How to fit that dragons and dungeons game into my Realm in regards to Magic:
From a story point of view there is a distinction between Fully Gifted and Cantrippers. This should not be too difficult to fit in. A cantripper could level up and by level twenty know a few dozen cantrips across all classes (DM/GM discretion of course).
Wizard – fully Gifted individual that develops the Gift via academic means. Sorcerers may develop the gift thru perhaps meditation and/or trial and error, the “old way”. Bards develop the Gift as they develop their creative talents. Artificers develop the Gift thru their technical prowess. The short of it is that in my realm a person either has the innate ability to tap into magic or they don’t. How they develop the Gift may differ.
Ranger – not every ranger is Gifted, most are not. Just because the person is inspired by Nature does not mean the person can use magic. Again, 95% or better of the population is not Gifted.
Druid – probably not too many of these people running around as the presence of the gods is felt, although to a lesser degree than in the First Age of this world. In my realm this class may not be a viable option for player characters. In a world where most people think gods exist/the presence of the gods is felt, the worship or veneration of nature in and of itself is very rare. Those peoples/tribes that do this are isolated and tend not to wish to leave their homes. And again, 95% or better of the populace is not Gifted so someone from one of these small groups that worships the “spirit” of nature, or the idea of nature rather than a god of nature would more than likely not be able to wield magic. If someone that worships nature was also Gifted they may develop the Gift akin to how a sorcerer might – meditation and trial and error, with the person’s feelings towards nature to help encourage them and set them in a productive frame of mind. This could be peaceful as a gently flowing stream, or tumultuous and powerful as a mighty storm.
Warlock – could not get any power from divine sources as due to mandates in the Treaty of the Divine Plane. Possibly a mortal could be a warlock if they received power thru some entity from the Demi Plane – rare but does happen. An example may be Lade Isae lending some of her power to some brokenhearted mortal.
No Blood Hunters per se in this world. How does the letting of blood help the person tap into magic? Emotional? Sacrificial? Would be exceptionally rare.
Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian subclasses that use magic – Gifted individuals that can use magic a bit.
Monks. Not like the D & D ones. No such thing as chi or ki in my realm. There are monks in religions of course, and nuns. May or may not have martial prowess. Some may be able to wield some arcane magic if Gifted, some divine power if the mortal is the chosen of a god. Otherwise, the monk class from D & D does not exist in my realm, but could be a ki-less subclass of fighter. Not all monks are fighters, most are not.
Cleric and Paladin – special cases – look under “Chosen of the Gods” for info on them.
In general – no such thing as “spells list” based on class in my realm. If the person has access to the spell they can learn it – with the exception of divine magic/power.
Healing spells are open to everyone that can learn magic – not divine in nature.
No limit on the number of spells and/or cantrips a person can “collect”, there is a limit on the number they can learn/wield as per their rpg class specifications/rules. As far as the story in my realm goes a person can know and wield well beyond the dnd 5e restrictions.
Cantrips can be written down, put down in song, drawn, etc in whole or the part as the caster needs to finish them, the same is true for level or grade/graded spells. Bards can have spellbooks, wizards can have songbooks. The main thing that limits a caster’s number of collected spells is access. Collected spells are just spells the Gifted person has written down somewhere, or a book they found that they have in their possession, but have not taken the time to understand, practice, or familiarize themselves with these spells. Simply think of the collected spells as another source of potential spells the Gifted has and instead going out looking for them, or buying new spells, has already found some.
Spellbooks In an effort to save what magical knowledge they had, many Gifted humans began to make multiple copies of magical texts so it would be harder for the elves to destroy what remained. To this end, the printing press was invented and hundreds to thousands of copies of books containing the spells humanity retained have spread all over the human lands. In this way anyone with the Gift is able to pick up a copy of one of these books and learn magic academically. Now, not all the spells humanity knows are easily available to all humans with the Gift. Some spells are passed down from mentor to student. Some spells are locked away or have been taken out of general circulation so that the elves and their allies will not have an accurate idea of just how much magical knowledge humans have kept or lost. Usually the easiest books of spells to find are of the cantrips/Low Magic and High Magic levels/grades one to two. This does not mean every level one book has every level one spell known to humanity in it, but it may have several to dozen plus. The books are usually organized by school of magic, but not always. So, someone could go to the Academy’s library and find a book of level one spells for the school of Abjuration. One could also go to said library and find a book of spells specific to the four-year program for becoming a healer or Medical Mage. One could also find multiple printed copies of some Gifted human’s personal spellbook with levels cantrip thru whatever. Essentially, these books of spells act as textbooks, like textbooks for Chemistry, Physics, Calculus, etc that someone can use for preparing, learning, and casting spells, or use as source books to take specific spells from and copy into the Gifted individual’s own personal spellbook. In this way, a level one caster easily could accumulate high level spells even though they do not have the ability to yet cast them.
Difference Between Cultivating the Gift and just accumulating Spells – from a story point of view:
Even a person without the Gift can collect cantrips and level spells. So how does one level-up or cultivate the Gift? It has to be done actively in game play just the way any character would want to level up in most classes – they have to spend some adequate amount of time and energy engaged in learning about and practicing the thing they wish to level-up in. For cultivating the Gift to another level that might mean so many hours a day or week of meditation, practice, study; seeking out tutors, halls of learning, academies, etc. This is something that the player needs to think about in terms of the direction they want their character to go and with the assistance and discretion of the DM/GM.
