Topic: The Realms in your setting...

[Arioch]

I'm curious: do you use the Realms of magic as they're written (taking the fluff/history from the various spell laws, companions etc) or have you modified them to make them fit your own setting? What changes have you made?

[thrud]

As written I guess? If there is something that needs tweaking we adjust it on the fly.

[mibsweden]

At the moment, in my home made setting, I use the realms as are. Since my campaign setting is tailored around using RM as the game system, the rules of RM are somewhat in the back of my head when I design the campaign world.

Before I started on my own setting, I was planning to use the Forgotten Realms setting. In that setting, Mentalism might not exist. It could exist as the D&D psionics or as Spellfire - but I hadn't decided on how to handle that when I scrapped the FR idea and started on my own campaign setting instead.

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

The short answer is 'yes': aside from naming and adding more 'realms' of magic, I've made more or less subtle changes to what 'realms' are. It takes a score of pages (font 12) in my world document to explain them all, so I won't post them here but the main difference is that 'realms' are to me truly sources of magical power, so there's no difference between what a 'realm' allows compared to another: each and any spell (list) can be equally cast by someone of the same proficiency (i.e. pure, hybrids or semi) even from different realms. What changes is merely how this spell is fuelled, like how electricity can be used the same, regardless it was created from solar energy, wind generators, or water dams. As a consequence, all open lists are put together as 'open list' while all closed lists are put together as 'closed list' and anyone from any realm can freely choose his lists among them.

As a direct consequence of 'realms' being 'sources of magic', how much a spell user can use at a given instant depends on his ability to draw magical energy from his 'source of magic'. For instance, Essence being essentially raw magical energy having been 'processed' (and rejected) into usable magical energy by living beings, how much magical power an Essence spellcaster has at his disposal in a given location depends on the density of living beings around him --so Essence spellcaster are all powerful in cities and pretty useless in desert areas. OTOH, Personal Magic (aka RM2 'Mentalism') being essentially raw magical energy having been 'processed' (and rejected) into usable magical energy by the spellcaster according to one condition affecting his self-processing ability, how much magical power a Personal mage has at his disposal at a given time depends on how 'motivated' he is in his 'motivation source' --so the more filled with hatred a Personal mage fuelled by hatred is, the more powerful he is; the more filled with curiosity a Personal mage fuelled by curiosity is, the more powerful he is.

While a hybrid spellcaster loses his privilege to pick spell lists from two realms more easily than pure spellcasters, they gain the privilege of possibly drawing magical power from two sources, which is a notable ability. For instance, whereas jailing an Essence spellcaster in a (large enough) cemetery with no dwelling around (i.e. a tiny graveyard in the middle of a major city wouldn't work) would pretty much incapacitate him (and even sicken him due to withdrawal effects), jailing there an Essence/Divine spellcaster wouldn't work much if he's still able to receive the magical energy his god sends him.

[Nders]

I use the realms pretty much as they are and belive in s strict division of the realms - not allowing spells from one realm to be cast by another without changing them to fit the new realm. This is due to the way the whole system is built around the existence of the three realms, as it shows in skill costs and spell power. Allowing essence to be wielded on a mentalist platform for example would to me be utterly unacceptable as it is a grosse violation of the skill cost - realm of power conection. If you want broad access play a hybrid that is what they are there for afterall. They pay for increased access in skill costs as it seems to me it was originaly intended.

[damilano]

It takes a score of pages (font 12) in my world document to explain them all, so I won't post them here

Olf, I'd be interested in reading that.  Care to share?

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

I pretty much use the realms as they are, but I also went through and tried to reconcile some of the discrepancies in order to create something a bit more unified in how everything interoperates and why it works the way it does.

This -- http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?page=7 -- the result that I came up with at the time (I wrote it many years ago, and then posted at the above link 2 years ago).

Take it for what you will...   

[RandalThor]

If I use RM as my rules system then I use the Realms of magic as is, as I do not want to go through the hassle of having to create a whole new one that fits the RM rules. Though, now that there is HARP, I could probably do away with lists and go with the individual spell grouped by schools/training/culture or whatever method fairly easy now. Thanks HARP. 

[Elton Robb]

I use them as written.

