A History of Realms of Sorcery
This review is of the softback Realms of Sorcery book by Ken and Jo Walton and published by Hogshead. This is not the unfinished GW rejected Realms of Sorcery by Ken Rolston that has been available on the net.
The following is not a definitive history, but gleaned from bits and pieces floating around the Internet and online discussions. RoS is one of the great oft announced and never released products. Promised in the WFRP rulebook published in 1986, drafts written by Ken Rolston for Flame (then publishing WFRP for GW) were rejected and with the collapse of Flame Publications the project went under. Hogshead (HH) who then attained the license for RoS announced a 1996 release for the product. GW rejections and rewrites pushed the date back and it was not until 2001, some 15 years after it had been announced, RoS hit the shelves.
The need for the product is great. Although the WFRP world is by no means a magic rich environment, its magic system is one of the most maligned. The game uses an adaptation of the magic rules for Warhammer Fantasy Battle 2nd edition, and according to some of the game’s designers, the magic system was rushed to allow for publishing. A more complete and workable system was to be introduced later… much later as it turned out to be.
The Hogshead Challenge
The challenge for Hogshead and the products designer were imposing.
First, any product 15 years in the making develops a lot of expectation: meeting the inflated expectations of the fans is quite imposing.
Second, since the game’s design, WFRP has remained fairly static while the WFB world has undergone a number of changes, in particular the magic system, so much so that the WFRP magic system and the WFB system are distinctly different.
Third, Hogshead does not have free reign in designing their products. Since GW licenses the product to Hogshead, all products must meet GW’s approval. This puts serious constraints upon HH’s creative process.
Realms of Sorcery
So Realms of Sorcery has two tasks: The first and original goal is to expand upon and develop the anemic magic system. The second task is to make the WFRP and WFB magic systems more congruent.
How did Hogshead do? In short, Realms of Sorcery is disappointing, even if the consumer didn’t have to wait 15 years. The problem with the product is that rather than being an expansion of the original magic system, it’s more of an adaptation of the WFB rules to WFRP. Strange, because the original complaints about WFRP’s magic system are that it resembled too much a magic system for the war game. Realms of Sorcery itself perpetuates this by drawing far too heavily upon WFB’s magic system and by focusing on magic that is beyond the pale of most players and not necessarily suitable for many campaigns. More egregious is that the product does not address some of the most problematic aspects of the magic system.
Presentation
Overall, RoS is a fairly attractive product. RoS has a fairly nice cover by Ralph Horsley, a nice change from the lifeless computer generated images of the recent past or the endlessly recycled covers from products of earlier incarnations – both hallmarks of recent HH releases.
Inside there is a fair amount of black and white art varying in fair to great quality, with each chapter prefaced by a full-page piece. I’m not a fan of full-page art, since I feel it could be put to better use, especially when 34 pages are taken up with full page art. Normally, I’d shrug and accept this, but a large number of them are pictures of robed, often bearded, old wizards surrounded by some mystical energy. There were three or four of these in the WFRP rulebook, but I suppose this wasn’t sufficient to strike home the conventions of the genre. Even more frustrating is the fact that many of the full page pieces of art have been seen print before. Why waste a full page on art that has already been featured in not only past GW and Flame products, but also in recently printed products by Hogshead! If you’ve got five years to ready a product, why reprint art that you’ve already used?
The artists include familiar WFRP artists like Russ Nicholson and Tony Ackland, but include some new artists of Warpstone fame, and to be honest, their work lends RoS a unique and novel appearance.
Content
This book is well organized into 22 Chapters
Chapter 1: A History of Magic: This brief chapter features a profound revision of Warhammer history to fit the current GW vision of WFB. It is here that we belatedly discover that all Battle Magic and all Colour Magic did not exist until as of two hundred years ago. They are introduced by Elves who dumb down their magic to allow humans a more stable form of spell casting. The absence of Battle Magic sure complicates the existence of ancient sites, necromancers, and artifacts from the past featuring magic items. What? Did those liches and Vampires who are a 1,000 years old *just* learn that nifty “Fireball” spell recently? Since Clerical Magic relies heavily upon Battle Magic as well, I can’t help but wonder what clerics have been casting!
