Magic belongs to the monsters

I’m not going to say Fireball breaks the game — I mean, it does, and it’s awesome — but that’s not my problem with it.

My problem with magic in TTRPGs is that it’s often too mechanical. It lacks a mysterious, monstrous quality that makes magic…magical. Like the beasts and ghouls we hunt, it can’t be reasoned with or controlled.

Magic is more magical when it doesn’t fit in a spellbook, when it’s beyond mortal comprehension. In my games, magic is denied to all but the most worthy—and there are none of those around—or else paid for with flesh and soul.

And the greater the spell, the greater the price.

There are no classes or spell books in the Wenderweald. Magic belongs to the witch alone, and their cunning can spread to others, like a plague.

Their magic is terrible to behold but vital to survive in a world infested with elder evil and mutant freaks.

The toll of witchery

To make all this magic work — to make it mysterious, monstrous, and costly — I made my system that drains a character’s Spirit.

Spirit is an attribute similar to WIL in Cairn. It’s the battery for the witch’s spells. A witch can cast any spell they want by paying its Spirit cost, reducing their total Spirit by the amount indicated.

Here are some of my favorite spells so far

• Wychwake | Spirit 3 | Imbue a wychtree with a sliver of your soul. It wakes and walks for 1d4 hours.

• Ferment | Spirit 5 | Look at someone close to you and ferment their blood. Inflict d6 harm every minute.

• Ride the Pestilence | Spirit 3 | Transform into a swarm of flies and teleport up to 100 feet away.

There are no spell slots or daily limits. A witch can cast as many spells as they like and even drain their Spirit to 0…but they’ll corrupt their soul.

Corruption

When your Spirit is 0, you’re half-dead and half-alive. Your soul is cloven from your body — feed for the haints, granting new magic beyond your limit.

Instead of paying Spirit, you add corruption to your inventory as if it were an item. This works just like wounds in Knave or fatigue in Cairn. When you’re full up, you’re dead, and your soul belongs to the haints at last.

Each corruption morphs your flesh and soul more.

To avoid that hellish end, witches must rely on more than spells. They need weapons of their own.

Hexed weapons

I struggle to understand what makes a weapon magical enough to confer a +1 bonus. Did Faenor make it? Did some meddling god dip in the Styx? And if it’s so damn magical, how’d these witless trolls end up with it?

I’m all for a magical weapon — Excalibur, Mjölinir, The Spear of Longinus: these formed an impression on me as a kid. Glamdring the Foe Hammer hangs just above my desk.

What I loved about these magical weapons is their weighty history and the mysteries of where they went after their last wielder finally dropped them.

That breaks down for me when magical weapons become ubiquitous. It diffuses the very magic that makes them more than tools.

So, my magical weapons are bonded by blood (and sometimes hair) to the witches who made them. Like the witch, they rot, fade, and die over time.

They’re not meant to be shared or sold or carried down ancestral lines. They are made for a blood price to exact vengeance. They’re traps and poisons and as heartshots against those lucky or blessed or fool enough to carry those legendary weapons.

There are Exaliburs and Mjölnirs in the Wenderweald, of course, but the wicked and zealous wield them. The witch is forced to make do with what they have: hexed weapons.

Hexed weapons enhance the witch’s spells, extend their Spirit battery, or else draw on the Spirit of others around them like a sponge. They take form as farm tools, as skulls, as twigs and twine. They hide in plain sight, beyond the notice of those mighty heroes who oppress them.

S’just a peat shovel, m’lord. I swear it.

Magic in Wenderweald is not for the faint of heart. It’s a festering wound on the face of the world.

Join me on Discord for play-test materials

The Wenderweald is growing, and we’re making weird witchy stuff over on Discord.

I’ll be sharing Wenderweald playtest materials over there in the coming weeks.

Until then, watch for the Wenderweald watching.

—Odinson