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Thread: Realm Magic
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10-25-1997, 01:50 AM #1Glenn RobbGuest
Realm Magic
Is realm magic propietary of Birthright or is it in AD&D General? I've
looked in my e-copy of Tome of Magic and it isn't there.
=97 Elton Robb
"Your Generously Liberal GM."
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10-25-1997, 04:14 AM #2Craig GreesonGuest
Realm Magic
Glenn Robb wrote:
> Is realm magic propietary of Birthright or is it in AD&D General? I've
> looked in my e-copy of Tome of Magic and it isn't there.
Realm magic is only officially found in Birthright. Only regent wizards who
control the magical "source" potential of the land can use it. If someone
wanted to convert Realm spells to a generic AD&D campaign, they'd have to put
in rules for controlling sources. An alternative would be to say there are
certain "high magic" areas in a world that allow wizards to cast these powerful
spells. They might be unbalancing in a standard campaign world where the
warriors, rogues, and priests did not have their own realm-level powers. I
don't recall having seen Realm spells listed anywhere but the BR boxed set, the
Book of Magecraft, and an issue of Dragon that had 2 or 3 pages of them.
Regards
Craig
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10-25-1997, 06:03 AM #3James RuhlandGuest
Realm Magic
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From: Glenn Robb
To: birthright@MPGN.COM
Subject: [BIRTHRIGHT] - Realm Magic
Date: Friday, October 24, 1997 7:50 PM
Is realm magic propietary of Birthright or is it in AD&D General? I've
looked in my e-copy of Tome of Magic and it isn't there.
Realm magic is specific to Birthright, but, like all the BR rules, you can
bring it into your non-Cerilian campaigns, if you're ready to do the work
nessisary (what constitues a province in, say, the FRs? What is the pop
level of that P.? What is the level of Source available, then?? do my
spellcasters need to be blooded, or is this available to all mages, or, is
it a new magical development, known only to a select few [say, a major
villian--a Lich, for example, has a long time to conduct reasurch, and
doesn't need to sleep...])
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10-25-1997, 05:29 PM #4Mark A VandermeulenGuest
Realm Magic
On Fri, 24 Oct 1997, Glenn Robb wrote:
> Is realm magic propietary of Birthright or is it in AD&D General? I've
> looked in my e-copy of Tome of Magic and it isn't there.
>
Yes, it is unique to the Birthright setting. It wouldn't be too hard to
apply it to a home-brewed setting, but I suspect that it isn't really all
too appropriate to any of the other official TSR world settings. The idea
is that magical power comes from the land itself, and specifically from
wild, or un-"civilized" land. Sort of what you might call the "magesty of
nature" made into a potent agent of power. At first, only the elves could
cast True Magic, because of their close ties to the land, but this was
offset because the elves had no gods, so only the humans (and dwarves) had
clerical magic. (The other demihumans also worship powers, but often they
are refered to as powerful tanar'i or demigods, rather than true gods,
though whether this is merely human/elven bias and propaganda is unclear).
Anyway, about 1000 (2000?) years ago, there was a big confrontation
between the gods, and the one Evil god had become so powerful, that it
took all the good gods to match him, and the only way to do so was to kill
him: which required killing themselves in the process. The resulting
spiritual "explosion" rained down "god-stuff" on the battling human and
demihuman armies, and those that absorbed the most became the new gods,
and those that absorbed less became gifted with "bloodlines" that could be
passed down to offspring. Due to this new infusion of power, some humans
came to be able to cast the powerful True Magic spells just like the
elves.
Realm spells are truely powerful spells, but they are not without
limitations. For example, they take about a month to cast. Thus they are
really only feasable when you are "planning ahead" as you need to do when
overseeing a realm.
I suspect that only gods (or the offspring of gods, like Hercules
being the son of Zeus) would be able to cast spells the equivalent of
realm magic in other worlds. Or the god may choose to gift a favored
wizard with a fragment of her own "stuff" which I understand Mystara does
with wizards like Elminster, though i know very little about the
"Forgotten Realms" setting.
As far as I know, the rules for such spells are only available in the
Birthright boxed set, as well as the Book of Magecraft (and presumably the
Book of Priestcraft) supplements which expand on them.
Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu
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