[UA] Epistomancy + New Formula Spells

[Gregory Paul Stolze]

At 09:37 PM 2/4/99 -0800, Jared Sorensen wrote:
>> Similar slant - how about telephone-based magic? (Hey, it worked for Grant
>> Morrison). The very technology that makes you able to communicate at any
>> time drives you to come up with new ways of thwarting it - from phones to
>> answering machines (I'll talk to you later) to automatic redial (I'm
>> waiting...) and so on and so on in a communications arms race.
>> 
>> Taboo: You can only deal with people through telephones. This includes
>> friends, significant others, etc. Major Isolation check time.

Could work: the paradox is certainly there ("the technology simultaneously
isolates us and brings us together").  Perhaps the old epistomancers were
primarily hermits.

>question for the designers as well as y'all:  can schools of magick be
>split into subgroups?  f'rinstance, a division of dipsomancers who use
>opiates instead of alcohol -- or would that be a new school entirely?  are
>there any fringe groups out there?

I see no reason that wouldn't work - do you mean a school with the same
spells but a different driver (opiates instead of booze)?  Might require
some rules tweaking and changes to spell effects, but I guess the question
is - why have the same spells and a different engine?  If you've got a good
answer, then you should do it.  If the answer is "well, being drunk all the
time is really debilitating" you probably shouldn't.  

One idea I'm toying with is alternative formula spells - some boozehounds
(for example) have developed formula spells of their own and guard them
jealously.  After all, if you can do a trick more reliably and cheaply than
others, that's a BIG advantage.  Plus, it gives us an excuse to publish new
spells for established schools.  :)  PLUS, it provides conflict as people
try to get the new formulas from each other.  This raises the rules
question of how PCs can pay for them - my gut feeling is "save up them
experience points and practice the effect," but does anyone have a better
suggestion?  (Obviously a major charge could produce a new formula spell,
but it can also do a whole lot more, so why waste it?)  

-G.
1899 Phrenologist: Your son has the sloping forehead of a sexual deviant:
better put him in an asylum.
1999 Gene Therapist: Your fetus has the "date rape" gene.  Better abort.