Spell Slots as Hit Point Abstractions

Spell slots are limited. This is primarily for game reasons; the wizard cannot cast fireball more than X times a day, because if they could, people with swords would cease to matter, and that's not good for the game. But let's pretend that isn't the main reason and come up with a narrative reason, and thus maybe a new mechanic, for why Spell Slots exist.

By Seb McKinnon.

The Force of Magic

What laymen call magic - that is, the casting of spells, the working of rituals, and other such supernatural powers - is a deeply personal thing. Not just on the mental level, but on the physical as well. To cast a spell is to turn one's body into a channel for something utterly paranormal; to let something leave you and rearrange the world before you. This is an idea that many have discussed in a philosophy called the River & the Rain. 

The River is the actual force flowing through the spellcaster. It is that eldritch momentum that ignites a fireball in a perfect vacuum or that polymorphs a griffon's body into a comatose mouse.

The Rain is the greater force that the spellcaster is calling on. It is a metaphysical concept, an energy that permeates everything, the stuff that keeps the universe expanding, the noosphere too, and that ideas generate when conjured forth.

Together, the River & the Rain make up the force of magic. The more of the rain you can call upon to flow into your river, the more force the river has, or in other words, the spell you are casting becomes all the more powerful. This is a tangible thing. It can and has been measured by cabals of arcane workers, by congregations of divine priests, by circles of druids hidden in the hill and mist. This is, mechanically, what a spell level is. Call it a Spell of the 1st Circle if you want, or a Miracle of the 1st Order, or whatever name you can conjure forth. It all means the same thing: spell level.

And if a spell's level is tangible to the amount of force that the spell produces, and if this force is a river flowing through the spellcaster, then it is only natural that there are many limitations to spells - as many as their are limitations of the physical form.

For example, a human's max recorded jump height is 63.5 inches - a little over 5 ft or 161 cm. It stands to reason that, with little variation, a human cannot possibly jump higher than that; their biology will not allow it. So then is it true that a human can only cast spells so strong due to their own biological limit. It is a limit that can be raised with training, yes, but it is a limit nonetheless. And just as a human cannot jump their max height an infinite number of times, neither can the spellcaster cast their spells an infinite number either. Thus, spell slots.

Let's first translate this to some more interesting narrative concepts, and then see what it leads too mechanically.

By Jakub Bazyluk. A spellcaster violently letting the River flow for a spell.

Magical Exhaustion

As the River flows so too does the spellcaster's body suffer wear and tear. Their neurons, during the casting of a spell, are firing on every possible cylinder. The complex network of bacteria, fungi, and cells that makes up a living being are all, for that moment, uniting their potential to one specific purpose. Such effort does not go unpunished. Eventually, a spell caster will expend all of their spell slots and be left with just their own, natural, mortal selves.

What does this look like? It is different, yet always the same. A feeling that one's heart is beating slower - that their blood is thinner than it was before - that their stomach cannot digest food or liquid. Thinking is done through a haze as memories are rebuilt and personality traits reestablished by the previously overloaded mind. It will feel like your nails are loose in their cuticles; like your bones are only barely attached to their joints.

In other words, it is not a pleasant feeling. Not like being exhausted, but similar, thus its simple term of being magically exhausted. No spellcaster likes it. Many avoid casting their last spell so that they can avoid this state. In games where they only get one or two spells a day at early levels, it is a state frequent. In exchange for being able to blow a door open or warp someone's perception of you, you just feel like abject shit.

Below, a d12 table. Roll on it when you spend your last spell slot. This effect is lost when you regain any spell slots. These effects are in addition to the above description.

1. Your eyes are weakened; you see low detail versions of everything around you.
2. You lose all sense of temperature except for a spreading, extreme heat inside of you.
3. You vomit immediately, and can keep no food or liquid down for long.
4. Memories of specific things, such as people's names, your favorite color, or the name of where you are disappear.
5. Your personality is eroded, leaving you bland, neutral, and unimpressed with things around you.
6. Natural instincts like fear, pain, and anger are gone, significantly mellowing your reactions.
7. When others look at you, they forget what you look like, sound like, or act like the moment they look away.
8. Your name is damaged; others can only remember and refer to you as either the first or last letter of your name.
9. Non-magical things that you touch sometimes slip through your fingers as if they were never there.
10. Your thoughts leak out of your head and into others around you.
11. A magical, aurora-glowing sweat drips off of you and rises as steam too. Whatever it touches - clothing, grass, other's skin - it steals away its color.
12. You continuously cry, though these tears you shed are more akin to blood than anything else.

A night's rest, a week's rest, whatever your rest is allows your body to heal, and thus the magical exhaustion ends.

Exhaustion serves as a way to note that you are growing stronger. Magical exhaustion is no different. Eventually, your ability to let flow greater rivers for longer duration will mean that magical exhaustion is harder and harder to come by. And just as muscles grow visibly larger, a spellcaster grows a greater presence the more powerful they become.

