Trappings of a spell [Archive] - Wizards Community

Trappings of a spell [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
therationalpi
08-17-07, 12:19 PM My current system for spells on my wizard involves writing the spell information on a notecard. That way I can flip through my spell book quickly and physically track my active, memorized, and known spells. It's a very good system, but I have been left with a ton of space on the back of my card and nothing to do with it.

Why not use it to add depth to my roleplay?

As long as I'm remembering every detail about the rule of a spell, I may as well include the trappings of the spell. What magic words complete the spell? What hand gestures are included? What does the spell look like?

That brings me to the real meaty question of my post. What do magic words and gestures in D&D actually look and sound like? If I was to approximate them in our speech would it sound like latin (as in Harry Potter), or perhaps like reversed speech, or speaking in tongues. Should I use elven for the verbal components of spells?

One possibility I was entertaining was implying who made the spell and then choosing magic words based on that. For example...
"Grease was a spell originally crafted by clever human wizards. As such, its final phrase is 'deny friction' spoken in the common tongue."
or
"Shield was developed by elven mages in an early attempt to use abjuration for martial purposes. The final phrase of the spell is 'Vara tel' Seldarine,' which means 'Protection' in elven."
Terjon of the Blue Rose
08-18-07, 12:39 AM Its an interesting concept for spell language. I would generally avoid common but beyond that it may be that spells can be recited in any language and you use the one you initially learned it in. You may even use your own native tongue. As for somatic components I always envisioned them as short precise movements. Magic missle requires only a hand held foward but the placement of the fingers and their height and distance must be excrutiatingly accurate.
Fithero
08-18-07, 02:05 AM Draconic, infernal, abyssal... these would have some pretty heavy roles in the wording of spells.

But when i think of spell casting, i dont think saying something like reductus chrono will cast a haste spell (or slow, or whatever it would be). I always picture it as just stringing a bunch of gibberish together which causes the spell to be cast...

otherwise anyone can just come up and if they manage to pronounce the word correctly, the spell gets triggered :eek: not good!

We'd have a hordes of barely literate barbarians running round yelling infernus flamus (fire ball... or something)

My two cents.

Good idea though.

Peace
BronzeBeard
08-18-07, 12:27 PM Well, depends - what IS actually magic? what is arcane magic? what is divine magic?
You should really think about those things.

Personally, I reckon that each items, each person, each thing in the world has some amount of magic in it. This can be describe as one describe how atoms build up an object. And only spellcasters know how to shape the potential of this energy's. This explains, why not anyone can do magic and knowing the words of the spell will not let you to actually cast the spell (hence the existence of silent spell feat and the like).

This idea came to me after reading duo of books about Raistlin & Caramon Majere from dragonlance, named "The Soulforge" & "Brothers in Arms" where you get to experience Raistlin learning wizardry (and also how he acquires the Eschew Materials feat). I greatly recommend.
I also suggest you take a peek at the "Complete"s series for enlightenment about this subject.

BUT! If you are lazy from everything that I wrote, I could offer you this:
Open up that awesome game of either Baldor's gate or Icewind dale. There you can see some examples of magic been done (words and visual effects)
:p

Also, Fithero is right. You can, IMHO, use almost any languages as to the words that are sounded while casting.
Yours
BB
Lukasa
08-18-07, 03:59 PM I like this idea - I'd actually developed it in parallel for my Aasimar Cleric. I thought of it this way: the PHB specifies that no spellcaster can read another's magic writings as easily as that spellcaster. That implies a certain level of personalisation. So I decided that spell components, as spell appearance, are non-standard (Material and Focus being the exception).

As they are personal, they should reflect the character. For instance, my Aasimar Cleric's Verbal Components are predominantly Celestial based, with influences of Draconic (because Draconic should always feature in spellcasting. IMHO). Happily, as the PHB specifies that there is more to spellcasting than simply saying the words (forceful, etc.), the individual words only make sense to me.

As for somatic components, I always feel that they should reflect the nature of the spell. For instance, for my Heal, it required a very firm but slow placement of both hands upon a character. Conversely, Ethereal Jaunt involved my character's gesturing in a manner that appears to be physically pushing the plane apart. My only guidelines with these are that Divine somatic components should be relatively simple and Arcane ones complex, to take into account the fact that Divine components have no spell failure.
hovnarr
08-18-07, 04:18 PM Open up that awesome game of either Baldor's gate or Icewind dale. There you can see some examples of magic been done (words and visual effects)

QFT. Baldur's Gate II has forever effected my idea of D&D magic, and yes - it is the latin, Harry Potterish version (actually, I assume Rowling simply added wands to D&D magic, considering which came first). But hey, it works, and it's how most of us think magic would sound/look.