Chapter 2: The Nature of Magic. Also available on HH’s website as a sample chapter, this chapter gives a brief synopsis of the magic covered: Colour Magic (Celestial, Grey, Bright, Gold, Jade, Light, Amber, and Amethyst) imports from WFB, Hedge Magic, Petty Magic, Battle Magic, Elementalism, Illusionism, Ice Magic, Alchemy, Daemonology, Chaos Magic, Dark Magic, Necromancy, Elven Magic (High and Wood Elf), Dwarf Runes (and human knock-off runes), Skaven Magic, and Greenskin Magic; all further developed in later chapters.
Chapter 3: A Wizard’s Life provides an overview of how practitioners of magic are viewed in the Old World as well as their studies. It introduces “licenses” that have to be carried about by Wizards, a new introduction that I am less than pleased by. Furthermore, more space is given to licenses than the to training of wizards.
Chapter 4: Hedgewizardry introduces a new practitioner of the magical arts, the Hedgewizards. Rural country bumpkin spell casters who often blunder their way through magic prove among the more interesting of additions in this book. Sadly the rules for detailing the eccentricities of their studies are incomplete.
Chapter 5: Battle Magic proposes that the old stand-by, Battle Magic, is now Colour Magic of a lesser magnitude, and thus this chapter covers the Colour Wizards. The Wizards of WFB 1-3 have made way to Colour Wizards who can see the Winds of Magic and draw upon one of the colours to power great incantations. The rest of the chapter reflects what can best be summed up as the “Hogwarts-ization” of the gritty and low magic WFRP world. Apparently all Battle Magic, and Colour Magic is now centered at the heart of the Empire (apparently the rest of the world is shortchanged) and now wizards now join Colleges. I suppose this affords them the opportunity to blow their grant money on cheap booze at local inns. I’ll address the rarity of high level wizards later, but its important to note that the Colour Wizards are now mostly Level Four or Level Five Wizards, in my opinion a poor design decision. There are 8 colleges described, one for each type of Colour Magic and each with its own distinctions.
Chapter 6: Illusionism discusses briefly the recent history of the art of illusion, and then launches into yet another College scheme, this time “The Empire College”, apparently because human magic has been so flawed and thus required the development of the Colour Scheme to ensure safe spell evoking, the Empire now trains Illusionists at a college to serve as its spies. Curiously, sending people out who practice an unsafe form of magic to ferret out the machinations of Chaos seems rather contradictory – I somehow suspect that the religious orders of the Old World would probably have something to say about the dubious nature of this enterprise! Something about setting the fox to watch the hens… Another school, Lugenheim is presented as well as brief mention of independent illusionists. The nature of illusions is not really described at all, a glaring omission. Nonetheless we learn that if an Illusionist can’t be employed as an Imperial Spy to hunt down our ever-present chaos cults, that they can always find worthy employment as “special effects” operators for traveling bands of actors.
Chapter 7: Elementalism introduces us to those practitioners who draw their power from the “natural, untamed” world. Of course, they thus too must build yet another set of colleges, such as the Eldritch University in the natural untamed world of the City Nuln. Others include “College of Earth”, “The Air College”, “The Fire College”, and the non-conformists of “Castle Water”. Level 4 and 5 Wizards for each are included, although how the Level 4 “[Elemental Type] Wizards” and the Level 4 Specialist Wizard: Elementalist differs wasn’t readily apparent to me.
Chapter 8: Alchemy is one of the chapters lacking a particular college, and like the Hedgewizardry chapter is one of the better, considerably developing the Alchemist and making it a useful class. Alchemists have some spells that are required for some of their products, Alchemy Spells, yet Alchemists do not have the “Cast Spells – Alchemy” skill, and if the spells are compatible with Battle Magic and subsumed in that category, than the Alchemist cannot begin to make things until at least their 2nd level and cannot cast Distil Homunculus until they attain 4th level (when they finally acquire: Cast Battle Magic – Level 3).
