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Thread: Realm Magic

  1. #1
    Glenn Robb
    Guest

    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."

  2. #2
    Craig Greeson
    Guest

    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

  3. #3
    James Ruhland
    Guest

    Realm Magic

    - ----------
    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...])

  4. #4
    Mark A Vandermeulen
    Guest

    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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