Hi everyone!

Wow, its been a while. I have finally finished my service to good ole Uncle Sam and can officially consider myself a free man again I've been out of the loop for so long I've really lost track of TOR and pretty much everything else that's going on with gaming.

So with a bit of thread necromancy, I've risen my magic thread from the depths and was wondering if anyone was still interested in the project.

I'll try to dig out some of my old projects and post them here. For those that are curious, I took all my dropbox files down as I had no idea when I would be able to access them. They are now posted again with links in my signature.

Also, I am really kinda surprised it took so long for the LM screen to hit the streets, so I hope a lot of people were able to make use of my screen in the time being. I'm waiting for the LM screen and Tales from Wilderland to arrive. So once those are in my greedy little hands, I'll take a look and see if I can change my screen into a form of quick table references for GMs and Players alike.

Finally, I was pretty ambitious with what I wanted to accomplish and unfortunately I feel I might have left a lot of people in the dark with my sudden disappearance, I want to apologize for that.

So with all that being said, expect to see some updates, but not at the breakneck pace I was going at when I started.

Its good to be back.

Glad to see this project picked up again Kaltharion, I was a fan from day 1.

While I like the Valar-sponsered aspect of magic, I kind of liked the "3 rings/ 3 elements / 3 wizards (active in the North) / 3 stats" approach. It was evocative enough to get my attention right there.

The 5 wizards / 5 valar / 5 skill groups / 5 callings is interesting, but I wonder if you're not splitting your focus too much... I'm torn between the elegance of simplicity and the mechanical thrill of working both "vertically" and "horizontally" on the character sheet.

Glorfindel

Kaltharion;

Good to hear from you again!

You may have noticed that in your absence both myself (see my magic rules in my sig) and others have also produced some suggested rules for magic using TOR. I tried to incorporate what you had written already but as we did not hear from you I don't know if I have misunderstood any rules. I still have to write up Parts 3 (New skills, backgrounds etc.) and Part 4 (Magic Items), but I would much rather have a joint effort (took me five months just to write Part 2!)

Would like to hear more of The Dwimmer Road rules!

Robin S.

As promised, here is another entry for the Dwimmer Road.

After reacquainting myself with what I wrote months ago and comments in this thread, I came to the conclusion that PCs would have the opportunity to begin a campaign as a Dwimmer-Crafter, or DC, from now on.

So my first step was looking back at character creation and emulating the process presented in the Adventurer's Book. This is a single Culture entry with three backgrounds representing the three Wizards. As always, comments and criticism are welcome!

Dwimmer Crafter Cultural Background

Glorfindel - Thanks! I think I am going to stick with the 3/3/3/3 concept. It didn't make my head hurt as much

Robin S. - For the time being, I think I'm going to steer clear of any other magic system presented here. Believe me, I would love to read them, but I want to make sure I don't read something that makes me question my whole approach to the Dwimmer Road. When I get this done, I'll read them all and I know I'll say "Now Why the hell didn't I think of that!!!"
But with that being said, Everything I have posted so far is open for criticism, comments, and suggestions. Several aspects of the Dwimmer Road have changed due to insightful comments from people here on the board.

Here's an example character using the new cultural background.

You will notice that the PC sheet has changed some. I decided that having two distinct groups made spellcasting more cumbersome than it needed to be. So I mashed the two groups together as a single "weapon skill" bound by the Pillar of Magic it serves. It also helps to make the DC a little more versatile.

So without further ado, let me introduce Belengol. He will serve as the base example of a dwimmer crafter throughout the Dwimmer Road once it is finished.

Belengol - Dwimmer Crafter

Yay!

Considering that a character pretty much needs to aim for that goal from character creation, making it a culture in its own right makes sense IMO. At the very least it makes things clearer and altogether easier to follow/accomplish.

Few observations:

Inspire is the culture's favoured skill. This already is the favoured skill for the Bardings. While I'm aware that we'll eventually run out of skills for new cultures and that we shouldn't forcefully give a culture a certain skill under the pretenses that "this is the only skill we haven't used so far", the gamist in me wants to have variety while its still easy to get.