Chapter 9: Ice Magic describes a new magic from WFB’s Empire book whose practitioners are mostly female shamans in Kislev. Ice Magic’s exact source of power and position vis-à-vis the colour magic is not exactly detailed either. Lacking a college, these solitary and eccentric characters spread about the entire region manage to overcome their magically induced isolation to meet in a “caucus” to allot territory. And I thought one patch of ice was as good as another. Their powers wax and wane according to the season, as well as their distance from the City of Erengrad. Sadly these Ice Shamans are given the shaft, having a woeful two spells per level in the game.
Chapter 10: Minor Colleges of the Old World details a number of minor colleges, although it lacks more of the detail on what the likelihood of learning a spell at each is in comparison to the chapter on Battle Magic where it is covered in much greater detail. And yes, one of them is a front for a cult of Chaos worshippers.
Chapter 11: Elf Magic gives the first close examination of Wood Elf magic, and as a variation of the standard spell introduces “Tree Songs” and ancient pacts with Dryads, all of which are a refreshing change for the WFRP system, and the High Magic influence is apparent in their possession of Battle Magic spells and their access to the High Elf Mage – Level 4 career, although this career is not provided in this book.
Chapter 12: Rune Smiths is a capable if someone derivative conversion of the WFB Runes to the WFRP system.
Chapter 13: Rune Masters is one of the more misguided chapters in the book. The concept at the heart of it is, in regards to the system, interesting. It is essentially a non-level wizard career that a magic practitioner can enter, pick up skills and the ability to craft runes, and then leave and move on to other careers. In presentation though, this chapter suffers from its background: The Dwarfs, bitter at their “runes” stolen by humans now hunt down and execute or kidnap those who practice this art. Why Dwarfs, whose ancient kingdoms are being systematically overthrown by the forces of evil would squander their resources in tracking down rune masters in human society and summarily executing them without the approval of the local nobility is beyond me. Sure Dwarfs remember insults, but are there more important things to worry about, like say… the fate of their people?
Chapter 14: Forbidden Magic is like the previous chapter, short and briefly examines Necromancy (without discussing vampires, ghouls, or liches), daemonology (without addressing many essential details). Dark Magic is a new magic that Necromancers and Daemonologists can study. The chapter then examines Chaos Magic and makes some very blurry distinctions between Chaos Sorcerers who draw their powers from the Chaos Gods, and the priests of Chaos Gods, whom I suppose draw their powers from the Chaos Gods. Overall this chapter departs radically from the rules of the original Realm of Chaos books. The chapter concludes with some descriptions of Chaos Gods following the formats from the WFRP rulebook.
Chapter 15: Skaven Magic is yet another feeble chapter, providing some very dysfunctional rules regarding Warpstone (with no reference to recently produced warpstone info in the recently released Apocrypha 2), some Skaven weapons, and insufficient information for a GM to generate Skaven villains. A cult description of the Horned Rat concludes.
Chapter 16: Greenskin Magic probably shouldn’t belong in the book. Although the book, with the exception of the Chaos and Skaven chapters, do not grapple with clerical magic, this chapter focuses entirely upon Greenskin magic that draws upon the power of their gods, the inanely named “Gork” and “Mork” as well as the collective manic psyches of nearby goblinoids. This involves the tedious counting up of the number of goblinoids in the area and then making a number of rolls, possibly and hopefully culminating in the explosion of the shaman’s head, thus rendering the bean counting blissfully unnecessary. Other shamans are detailed, as well as the toilet humor of Snotlings.
Chapter 17: Witch-Hunters was an unanticipated addition, which I felt would have been better detailed in the companion volume dealing with clerical magic, this chapter could have easily been covered in an Apocrypha or a Warpstone Issue. The last section of this chapter is the Exorcist, who although better suited to clerical careers does have some relevance, since Necromancers and Daemonologists who have turned from their evil past can seek redemption through pursuit of this career.
Chapter 18: Spell Casting and Creation re-examines the spell casting procedure, providing variations on casting without ingredients or quietly invoking spells. When spell effects actually take place are discussed in the context of the Effective Initiative rules from Apocrypha Now, although there is little detail in how to resolve spell casting if not using those rules. It also seems strange that all spells, regardless of power and the experience of the Spell Caster all take place at the same Initiative. More rules follow on spell creation, reducing magic point costs, and spell ingredients. This chapter, while low on background provides rule content applicable to nearly any campaign.
