Spellcaster Careers

This section is dedicated to new spellcaster careers, although just one, the Enchanter, has appeared here as of yet. Hopefully, soon I will get time to add another type, the Shaman.

Enchanter
Dark Mage
Shaman

Enchanter:

Enchanters are specialist wizards, concerned with magic that directly affects the attributes or abilities of objects or creatures. There are two fundamental groups of spells, those that affect objects and those that affect creatures plus a few extra spells that don't fall into either group. There are few combat oriented or offensive spells. Some spells can aid the enchanter when creating magical items and thus no other magicians rivals them in that field. Those spells that affect objects can change the attributes of the target item and those that affect creatures can change both the physical and mental state of the target. It is the latter that causes the enchanter to be mistrusted and feared even more than the other wizard types, excluding the evil ones, as they can bend peoples' will to serve their own ends. This makes them frequent targets of various accusations and witch hunts. And although practicing enchantism isn't prohibited, those who do are under constant observation from the local authorities, wizard schools, witch hunters and religious groups. For that reason, many enchanters prefer to keep a low profile and study in secrecy. This allows them to study in peace but it also means that they practice magic without a licence, putting them at grave risk. This is known to the powers that be and has done nothing but increase suspicion toward enchanters. In recent years certain religious groups have been fighting to have the entire enchanter field of magic banned and branded as 'evil' sorcery. Enchanters have also been known to dabble with Klauser's runes, and thus often needing to hide from the dwarves.

Finding a teacher of enchantment magic is not that easy, probably similar to finding an elementalist. But convincing them to take one on as a pupil is more difficult. In addition, the persecution of various groups often disrupts tutoring or forces the magicians to never stay for long in the same place. Once a teacher has been found, the character must undergo a training period of 1d3+2 months. At the end of this time, the character expends 200 EPs and is considered to be a level 1 enchanter, able to cast any enchanter spells successfully learned from the teacher. Following is the advance scheme for each of the four levels.

Level 1 - Cast spells (enchanting battle magic level 1), Arcane language (enchanting magick), Metallurgy, Smithing, Carpentry.
Level 2 - Cast spells (enchanting battle magic level 2), Meditation, Identify magical artifact, Tailor, Stoneworking.
Level 3 - Cast spells (enchanting battle magic level 3), Rune mastery, Magical awareness, Gem cutting.
Level 4 - Cast spells (enchanting battle magic level 4), Manufacture magic items, Manufacture potions, Manufacture scrolls.

Dark Mage:

Some wizards that are tired of their slow progression often seek out to learn some of the forbidden magickal arts for a quicker way to power. Those are daemonology, necromancy, chaos sorcery and sorcery. The first two have been described in the WFRP rulebook, the third one in Realms of Sorcery and the fourth one is what this section is about. Sorcery is the study of dark magick. Apart from offering a quicker way to power, dark magick is subtle and its study is not dissimilar from the study of battle magick. This causes it to be rather common that in eagerness of research, a spellcaster discovers that what he has been doing for some time (often years) is nothing less than dark magick research. Dark magick is the magick of chaos in it's purest form, the raw energy that flows out of the chaos warpgates. The energies that chaos sorcerers wield is very similar to dark magick and those two are the most powerful form of magickal energies but also the most unpredictable and dangerous. Dark magick spells are dangerous to wield and a spellcaster is frequently consumed by the energies he is trying to harness. The study of dark magick is, like the other forbidden magickal arts illegal and despised and dark mages are looked upon with fear and contempt.

Learning dark magick isn't as difficult as the other forbidden arts, mainly for the reason that no special teacher is necessary. All a wizard needs to do is learn the 'Arcane language - dark magick' skill and then he can learn dark magick spells as well as the normal battle magick spells. Note that specialized wizards rarely get tempted to learn dark magick as they have already found their field of interest. Those who do want to dabble a bit with dark magick will need to purchase the 'Cast spells - dark magick' skill but that can be self tought. But they can only one dark magick spell per level, unless he starts to use his dark magick studies and knowledge to warp his battle magick studies. When that point is reached, he becomes a Dark mage of the same level as he was as a Battle mage, has the same advance scheme and skill progression. He can still learn from his old mentor, even if he is not a Dark mage. He studies as normal but warps the energies with his dark magick knowledge.

The benefits of becoming a dark mage are considerable. He can now learn both battle magick and dark magick (if he got the relevant cast spells skills) and as many per level of the latter as he desires. He gains d4 extra magic points per level of dark magick, applying to all levels he has gained so far and will gain in the future. So if he is level 3 when becoming a dark mage, he gains 3d4 MPs and has the chance of gaining d4 extra if he ever becomes level 4. This I actually recommend that spellcasters pursuing every forbidden magickal branch should get, chaos sorcerers, daemonologists and necromancers, just to really show that these are quick ways to power as well as deadly ones (we all know how they can be that).

On the other hand, there are some severe penalties. For each level of dark magick he has or will aquired he gains d6 insanity points. Furthermore, all spells he casts, not just the dark magick ones are treated as dark magick spells when testing for darksurge effects (see the Magick Miscellaena section). Finally, someone who has learnt dark magic, even a single spell, can never become an elementalists. And vice versa.