By Seb McKinnon.
Magical Exhaustion is similar to feeling as if you are fading away, mist in the sun.

Eldritch Presence

Eldritch Presence is the concept coined that shows how powerful a spellcaster is. It is an aura about them - a non-visible force that is felt in the minds of those close. The higher the spell level that the caster can cast, the more powerful their Eldritch Presence is.

It feels like looking at a sky where stormclouds are just creeping on the horizon. Like looking around and seeing a gentle wind pick at the trees and grass as the grey above grows ever darker. A gravity that does not pull you inwards,and a force that does not push you away but that threatens almost innocently. It sets your hairs on fire, waves of goosebumps racing from shoulder to hand. Cats will bristle if this force is malignant. Your hair will stick to your head, as if you are sweating. Glass fogs, blades become sharper, colors more vivid. Most noticeably of all, your thoughts will race. Faster and faster will you think as if something was empowering your mind in ways never before felt. Like an adderall drop, a hit of speed.

These effects are slight for neophytes. Even for those well-versed, able to cast magics entering into the third, fourth, fifth levels can they be written off by the ignorants who know not what Eldritch Presence is. But beyond that, it is tangible. It is a pressure. It makes the commons bow to the wizard, the king sit more rightly in their throne, the guards ever more guarded.

Hard it is to put a range on such an effect. The range is your sight. If you can see a powerful spellcaster, you can feel their Eldritch Presence. If they are close enough to you that you can hear their voice then you are close enough to feel their strength.

This is why dragons, demons, angels, and all other manner of superior creatures can confidently stare down a battalion of soldiers and not be harmed. So great is their Eldritch Presence that it halves the force of sword swings, makes arrows miss wide. Force field of Rain. Armor of Power.

And if this is how it feels to hold magic, and if magic protects you from certain death, then so too can magic be seen similar at hit points - abstraction of life as it is.

Guild Wars concept art.
Strong Eldritch Presence can even make others perceive you as something beyond mortal.

Spell Slots as HP

Spellcasting characters no longer have hit points. They instead have spell slots. If they are a half-caster (ranger, paladin) they are uniquely equipped, as now they have their starting hit points and their spell slots to protect them.

When a creature/character (hereafter referred too just as a creature) would suffer damage while having at least 1 unspent spell slot, they instead take no damage unless the damage die rolls either its max number or is above 6 + the amount of spell slots unspent, whichever is higher.

Example: if a 1d8 longsword attack is made against a wizard with 1 spell slot, the longsword needs a 7 (6 + 1) or 8 (max number) to hit. If the wizard has 2 spell slots, only an 8 will hit. If a 3, only a 9, thus requiring a modifier of some sort to deal damage.

If the damage meets one of these two criteria, the spell slot is lost.

If a creature is Magically Exhausted (no spell slots), any damage die rolled against it knocks the spellcaster out and either kills them or leaves them dying, depending on your exact ruleset. If they have hit points, then those instead are effected until the same situation occurs.

This makes magic-users more difficult to kill if they are completely fresh, but essentially makes them nothing better than dead meat if they are out of spell slots. Resource management is all the more difficult now, as you are spending hit points. It will become important for a spellcaster to find a way to regain spell slots more quickly, if not at least temporarily, in order to stave off death for just a while longer. But it also empowers spellcasters when fresh to take on big risks. They can match the great warrior in a duel so long as they allow the River to flow free and to flow hard.

By Seb McKinnon.
Even a little girl, enriched with magic, is mighty as the armored soldier.

Temporary Spell Slots

The following methods can be used to regain temporary spell slots; that is, spell slots that disappear when your normal spell slots are regained. You cannot have more temporary spell slots then you have maximum spell slots.

Places of Power, such as shrines, altars, magical lairs, old arcane battlefields, moonless nights with the right constellations, etc etc, can be meditated in for 10 minutes, regaining 1d4 spell slots. 

Rituals & Sacrifices if you are a divine/miracle caster can be done in the name of your Power/Divinity, allowing you to regain 1 temporary spell slot per miracle you know.

Eldritch Cannibalism can be done on a creature with Eldritch Presence. Drinking a dragon's blood or eating a captured pixie will give you 1 temporary spell slot per HD the creature has.

Contracts & Pacts & Deals can be made with a creature with Eldritch Presence. In exchange for a favor, they lose 1 spell slot and you gain 1 temporary spell slot. They cannot regain their spell slot until you lose your temporary one. Temporary spell slots gained this way are added on top of your maximum spell slots and do not disappear when you regain spell slots, instead only disappearing when the favor is completed or you die.

Various esoteries, like blue goldstones, opals with polished fire, or the tears of a heartbroken siren can be used similar to health potions, granting 1 temporary spell slot.

By Seb McKinnon.
The River can flow from one to another in pacts and rituals.

