Just a quick thought about healing magic

I like weird, low fantasy settings, where magic is alien and dangerous. So I'm not a fan of the instantaneous, no-risk magic healing that's a staple to fantasy RPGs. I wrote about this before.

So, if I want magic to be inherently alien, and opposed to the natural order of things, the easiest way to go is treat a "benevolent" healing spell as you would a curse: the target of the spell must make a save or a resistance roll. There is no option to "let the spell take effect". If a character can shake off a curse or hex, then why should the reality-bending, flesh-mending healing be different?

Consequently, if the character rolls a save against poison, then why not roll against healing potions as well?

[LotFP & the rest] Weirding up Sleep?

Sleep is another staple. Arguably, one of the most oft-employed level 1 spells. So... how can you make it weird?

Sleep and dream

The first and most obvious way is to connect Sleep to dreams and dreaming, perhaps even Dreamworlds?

1. Creatures affected by the Sleep spell see the caster's most recent dream,
2. ...or the caster's worst nightmare,
3. ...or the caster's sweetest fantasy wet dream.
4. Creatures affected by the Sleep spell relive their own most recent dream / worst nightmare / sweetest dream.
5. Creatures affected by the Sleep spell enter a dreamworld, unique to the caster. They can act actively for the same amount of turns their corporeal bodies are under the glamour. During this, they can basically wreak havoc inside the caster's mind, emprint themselves into her/his dreams, and so on.
   Of course, this last option is a mini-game in itself, and you don't want to waste time doing this every time somebody casts Sleep. But it can be an interesting one-off effect of this staple spell.

[LotFP & the rest] Weirding up Cure Light Wounds?

It can be interesting to take a good ol' spell that everybody knows and uses, and thinking of ways to make it more weird. I mused about Mirror Image recently, so let's take a look at something else.

Cure Light Wounds is a staple Cleric spell in all iterations of D&D and OSR games, the main reason for "bringing the Cleric along", and so on. There are advocates of getting rid of this spell (and other instantaneous healing effects, like health potions, etc.) to facilitate a more perilous, horrific game environment, where hazards are more "real", because you cannot rely on a quick and easy method of getting those meager amounts of HP back.

Now, I was thinking about making healing spells more interesting. My main line of thought is to make them stand out, make them significantly different from "natural healing". A couple of ideas:

1. Healing spells leave weird scars. Geometric patterns. Scabs in the shape of occult sigils. They mark the healed person as an object of witchery.
2. The accelerated supernatural healing process doesn't get rid of foreign objects (arrowhead, bullets, etc.), but incorporates them into the healed person's body. This might lead to medical complications later on...
   So, magical healing as mutation. Turn this up to eleven -- magical healing is body horror! Make sure you drop your weapon, otherwise you risk fusing with it when the Cleric heals you!
3. And generally, subverting magical healing is an awesome way to horrify your players. If you are using Taint or Corruption like mechanics, make magical healing a source of this malevolent effect. 

[LotFP] Musings on Mirror Image

Mirror, mirror...

In Lamentations of the Flame Princess the classic Mirror Image spell it is given an interesting twist:

"This spell grabs 1d4 duplicates of the caster from near-identical timelines to confuse foes and make it more difficult for the original caster to come to harm. Since all of the mirror images are the caster, in the same situation and fighting the same battle in their own timeline, they are indistinguishable in every way from the caster and mimic his every motion." (LotFP: Rules & Magic, p. 117)

In other D&D variants* Mirror Image is usually treated as an illusion spell. Which is fine, but for reasons of WEIRD, the LotFP version holds many possibilities, reaching behind the mere use of the spell.

Magic is supposed to be dangerous, and have serious consequences, right?

If the mirror images are real people (from a different timeline), forced to appear next to the caster by foul sorcery, then when they die or take damage in their stead, well, that's real death and damage. Not many Magic-Users realize this dark feature, that by using Mirror Image as a parlor trick or to get out of some mundane trouble, they are actually eradicate themselves from "1d4 timelines".

So, if a Magic-User in your game casts Mirror Image often, as a Referee (DM) you can certainly introduce some creepy weird elements. Have the "eradicated alternatives" haunt the Magic-User in his/her dreams, or just flicker in and out of existence in their field of vision.

And what if the alternative timeline self casts Mirror Image? Does the Magic-User from your game get siphoned into the alternative timeline for the duration of the spell?

These are also good ideas for a Mirror Image miscast table...


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* At least to my knowledge, this variation is included only in LotFP. Correct me if I'm wrong.

"Which version of myself should I kill today?"