Friday 29 April 2011

Contemplating nature wizards

Inspired by a suggestion some time ago from Kelvin of Brighton & Hove Roleplayers, I've been musing on the possibility of a nature mage class. I've always been a bit non-plussed by the AD&D druid, who, I guess, is really a bit too clericy for my taste. (Which is fair enough, as it is supposed to be a cleric sub-class, but that's just not really my thing.) So originally I'd not thought there was much room to expand on this already existing list of nature-oriented spells, and that a nature mage class would end up borrowing so heavily from the druid spell list as to make it not worth doing. However, the X spell from yesterday (Xenogamy) gave me a vision of the kind of class I would like to create -- a branch of magic based on manipulating the impartial forces of nature.

Inspirational keywords: parasites, swarms, hive minds, evolution, symbiosis, reproduction, disease, decay, survival of the fittest, birth & death, hibernation, stasis, cocoons, growth & withering, cycles.

I see this hypothetical class as a kind of counterpart to the necromancer in a way. Where the necromancer deals with the forces of death and undeath, the nature mage deals with the forces of life & nature. And those forces can be equally as cruel and twisted as they can kind. So the nature mage is absolutely in no way a protector of nature, like the druid is supposed to be. I want to create a bunch of spells which invoke the creepyness and weirdness of the natural world, the things which are considered normal to non-human members of the animal & plant kingdoms. Praying mantises not being able to reproduce unless the male's head is bitten off. The freakish mutations which can emerge suddenly from a gene pool. Fungal parasites. You know the stuff.

So, it might just happen... I had a mini brainstorm this morning, and came up with some spell concepts. For now here are some names:

Hibernate
Polyvorousness
Extinction
Reptilian metabolism / mammalian metabolism
Transformative pupation
Regenerative pupation
Artificial intelligence
Hive mind
Drone
Accelerated metabolism
Accelerated immune system
Accelerated regeneration
Swarm transformation
Chimera
Impregnate
Mutation
Aging / reverse aging
Immortality
Homing instinct
Contagion
Pair bonding
Compound vision
Skin transformation
Echo location

And a few spells from existing spell lists (LL / AD&D) which would fit in for sure: polymorph self / others, shapechange, clone, creeping doom, summon swarm, water breathing, spider climb, sleep, entangle.

2 comments:

  1. Excellent!

    You could also have some kind of spell which would cause the target to undergo explosive growth, like Tetsuo at the end of Akira.

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  2. Great idea, thanks! Keep 'em coming if you have any further weird warped-nature imagery...

    By the way, there'll definitely be some spells in there which interface with the mutations from Mutant Future. :)

    Is my concept here anything like what you were imagining when you said before that you've always wanted a decent nature wizard class?

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