I have been a devoted reader of J. R. R. Tolkien for several decades, having developed a great love especially for Tolkienian linguistics. Years ago, I played some of Iron Crown Enterprises’ MERP and MECCG products, so I was very excited by the prospect of trying out a new Tolkien-based RPG when I read about The One Ring online earlier this year. I feel very strongly that TOR captures the spirit of Tolkien’s world, and I appreciate the respect its designers and artists have demonstrated for the integrity of Tolkien’s legendarium.

The unique nature of magic in the legendarium presents a challenge to players who wish to explore that aspect of Middle-earth. After reading the admirable endeavours to create a magic system for The One Ring by “Robin Smallborrow” and “Kaltharion” here on the TOR forum, I decided to try my own hand at developing such a system.

Threads detailing previous fan-developed magic systems for TOR:
http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?tr...&showtopic=3008
http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?tr...=ST&f=33&t=2906
http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?tr...=ST&f=33&t=2383

I am well aware of the controversy associated with magic in Middle-earth, and I hope my work represents a balance point between gamers’ desire to partake of this aspect of Tolkien’s world and the author’s own reluctance to present magic as just another “mechanism,” as so many writers and designers have done in the post-Tolkien era.

My “Magic for The One Ring” document can be found linked in my forum signature. I hope that anyone who decides to take a look gains some enjoyment from this work of love and sub-creation. As the system has not been playtested, please feel free to share your constructive feedback.

Anar kaluva tyalielyannar (“May the sun shine upon your games”).

Wonderful work! Thank you for sharing. You have stoked the imagination.

To the1whowas:

I will have to go away and read your ideas, then give you some feedback later, but well done on trying to synthesize rules for magic - it may interest you to know that I am nearly finished Part Two (The Grimoire) and will be ready to post it soon ( just in proof reading). This chapter took nearly five months to do! I am hoping the next parts won't be so long, so I am sure that these ideas of yours must have taken a lot of thought and time.

The main problem I found (which I mention early in Part One) was that the term 'magic' was not clearly defined either by Tolkien, or by the various races and cultures in Middle-earth - as Galadriel implies, 'magic' is defined more by the observer than by the 'doer'. What this means for trying to devise a comprehensive magic system is that the writer must find some way of reconciling the different ways and understanding of doing things, defining what is 'magical' and what is 'mundane'.

Best of luck and will come back with more comments once I have read your stuff

Robin S.

@the1whowas

this is a great document - fascinating, will read thoroughly and think about bringing into my TOR game. Many thanks for posting

At Last! Version 2 of my take on Magic for The One Ring is now available in my signature, with a complete Grimoire of spells and covering all possible magic methods.

To the1who was:

Comments on your Magic article:

I feel the best contribution you have made is with the New Calling: Magician - when I read yours I kept kicking myself that I hadn't thought of it myself! With your permission I will incorporate these ideas of yours for Character Generation into Part 3 of mine, when I can find time! I also love your Backgrounds so will use these as well. In regards to the Cultural Reward: Staff and your new Undertakings, I will probably use a hybrid version of yours & Kaltharion's for Part 3.

My main critical comments are two: firstly, I think your system is a bit too 'high-powered' and does not penalise the spellcaster enough in terms of damage- only losing 1 Endurance is OK for low spells, but should be more for higher spells as magic should be bloody tiring! Secondly and related to this first point, sorcery or Shadow points should not be harder and more difficult to learn - in my view the reverse should be the case! Ask yourself why sorcery is so attractive and seductive, especially for human magicians - the answer that sorcery is easier, to both learn and cast seems obvious to me.

A minor quibble: with regards to magic items (which I hope to get around to in Part 4), I agree with you that the enchanter must lose some part of himself to enchant an item permanently, and I like your idea of the enchanter having to pass a Corruption test. But what is the enchanter's loss of power? I don't see any actual loss in your system, and there should be! In mine the enchanter permanently loses Endurance - thus their Endurance can no longer be recovered to their original starting score. This is important as permanent magic items are rare in Middle-earth!

