Tigers Upon the Steppe: Gray and Brown Mages
Introduction
Some setting-mechanic work for an OD&D game I hope to run in the near future. I've been alternately calling it βOops All Magic Systemsβ and βTigers Upon the Steppe.β This post lays out some addenda to Idralunaβs Supplement Aleph: Chromatic Charms & Spectral Sorceries: the Colorless/Gray Mage, of a re-implementation of an agnostic magic user who has not yet aligned themselves with a school, or refuses to; and the Brown Mage, who uses unleveled spells to reflect a rawer connection to the magical.
The magic-user printed in the original fantasy medieval adventure game represents both fledgling and undeclared mages (Colorless) as well as mages who flout the Chromatic Schools (Gray).
They gain no additional special abilities, but can learn any spell. A magic-user may claim Colorless status until level 3, at which point they are expected to declare a Chromatic affiliation. When a magic-user aligns themselves with one of the schools, they forsake any spells outside their new school. This is marked with a symbolic defacement of their spellbook. They gain a random school spell of the same level for each spell defaced in this manner.
In the Empire, Magic-Users of Imperial sanction are expected to affiliate with a Chromatic School. Though the schools existed long before the Empire, the foundations of the practice were laid in a treaty to end a devastating wizard-war. It serves two purposes: curb the concentration of power and knowledge by a few independent wizards; and to prevent the Empire from seizing complete control over the education and organization of magic-users.
Should they decline to pledge themselves to a school, mages from the schools will consider them Gray and treat them with hostility. Though the Empire does not grant any rights or privileges to Gray Mages, they generally leave them aloneβbetter for the schooled mages to police their unruly fellows. Black Mages, who have been banned in the Empire, recognize a fellow renegade and may be willing to collaborate.
New class: Brown Mage (Hedge Wizard)
Brown mages, also known as hedge mages, sit apart from the Chromatic paradigm. Most common in isolated and rustic communities, schooled mages regard them as yokels beneath notice. Despite their humble milieu, a well-versed Brown Mage is not to be underestimated. Many Brown mages tread the Sunset Way, and some earned great power and prestige. Brown Mages can be found traveling the Sunset Way or living in the lands along it.
They begin play with a number of hedge spells as well as the ability to read magic and use scrolls, but don't keep spellbooks and can't learn leveled spells. Hedge spells can be learned by anyone, which intrigues and threatens Chromatic Mages.
- HD, XP as thief.
- Saves as magic-user.
- May use daggers, staves, slings, hand axes.
- Uses scrolls and magic items as a magic-user.
- Begins play knowing three random hedge spells, from Wolves Upon the Coast.
- Does not have a spellbook and can only learn hedge spells.
- Can detect and read magic on a 3-in-6. Improves by 1 at level 4 and 8 for a maximum of 5-in-6.
- Can scribe scrolls using hedge spells they know.
- At levels 3, 6, and 9, the brown mage has dreams hinting at the locations of additional spells.
- At 9th level, a brown mage may found an occult society, attracting 2d6 followers of first level. These followers are usually fellow brown mages, but have a 1-in-6 of being of another class. These initiates are eager to locate and learn more magic.
Design notes
Cribbing heavily from Jenxβs hedge wizard class.
I have always considered the thief to be a sort of everyman, Normal Man+ archetype. This contrasts against the fighter/fighting man, who if not noble at start becomes a landowning lord; the obvious cleric-as-first-estate, and the magic-user, who is a sort of smallholder or petty bourgeois individualist-accumulationist.
With that in mind, the thief chassis fits the bill for the concept of βNormal Man who knows something of cunning arts.β I left some additional thiefish brown mage skills on the cutting room floor: herbalism, knowing places, augury etc. Lately I've preferred pushing more of those skills to backgrounds, but they can always be put back in a later version.