Am I missing a caster type from myth & legend & story?

[johnbragg]

I'm brewing a D&D-based world and houserule set that doesn't share the assumptions of 40+ years of D&D evolution. Divine vs arcane magic, for example, is pretty much a thing from D&D, not from the source material. The world is safe and orderly and viable in the core kingdoms with lots of humans, orderly and viable but very strange in the elven and dwarven communities, threatened but viable in the ever-shifting borderlands, and terrifying and chaotic and savage in the untamed regions where, if the sages are correct, monsters spawned from chaos and darkness and malice like maggots on a corpse.

There are book-wizards, who inside their libraries can cast any spell known (but outside their libraries have only a handful of spells known by heart).

There are community priests who draw on the psychic energy of the community to create magical public works projects.

Spoiler: More on magical public works

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I try to keep "Magical public works" to things pre-modern / pre-Industrial Revolution people would create. Most importantly, keep the core kingdoms and the borderlands from spawning terrifying calamities, but also keep-ships-safe and high-quality-roads and truth-in-court spells on a national basis, and grow-the-crops spells and not-have-plague spells on a village and town basis. I try to take as a guideline things real world societies created prayers and religious rituals for, and made sacrifices for etc, things Iron Age emperors actually did like roads and aqueducts and libraries and lighthouses and city walls and massive irrigation projects, and maybe enormous bronze golems, rather than 19th-century inspired steampunk magitech.

There are hedge-wizards and druids who can reliably cast a handful of spells, and can attempt a variety others with a remote chance of success.

There are smiths and craftsmen of reknown, whose incredible skill creates spectacular weapons and armor and wondrous devices of all types.

There are bards (often community priests, both civilized and savage) who can create magic through song which effects everyone (or every ally or every enemy) in earshot, slowly causing fear or rage or sleep or healing.

There are magical specialists, obsessed with a particular magical trope--fire or winter or death-and-undeath. Closely related are shamans, obsessed with a particular totem animal, who are said to command them and, perhaps, transform into them.

As the title says, am I missing a caster type from myth & legend & story?

[Eldan]

Honestly, magic is pretty rarely organized in "spells" at all in legends and myth. Spellcasters just do magic. It's usually not very well defined at all.

Magical craftsmen are common. They make magical and wondrous items. The prime example being the elves and dwarves of nordic and germanic myth. Not a lot of limits to what they can do, either.

Shapeshifters. Shapeshifters are very common, and usually not restricted. The turn into just about anything.

Psychic energy of a community for priests is a pretty modern idea. Priests, especially the sainted ones, are often those who went out entirely alone to meet groups of non-believers and either convert them with magic or punish them. Gods don't need worship, and neither do priests.
If you go a bit further back, it becomes clearer and clearer that you don't worship gods because they need the power. You worship them because they will kill your children, spoil your harvest, flood your cities, blight your flocks and sink your ships if they don't.

[johnbragg]

First of all, thanks. You're right about magic not being defined in myth and legend, and about craftsmen and shapeshifting tricksters. You're also right about missionary prophets, but I think you under-rate the temple priests' role in keeping the favor of the gods. (See Cicero, defining religion as "the cultivation of the gods"--they must be fed and milked and watered and trimmed much like any animal or plant in order to harvest and enjoy the benefits. )

Honestly, magic is pretty rarely organized in "spells" at all in legends and myth. Spellcasters just do magic. It's usually not very well defined at all.

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True. But we work with what we have, and Conan and his lesser brothers ran into snake-priests and ice-witches all the time.

Magical craftsmen are common. They make magical and wondrous items. The prime example being the elves and dwarves of nordic and germanic myth. Not a lot of limits to what they can do, either.

Truth. I'm using 3X E6 as a base, so those guys are there--hitting a DC 30 skill check is basically magic.

Shapeshifters. Shapeshifters are very common, and usually not restricted. The turn into just about anything.