Chapter 19: Magic Items concerns itself with the making of items and describes a handful of items from WFB and a number of potions.
Chapter 20: Spells is the longest chapter in the book, numbering 67 pages. A number of original petty spells provide some variety, but the Battle Magic spells seem to be drawn from old sources, the Warhammer Companion and the Restless Dead, with few original Battle Magic spells. There are a number of Colour Magic Spells for each level, but these appear to primarily be conversions straight from the WFB system, and these high level spells, probably well beyond the reach of players are the most abundant of spells. A few Illusionist spells and elementalist spells from old sources are present as well. Elementalist high level spells are present, as are a new branch of spells: Alchemist Spells. Ice Magic from WFB is present, although the number of spells is paltry. Wood Elf Tree Songs for levels 1 to 4 are covered, as are direct conversions for the High Magic Spells available only to Elves. Runes follow, quite numerous, a few Necromancy Spells, some from WFB, some Daemonology spells, and Dark Magic Spells, the latter once again straight conversions from WFB, as are the handful of Chaotic Magic spells, with one spell per level per Chaos God. The Skaven Spells likewise seem to be WFB conversions, and the Waaagh! Orc spells likewise, in which the Orc gods make their appearance to step down on the foes of their followers.
Chapter 21: Familiars details Wizardly familiars, although these familiars are the bland types present in WFB: Assistant, Power, Spell, and the surprisingly powerful Warrior Familiar. While RoS has derived much from its WFB counterparts, with little success, sadly this chapter fails to draw upon the atmosphere that the actual familiar Citadel familiar miniatures evoked. Despite that, the familiar chapter finishes with a few interesting role play elements.
Chapter 22: Arcane Secrets is curiously named, I was expecting some sort of GM’s details on privileged information for the GM in the game. Despite this, the chapter proves to be one of the more useful: suggestions and advice on GMing the nature of magic. Despite its lack of “crunchy bits”, this is one of the most rewarding, if briefest, of chapters.
In an excellent design decision, this game concludes with an appendix: Spell list arranged by Type and in alphabetical order with source as well as an alphabetically ordered spell list (including sources).
What’s Isn’t Here…
Having discussed what this book covers, its important to note what it doesn’t cover: Obviously it doesn’t discover most of the Clerical magic (although it does touch upon Chaos, goblinoid, and Skaven magic.
More importantly, it doesn’t address a number of the issues that the original WFRP rulebook created. While it does address when a spell actually takes place, there have been two other topics that are complained about frequently.
First there is the issue of the extortionate amount of experience points necessary to progress in the Wizardly careers – a situation exacerbated by this book! To purchase your typical advance or skill usually costs 100 experience points, as well as to change careers to one related to your class. Yet for Wizards, experience costs to go up levels increases by 100 experience points per level (up to 400 points for level 4). This outrageous amount is doubled for specialists: to become a 4th level Illusionist costs 800 experience points! Yet that isn’t the only expense: to go up a level requires the caster to learn at least two spells at each level, with each spell costing 200 points per level. This results in a mind-boggling amount of experience points necessary for a Wizard to reach a level four career with a measly two spells per level, to the tune of over 8,000 experience points, while a specialist require over 9,000. This could easily purchase any other character 80 skills, career advances, and career changes. Despite these absurd requirements, RoS now offers 5th level Wizards who easily cost over 10,000 experience points. The failure to correct this is in my opinion the biggest failing of this book. The irony of this is that much of the material, in particular the vaunted level 4 and 5 careers are simply out of the reach of even the most determined of players.
A second problem that is not dealt with is the laughable 2d6 roll required to cast spells when one’s magic point total falls too low. When a character’s magic points drop below 12 points, they are required to roll 2d6: if the result is equal or less than their remaining points the spell succeeds, while if it fails, the points are lost and the spell fails. This makes it exceedingly difficult for low level wizards to do much at all.
What else is absent? Details. The game provides background information and career information, but almost no information on the theory of the world. It proves a more useful accessory for the player than GM, questions about the nature of magic aren’t really answered.
Let’s look at Necromancy first. Why is Necromancy different from Dark Magic?