The Lore skill happens to be free (i.e: unused by any official cultures so far), and would fit with the flavour of your Dweomer-Crafter... I know you reserved it for your Saruman-background, but I think it would fit the concept of wizard as a whole. Insight and Riddles would also be good picks IMHO.

Also, cultures follow a pattern for the attribution of attributes, which your first (or last) background breaks. Low body works, but I'm hesitating whether Dweomer-Crafters should be a high heart or high wits culture, or if we should care? Again, the gamist in me would like to "abide by the rules", but restricting yourself to paradigms isn't always a good thing...

Again for the sake of completeness, bringing the total of backgrounds to 6 wouldn't be that off-setting. This would mean two backgrounds for each wizard, bringing a bit more granularity at character creation.

Kaltharion

Now that you're back, perhaps you could respond to some of the earlier comments I made (see Page 4, Dec 9th 2011) about The Dwimmer Road as a whole??

I am particularly interested in your explanation of the Dwimmer PC character sheet - which a player of mine pointed out the other day!

Specifically, I noticed that you have added extra circles labelled 'Water, Fire & Air' to the Attributes, with smaller circles attached indicating 'Mastery', and also two skill groups under each Attribute with three diamonds: Movement & Survival under Body, Personality & Vocation under Heart and Custom & Perception under Wits. Also there is a little diamond attached to the skills Athletics, Explore, Inspire, Battle, Search & Riddle.

I am particularly interested in your explanation of these changes to the character sheet, so I can use them with players! ( I have my own explanation which I have been using).

Will you also be offering a Dwimmer-Crafter Character Sheet Back (or Page 2), say to provide space for a Grimoire? (I don't know how to amend the Character sheet the way you have done, maybe you can teach me??)

In regards to your new posts on the Cultural Backgrounds etc, I must concur with Glorfindel that Lore should be the favoured skill, as in Middle-earth these characters would be known as much for their learning as their ability to 'do magic'.

In regards to my magic system, it is a pretty straight conversion of Decipher's Magic System, which I was a fan of, but I have kept your ideas about Pillars of Magic, which are great by the way!

Robin S.

Ok lets answer some questions

First off, everyone should know that this is still very much a WIP. So things will probably change due to comments or I change my mind...

Glorfindel

I chose Inspire as the favoured skill of the Wise as that was their primary mission when they arrived in Middle Earth. They were to be a compass, so to speak, for the Free Peoples and to guide them in their struggles against the Shadow. I agree that Lore is a very important skill to the Wise, but that skill is available to all backgrounds if they choose the scholar customization (which I think most would). I tried to go for a more thematic feel rather than from a pure game standpoint. Also, if you notice, by going this route, the Saruman background has the opportunity to gain the craft skill as a favoured skill. (insert foreboding music here )

Of course, if there's enough consensus that this needs to be changed, I will definitely keep that in mind.

Thank you for noticing the discrepancy in the backgrounds. When I put the backgrounds together, I was thinking directly of the wizards themselves and how they are portrayed. Maybe because they are so different, go with three cultures instead of one? That way you could produce a more more varied amount of dwimmer-crafters(DCs)? IDK, just thinking out loud.
The hardest thing about making the backgrounds is not the numbers or the rules, its all the fluff that's added in!

Robin S.

Ok, things are still a might fuzzy here, but this is where I am right now. The Water, Fire and Air circles represent the DCs base power att and it begins = 1 + number of ranks your possess in that Spell group. This also acts as a base attribute for any spell cast. If the DC so chooses, they may spend a point of Hope and add their Wisdom score for any spell they cast.

You will notice on the new character example sheet, the spell groups have been combined into a single group. (I did this to take this mechanic in mind) Those spell groups are the skill groups that most represent the element in question (in my mind at least) and the diamonds below represent the power of the spells that the DC can cast from that element.

Example
Belengol is a beginning Dwimmercrafter. He trained under Radagast the Brown, therfore the first element he learned was water. The spells he can cast come from the Movement and Survival skill groups. Belengol is attempting to heal a companion that is suffering from a particularly vicious wound and is dying. To ensure he doesn't lose his companion, Belengol infuses the herbs and the draught he brewed with the healing powers he knows.
Rolling a feat die + 1 success die (he has one rank in the Water spell group), he comes up with a 6 and 6t. Spending a point of Hope, he adds his wisdom score of 2, to reach the required TN 14. A Great Success! he then adds those two success dice to his Healing roll (which he may spend hope on as well)

Mastery is a simple mechanic i threw in to alleviate DCs of the matter of having to find a Master every time they want to raise a spell group, Once they hit level 4 (or 5, still thinking on that one) they gain mastery of that pillar of Magic and no longer need someone to instruct them. Since by level 4 or 5, the DCs will be sitting on a whole heap of XP, it would suck to not find a master and have to wait until another season long fellowship phase to try it again.

