Slush Magic
My latest draft of the Prismatic Wasteland rules (beta version coming soon) has 125,250,500 possible spells available to spellcasters. I previously presented a basic rundown of my spellcasting system, but now, I am working on generating the names of the spells themselves. Previously it involved a few 1d100 tables based around the grammar of the words (e.g., verbs versus adjectives), but I have decided to instead organize the spells along more conceptual frameworks. This is because with so much randomness inherent in a 1d100 roll, being able to decide “I am rolling on the list that mostly contains destruction magic instead of the list that contains mostly necromancy” is a more meaningful choice than choosing between nouns and verbs.
I never liked D&D’s schools of magic. It just felt a little too academic and insufficiently magical, a problem I have long harbored with D&D and similar spellcasting systems. I have divided my spells into 5 categories that are a bit more loosey goosey. I always liked how Final Fantasy divided mages into color-based categories (a blue mage just sounds cool), so that was my prime inspiration, although Magic: The Gathering could also be cited even though I have never played MtG aside from one game that by no coincidence happened on the same day and in the same room that I played my first TTRPG. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. However, I tried not to think too hard about these and take my own approach.
White and Black magic were easiest–white magic is mostly cleric-type, healing, and divination spells, and black magic is mostly necromancy and anti-cleric spells. Green magic was also easy by basing it on an archetype–druid-type and naturey spells filled this category. Red and Blue divided up the rest of the classic arcane spells with Red magic focusing on destructive, evocation magic, and Blue magic covering illusion and nearly all remaining classic wizardy spells. It was a bit of an ordeal, but I eventually sorted 100 unique words for each of these 5 types of magic.
However, as a part of this process, it entailed cutting many potential words of magic. By happy coincidence, the number of rejected magic words totalled 100. So behold, a 6th type of magic is created: Slush Magic. When generating a Slush Magic spell, roll 2d4 and take the lower result. That is the number of words in the spell. Then roll 1d100 on the below table to generate your spell.
A very important rule when using any magic-word system: Add connective words (e.g., “of”, “from”, “with”, or “the”), change verb tense (e.g., “charm” to “charms” or “charming”), make a noun plural, swap two words, or make any other minor alterations to make the spell sound more cohesive.
| 1d100 | Magic Word |
|---|---|
| 1 | Absolute |
| 2 | Accelerate |
| 3 | Accept |
| 4 | Acopic |
| 5 | Aligerous |
| 6 | Analyze |
| 7 | Anger |
| 8 | Apprehend |
| 9 | Away |
| 10 | Branchiferous |
| 11 | Cacophony |
| 12 | Cerebral |
| 13 | Chime |
| 14 | Choke |
| 15 | Chrestomathic |
| 16 | Claim |
| 17 | Cling |
| 18 | Cloying |
| 19 | Cognitive |
| 20 | Conduit |
| 21 | Cranial |
| 22 | Delay |
| 23 | Deontic |
| 24 | Diadermic |
| 25 | Disject |
| 26 | Doctor |
| 27 | Elucidate |
| 28 | Ennui |
| 29 | Excise |
| 30 | Excrescence |
| 31 | Existential |
| 32 | External |
| 33 | Falsiloquence |
| 34 | Fecund |
| 35 | Fictile |
| 36 | Foresight |
| 37 | Fuck |
| 38 | Fulgural |
| 39 | Furtive |
| 40 | Glob |
| 41 | Glutinous |
| 42 | Goetic |
| 43 | Gut |
| 44 | Hex |
| 45 | Hinge |
| 46 | Hyetal |
| 47 | Igniferous |
| 48 | Immense |
| 49 | Imperceptible |
| 50 | Incontestable |
| 51 | Indelible |
| 52 | Ineluctable |
| 53 | Instill |
| 54 | Internal |
| 55 | Iridal |
| 56 | Jettatura |
| 57 | Killer |
| 58 | Ligneous |
| 59 | Liquefy |
| 60 | Lithic |
| 61 | Luck |
| 62 | Mellaginous |
| 63 | Nebulous |
| 64 | Ocular |
| 65 | Ophidian |
| 66 | Ornithic |
| 67 | Outermost |
| 68 | Pampiniform |
| 69 | Passage |
| 70 | Precipitinogenic |
| 71 | Providence |
| 72 | Prudential |
| 73 | Quisquilious |
| 74 | Rebound |
| 75 | Reject |
| 76 | Reverse |
| 77 | Revert |
| 78 | Rip |
| 79 | Road |
| 80 | Rumor |
| 81 | Saw |
| 82 | Scratch |
| 83 | Shaft |
| 84 | Ship |
| 85 | Show |
| 86 | Squamous |
| 87 | Sylvestral |
| 88 | Temporal |
| 89 | Tide |
| 90 | Transcendental |
| 91 | Transpicuous |
| 92 | Travel |
| 93 | Tumult |
| 94 | Unhinge |
| 95 | Uttermost |
| 96 | Velocity |
| 97 | Visit |
| 98 | Vitriolic |
| 99 | Volition |
| 100 | Year |
Example Slush Spells:
For the effects here, I am going generic rather than tying it into any specific Prismatic Wasteland mechanics because I think that is the best way to demonstrate how to use these tables. It’s all about using that big, fat imagination you got.
Chrestomathic Hinge
Process: Rolled 2 and 4 on 2d4, so 2 words. For the words, I rolled Hinge (45) and Chrestomathic (15). Chrestomathic is one of those sesquipedalian words that you may not know off the top of the dome, so to save you a google, it means “belonging to or devoted to useful knowledge or learning.” Because hinge is a noun and chrestomathic is an adjective, the easiest way for me to make this combination to sound like a spell was a simple swap.
Spell Effect: You temporarily shut the door on the ability of one target to learn new information. They act normally but will remember nothing about what happened during the duration of this spell after it ends.
Deonticity
Process: Rolled 1 and 3 on 2d4 so 1 word. For the word, I rolled Deontic (23). I know you already know this definition, but I’ll provide it for all my readers who aren’t as smart and kind and handsome as you are: “relating to duty and obligation as ethical concepts.” This is a single word adjective spell and typically single word spells are better if they are either verbs or nouns, so I turned this one into a noun.
Spell Effect: You temporarily cause the target to behave ethically. What the target considers ethical or unethical is up to them, but for the duration of the spell they must make every effort to make actions in accordance with their personal ethics and are physically unable to commit any act that they, in their heart of hearts, believe to be unethical.
The Cloying Ennui of Providence
Process: Rolled 3 and 4 on 2d4 so 3 words. For the words, I rolled Ennui (28), Providence (71), and Cloying (18). Some definitions again, respectively: “a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement,” “the protective care of God or of nature as a spiritual power,” and “excessively sweet, rich, or sentimental, especially to a disgusting or sickening degree.” This one is a tough one because Ennui and Providence are such ironclad words that it is hard to modify them (although technically ennui can be used as a verb, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that usage). So I think we need to bring in some prepositions to help us, which is typical when you get more than one noun as your magic words.
Spell Effect: You bestow great blessings upon the target, but it only makes them more depressed. They can choose either a number of temporary hit points to gain or a number of rolls to gain advantage on. The number must be at least one. For that number of hours, attacks against them have advantage and their saving throws to avoid death have disadvantage, as they don’t make valiant efforts to continue living despite their blessings.
