Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

johnnii · Novice Joined: 02 Sep 2011 Posts: 61

I'm using Savage Worlds for a swedish fantasy rpg and i'm a little undecided on some of the arcane background.

Wizards and Human priests are pretty easy to chose; Magic and Miracles respectively.

Now, the elven priests are a bit different. Their priests are druidic in nature (pun not intended) but their powers are something inherently from birth, described as "gifts from the gods". I'm leaning towards using Superpowers (the ones in the Deluxe, not SPC/NE) because it's quite similiar there.

Here's a little trickier part, Dwarven priests. They gain their powers through a complex rite of learning and mastering "secret runes" connected to their gods, followed by forging them into branding irons and finally branding themselves with these irons. They can then activate the rune that gives them supernatural powers. The runes varies alot in effect; some are flashy such as conjuring lava pools or summoning golems, and some are not so flashy such as increasing skill chance.

What Arcane background does the dwarf priests sounds like? I'm leaning towards Superpowers here also, but maybe it sounds more like Spellcasting, or something else?

Thanks in advance

Sean-Khan · Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 6:05 am Post subject:

Superpowers (just calling them innate powers etc) sound good for elves. Thematically, I'd say divine magic would work for dwarves, but would 2 powers make it feel wrong? Even if the powers should have trappings that make them two different manifestations of similar power, like light and smite (hammer glowing bright).
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Lord Karick · Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 7:53 am Post subject:

Hi Johnnii,
do you have the Hellfrost players' guide from TAG, sounds like it would give you a lot of the stuff you are looking for.
In the end I drew up my own rune-caster using a number of inspirational sources, including the Alchemist, the Hellfrost rune mage and some d20 stuff I bought a while ago.
If you want, have a look at what I came up with here: Savage Legend Rune Mage
Regards
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Dracones

Really your descriptions just sound like trappings.

Activating a rune to summon a golem is no different than a wizard reciting a spell for Summon Ally, it's just a trapping difference.

The main difference is whether or not you want it smarts based or spirit based. Though there's no reason you can't make agility(inscribing) based arcane backgrounds. Savage Suzerain does this with its pulse paths and has agility based inscribing and vigor based rituals.

Sweeper · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 8:50 am Post subject:

Does that mean the gnomes, (if they exist), could get AB:Gadgeteer with divine trappings?
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johnnii · Novice Joined: 02 Sep 2011 Posts: 61

wyldspirit · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 4:50 pm Post subject:

You could use the Super Heroes Companion to customize a template for any type of magic you want to represent. You would have to scale the powers to a level that is logical for your world.

kronovan · Veteran Joined: 01 Mar 2011 Posts: 683

I think the SWD Super Powers is good for the Elves innate magic, especially if they will have multiple powers. SP could also work for your dwarves, but I think it depends on how quickly they're able to utilize their runes. If there's some ritual involved in their uses, something similar to the AB Ritual Magic in the FC might work better. The process for Dwarves gaining those runes sound damn painful and complicated; at a minimum I'd require some dramatic task for pulling that off. The SPC can be used for just about any setting with arcane powers, but it's not as good a choice if you want to provide consequences for failures to successfully evoke powers.

johnnii · Novice Joined: 02 Sep 2011 Posts: 61