Cantrips & Other Outliers

In some games and traditions, spellcasters have access to cantrips - low level magicks that require little effort to use. If you can cast cantrips, you are using your Eldritch Presence to shape reality in a minor way around you. Even when Magically Exhausted does a spellcaster have at least a little presence, and thus can cast cantrips. Cantrips have no bearing on a spellcaster's hit point abstractions.

In some games and traditions, spellcasters eventually can learn to cast a low level spell as if it were a cantrip. This is a feat of great power. If you can only cast a single spell like this, treat it as if it were a cantrip. But, if you are, say, a demon with multiple at will spells, your Eldritch Presence is never truly diminished. The only thing that can kill you is a magical weapon of some sort or a spell being used to destroy you when your limited spell slots are spent. Mortal forces cannot.

By Seb McKinnon.
No steel nor arrow will kill that with Presence Eldritch as This.

COMMANDMENT: Magic-User Spells Based Off Egyptian + Mesopotamian + Grecian Magic

Magic-Users in COMMANDMENT are different than those in classical OD&D. Their magics stems from the cultural mythologies of Mesopotamia, ancient Greece, and Egypt. They were not casting spells like light or hold portal. As useful as these may be while traversing a world Iron-plagued and rotting away, those are not the tools these magicians had.

A future post will be done for Cleric spells, as they are things dictated by omens, celestial events, and long prayers. Meanwhile, Magic-User spells are those sorceries learned by mankind from sphinx and spirit.

Below, 36 spells are offered for any game, really, if you want to add some spice to a warlock's life. Keep in mind all spells require a save vs Wands (or whatever your magic save is in your game). Research for these spells was done through a smattering of historical sources, none more valuable than Egpytian Magic by E. A. Wallis Budge. These spells are not intended to be 1 for 1 recreations of Egyptian/Mesopotamian magic, but instead spells inspired by these folklores.

Likely in the future, I'll turn a bunch of folk magic from these books, as well as key spells from the original MU spell list into enchanted items or potions. Easy treasure, really.

Note: " indicates multiply # by 10. So 1" is 10 feet

by Yeve Drovossekova

FIRST LEVEL

1. Anointed Skull's Midnight Whispers
2. Bare the Slave's Heart
3. Gift Them Their Misfortune
4. Nail to Them the Nomad's Curse
5. Tongue that Dream-Speaks
6. Ward the Evil Eye

SECOND LEVEL

1. Beget the Nest of Crowns
2. Blind the Readers of These Spells
3. Dusk that Settles On Mud
4. Keep Dead the Dead
5. Move the Warlord's Statue
6. To this Point, Bring the East

THIRD LEVEL

1. Exorcise the Hated Evil
2. Gather Forth All the World's Waves
3. Loosen Soul
4. Set Loose the Crocodiles
5. Spreading of the Repelling Minerals
6. Transfigure Dust to Vermin

FOURTH LEVEL

1. Block of Slaughter
2. From the Heaven's Eye, See Sin
3. Mold the Waxen Sacrifice
4. Paint a Curse Upon the Tomb
5. Passage Through the Underworld 
6. Ruin That which Ruins Me

FIFTH LEVEL

1. Evil Eye
2. Fashion the Chimera
3. Favor
4. Rule
5. Upon Me I Bestow the Strength of the Dead
6. Walk Again, Those Countless Dead

SIXTH LEVEL

1. Chain One's Fate to a Demon's Own
2. Destiny, Rewritten
3. Idols of Bestial Gods
4. In the Clay Container, Life Reborn
5. Serve
6. Unluck of the Doomsday

by Bartlomiej Gawel

Anointed Skull's Midnight Whispers (1st Level)

After anointing an undamaged skull in droplets of water from the Godsblood, hide it in a place where neither sun nor moon nor starlight will ever touch it. Upon casting this spell, the skull will begin to whisper. Said whispers ooze from you. Anything that is hostile towards you within 1" is terrorized by the whispers until they leave said radius. A creature terrorized can only commit simple acts, such as running, screaming, or untrained attacks. The morning after this spell is cast, the skull is destroyed and the spell ends.

Bare the Slave's Heart (1st Level)

Take the preserved heart of a slave and wrap it in hempen cord when you cast this spell. The next creature who touches this heart barehanded will become a slave to the spell's caster until the heart is destroyed or the magic dispelled. A slave will not do anything to harm itself or any friends it has, but will perform any manner of menial task for its master. An undead creature, or anything that is barbarous, will be immune to this enchantment.

Beget the Nest of Crowns (2nd Level)

Affix upon your brow a crown of twigs and feathers as a part of casting this spell. Birds without number will then cloud the heavens above and descend. All within 60" is considered obscured, ranged missiles will not hit their marks, no one can move more than 1" per round, and all sound is drowned by their chirping. These birds swarm until somehow killed en masse or dispelled. This spell is useless in doors.