Overall I think your system has a lot of merit and I would recommend it for those who want a simple system but don't mind spellcasters to be able to cast some higher powered spells.


Robin S.

Look forward to comments about my Grimoire!!

Hmm, quicker, easier, more seductive. The dark side that is.

An impulse thought on reading this: why endurance? Why not hope?

I can't open the document of magic...

Robin: I get a 404 error when attempting to download your new magic draft. Perhaps this is related to the recent security lapse over at Dropbox?

Please...I need it...I need magic...

I am also getting a 404 as well. Of more concern is the Dropbox issue. I'll have to head there to see what it is about, I had not previously heard.

I can still open it no problem and my Dropbox files are fine.

JamesRBrown,
Just re-downloaded your Rules Enhancement without any difficulty. So their may be a freeze on recent files. I noted that the most recent activity on my Dropbox account was me checking the most recent activity on Dropbox. Nothing else was listed.

So either there is something with regards to Robin's account, or they've just generically put a freeze on things. I did not take a look into Dropbox's forums (if any) for clarifying details, etc.

Sorry guys, hopefully the link to my document in signature works now!

In regards to the question why not Hope instead of Endurance, a valid question, but I prefer the magician character to be penalised Endurance rather than Hope, because it reflects (in my view) better the wearying effects of using internal energy to cast magic. Certainly for other methods (like Virtues) I am in favour of using Hope, and have done so for the use of spells as Virtues in my rules. But recall that Hope is more of a 'group' resource that can be replenished if surrounded by a good Fellowship. What about the common stereotype of the lonely magician on the road? How is he going to manage if spells cost Hope?

After thinking about some more, I still prefer damage to come off Endurance, and damage is permanent if doing a permanent type of magic effect.

Robin S.

Robin, I can see that spell casting would drain endurance - the wearying effect as you say. To me, a permanent enchantment would reduce the maximum hope of the character than the maximum endurance though. Putting a little of your spirit or soul in to enchanting the item. That's where the question came from. Thanks for the explanation of your reasoning.

Robin, thank you for the thoughtful feedback on "Magic for The One Ring." I hope you also received my PM in regards to your post. I'm gratified that you seem to have picked up on a few of the areas which vexed me as I worked on the project, so let me explain my thinking...

There are certainly some "flashy" effects possible with my Spells, but I feel that may be balanced by the fact that it takes a while for Magicians to accumulate enough Spell-crafts and Spells to have access to all the flashy ones. There are other Virtues or Weapon skills that a Magician may want to acquire using his Experience points rather than always going for the next Spell-craft; he might also wish to become an artificer, which requires Experience points to acquire and use (more on this below).

Also, requiring Hope expenditure to cast Spells limits how many uses a Magician has of his magic. I also tried to avoid making magic simply "attacking without a weapon." Conjurations are the only Spells that do direct damage to Adversaries.

I originally included an Endurance Toll for all Spells, but felt that the Hope points and Shadow points might be enough of a cost. I am open to revising this aspect of the system.

I disagree with the view that magic in Middle-earth works like the Force in Star Wars (as another poster alluded to). Sorcery is not necessarily easier to learn or less costly; its attraction lies in that it is often much more expedient than "good" uses of magic.

For example: A sorcerer dispenses with convincing an audience; he instead simply imposes his will over others. No messy discussions or compromises. Thus my Spell Enthralling Voice is on the border of sorcery and carries a Shadow point; the player-heroes use these powers against Adversaries in support of the cause of justice, but a sorcerer uses them against heroes and those with just authority to circumvent their choices. (The use of the Spell as a Tolerance bonus doesn't force other characters to do anything, but it tips the balance in the caster's favor.) If a player-hero used Enthralling Voice to try and force the hand of the King of Dale or to cause two city guards to fight one another, I as the Loremaster would judge this as a Misdeed.

