OSR and writing magic in DnD

You might enjoy Brandon Sanderson's "The Emperor's Soul," the story of Wan ShaiLu, a forger-magic user who had a hundred days to create a soul for an injured emperor. Shai worked her magic by making a "soul stamp" of the emperor's life. Sanderson's inspiration was seeing "chops" on ancient works of Chinese art.

[left image from USF Mediazine]

It got me thinking - chops might be a wonderful way to stamp spells in arcane scrolls. For example, in a lake country far from TenKeep, I know a magic user - Shakey Cat - who's got a problem with memory. He might remember spells by stamping chops!

Shakey's got a new spell for seeing underwater - the "duckeye" spell - a second level magic user spell he created. I was thinking about his chop and how he'd remember.

Maybe a stamp's just as good as remembering? The new spell creates second eyelids in the caster and for three turns, perfect underwater vision. We'll have to see!

Sanderson's novella is lots of fun, as is his idea of magical chops!

Thanks for reading.


 


 




Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 13, 2024 at 6:58 PM

    It is interesting, writing spells in known languages is risky--the wrong person could read them. Visual cues that are meaningful to the creator, but don't "spell it out" seem safer. Arnosto needs to work on his spell book.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousJanuary 20, 2024 at 6:57 PM

      For sure, I needed something for Shakey, who forgets a lot! I'm looking forward to seeing what Arnosto's spell book. I know how much he wants to meet a higher level magic user and have a good plan for learning something new!

      Delete

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