Block of Slaughter (4th Level)

Slice your hand open with a ceremonial dagger and take 1d6 damage when you cast this spell. Point your hand towards a creature that can see it. Said creature will exert all of its efforts to kill as many creatures as it can other than you during the next 6 rounds.

Blind the Readers of These Spells (2nd Level)

Upon your spell book, light incense when you cast this spell. When someone attempts to decipher your spell book, or attempts to cast a spell that lets them do so, they will be blinded for 1d6 days time. Even a creature with no training in magick trying to read your spellbook will fall victim to this spell. After 1 creature is cursed in this manner, the spellbook is no longer protected.

Chain One's Fate to a Demon's Own (6th Level)

You must know the true name of a demon to cast this spell. You must also anoint a creature in strange oil as a part of this spell's casting. The anointed creature is possessed with a demon whose true name you announce. The demon will lie sleeping within the anointed creature. Should the creature ever die, the demon shall be released to do battle with all that is hostile towards you until it is slain or banished.

 by Eugene Medvediev

Destiny, Rewritten (6th Level)

As a part of this spell's casting you must know the birth place of a creature within 10". The creature's birth place is changed, and thus its entire life path is changed. The creature's memories are rewritten, as is their personality and alignment, and they disappear, reappearing somewhere else in the world.

Dusk that Settles On Mud (2nd Level)

Sprinkle the dust of a black ore onto clay, mud, soil, brick, limestone, or any other earthen substance. It will turn into constricting, hard, black metal and shrink slowly in size. A 1" x 1" x 1" area of earth can be enchanted in this way. After 1 round, it will have shrunken down to the size of a pebble.

Evil Eye (5th Level)

When you cast this spell, one of your eyes goes blind. A creature that you look upon when you cast this spell is cursed by the evil eye. You can see what it sees through one of its eyes, but only see, not hear, feel, or hear thoughts. At the end of every day, the creature must roll 1d20. On a 1, the die size reduces. When the die size reduces below a 1d4, the creature dies, and sight is returned to your blind eye.

Exorcise the Hated Evil (3rd Level)

Grab the throat of a barbarous or possessed creature and press a polished opal to its forehead. Pull the opal back, and all evil from the creature will exit it in the form of black, ichor-filled vomit. Afterwards, if the creature was barbarous or possessed, it is no more. Likewise, if the creature was cursed, it is cursed no more.

Fashion the Chimera (5th Level)

Take the body of a dead man and lay the corpse of an animal upon it. Only then may you cast this spell. The two bodies fuse in a way of your choosing. The new creature is risen as a chimera that will faithfully serve you. It has as many HD as you do, and has one aspect of the animal that it is fused with, such as an eagle's wings, a lion's claws, or a shark's water breath. If the chimera is ever exorcised, it dies instantly.

Favor (5th Level)

This is one of the words of power. Utter it, and one creature whose hand you hold will be able to cast any 1 spell you have memorized. Once cast, they will be compelled by fate to do you a single favor.

From the Heaven's Eye, See Sin (4th Level)

Stare into the sun when you cast this spell and do not look away until you wish it to end. While staring into the sun, you shall see anything that the sun could see, in any part of the word. You can see it as close as if you were currently 10" above ground. At night, this spell does naught, and it cannot be used in doors.

Gather Forth All the World's Waves (3rd Level)

Lift your hands and sing to all the seas you cannot sea. A 3" radius of space around you is filled with churning, crashing waves of white-crested green water. Creatures in the water begin to drown, and thus can not speak or cast spells. If they fail their save, they are picked up and moved to random locations, taking a number of damage dice equal to your levels at the end of every round. Thus, at 6th level, they will take 6d6 damage, and at 7th, they will take 7d6 damage. After 1 round, the waves dissipate, returning to their distant homes.

Gift Them Their Misfortune (1st Level)

When you are missing hit points, suffer 1 damage as you smear the wound with bewitched ointments of your own make. Then smear the blood-oil produced on another creature. It will lose twice the hit points you have lost.

Idols of Bestial Gods (6th Level)

You must have fashioned from clay an animal the size of a small hut before casting this spell. This spell is cast on this the idol. The idol turns into a flesh-and-blood version of itself, intelligent, sentient, and speaking all languages. It has HD equal to your total levels + 5. It will serve you loyally as a sage or as a warrior. It has 9 thac0 and deals 3d6 damage with its attacks. The animal has all the traits of whatever animal you sculpted it after. When it dies, is dispelled, or is exorcised, it turns into clay and shatters.

by Victoria Dame

In the Clay Container, Life Reborn (6th Level)

You must have access to the corpse of a creature with its head attached before you can cast this spell. As a part of the casting, cover the corpse in clay. The next round, the creature will be reborn, healed of all ailments and wounds. 