True. But I'm content to tag them as mostly solitary monsters, not class-leveled PC options or mook-boosting NPC casters. But yes, I need to stat up and write up a monster (some sort of fey) with polymorphing ability as its gimmick. I'm not counting one-trick-pony shapeshifters, like bear shamans or lycanthropes etc--you're talking about *shapeshifters*, who can be a monkey to climb a tree, be a bird to fly away, be a rat to sneak into a building, and be a bear to wreck faces.

Psychic energy of a community for priests is a pretty modern idea.

I disagree. In the Old Testament, there's the story of Elijah and the priests of Baal. I just googled up a kids' version. My point in bringing it up is that the Baal-priests thought having 850 priests of Baal working together would do the job.

https://www.lds.org/manual/old-testa...-baal?lang=eng

Priests, especially the sainted ones, are often those who went out entirely alone to meet groups of non-believers and either convert them with magic or punish them. Gods don't need worship, and neither do priests.

That's a largely Christian perspective. (Also Muslim, Buddhist, some others). Pre-Christian religions assumed that gods needed or at least REALLY wanted sacrifices. Animal sacrifices, human sacrifice, blood, incense, invoking their name in a prayer as a gesture of respect, coins, building you a big honking temple and endowing it with priests, what have you. If you want something from The Powers That Be (including "oh please leave me alone and focus your terribleness somewhere else"), you need to bring something to the table. Priests were the people in charge of keeping this going on an organized basis. The point isn't to go convert the Scythians to worship Zeus/Amon-Ra/Marduk etc, it's to keep him or her happy with the sacrifices and devotions of the city/tribe.

If you go a bit further back, it becomes clearer and clearer that you don't worship gods because they need the power. You worship them because they will kill your children, spoil your harvest, flood your cities, blight your flocks and sink your ships if they don't.

True. The gods of my setting has been tamed, in that sense. Sages have learned that the gods are basically reflections of their worshippers, vessels for psychic energy that can be pooled, and tapped for various uses. (Or perhaps the sages convincing everyone of this made it true. Nobody's *that* interested in finding out for sure, if such a thing is even possible--what is "truth", anyway? And what use is truth, if discovering it breaks the seals protecting the nice civilized parts of the world from the untamed horrors of the wildlands?)

[Zombimode]

Honestly, magic is pretty rarely organized in "spells" at all in legends and myth. Spellcasters just do magic. It's usually not very well defined at all.

Eh... you sure about that?

The "spellbook" is not a D&D invention.

[Eldan]

I can't think of spellbooks ever coming up in myth, though. Historical magical traditions like hermeticism or alchemy, yes, fantasy fiction, yes, but myth? I can't think of an example.

[Knaight]

I'm not seeing anything for magical smiths, which tend to be a pretty major archetype. There's also the archetype of the enlightened sage who gets magical powers because of their enlightenment.

[johnbragg]

I can't think of spellbooks ever coming up in myth, though. Historical magical traditions like hermeticism or alchemy, yes, fantasy fiction, yes, but myth? I can't think of an example.

I'm counting fantasy fiction. The book of power is a thing in this world--one of the things that makes the nice civilized areas nice is that they have an organized academy with a full set of all the major books (SRD spells). Splatbook spells are found in books of power, out there somewhere, maybe.

I'm not seeing anything for magical smiths, which tend to be a pretty major archetype.

A DC 30 check might as well be magic. I'm going to put it in the OP.,,

There's also the archetype of the enlightened sage who gets magical powers because of their enlightenment.

Hmmm. In myth and religion, yes. In sword-and-sorcery fantasy, less so. Feels a little sacreligious, but I will ponder.

[Knaight]

Hmmm. In myth and religion, yes. In sword-and-sorcery fantasy, less so. Feels a little sacreligious, but I will ponder.

I'd interpreted the "myth & legend" in the title to mean myth & legend. Sword and sorcery is a different beast, there the absolutely key element is sketchy ritual cult magic based around human sacrifice, demon summoning, etc.

