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GrimLewd Magic and Corruption overview
🕑 Added 2023-07-12 13:14:48 +0000 UTCOverview:
In the world of GrimLewd magic and corruption go hand in hand. Any exposure to magical energy has the potential to warp a creature's soul and by extension their body, mind and paths.
Magical energies are found everywhere, although they differ in strength and affinity. Humans tend to settle in areas of low level neutral magic to prevent corruption.
Over time, a soul exposed to magic will absorb the magic and become changed by it. The changed soul then warps the mind and body of the affected creature. That process is called corruption
Every living creature has a level of corruption resistance based on their combined class tiers and their corruption level. As a result of that, corruption tends to stabilize over time, unless the corrupted creature continues to seek out stronger sources of magic.
Over millennia humanity spawned new sapient races as a result of large groups of humans settling in an area infused with higher levels of magical energies. These humans would all eventually become corrupted by the local magic and stabilize at a level of corruption consistent with the environment.
When large groups of creatures are exposed to the same source of corruption they tend to change in similar ways. This allows for entire new species to develop with big enough populations to support natural reproduction.
Soul shapes and affinities are heritable and as a result, so is corruption.
Humans and mundane animals have neutral magical affinity, making them magically versatile but easy to corrupt. Other flavors of magic show higher resistance to corruption, making the corruption a largely one way process.
For example: a creature already corrupted by fire magic, will be very resistant to any other magical affinity. It can be further corrupted by fire, or similar affinities.
Mana:
A synonym for magical energy. Almost everything in the world generates mana of differing affinities.
All mana has a "flavor" or "affinity" that decides its nature and what it's best used for. To put it simply fire mana is best for burning things down and life is best for healing or creating life. Affinity greatly influences how corruption changes the infected creature.
Affinities that are conceptually adjacent work better together. Life and Nature work better together than Life and Death etc.
Connections between elemental and emotional affinities are rare but possible.
Affinities can be roughly broken down into two large categories:
Elemental: fire, water, lightning, life, death, divine etc. mostly found in nature.
Emotional: anger, joy, lust, humor, ennui etc. mostly derived from the gods and sentient beings.
You could try to use Joy mana to burn something down but it would be extremely inefficient and difficult to archive.
Uncorrupted humans and animals generate neutral mana. It is not very strong, but able to fuel almost any spell. Strong emotions can generate small amounts of emotional mana, but not enough to corrupt.
Sources of mana:
Souls: every soul generates a small amount of magical energy of its own affinity. The amount is dependent on the being's levels and abilities.
Natural resources: everything in nature generates at least a small amount of mana. The amount varies wildly depending on the resource in question.
Gods: Gods and their tissues are extremely potent sources of emotional and natural affinity mana. Every god has its own mix of affinities.
Rifts: Any area where the membrane between different layers of reality is weaker generates mana. The space in between realms is incredibly rich in all sorts of mana
Souls:
Every sentient being in GrimLewd has a soul. Souls are used to connect to the path and interact with magical energies.
While there is a weak body-mind-soul feedback loop within every creature it is the soul that strongly influences the health of the other two.
A damaged body can house a strong mind and soul.
A weak mind can be in charge of a strong body and soul.
A damaged/corrupted soul will twist the mind and body to reflect itself.
In rare cases it is possible to survive one of these being destroyed, but most often it results in death of the individual.
Nobody exactly knows where souls come from and what exactly happens to them after death.
Magic:
Magic is a practice of applying will to the magical energies in order to make them perform a specific task. The simplest way of doing it is by channeling magic from your surroundings through your soul and giving it intent with your mind. Doing it this way is called "raw magic" and results in high levels of corruption, unless the mana was neutral affinity.
This is where the path comes in. Spellcasting [classes] give many different [abilities] that allow humans to safely channel mana without risking corruption.
All humans can channel "raw" with practice, even without a spellcasting class. A person's ability to channel raw is usually much greater than their safe channeling ability. Using a little bit of extra raw magic is a constant temptation for all spellcasters.
Any spell or magical device works by channeling enough mana into it. Whether they are single use, or work indefinitely, all that matters is setting up the structure and feeding it enough mana.
Spells are instructions for mana, written in one of the many languages of the gods. They can be visualized, vocalized, written down or inscribed into a device. Learning the divine languages is one of the great ongoing works of humanity.
It is also possible to bypass the god languages and use pure intent to direct mana, but it's very very difficult to do.
The same spell can be cast in many, many different ways. A [mage] that knows a spell can for example:
-Visualize or vocalize it and channel mana directly into it.
-Inscribe it into a non magically active material to ease visualization.
-Inscribe it onto a magically active material for others to channel into
-Inscribe it into a magically active material and hook up a mana source to create an easy to use artifact that less skilled people could use by simply activating it.
-Any combination of the above and more.
Example classes and spells:
[War mage] : Pure combat spellcasting class with no buffs to research or spell creation. Each level greatly increases souls mana generation and overall mana channeling capacity.
Example abilities:
[Memorize combat spell] : each tier allows for perfect memorization of one combat spell from a written or spoken source. Each tier grants one more spell slot.
[Arcane quick mind] : speed up the speed of thought for the purpose of spell visualization. Speed increases with each tier.
[Mana bank] : temporarily store mana for later use. Amount and time increases with each tier.
[Arcanist] : Research and spellcrafting class. Each level grants buffs to memory and slightly increases soul mana generation and overall mana channeling capacity.
Example abilities:
[Steady hand] : Inscribe spells more accurately and with greater ease. Each tier increases speed and accuracy of your inscriptions.