Keep Dead the Dead (2nd Level)

Gather the blood of a wounded creature and imbibe it when you cast this spell. The creature cannot ever be brought back from the dead, as its body will turn to sour soil upon death, unfit for the hosting of a soul.

Loosen Soul (3rd Level)

Work a short ceremony that loosens your soul from your body. It remains so for 6 rounds. While your soul is loosened, it can slip out of your body and move up to 2" away, sliding through walls or doors. You see and hear whatever is within the same area or space as your soul.

Mold the Waxen Sacrifice (4th Level)

Present a waxen figure you have made as a part of casting this spell. Affix to the figure via nail a piece of another living creature. Whatever the figure feels so too will the living creature, though it will suffer no other ill effects from the figure's defacing. 10 times may the figure be manipulated before this spell ends.

Move the Warlord's Statue (2nd Level)

A statue of animated stone constructs itself. It stands twice your height and is decorated and painted to mimic that of a famed warlord. It will follow in your footsteps indefinitely, or until you command it to take a single action. If that action is to attack, it will deal 5d6 damage to that which fails its save. If that action is to defend, it will absorb the damage from the next attack launched upon its ward. If is to lift, it will lift one thing weighing 10,000 gold coins or less. After any of these acts, it will turn into mud and disintegrate.

Nail to Them the Nomad's Curse (1st Level)

Write upon papyrus the wrongs a creature has committed and nail them to its home or lair. For every wrong written, the creature will be unable to return to its home and unable to rest anywhere else. At the dawn of every day, one of the wrong's disappears. Creatures who are unable to rest due to this curse take 1d6 damage at the dawn of every day, and they cannot rest to regain hit points.

Paint a Curse Upon the Tomb (4th Level)

As a part of this spell, drench an object in the same paints used to adorn the tombs of god-kings and god-queens. Any creature that takes the object other than you is curs'd. Said creature rolls twice on all die rolls and takes the worse result. If this would result in a failure for any reason, the creature suffers 1d6 damage. This curse persists until somehow dispelled, or if the curs'd object is destroyed by fire.

Passage Through the Underworld (4th Level)

Cover your ears and close your eyes as a part of this spell's casting. Then, walk forward. Your body will descend underground, to a place no living or undead creature may follow. The following round, appear anywhere within 36" of your original location (up or down). You know exactly where you will go. When you emerge, one ghost emerges with you, and will aggressively haunt wherever you appear.

Ruin That which Ruins Me (4th Level)

You can cast this spell only when you die. That which kills you dies for 1 round, resurrecting after that round with hit points equal to its total hit dice.

Rule (5th Level) 

This is one of the words of power. Utter it and a legion of 20 6th level fighting-men (Myrmidons) will gather to you in 1d4 days. They will be loyal to you for one battle, after which they will disperse randomly into the world.

By Ian Barker

Serve (6th Level)

You utter a word of power. This utterance forces the world to serve you. You can use this spell to part water up to 10" deep, or lower the water level of a body of water by 50%. You can create weather of any kind, or raise up great walls 10" tall and 50" wide. Casting this spell allows only one of these feats to be achieved.

Set Loose the Crocodiles (3rd Level)

A moat 2" deep, 1" wide, and with a radius 3" away from you is suddenly carved into the earth and filled with water. If these dimensions cannot be met, then the moat tears through any non-magical obstructions to form itself. Inside of the moat, countless crocodiles. Creatures who attempt to swim or leap across must save or take 1d6 damage as they are pulled in. Creatures in the moat cannot move, and take 3d6 damage every turn until they save and can swim out. 

Spreading of the Repelling Minerals (3rd Level)

Scatter minerals strange and esoteric as a part of this spell's casting. A magical zone is created 10" by 10" by 10" in size. Any and all metal objects are thrown out of it with haste, as are weapons made of stone or bone, over the next 4 rounds.

To This Point, Bring the East! (2nd Level)

Take a stone stele and affix it into a point of your choosing when you cast this spell. The next creature that attacks you within 10" of theis stele will be drawn to destroy it instead. The stele can take 1d6 hits before it is ruined.

Tongue that Dream-Speaks (1st Level)

Split your tongue with a bronze dagger and read aloud a text before you. You need not understand it or know the language, and you have 1 round with which to read. When you are done, sleep. In your dreams you will understand all that you read and wake with a tongue healed. This spell allows you to understand even the ciphered text of other spellbooks. 

Transfigure Dust into Vermin (3rd Level)

Motes of dust are turned into lice, rats, and scorpions around you. Point to a creature. The vermin swarm them, biting and gnawing, dealing damage equal to your levels. At 6th level, this will be 6d6 damage, and at 7th, 7d6, and so on. This damage continues until the target brings fire to the vermin, or the spell is dispelled.

by Marius Bota

Unluck of the Doomsday (6th Level)

Roll 1d20 when you cast this spell, and stare at the creature whom you are cursing. On that day, the creature must succeed on its save or die. If it has less then 20 hit points, it will die no matter what.