I'm brewing a D&D-based world and houserule set that doesn't share the assumptions of 40+ years of D&D evolution. Divine vs arcane magic, for example, is pretty much a thing from D&D, not from the source material. The world is safe and orderly and viable in the core kingdoms with lots of humans, orderly and viable but very strange in the elven and dwarven communities, threatened but viable in the ever-shifting borderlands, and terrifying and chaotic and savage in the untamed regions where, if the sages are correct, monsters spawned from chaos and darkness and malice like maggots on a corpse.

If you're dropping the D&D evolution, why keep the dwarves and elves? The whole idea of a standard set of fantasy races (beyond humans) is very much a D&D and Tolkien ripoff thing; sword and sorcery tends more to lizard and ape people than dwarves and elves.

[johnbragg]

I'd interpreted the "myth & legend" in the title to mean myth & legend. Sword and sorcery is a different beast, there the absolutely key element is sketchy ritual cult magic based around human sacrifice, demon summoning, etc.

It was supposed to be myth & legend & story. Stupid missing ampersand. Will fix.

There is definitely going to be sketchy ritual cult magic using human sacrifice, etc. It's not so much that Ugnor the Unpleasant WANTS or appreciates your blood sacrifice. Ugnor is not a living thing, it does not want or love any more than a stone or a river does--although people may understand it that way. It's that your blood sacrifice is a thing of power, which more-or-less creates Ugnor, or takes limited command of it, or gives power to it after you've established some control of it. This is a universe, after all, where enough people believing (or secretly fearing) something to be true tends to make it *be* true. The power of the blood sacrifice is related to how much it cost the sacrificer. Young, pretty, highborn all increase the value. Plot that on a graph with how close the sacrifice is to the caster--the lifeblood of YOUR princess is a valuable thing, true. But there is much more power in Agamemnon's sacrifice of his own Iphegenia.

A wish-penny from a desperate urchin would make a bigger splash in the fountain than a gold-piece wish from a rich person.

If you're dropping the D&D evolution, why keep the dwarves and elves? The whole idea of a standard set of fantasy races (beyond humans) is very much a D&D and Tolkien ripoff thing; sword and sorcery tends more to lizard and ape people than dwarves and elves.

My elves are different! And dwarves too. My elves are much more connected to their fey origins, and dwarves are much more connected to their earth-and-stone origins. Semi-ethereal, ageless creatures of the twilight forest who hold mortal concerns lightly, beautiful but untrustworthy? Those are definitely part of the source material. And sturdy stone-men living in the mountains, smelting and forging and crafting away? Yeah we need those too.

[Anonymouswizard]

If we're adding in fantasy literature, anything.

Just sword and sorcery literature? As has been said, evil cults and human sacrifices.

A note, a lot of spells will be 'invisible'. You cast a spell and in a little while a storm arrives, or you become able to see into the minds of men, or luck favours you, or you tell a prophecy, or whatever. While flashy magic did exist before D&D, wizards specialising in flashy magic was popularised by it.

As a side note, potions. Potions are a very folklore thing, and are a great way to bring more magic to a game.

Also, the people who just are magic, maybe through the blessing of a deity. Samson has great strength, as long as he doesn't break the rules and stuff like that.

Also, almost 100% agreeing on the 'no nonhuman races', but there is mythological precedent. But even then, they tend to just ignore humanity and live in a different part of the world.

[TIPOT]

I can't think of spellbooks ever coming up in myth, though. Historical magical traditions like hermeticism or alchemy, yes, fantasy fiction, yes, but myth? I can't think of an example.

There's like Fantasia, although I'm not sure if that really counts? It has the boy cast a spell to animate a broom. I think magic is either really general and can do almost anything or really specific with spells that do one niche thing (like turn a Prince into a frog or put a whole country to sleep for a century).