Anti-Spells and Lost Humanity
Vancian Magic and its Discontents
The Blog Carnival is touring, and this month the theme is Beyond Vancian Magic.
The year is over, and the Blog Carnival has moved on, leaving behind a large patch of yellowing grass studded with cigarette butts and elephant dung. But nobody can stop me from rooting around between the leftover popcorn and beer dregs, so here's my two cents on the matter. I've had half a thought about this in a Discord chat, so this is a good opportunity to flesh it out.
Here's the context: Liz at Magnolia Keep reinvented the wheel again. I’m quoting here from Discord:
Hey folks I think I reinvented the wheel again
So, Mausritter has spells taking up inventory slots. This is cool and based. However, consider:
- Spells take up a number of inventory slots equal to their level
- Mages treat all spells as 1 slot
Clever. Here’s me expanding on it:
Corollary: Anti-Spells. You can learn to forget a core human experience to open up a new inventory slot.
The greatest wizards have lost their sense for companionship/comfort/purpose/self to increase their repertoires of known spells.
This is nice! It gives us another angle on the trope of mad, corrupted wizards. Let's flesh it out further.
A wizard thinking about Jack the Ripper - obviously hoping to emulate his inhumanity
Slot-Based Encumbrance and Spellcasting
Mechanically, inventory-based spellcasting allows a system to balance the power of spells against the added protection and preparedness that more mundane items would provide. Are you better off with a spell of light if that prevents you from armouring yourself up, or packing an extra day's worth of rations?
Inventory limits ensure that players have to make hard choices when they enter the wilderness - either choosing to have minions cart their gear, or electing to travel light and choose wisely. Messing with inventory limits takes some of the teeth out of OSR play, so if we are going to do it we ought to make sure it represents an interesting choice on behalf of the player.
Slot-based spells represent the psychic weight of arcane or forbidden knowledge burdening down a caster. Mechanically, anti-spells are a release valve, a way for spellcasters to progress - at the cost, of course, of an interesting choice.
What are Anti-Spells?
It is a tightly-held secret of wizards that casting the odd spell is not that difficult. Sure - you need to be able to read and write, you need arcane knowledge, some rare and expensive components and a willingness to risk your mortal soul to do it - but given all of these things, anyone can do it!
What separates true wizards from mere dabblers is their commitment to the venture. The soul can only carry so much, and try as they might, wizards have not yet figured out how to expand this capacity. What they can do is free up space being utilised by non-essential functions.
Where spells take up an inventory slot, anti-spells free up a new slot to cast with. They are a dispel magic on the magic of humanity itself. In computer terms they reformat the brain, removing unwanted system files.
Anti-spell: must be cast on the self. The caster gains a new inventory slot which may only be used for casting purposes. The anti-spell itself is forgotten, along with the caster's sense of:
- companionship. All bonds of friendship are now purely transactional.
- comfort. Such casters must take care to bathe and rest lest they become lesioned, fatigued and irritable.
- purpose. All long-term goals fade away save the accrual of further arcane power.
- self. The caster loses their individuating impulses. They have permanent mob mentality.
- others. The caster becomes a firm solipsist.
- object permanence. The caster cannot be convinced of the presence of objects outside of their immediate field of perception.
- value. The caster cannot distinguish items of high or low monetary value.
- self-preservation. The caster's friends must now be responsible for managing their approach to any risk greater than crossing a road.
- disgust. The caster no longer has an aversion to foods which others might find offputting.
- anger. The caster can no longer be raised to ire, no matter the transgression.
This a non-exhaustive list. Some anti-spells will prove more disruptive to a wizard's life than others, and are thus in higher demand. The version of the anti-spell is typically known to the purchaser.
Obviously this is a contentious practice in the wizarding community. Everyone denies it, but everyone at the top is doing it. There are various methods in vogue for masking the effects of anti-spells in social settings.
The most famous wizards in the land probably know anti-spells, but are unlikely to share them. At best, they may drop a veiled hint at where to find a shady purveyor. Should you find such a merchant, the price is unlikely to be in gold.
Variation - Learning Anti-Spells (Grubby Weirdo Version)
Anti-spells are not learnt from other spellcasters, but from ordinary individuals who have themselves forgotten certain 'core' human impulses. A wizard can spend a week in seclusion with such a person and transfer their own unwanted impulse to the other. The process costs d6x100GP in ritualistic components (pungent herbs, droning musicians, rare inks for both parties to write their confessions with, etc). Willing participants may also require payment - monetary or in-kind.
In the case of a ruthless killer with no sense of empathy, this may be seen as an interpersonal and societal good - in the case of a wandering mendicant who had forgotten anger, less so.
Note: having your players scouring the land for unhinged serial killers and grubby little weirdos with no object permanence could be disruptive to your game. Use this system with caution.