Upon Me I Bestow the Strength of the Dead (5th Level)

You may only cast this spell while having the skull of a 4th level fighting-man (Hero) or higher in your inventory. You gain their Strength score and skill at arms, as well as the ability to use a fighting-man's magical and non-magical armors, shields, and weapons, and their thac0 for 6 rounds. 

Walk Again, Those Countless Dead (5th Level)

To cast this spell, you must have a scrap of flesh from a dead man's face. Once cast, you call forth the dead to serve you. For the number of dead animated simply roll one die for every level above the 8th the Magic-User is, thus a "Sorcerer" gets one die or from 1-6 animated dead. Note that the skeletons or dead bodies must be available in order to animate them. The spell lasts until dispelled or the animated dead are done away with.

Ward the Evil Eye (1st Level)

Cover one eye in its entirety when you cast this spell. While covered, no one may target you with a spell, but will instead target the creature nearest to you. Lasts until your eye is uncovered.

by Irina Vizhevskaya

In Realms Forgotten & Bloody: Spellcasting, Spell Levels, & Spell Slots

It's a legacy, but I don't like how mechanical "spell levels" and "spell slots" sounds. I want something for my 5E game(s) that sounds more authentic to the settings I run in (mainly a variant of the Forgotten Realms right now). Let it be known that in cannon FR, arcane magic is THE ART and divine THE POWER.

I'm thinking (in order of the above) - Spell Circles & Weave Knots.

Mathematic & Arithmetic + Fantasy = Spells 

Spell Circles, of which there are 9, are circles of magic upon which a magic-user acts. The weave is organized into these circles somewhat naturally; it is a tapestry of magical force that spellcasters "witness." Once witnessed, their minds are literally rewired in such a way that allows them to perfectly perform the actions required to cast a spell even under duress. Anyone who has access to any spell circle should roll a 1d12 for a trait gained from the rewiring.

1. Anything lyrical (poems, riddles, stories, etc) becomes an obsession of yours. You seek out these things, make these things, and sometimes even speak these things frequently.

2. Fear is baptized from you. Replacing it is an "arrogance response"--whenever you would normally be afraid, you instead seek to dominate whatever is triggering the response.

3. You lose the ability to read words of any languages you know or learn. Instead, whenever you see text, you see silvery images replacing the text that communicate the same ideas. When you write, you instead draw similar images.

4. Your sense of time is lengthened to the extreme (or shortened). Days feel like either hours or years; years feel like weeks or lifetimes.

5. Decide one mundane thing that makes you happy. That thing is replaced with an esoteric version of itself. For example, if you enjoyed eating, you now only enjoy eating when the North Star is obscured by clouds or when comets streak through the heavens.

6. Whenever you see your favorite color, you instead see an incredible kaleidoscope of shades replacing it.

7. Your pain response changes so that whenever you feel pain, you instead feel the strange, indescribable sensation of a tree experiencing the change of seasons.

8. You are utterly unmoored from those you love. For these people, you no longer feel any emotion, and when you begin to feel love again it quickly evaporates.

9. Your witnessing of the Weave has left you with a tick that requires you to weave your own strange tapestries whenever you take a rest.

10. Even when confined in small rooms, or with chains and rope, or surrounded by a dense forest, you feel as if you are in a vast space too big to be filled with anything else.

11. Movements of the stars and other celestial bodies take up most of your nights in viewing.

12. Suddenly made aware of a world within and beyond your own, you cannot help but lose all sense of value for material goods.

Magic-users can physically see and touch the threads they knot in their minds.

Weave Knots, of which there are many, infest a spellcaster once they witness the Weave. The more a magic-user's skill grows and the more access they gain to Spell Circles, the more weave threads knot in their minds. These threads are literal; the brains of magic-users, when dissected, are filled with ethereal, glowing knots of something that unravels and dissipates. Magic-user's who are memorizing their spells, or praying for powers from deities, or otherwise practicing magic at all are literally knotting these threads in their minds. Once the spell is cast, the thread is untied.

When all mechanical spell slots--now Weave Knots--are spent (now untied), roll 1d6 to see how you change. This change is reverted the moment you regain at least one tied Weave Knot.

1. You are impossibly morose; almost anything that happens or that someone says puts you in an ill mood.

2. You can no longer see colors, instead shades of grey.

3. Your sense of smell and taste are lost, and your skin goes partially numb.

4. Suddenly, the air, your clothing, your hair, everything feels much heavier. It is a struggle to stand upright, and walking takes momentous effort.

5. Your thirst and appetite increase exponentially; no matter how much you eat and drink you do not fill full, but you do feel very ill once you've eaten too much.

6. Looking at things that are put together, like houses, suits of armor, or even books gives you sharp, stinging headaches.