Ah, you noticed that. well, I'm not real sure what to do with those yet. I added them because there is a synergy there between the element and the skill group. My first thougt was that any spell cast using that skill would be able to add their element value to the roll, but I'm still working on that one.

In regards to the Character Sheet, I haven't put much thought in a grimoire because I haven't really put much thought into specific spells. It shouldn't be too difficult. Do you have Adobe Illustrator? That's what I use to modify the PC sheet.

Thanks for the questions guys, it keeps my thoughts focused on the project. I'll go back and look at the older questions sometime and try to answer them as well.

I will be updating all the links in my signature soon to reflect what I have mentioned here.

edit: I forgot to mention. You ABSOLUTELY NEVER, EVER, EVER gain an advancement point for using a skill that is augmented with magic. Gaining additional success dice is good enough. It should not also give you AP.

Just a few things I thought while reading your exposition there Kaltharion

The first thing was that it took me a while to realise that by 'DCs' you meant 'Dwimmercrafters'. I thought you meant DCs in the D&D sense, as in a TN.

Also, are you intended for the TNs for spells to be lower than those for Common Skills? I ask because adding the Wisdom value to a roll by invoking Hope seems a bit pointless to me, since even at the max value the most you would add is 6. In my mind it would make more sense to invoke the corresponding Attribute for the magic pillar. Just my opinion anyways

Beleg

DCs - Yeah, i thought that might cause some confusion. Sorry about that. Maybe i need to come up with a better shorthand?

My initial thoughts are that TN of the spell is the same of the skill being attempted.

As for Wisdom versus Fav Att., as I mentioned, that area is still fuzzy. I'm definitely open for suggestions.

edit: I've updated my character sheets. If anyone has an issue with fonts (i.e. not displaying correctly), let me know. Embedding some of the fonts was causing the file size to explode for some reason...
Also, Do not pay any attention to the mechanics that exist in the Dwimmer Road Preview. I'm leaving it up for now due to the fluff as well as some of the other ideas I had so people can read those.

Hey guys,

Here's a little project i worked on today. Its nowhere near complete, and its a disjointed mess, but I think its easy enough to follow.

This is a spell creator that allows you to create custom spells. It is of course based upon my magic system (which itself is still in development). I tried to model this based on spells cast by Gandalf. It uses an effects based system that adds up to get a total spellcost.
I made two spells with it and they are provided as examples. Hope you all can make something of it.

TOR Spell Creator

As always comments are most welcome.

Fantastic!!

I can see where I can use this with some of my more imaginative players who like to create their own spells. I would just like to ask, where did you get the Endurance costs from? With my system I used the following guidelines for Endurance costs:

1. Minimum of 1 (in most cases), like your system.

2. Spells that only affect the self or only require touching should be cheaper (this is consistent with all Tolkien's writings on the subject)

3. The higher the Pillar Rating (more complexity) the greater the endurance cost - generally I have said that a spell of Pillar Rating 4 will cost at least 3 Endurance, for example.

4. Sorcery spells should cost less since they are tapping the mordo (Morgoth element) as well as the caster's own internal energy

5. The more 'flashy' or disruptive of the natural order, the greater the cost - I think the spell that costs the most in my system is Lightning - base cost of 5 but can increase/decrease depending on weather conditions

Robin S.

I haven't read all the posts in the thread so forgive me if this question has been asked before. Have you field tested your magic system in one of your games? I've always found "wizardly" magic a snag point in ME games. It is a very magical place, but only a select few have any real "magical" powers. I would interest to here some reports.

Beran

Good Question and one that should be asked more about other fan made stuff!

No, I have not field tested my system yet, nor AFAIK have any of the other magic systems designed by fans been field-tested either (such as Kaltharion's). Would love to get some feedback on anyone who has playtested some magic!