How exactly does necromancy work? What about the plane of death mentioned in the WFRP rulebook and never mentioned again? What about other means of attuning items? What happened to the necromantic artifacts from the past? What of spells from the ancient lands of Nehekhara? What about spells that control new forms of Undead presented in WFB? What are the lives of Necromancers like? Where do they find their knowledge? What ancient secrets lie beneath the practice of Necromancy? Why aren’t the Necromantic Spells from Lichemaster included in the spell descriptions or in the appendices?
Elementalism? What exactly are Elementals? What happened to the Wissentlich from Apocrypha Now? What happened to the lower level Summon Elemental Spells from that product? Are they still canonical – if so they’re not included in the appendices in the back? Why can’t an elementalist dabble in necromancy or daemonology?
Daemonology needed far more attention as well. I would have liked to see the rules for summoning daemons and bargaining with them developed further. The current rules are woefully inadequate for summoning. Are there other ways to summon daemons and open gates? What about sacrifices during the experiment? What about group summonings and rituals as featured in some of the game elements? What about binding daemons into items? What services can a daemon render a caster? What services do daemons request of spell casters? Will daemons teach spells? How do Daemons convince Daemonologists to serve their own dark masters solely? Since minions of Khorne cannot cast spells, how are Khorne daemons summoned? What about the lives of daemonologists? How do they remain hidden? How do they pass on their knowledge?
What of Gnomes? Those who own old White Dwarfs know that in some Q&A it is briefly mentioned that there are magic rules for Gnome Illusionists, yet none of this is covered. So why isn’t this information included in the book? Why do Gnomes have a special predisposition to Illusion magic anyway?
The book focuses on new careers and shoe-horning past careers into colleges, rather than develop the theories of magic beyond the “Colour Wheel”. This is lamentable because the original WFRP system could benefit from further elaboration.
Other Problems
The book seems well proofed, there were no typos or errors that I saw, although further use may eventually discover a few. However there are a number of flaws with the theories.
Firstly, all specialist wizards (Daemonologists, Elementalists, Illusionists, and Necromancer) must first pass through the first level Battle Magic Wizard career. This presents a unique problem: up until 200 years ago, Battle Magic Wizards didn’t exist in the world. How exactly did people enter these careers if the career didn’t exist? If people in the past did not need to be level one battle magic practitioners in the past, then why do they need to pass through the career now? I suppose hedgewizardry could have been the field that they passed through, but then why is hedgewizardry a hotchpotch of spells while the specialist careers are highly developed and specialized? Hedgewizards are considered a menace to society, easily swayed to chaos, yet the only spell caster career open to a hedge wizard is Wizard’s Apprentice, while Battle Magic Wizards can easily become Necromancers and Daemonologists! It seems those blasted Elves, in introducing Battle Magic to the Old World have actually increased the likelihood of others practicing this career! This problem could have easily been resolved by simply stating that only the High Elves introduced the Colour Magics. However including Battle Magic in the new arts greatly complicates things.
Secondly, nearly all powerful magic seems to emanate from the High Elves to the Empire. Other human kingdoms were apparently bereft of any substantial spell casting tradition. In fact, the whole book has a remarkable “Empire” slant, neglecting the rest of the world. Less a sourcebook on magic, and more of a treatise on magic in the Empire, if anything.
Thirdly, the book seems to present a very unified view of the Empire, one where wizard’s licenses are handed out, where fourth and fifth level mages congregate at colleges in the Empire, and where apparently the Emperor wields considerable power since nearly all the Empire’s wizards of any repute pledge loyalty to him. This contradicts the tensions that exist in the Empire where the Emperor has often been a mere puppet to the Electors and all too often an ineffective leader. I can’t imagine that the Electors would permit the Emperor that degree of magic. The books contents belie the backwater and decentralized feel of the Empire presented in the book and the Enemy Within Campaign.
Minor Quibbles
Some of the faults of the book are not the authors, for they must deal with a system that is used for large scale epic games. Essentially the foundation that this product is built upon is shaky at best.