Witnessing the Weave -- psychadelic, symbol-riddled, almost grounded but not quite.

Duskwood Tree

These ill effects are known well to any magic-user, especially wizards in their schools and cabals. Collectively, they are called the Six Punishments. While apprentices are routinely trained to untie all knots so that they can function under the effects of the Six Punishments, there are a number of ways to give a "boost" around them. Namely, drugs.

THE AURORA MUSHROOM, found across Faerun, is named for the strange colors it lets off every night. Eating it alleviates the effects of the Six Punishments for upwards of 8 hours. Additionally, it gives a sense of giddiness to the ingestor, makes it so colors they see melt into one another, and strips them of any magical knowledge for the duration. A favorite amongst sorcerers.

DUSKWOOD MILK, the name of the milky white sap of the Duskwood tree, when drank in small amounts, alleviates the Six Punishments for upwards of 14 hours. However, all sensory input is interfered with; sounds are intense, touching others is either incredibly unfun or too much fun, and staring at bright lights is very, very difficult.

BLOODLETTING, specifically from cuts made underneath the eyes, softens the effects after 10 minutes, and completely counteracts them after 1 hour. Not an enjoyable process; it requires making several cuts every 10 minutes until the Six Punishments ends. The preferred method of practiced wizards.

INCENSE using blood of the spellcaster, blood of another spellcaster, and leaves from the Golden Wand tree alleviate the Six Punishments within seconds, and continues to alleviate them so long as the incense is burning and actively breathed in, regardless of one's ability to smell. Used often by clerics and bards.

REKNOTTING the weave knots instantaneously undoes any effect of the SIx Punishments. This is difficult, however, often taking 1-8 hours to complete depending on the training of the magic-user and the spell circles involved. The most common method amongst spellcasters.

Esoteric Sorceries Pt. 1

Sorcery is the power of the soul.

When you weave a sorcery, you take its burden directly to your spirit. While it is there, you are changed. You can rebuke the supernatural and twist reality in minor ways. And, of course, you can work sorceries proper--though once you have worked them, your soul is empty and it will be a while before you can gain such power back.

Masterful sorcerers spend years increasing their spirit's burden-limits. The more sorceries they can keep inside themselves, ready to be woven, the more they can See and the more they can Do.

Should one decide to embark on the esoteric path of the sorcerer, they will find they are entering into a world where everyone knows half the rules, and the half they don't know can kill them in a heartbeat. It is dangerous. It pumps the adrenaline like no other task. And its rewards are as strange as they are grand.

Source

SORCERY MECHANICS

(Anything with an asterisk * refers to 5E conversion stuff found at the bottom of this post)

SORCERY DIE

Pick up 1d12. This is your Sorcery Die. Any time a sorcery will do damage or otherwise require a roll, you will roll your Sorcery Die and add your total character levels to the roll.*

PERFORMING SORCERIES

Your soul can only handle performing a number of sorceries equal to your character levels + your Charisma modifier. Once you've performed your maximum number of sorceries, it costs 12 HP for each additional sorcery performed. As long as you have sorceries that you can still cast without spending hit points, you are considered HEIGHTENED.

You can return to your heightened state by performing one of the following refreshes. Roll 1d12 everytime you run out of sorceries to see which refresh must be performed.

1. While smoking opium, confront a hallucination of yourself and cannibalize it.
2. Shove forty needles into your thighs and drink the blood.
3. Map the stars and convince them to align in such a way as to create disaster.
4. Temporarily blind and deafen yourself for eight hours.
5. Kill as many insects and small animals within an 8 hour period as you can.
6. Steal a kiss from a mystical creature.
7. Severe two identical fingers from your hand and swap and reattach them.
8. Snort a powder consisting of bone ash, black lotus, and crushed queen bees.
9. Take a selection of spiders and have them bite your tongue. Then swallow them all.
10. Create and smell an incense or perfume mixed with your blood and a single heartstring.
11. Consume the seeds of a plant that will blossom in your stomach.
12. Poison yourself so that you appear dead for 8 hours.

Surely your players will ask how these things are possible. If the player has magical regents already, they can do all of these refreshes once. Beyond doing a specific refresh once, they will need to find ways to replicate that refresh again.

HEIGHTENED**

While heightened, you are different. In addition to having one of the quirks listed at the end of this section, you have numerous benefits that you can make use of.

End Magic

When a magical effect from a spell or another sorcery manifests that you are aware of, roll your sorcery die and add the number of sorceries you can still cast to the roll. If you roll a 12 or higher, that effect ends instantly. If it is a continuous effect, you must do this 3 times to end the effect. A failed roll on a continuous effect mean you cannot break it for another 24 hours.

Tear Their Spiritual Firmament

A creature that you see must save vs magic or suffer your sorcery die in damage***. You must be able to see the creature, and the damage manifests directly to the creatures soul, bypassing any defenses they may have. 