The general point you make is a problem - this is why I have refrained from commenting on new cultures, virtues etc. because until these are playtested we are all just guessing as to whether they 'work'.

Robin S.

Robin -

I have to be honest that the endurance costs were more of a "Does this feel right?" solution than anything else. I wanted to give casters variety, but not too much. It still needs to be tweaked, that's for certain.

#2 - I didn't even think of those types since I can't remember of a time when something like that was even used (except maybe Gandalf's battle with the Balrog).
Servant of the secret fire and all that...

#3 - I feel that as a Wizard's core power increases, so does the efficiency of his spells. That's why you see endurance reducing effects present themselves as Wisdom increases. Since endurance is solely increased through the use of virtues, and since you're only going to get five, I don't see this happening very often with caster/scholar types.

#4 - I would not use this system for Sorcery spells unless using it as a guideline. The Dreadful Spells ability is a much more elegant solution IMO.

#5 - interesting... I like the "natural order" bit. Fits with the setting.

Beran

Unfortunately, this project of mine derailed almost a year ago due to events out of my control (getting deployed). I'm still picking through the system, trying to think of the best way to approach it. If you read the beginning couple of entries in this thread, you can follow the development and the base idea. After that, it completely derails when I drop off the map!

Here's a little something I came up with while on vacation. I was listening to The Silmarillion on my flight home and was really inspired by the Tale of Beren and Luthien (my favorite Tolkien story hands down).
as a side note, if you can afford to purchase the unabridged audiobook of The Silmarillion read by Martin Shaw, do it, it is worth every penny.

Specifically regarding the battle between Morgoth and Finrod

He chanted a song of wizardry,

Of piercing, opening, of treachery,
  
Revealing, uncovering, betraying.
  
Then sudden Felagund there swaying
sang in answer a song of staying,
Resisting, battling against power,

Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,
And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;
Of changing and of shifting shape,
Of snares eluded, broken traps,
The prison opening, the chain that snaps,

Backwards and forwards swayed their song.
Reeling and foundering, as ever more strong

The chanting swelled, Felagund fought,

And all the magic and might he brought,
Of Elvenesse into his words.
Softly in the gloom they heard the birds
Singing afar in Nargothond,
The sighing of the sea beyond,
Beyond the western world, on sand,
On sand of pearls in Elvenland.

Then the gloom gathered; darkness growing

In Valinor, the red blood flowing
Beside the sea, where the Noldor slew
The Foamriders, and stealing drew
Their white ships with their white sails
From lamplit havens. The wind wails,

The wolf howls. The ravens flee.
The ice mutters in the mouths of the sea.
The captives sad in Angband mourn,
Thunder rumbles, the fires burn-

And Finrod fell before the throne.
- - - The Lay of Leithian; The History of Middle Earth, Volume III

Songs of Power
Requirements: Elf, (Noble Heritage?)
You are gifted in Elven song. Your words have power and the music of those words resonate in might.
- Whenever you are faced with a being that uses the Dreadful spells ability, instead of making an attack action, you may perform a song roll to dispel the effects of the Dreadful Spell. The TN is equal 10 + Attribute level of the enemy. If you are successful, spend 1 Hope.
If you are the target of the Dreadful spell, you may either make a normal corruption test, or use the Songs of Power virtue to contest it.

I can see this expanding into a cultural virtue similar to wood elf magic, but this is all I have at the moment.

Well, I decided to build a light version of The Dwimmer Road as I continue to work on the main document. This is bare bones, and gives instructions on how to build a beginning Dwimmer-Crafter and a very short, bulleted list on how to cast a basic spell. No custom spell creation, cultures, rewards, virtues or grimoires yet. That is still very much in development.

Those of you who have been following this project will notice I am not using a skill rank system anymore for the Pillars of Magic and simply use a single value similar to wisdom or valor. I think it makes the system much simpler and won't bog down character creation or make spellcasting as confusing. (I Hope)
You can use the character sheets in my signature, however, ignore the six dots for the spell groups, and just use the Pillar Rank. I will update the character sheets soon.

If you have any questions or comments, please post. I will be happy to answer them.

Dwimmer Road Lite