So, I've been pretty ill the last few days. While sick, I've been working on differentiating the magical traditions of the 10th Age.
It's been a long standing descriptive rule that there are several general types of magic: Petty Sorcery, Low Sorcery, High Sorcery, and Elder Magic. What do they mean? I'm glad you asked!
Low Sorcery encompasses all spells of levels 2-4. Yes, even the dangerous and flashy lightning bolt is Low. Level one spells are known as Petty Sorcery, and wizards who can not cast spells beyond this are sometimes derogatorily refereed to as magicians.
High Sorcery is all magic of levels 5-9. Wizards who can harness high sorcery are true mages indeed!
Elder Magic is magic from the old days of the world, invariably created by one of the Elder Races. No wizard now living can replicate the power of Elder Magic which is strictly reserved for things like one-off scrolls of such power that nothing can resist them or artifacts that can never be duplicated.
However, we've been talking about a way to make some non-human magic available to mortal PC races. That is, Wyrmish, Gigantine, and Trollish magic. So, taking into account that one must know Old Occulted Wyrmish, Arcaedon, or the Night Speech to tap into these traditions the following rules have been added:
Wyrmish magic is more powerful than any counterpart. Wyrmish versions of regular spells (of which there are a few) calculate damage as though the caster were 2 levels higher than he actually is. Additionally, all spells from this corpus elicit a -4 to saving throws. However, the caster must sacrifice TWO spell slots to memorize a draconic spell and, while casting, must make a successful spellcraft check or take d2 points of temporary and non-lethal damage per spell level as it saps his own breath.
Gigantine magic treats giants as "people" for things like Hold Person. It also doubles any durations and trebles area of effect. However, Gigantine magic assumes a much larger reservoir of internal energy (breath) than men can ever have. Only wizards with a constitution of 15 or higher can use it, and even then it deals a number of nonlethal hp of damage equal to its spell level.
Not sure on Trollish magic yet.
I was thinking that maybe the magic of the Night Tongue might consist solely of partially-real illusions, and maybe creepy necromancies.
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