Plus, it's cool. When someone casts haste in a game I'm in, I immediately hear "GREYSEE... AALIAH" as if it was only yesterday that I ran around in Suldanesselar and swatted golems. "Vita mortis charion!" and "Incantus potentis PAH!" are classics. IIRC, BGII had one sound/effect for every school of magic, plus additional spell specific effects for certain spells.

All who see a smoky, white, inverted pentacle every time a wizard casts Dimension Door, say "aye".

Also, don't hesitate to take a look a real life magic, incantations and occultism for inspiration. Real world myth is the source of all things D&D after all.
EpicEvokerElf
08-18-07, 10:20 PM Vortanu, fortigyamar! Neverwinter Nights too.
therationalpi
08-19-07, 12:10 AM Thanks for the input everyone. I think I'm going to make the verbal components be primarily draconic. It fits well with my character, magic in general, and the "dracocentric" campaign setting we are using.

Oh, and another thing in favor of people having unique verbal components, from a game mechanics perspective. When a character casts a spell we are required to make spellcraft checks to recognize the spell being cast. Were it so simple as specific words being linked to an effect, your character would need know little more than what words they were. However, even if someone is casting a spell you can cast, there is a chance you won't recognize it. This seems to me to support that spells are very much open to interpretation.
Fithero
08-19-07, 07:45 AM that could actually be something to look into.

Good spell casters could use celestial to cast spells while evil casters could use infernal and abyssal.

That would leave draconic for neutral?

If would add a certain amount of flavour to your casters, your casting the same spell but using a different langauge to do it. Would make a good vs. evil spell battle interesting.

Fighter (to the goodly mage): "Wiltim! What spell is the lich casting at us?"

Wiltim: "I dont know! I can't understand a word he's sayin!"

You could even have it that learning the other alignments languages is forbidden (by a mage academy for example)

Ill have to look into this

Cheers! :D
fog5991
08-20-07, 08:45 PM You guys have some interesting ideas. You Skipped druids though! They could use Sylvan or the like though, i just dont know a book that bits of that langue in it.