Know the Esoteria of All Things

When you see an esotery, a magical item, mystical creature, or a spell being cast, roll your sorcery die and add the number of sorceries you can still cast to the roll. On a 12 or higher, you know the exact effects, both mechanically and narratively, of whatever it is that you're trying to identify.

Shed Curses as Snakes Shed Skins

If you are the target of a curse, you can temporarily end its effects on you for 24 hours. To do this, you must sacrifice half (rounded up) of all maximum amount of sorcery performances. If you successfully do this for 30 days, the curse will be permanently broken.

Eat Sorcery to be Sorcerous

If you feast on a sorcerous or mystical creature enough to do at least 12 points of damage to it, you can perform 1 sorcery without having to mark it towards your limit. These effects stack, but you cannot eat your own flesh to do this.

Heightened Quirks

1. Whenever you blink, your iris, pupil, and the sclera change color and sometimes develop patterns.
2. Wherever you walk, lotuses blossom from your footsteps before dying.
3. It is storming. Violently. Always.
4. Everything you look at is dyed various shadows of purple and black. Others see this as well, not just you.
5. Mammals are terrified of you but insects are attracted to you in swarms.
6. Stars are always streaking through the sky, even during the day.
7. Filth and dirt cannot stick to you or your garments.
8. Whenever your arms move, afterimages of them float in the air for several seconds. Each afterimage is a different color.
9. A crown of horns, feathers, or lotus petals bursts from your skull.
10. Your touch sends waves of both excruciating pain and ecstasy through those that you touch.
11. Strange tattoos of odd creatures and symbols appear on your body. They crawl across your skin.
12. When you speak, the sounds of a chorus echo after your words.

LEARNING SORCERIES

You begin with 2 sorceries known. When you increase in level, roll your sorcery die and add your Charisma modifier. If you get a 12 or higher, you learn a new sorcery. Ignore this and replace this with spells learned if playing the 5E Sorcerer.

RECORDING SORCERIES

Sorceries cannot be recorded in spellbooks, spell scrolls, or through any other method. The only way to learn them is through exploration of the magic of the soul or being taught directly by another sorcerer. 

BEING BORN SORCEROUS 

Every PC has a 10% chance of being born sorcerous. This indicates that they have a mytstical ancestor, or that some strange force has seeped into their spirit. If playing 5E, just take the Sorcerer class instead. For NPCs, 1 out of every 1 million humans is born sorcerous. 

EXAMPLE SORCERIES

To You I Gift the Kiss of Ages

5****

Roll your sorcery die. You either age forwards or backwards the number of years you rolled. The next creature or object you touch must save vs magic or age that number of years multiplied by your total character levels. As this happens, you return to your original age. If the creature remains alive or the object is not destroyed, it moves 1 year closer to its original age for every hour that passes after they are affected by this sorcery.

Bring Out the Truth of Your Being

1

A creature that you are looking at must save vs magic or manifest a strange, supernatural trait such as horns, iridescent skin, burning eyes, multiple mouths, or something similar. Whenever the creature tells a lie, attempts to become invisible, or attempts to change their shape, this feature will force anyone within 100 feet of the afflicted creature to look directly at it. Roll your sorcerer die. The trait  disappears in a number of hours equal to the number rolled.

I Will Now Bleed Across the Visual Spectrum

2

Roll your sorcery die. You can only be seen through one of the following ways:

1. Infrared vision.
2. Dark vision.
3. True sight.
4. Blindsense.
5. Through glasses with blackened lenses.
6. By those who are at 1 HP.
7. By those who are naturally blind.
8. Witch's sight (the ability to see through illusions).
9. Devil's sight (the ability to see through magical darkness).
10. Through a blindfold made out of butterfly wings.
11. Through smoke or incense.
12. By those who are cursed.

This lasts for 1 hour.*****

Hold Not the Tale of Genesis in Thy's Heart

1

When you hear a creature speak or otherwise make an audible sound, you can force it to save vs magic. If it fails, it will begin to tell you everything of note it has done within the last few hours. The number of hours is dictated by a roll of your sorcery die. That creature will continue to speak even if dead as long as it was alive before the sorcery was performed upon it. 

For 5E Peeps

* - Add your Charisma modifier instead of your character levels.

** - Either replace the Sorcerer classes metamagic feature with this, or use these 5 features in order to form a Sorcerous Origin. If you go the metamagic route, each metamagic costs 2 sorcery points to use. Pick them as if they were normal metamagics.

*** - Save vs Magic=Con Save. Damage is force damage.

**** - The # here represents that is a 5th level spell in a Vancian system, such as 5E's own. There are no components--the sorcerer is the component.

***** - Spells that effect you and last for more than an instant effect are considered concentration.

Additionally - This replaces the spellcasting feature for the Sorcerer class, as well as their spell list. Even a Bard's magical secrets cannot learn these spells.