[Arcane insight] : Intuitively understand spell structures from sight alone. Higher tiers allow for transcribing spells just from looking at them once.
[Artificer] : Allows for spells inscribed into magically active materials to be channeled into.
[Life mage] : A spellcaster focused on healing. Each level grants increased soul mana generation and overall mana channeling capacity.
Example abilities:
[Life mana conversion] : Convert other mana affinities into life mana at a loss. Each tier speeds up and refines the conversion process.
[Memorize healing spell] : Perfectly memorize one healing spell from a written or spoken source. Each tier grants one more spell slot.
[Healing aura] : channel your own soul mana to generate a healing aura. Each tier increases the maximum range and strength of the aura.
Comments
Bowack
Same here. I think I'm going to try my hand at making a system like that. I'm going to try taking inspiration from mutants and masterminds + Pokémon tabletop united
Krys McGuire
Submissive Husk is my new porn star name.
Sir Kev The Perv
I'm loving this new project is like a sexier version of Codex Inversus
Andrey Kurenkov
So excited for this!
marketmann01
I am loving every single one of these posts, this is so satisfying and exciting to read!
Rascal
There's honestly enough here to write a book or make a game or start another long-form comic.
Angelo B.
This outline and background info is so good.
Well damn. I've been following you for a few years now, and it's always amazing to see an artist that aboslutely bangs in multiple areas. I mean you have the drawing part covered, but you definitely have a knack for writing and worldbuilding as well. Can't wait to see more of GrimLewd.
dylan
glad to see you’re having fun lol
Fireworkjack
Question: is there a way to remove the soul/mind/body? For example, no body would be a ghost, no mind would be a thrall of some sort, and no soul would be something like a lich or automaton. And then the follow up question would be how could one apply that stolen mind/body/soul? Like stealing the mind from a person leaves a submissive husk, and their mind is then used in an enchanted object to give it the ability to follow instructions. Or the soul is taken and used for a spell, and the leftover husk goes in search for a new soul. Or the body is used as a warm set of holes and the ghost has to watch due to a charm preventing it from returning to it's body.
peter berghuis
haven't played Curse of Strahd yet. will eventually. but yeah i like the grim. though i like the curroption and secret classes even more. to combine it with a 5e or just make it a dnd light with modifications coul be cool too.
Leonardo Taglialegne
LOVE everything about this
Leonardo Taglialegne
If you want a grim(notlewd) setting for DnD, look into Ravenloft!
peter berghuis
i would love to make a one shot of DND in your setting. where magic can be used but somewhat dangerous, where the more power you use above your level the more chance you have to be corrupted. like if the use is too much, roll a dice for severity of the corruption (minimum/mid/high) and then a dice on whether it is a positif or negative corruption. With a high chance of it being bad most of the times (an extra mouth on your hand that talks when you sleep? or glowing eyes that can ONLY see in the dark, but as if daylight), or a slight chance of it being positif (extra arm that you can use after some training?). in any case i love your work so far :)
Nobilis Reed
Now I want to PLAY in this world!
Jiggly
This system lends itself to there being in-universe stigma against magic users considering the options they seem to have regarding their power and the temptation for quick and easy means of acquiring it which are either dangerous or cause collateral. But I also like the idea of necromancy as not being fundamentally evil, it's entirely how you use it. Aforementioned corpse disposal, proper funerary rites and coming onto battlefields like carrion could all be part of an average necromancer's shtick. A gruesome but necessary part of life.
Nicholas Feltner
I keep seeing potential your grimlewd has for being an actual table top.
InCase
Necromancy would broadly rely on two sources of energy: -Mana created by the soul traveling to the afterlife. It would technically create a small rift that bleeds death mana. Every death is a small burst of potent death magic. -Corpses generate death mana at a relatively high rate because of little bits of soul residue left over. The strength of the effect would be relative to the overall mana generation capacity of the person/creature while alive. A necromancer could do anything from inscribing a spell into a corpse to animate it as a mindless construct with it's own mana to fueling their spells by killing people. As for bringing people back from the dead I am not sure yet. Next lore document I'll be working on will be about Gods and Realms. I'll figure out the broad strokes of the afterlife etc by then. Corpse disposal would be pretty important. A lot of dead people in one area could start generating enough death mana to be a problem. Battlefields would be a big source of corruption now that I think about it.
Aaron Crabtree
Thought out and so much potential. I love you ve this idea of mixing this rpg type stuff with more adult content. So much fun.
Riz
Ok this makes me really want to see how spell casters look especially highly corrupted ones
Jiggly
The moral is: MAGIC IS COLOURFUL RADIATION AND IT'S EVERYWHERE OH GOD It is interesting that magic basically has tangible effect on things not resistant to it and something like a soul is definable and definitely involved in the whole process. What comes to mind a little is a neat tidbit of lore from FFXIV; excessive amounts of magic aspected to a certain element can physical warp people (such as water-aspect turning people into sea creatures, making them grow gills etc). I do enjoy magic being a relatively dangerous source of power, something that's a thing in darker settings such as Warhammer. I wonder how the equivalent of necromancy would work in GrimLewd. Whether it's taking a dead body and using magic as replacement for energy it has in life, or using 'residue' of mana on dead things to get a glimpse of their memories. I bet that the Old Kingdom was working hard on a method to replicate a soul in a laboratory...with suitably twisted results no doubt.
Dani Jones
Maaaan, I love all this detail!
BottomFeeder225
Omg. This is brilliant.