[Winterknight]

I ignore the realm limitations.  I will work with a player to custom pick a grimoire of spell lists that he would have had access to, based on his character concept, and the limitations I feel are appropriate to the setting.  In my world, magic is magic, no matter what speculation an individual uses to explain the source or influence.  It's cast the same way, it fails the same way, regardless of RM's distinctions of realm.

Long ago, under another name, I'd posted an analogy between light and magic, where mages act as prisms, and the realms were simply the colors each mage saw.  I tend to think of magic in that context still. 

[Arioch]

Great! Keep posting, I love reading your ideas! 

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

Olf, I'd be interested in reading that.  Care to share?

I wrote about them here.

[Moriarty]

For my new campaign I'm considering making Essence the 'elf' realm and Mentalism the 'human' realm.
The logic is that it makes both the races and the realms more important in the game.
Channeling is still available to all. The campaign is set somewhere on Kulthea.

[Cormac Doyle]

Nah - elvers are Mages (Merging Mentalism and Essence / it uses an average of Em and Pr ... which elves have a bonuses). they cannot learn psionics unless they have some human blood)
Humans use psionics (as per SMP) which leverages SD ... they cannot learn magic (unless they have some elven blood)

Half elves are the ONLY people who can use both magic and psionics ... which means they are feared and hunted by both sides ...

The perfect basis of a new campaign setting I'm thinking about !

[solmead]

When I run a game I use RMSS

I use Essence as written,

I use Psyonics from SpaceMaster instead of mentalism,

Channeling has been highly modified adding a prayer skill for each of the gods in my world, you have to train in how to pray, and each God only provides spell list that are in the god's realm (i use forgotten realms gods for my gods, and the spell list overlap dome between the god's) I also use divine ranks from the channelling companion which control how easy/hard it is for you to train to pray to your god.

I do this because I wanted each type of spell casting to have it's own flavor and be more differentiated then in the base rules, to me the base rules for essence/channelling/mentalism are too similar.

[mnemnoth]

Frequent lurker - first time poster:
In my current campaign, I am using the RM realms, but use a homebrewed Grace Point system for Channeling (highly religious world with meddling, fickle gods), a homebrewed Corruption system for Essence/Arcane, and am just putting final touches on homebrewing the Mentalism 'corruption/insanity' system to make it match.

In this world, realms are a bigger pain than what I usually do in a world. It is a world that my players from a retired D&D 3.5 setting asked that I try to resuscitate - I refused to keep running campaigns in the various D&D systems. It was an interesting exercise, because I had psionics as a mysterious, almost unknown sort of 'magic' from a far off human realm.

In the RM version of the world, all cultures/races have Channeling of various flavors. Elves tend to focus on Arcane magic. Main human campaign area uses Essence and Channeling heavily. Soon-to-be-encountered alternate human civilization is Mentalist-based with some Channeling. Dwarves stick almost exclusively to Channeling. Players can choose to be something different in any of these, but it costs background picks.

I like the use of Spacemaster Psionics instead of Mentalism mentioned above. May have to dig out my old SM books...

[markc]

mnemnoth,
 Thanks for the first post.
MDC

[Arioch]

Welcome mnemnoth!
I'd be interested to hear your ideas on corruption/grace, I've attempted many times to write rules on magical corruption for my setting, but I'm never satisfied with the result 

[mnemnoth]

Thanks for the welcome!

I will see if I can summarize the Essence and Channeling versions and send it to you as a Message. It would be painfully long as a post in this thread.

If others want a thread that starts with a long post, I suppose I could do a new thread on each (they are very different systems) rather than highjack this one.

[sulkow82]

Hello,
In my world, I basically use the realms of magic as stated.  However, I do develop in areas where I can see a cross over of different parts of the game.  The one example, in my game, which stands out for me is mithril.

I use laylines and nodes.  However, they are not static.  They undulate and bounce up and down (between the surface and the planet core).  One full cycle can take tens of thousands of years to complete.  However, when they pass through a pocket of silver and expose it to magic over thousands of years, the exposure converts the metal to a version of mithril.

Also, nodes and its ilk are a form of radiation.  The element being exposed to the magic so long actually shifts a portion of the matter into another dimension.  There, it is extremely dense (and therefore strong).  However, since the bulk is not in the material dimension, it appears light as a feather.  Exposure to this radiation (and thus natural selection favoring the resistant individuals) is why dwarfs have the bonus resistance to magic that they do.