Magic & Sorcery Archives : Page 3 of 3 : Untold Realms

Spells From Heroes & Other Worlds

Since the 1980s, The Fantasy Trip has been a big influence on fantasy gaming. A number of games out there were either influenced by TFT (or its creator, Steve Jackson) or are modern versions of TFT itself. One of those games is Heroes & Other Worlds, by C. R. Brandon. Here are some spells from HOW.

Thieving Spells

Sometimes being bad feels good. The popularity of thieves as characters in roleplaying games is proof of that--whether traditional fantasy thieves or Mafia-types, players love their rogues. While The Fantasy Trip has a number of spells that aid the wizardly thief, players can always use a few more. Here are a few more thieving spells to help you be bad...

The Black Sword of Twilight and the Staff of Spring

The conflict between good and evil is important, if not critical, to fantasy literature in general and fantasy gaming in particular. In this look into the Chest of Enchantment, we see examples of one of each--the Black Sword of Twilight and the Staff of Spring...

Basic Healing Spells for Advanced Wizard

As many people have noted, Wizard/Advanced Wizard lack any real healing spells like those that are found in other roleplaying games. There have been a number of attempts to fix this, with example healing spells out there through the years. Here is my attempt at a couple.

Magical Backlash in The Fantasy Trip

I've always been intrigued with the idea of magical backlash--something fantastic when a wizard screws up. Even a wizard with a stupidly high IQ can fail a spell on a roll of 16, 17 or 18. Unfortunately, the canon rules for Advanced Wizard do not take into account when a wizard suffers a critical failure. Here are some suggestions for rectifying that omission.

Gothic Magic Items

Some magic items are beacons of light, weapons in the war against evil. On the other hand, some magic items are definitely turned towards the darkness. They are not bright, serving some other form of terrible beacon... Here are a couple magic items that serve that path, following the darkness...

Magic in Low Fantasy Settings

Since I got back into gaming, one of the things I noticed was the talk about "low fantasy" gaming. In the past, I never really thought about it, but I absolutely understand where the idea is coming from. The trick for The Fantasy Trip is to implement it in a way that preserves the rules for magic as much as possible, while giving the campaign the feel that the players and GM are looking for.