I have required more Experience points to learn these Spells and have forbidden them from being the first Spell learned in a Spell-craft because I feel that it should take extra time and effort to learn to do these more difficult feats. A human Magician who decided to side with Sauron (the Mouth of Sauron?) has time and effort to spare because his life has been prolonged by necromancy and because he doesn't waste his time with frivolous things like friendship or helping those in need.

This is another area where I was of two minds. You may have noticed that under the Bound enchantment, the Toll includes reducing your Hope rank for a certain number of adventurers. I had considered this for all artificer enchantments, or a variant in which the Hope rank reduction is indeed permanent. I again erred on the side of being more lenient, with the idea that the expenditure of Experience points was representative of a loss of one's power--specifically the power to advance in other areas of life. I also felt that by making Create Artefact an Undertaking, it was balanced by the fact that it can only be done once per Fellowship Phase, and also in place of other Undertakings like Heal Corruption or Master Spell-craft.

That being said, I would also be open to broadening the Hope rank Toll to all artificer enchantments and to perhaps making it permanent as well. I would be disinclined to use Endurance rank reduction as a Toll here because I don't view the loss of power as physical, but rather as mental and spiritual.

Thanks again to you and all those who've expressed interest in this project. Incidentally, I discovered the Other Minds magazine in the course of researching my response. I enjoyed reading "The Art of Magic over the Edge of the Wild" by Daniel Vacaflores in issue 13 (I would recommend it to anyone interested in this topic), though it made me wish I had more time to devote to RPG musings! I look forward to continuing the conversation about Middle-earth magic!

I think we're missing a point here. There are two sources of magic in Middle-earth:

- The Morgothian element: The power of Morgoth himself in the elements of Arda (thet's why gold makes people greedy, for example).

- The spirit of the caster (fëa): Only Elves (the Art) and Maiar (Wizardry/Sorcery) have spirits strong enough to "power" their own spells (and Dwarves when it comes to crafting magical items).

Mannish magic-users can be trained to tap into the Morgothian element to cast Sorcery spells, but that's always very corrupting and should not be available for PCs.

So, I'm afraid the idea of a mortal man casting spells does not fit the setting (taking apart innate magical abilities such Aragorn's Healing Hands or Beorn's shape-shifting). Closest thing I can think of would be the Númenóréans (the Elven and Maiar-blooded royal line and the smiths who forged the Westernesse blades).

Of course, this is from a purist point of view.

the1whowas,
Perhaps follow a bit of TOR's own approach with other concepts. Regarding the cost of spellcasting by defaulting to a low consumption system while providing the info needed for a high consumption as well, but making it optional? Or flip it around if that works better.

I haven't had the chance to read this yet, so no comments otherwise.

Hello Arthadan,

Thanks for your comments. I would agree that from a purist standpoint, I might not allow much in the way of player-character magic outside that which you suggest. However, as I said in the Preface to the document, I wanted to try and make something for those who want such magic available in their vision of roleplaying in Middle-earth. I'm operating under the premise that there may be a rare few mortals whose fëar are strong enough to power magical Spells. It's a conceit with which not everyone will agree, and one that steps slightly outside the scope of Tolkien's attested ideas on magic; I only offer it for those who desire something of that sort.

The1whowas,

Thanks for your response, I've read your article and I think is great.

To Arthadan (and others who disagree)

As the1whowas says, both he and myself are trying to devise magic rules for roleplaying for those (like myself) who believe Tolkien's earlier views and writings on magic, rather than his later views.

The whole concept of what is 'canon' on magic is an extremely controversial and argumentative topic because Tolkien himself changed his views, and I would rather not debate this issue, as I have done so many times before in other forums!

I will just say to Arthadan and others, you obviously perceive Middle-earth the way you want, and I will perceive Middle-earth the way I want (with a third source of magic if you had read the start of my work!) and we will leave it at that...

Robin S.