of anyone or anything the caster has ever known, or even created purely from the caster's imagination, though in this case the resultant Eidolon will be vaguer and less believable, permitting a Save vs. its abilities to negate even for those that do not normally permit Saves, and having half normal effect even on a failure where a Save is permitted. When creating an Eidolon of a specific individual or monster, it cannot manifest any power or skill that the caster has not seen the original employ. The Eidolon costs 1MD per HD to create, and remains in existence as long as the caster is willing (and able) to roll the requisite MD each morning to maintain it. As with a Doppelganger, an Eidolon cannot exist when unobserved by a sentient being.