The colleges are conceivably the worst elements of this product. If each of the high powered colleges in the book had a mere ten members each, that is 120 high level, fourth and fifth level wizards in the Empire alone. This is jarring, since we see almost no wizards capable of casting 4th level spells in The Enemy Within Campaign. To put this in perspective, the Middenheim Wizard’s Guild, described as “the magical capital of The Empire” is led by a mere 3rd level Wizard, his aide is 2nd level. In Middenheim is the main temple to Ulric, one of the largest and most ancient of religions in this part of the world, and it has one 4th level cleric and 2 3rd level clerics. What RoS has done is created a bloated sense of power.
Not only does it seem to increase in Wizards seem contrary to the feel of the WFRP world, but there exists a discontinuity between the Battle Magic knowledge and the Colour Magic careers. For example a wizard who specializes in nothing but armor and zone spells and then enters into the Amber college and suddenly is a master of the earth, wielding more powerful spells than a Druid who has spent their lives listening to the forest? A wizard who never once even glanced at an animal nor had any spells related to them now can specialize in the most powerful of magics dealing with them. A elementalist who never once learned a water spell can now join Castle Water and master the control of water in a way far superior to an Elementalist who studied nothing but water spells but hasn’t joined an Elemental college?
The Imperial Colleges themselves sometimes seem at odds – the Grey College and the Amber College are barely colleges, their membership roams around and their colleges sometimes abandoned. This seems to defeat the very idea of a college. Other colleges have absurdities about them, the Celestial College reduces its 4th level Wizards to cleaning windows! We’re informed that on the odd occasion a 4th level wizard occasionally falls to his death – I’m surprised to learn that there is such a surplus of 4th level Wizards that they can squander them so freely! The Jade College we’re informed, is comprised early on of Druids? How so? For Druids are practitioners of divine magic and cannot meet the requirements of joining this college (Any Level Three or Level 4 Battle Magic Wizard…)
Simply put, the College system is a disaster.
What’s Good
The book is exceedingly well organized and pleasing to the eye. There is plenty of art present, although some is reprinted art and others are stereotypical Wizard images. There are however a number of nice atmospheric drawings that convey a feel of mystique of the Old World. The appendix in the back is excellent, although it is lacking spells from sources other than this book and the WFRP, a serious oversight.
For those new to the game, the spells in the back that have been reprinted are a nice addition to the game, although for those with the magic, it’s nice to have them in one source rather than spread out over other books. The book introduces the Dryad, a nice touch, as well as the reprinting of Guardian Spirits. Rituals could have been a novel addition, but the game bungles it, they’re merely spells that take longer to cast. The Alchemy chapter proves indispensable to Alchemists while the Wood Elf magic gives them a bit more flavor. The Hedgewizard chapter, while brief and incomplete is clearly a career that embodies the old feel of the WFRP career, as does the Exorcist career.
This book is not a total failure, there is enough in the book to make at least the purchase of the soft back a reasonable proposition, sadly most of the material is probably unusable in the average campaign, and that seriously reduces the books utility and value. If you’ve already adapted the WFRP magic system or done considerable work on your own, there’s no need to buy this. If you’re unhappy with the system and don’t desire to invest more time in it, this book is probably a sensible purchase.
Conclusion
In summation, the basic flaws of the game haven’t been corrected, yet it is not a seamless adaptation resulting in incongruities in this new addition. There is little in this book that rises above its humble and limiting war game origins.
This book deals in a very superficial fashion with the new original material, gives scant information on non-human magic, and sadly deals exhaustively with the current WFB material, the type of material that served WFRP so poorly from the start. In essence this game some incomplete suggestions on new and interesting material, provides some old spells, and the remainder is simply converted WFB material of little relevance to the average WFRP campaign, unless of course your WFRP games more closely resemble WFB scale battles.
I’m pretty certain that this RoS is not the product originally conceived ten years ago to further develop the product – it is little more than a clunky adaptation of the WFB magic system. If I wanted the Colour Magic, high level wizards, and spells that reign fire and brimstone on foes, I’d play WFB. What I sought in this product was something that would build upon the strengths of the WFRP world, not a product that plays to the strengths of a war game. The problem is that RoS is little more than continued borrowing from a war game rather than an original development for a role-play game.
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