Chain and cyclic magic
Interconnected spellcasting
This article contains affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you make purchases using these links, at no cost to you.I recently acquired Shadows of a Dying Sun (SoaDS), it’s got some really cool ideas. In fact, I recommend you pick up the game. One of these ideas is its approaches to magic, which are more interconnected than traditional spellcasting.
We’re going to look at some of them today and generalise the principles so you can hack them into almost any typical fantasy rpg.
Chain casting
One of the SoaDS magic traditions is ‘The Grand Design’. You don’t have to read this but it’s here if you are curious.
The underlying concept is a sequence of spells. To cast the 2nd spell in the tradition, you must have cast the 1st on your last turn - to cast the 3rd, you must have cast the 2nd and 1st. The spells are arranged in a ‘chain’ that must be worked along.
This is a neat way of structuring magic and you can apply it to other systems. Take some similar or related spells from your system of choice and arrange them in a sequence. It means magic users have a structure they need to navigate rather than just picking a la carte. It feels more magic-y to me, like a ‘proper ritual’ or something.
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Cyclic Casting
Another of the SoaDS magic traditions is ‘The Shattered Gyre’. Again, the image below is here if you are curious.
This also has chains of spells but with some extras features:
The entire tradition is not one chain. It has little chains of spells (sets of three to be exact) that form small cycles within the tradition.
If you know the next step in the cycle you must cast it after starting the cycle. Hence naming it ‘cyclic’.
That the magic user must cast the next spell, if they know it, is delicious. It’s simulating the idea of living-knowledge taking control of a magic user.
The side benefit of this is that the magic user has a bit more flexibility vs. one chain of spells: they have a few cycles to pick from.
This is another one that’s easy to hack in. Choose a larger set of spells (e.g. 15) for the tradition as a whole, then group these spells into smaller ‘chains’ (e.g. 3 spells per chain) that force magic users to cast the next spell in the chain if they know it.
Examples
Some ideas of how you can use magic themes to inspire chains and cycles of spells:
Have healing spells require an initial life drain spell.
Cycle ice and heat spells to simulate thermodynamic fuckery.
Levitation requires a spell that makes another object much heavier first.
Wrap up
SoaDS has some other fun magic traditions that are more typical ‘eldritch risk management’ frameworks, but these two are a great thing to borrow and apply to almost any magic system to give it some spicy structure.
If you want an easy way to generate spells, you can use the spell tables in the Electrum Archive (which you can pick up for free).
For sandbox prep, I write all my nonsense down in Muji notebooks (absolutely, 100% THE BEST notebooks) with a Lamy pen. Highly recommended.
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Inflicting damage asserts the wargame aspect of play. Both examples were built around this paradigm. Does SoaDs have cycles for other forms of magic, e.g. utility, translocation, clairvoyance, abjuration, conjuration?
I think I might have to pick up SoaDS just to mine it for ideas if nothing else.