Freeform spells

     About this time last year I saw a post over on 19 Sided Die about freeform magic and building spells with lists of words. At the time I recall seeing a few people talking about doing that. In the past I've used Knave 2e to roll out names of spells and write them as DCC spells, like Animate Lump and Honey Cage. It's a pretty good exercise to get used to writing your own spells and if you home brew, I think you should give it a shot!

    Something else that post did was make me realize what I wanted to do for one of the Hodas Classes. One of my goals for the Hodas Zines is to make 3 class options for every race that still feel like they belong to that race, just different parts of it. The Fury, at the time, only had one version. So I home brewed out something with one of my players and we rolled some things on the Knave 2e table. The basic idea of the class was that you knew a few words in the language of the scribes who created the universe. This sort of "true speech" allowed you to tap into the leftover threads of creation and create magical effects. So a Fury Speaker became a class who traded the martial power of the fury for something more abstract, a system of magic that was a little more free form but much more consistent. They gained a limited number of words and I worked with the player to make the magical effects of each of their words. To give you an idea of what we did with our rolled words I'll share the player's list and what we decided together each of the effects would be!

 The Fury Speaker Niobe had the following words in her arsenal: Star, Sizzling, Thorn, Knot, Fish, Ox, Dazzling, & Leaf.

Niobe was only 2nd level and could only string together a maximum of  2 words for her magical effect.

 Sizzling: This was a short range attack that dealt a small amount of damage and burnt the target a little bit.

Knot: Tongue ties the target, making casting and speaking a little more difficult.

Thorn: Conjured a small weapon, comparable to a short sword

Star: Created a light source similar to a torch for a short time, could be carried and handed off.

Sizzling Star: A brand is placed on a target that deals damage each round, touch required.

Thorn Ox: Conjured a beast of burden measured in turns. small amount of HP, not able to fight.

Star Knot: Created a star shaped knot on bindings or rope, needs an int check to untie.

Dazzling Star: Creates a bright point of light that blinds and distracts.

Ox Leaf: creates a herb that, when consumed, adds +2d to a single strength check.

 

These are only a few examples of what Niobe's player came up with and I can only imagine what would happen when she got her ability to string together a third word. Maybe she would have had "Fish Leaf" create a coat of scales. Maybe she would have created "Sizzling Ox Knot" as a form of strong binding that deals damage while tying up foes. 

 

It turned out to be a class that required a lot of working directly with the player who had the class and I personally would be a little careful with allowing or make it clear with the player that they need to have a good number of chains worked out before the game starts. Running it made me realize that freeform spells like this should come with a disclaimer about how to manage this type of casting. I think when the Fury Zine comes out this is gonna be a section that has a lot of that zine is gonna be a little long with it's list of words and disclaimer.