Any way i was posting because it occured to me that for divine casters, the diety being worshipped could also influence your words and gestures. I say this because i was reading some were that cantrips and 1st level spells you get for believing, 2nd-4th level spells are handed out by angels and the like associated with the diety, 5th-7th by demigods of that diety and then 8 and 9 by mordin- or who ever- him self.
So to me, it seems like a god of healing and light, like pelor for example, and one of death like nerull (sorry my player handbook isnt around to check spelling) would have different words and gestures.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
therationalpi 08-17-07, 12:19 PM	My current system for spells on my wizard involves writing the spell information on a notecard. That way I can flip through my spell book quickly and physically track my active, memorized, and known spells. It's a very good system, but I have been left with a ton of space on the back of my card and nothing to do with it. Why not use it to add depth to my roleplay? As long as I'm remembering every detail about the rule of a spell, I may as well include the trappings of the spell. What magic words complete the spell? What hand gestures are included? What does the spell look like? That brings me to the real meaty question of my post. What do magic words and gestures in D&D actually look and sound like? If I was to approximate them in our speech would it sound like latin (as in Harry Potter), or perhaps like reversed speech, or speaking in tongues. Should I use elven for the verbal components of spells? One possibility I was entertaining was implying who made the spell and then choosing magic words based on that. For example... "Grease was a spell originally crafted by clever human wizards. As such, its final phrase is 'deny friction' spoken in the common tongue." or "Shield was developed by elven mages in an early attempt to use abjuration for martial purposes. The final phrase of the spell is 'Vara tel' Seldarine,' which means 'Protection' in elven."
Terjon of the Blue Rose 08-18-07, 12:39 AM	Its an interesting concept for spell language. I would generally avoid common but beyond that it may be that spells can be recited in any language and you use the one you initially learned it in. You may even use your own native tongue. As for somatic components I always envisioned them as short precise movements. Magic missle requires only a hand held foward but the placement of the fingers and their height and distance must be excrutiatingly accurate.
Fithero 08-18-07, 02:05 AM	Draconic, infernal, abyssal... these would have some pretty heavy roles in the wording of spells. But when i think of spell casting, i dont think saying something like reductus chrono will cast a haste spell (or slow, or whatever it would be). I always picture it as just stringing a bunch of gibberish together which causes the spell to be cast... otherwise anyone can just come up and if they manage to pronounce the word correctly, the spell gets triggered :eek: not good! We'd have a hordes of barely literate barbarians running round yelling infernus flamus (fire ball... or something) My two cents. Good idea though. Peace
BronzeBeard 08-18-07, 12:27 PM	Well, depends - what IS actually magic? what is arcane magic? what is divine magic? You should really think about those things. Personally, I reckon that each items, each person, each thing in the world has some amount of magic in it. This can be describe as one describe how atoms build up an object. And only spellcasters know how to shape the potential of this energy's. This explains, why not anyone can do magic and knowing the words of the spell will not let you to actually cast the spell (hence the existence of silent spell feat and the like). This idea came to me after reading duo of books about Raistlin & Caramon Majere from dragonlance, named "The Soulforge" & "Brothers in Arms" where you get to experience Raistlin learning wizardry (and also how he acquires the Eschew Materials feat). I greatly recommend. I also suggest you take a peek at the "Complete"s series for enlightenment about this subject. BUT! If you are lazy from everything that I wrote, I could offer you this: Open up that awesome game of either Baldor's gate or Icewind dale. There you can see some examples of magic been done (words and visual effects) :p Also, Fithero is right. You can, IMHO, use almost any languages as to the words that are sounded while casting. Yours BB
Lukasa 08-18-07, 03:59 PM	I like this idea - I'd actually developed it in parallel for my Aasimar Cleric. I thought of it this way: the PHB specifies that no spellcaster can read another's magic writings as easily as that spellcaster. That implies a certain level of personalisation. So I decided that spell components, as spell appearance, are non-standard (Material and Focus being the exception). As they are personal, they should reflect the character. For instance, my Aasimar Cleric's Verbal Components are predominantly Celestial based, with influences of Draconic (because Draconic should always feature in spellcasting. IMHO). Happily, as the PHB specifies that there is more to spellcasting than simply saying the words (forceful, etc.), the individual words only make sense to me. As for somatic components, I always feel that they should reflect the nature of the spell. For instance, for my Heal, it required a very firm but slow placement of both hands upon a character. Conversely, Ethereal Jaunt involved my character's gesturing in a manner that appears to be physically pushing the plane apart. My only guidelines with these are that Divine somatic components should be relatively simple and Arcane ones complex, to take into account the fact that Divine components have no spell failure.
hovnarr 08-18-07, 04:18 PM	Open up that awesome game of either Baldor's gate or Icewind dale. There you can see some examples of magic been done (words and visual effects) QFT. Baldur's Gate II has forever effected my idea of D&D magic, and yes - it is the latin, Harry Potterish version (actually, I assume Rowling simply added wands to D&D magic, considering which came first). But hey, it works, and it's how most of us think magic would sound/look. Plus, it's cool. When someone casts haste in a game I'm in, I immediately hear "GREYSEE... AALIAH" as if it was only yesterday that I ran around in Suldanesselar and swatted golems. "Vita mortis charion!" and "Incantus potentis PAH!" are classics. IIRC, BGII had one sound/effect for every school of magic, plus additional spell specific effects for certain spells. All who see a smoky, white, inverted pentacle every time a wizard casts Dimension Door, say "aye". Also, don't hesitate to take a look a real life magic, incantations and occultism for inspiration. Real world myth is the source of all things D&D after all.
EpicEvokerElf 08-18-07, 10:20 PM	Vortanu, fortigyamar! Neverwinter Nights too.
therationalpi 08-19-07, 12:10 AM	Thanks for the input everyone. I think I'm going to make the verbal components be primarily draconic. It fits well with my character, magic in general, and the "dracocentric" campaign setting we are using. Oh, and another thing in favor of people having unique verbal components, from a game mechanics perspective. When a character casts a spell we are required to make spellcraft checks to recognize the spell being cast. Were it so simple as specific words being linked to an effect, your character would need know little more than what words they were. However, even if someone is casting a spell you can cast, there is a chance you won't recognize it. This seems to me to support that spells are very much open to interpretation.
Fithero 08-19-07, 07:45 AM	that could actually be something to look into. Good spell casters could use celestial to cast spells while evil casters could use infernal and abyssal. That would leave draconic for neutral? If would add a certain amount of flavour to your casters, your casting the same spell but using a different langauge to do it. Would make a good vs. evil spell battle interesting. Fighter (to the goodly mage): "Wiltim! What spell is the lich casting at us?" Wiltim: "I dont know! I can't understand a word he's sayin!" You could even have it that learning the other alignments languages is forbidden (by a mage academy for example) Ill have to look into this Cheers! :D
fog5991 08-20-07, 08:45 PM	You guys have some interesting ideas. You Skipped druids though! They could use Sylvan or the like though, i just dont know a book that bits of that langue in it. Any way i was posting because it occured to me that for divine casters, the diety being worshipped could also influence your words and gestures. I say this because i was reading some were that cantrips and 1st level spells you get for believing, 2nd-4th level spells are handed out by angels and the like associated with the diety, 5th-7th by demigods of that diety and then 8 and 9 by mordin- or who ever- him self. So to me, it seems like a god of healing and light, like pelor for example, and one of death like nerull (sorry my player handbook isnt around to check spelling) would have different words and gestures.