The World's Magic

Magic suffuses every part of the world of Deiros. Each person and beast has at least a little bit within them, as does every plant, every stone, every current of water, or every breeze of wind. When one breathes, one absorbs magic. When one eats a plant or an animal, the magic of one is absorbed by the other. When one kills, the magic of one is absorbed by the other.

Manifestation

This law manifests in the relative power of different creatures in the world:

• Older creatures are more powerful than younger creatures, not just because they are more wise or more experienced, but because they have absorbed more magic.

• Creatures who have killed many other creatures are more powerful than those who have not, because they have absorbed the magic of those they killed.

• Those who focus their activities as they absorb magic over their lifetime can direct it in much more specific ways. A cleric who focuses their life on developing their healing magic can achieve miracles.

Within the context of the D&D game rules:

• Primary purpose: There are characters in Deiros who have gained access to high-level abilities, but are not actually high-level characters. They have stats as a low-level character and most of their class features as a low-level character, but one of their class features is treated as though they are a high-level character.

• As an example, there are clerics of gods of medicine or healing who can cast spells such as Raise Dead or Resurrection, but are only Level 2 or 3 instead of Level 10 or 14.

• These characters are not adventurers, they are not heroes. They have simply studied one particular subject (such as a class feature like Spellcasting) for decades or centuries so that the magic they absorbed over that time manifests as a high-level ability.

• This does give an in-world context for the gaining of experience by characters (i.e. they grow in power quickly because they are killing lots of monsters), but that purpose is secondary.

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane