(Cross Posted from Reddit)

Hello folks! The recently announced 5th edition setting book for Ravnica gave me some warm memories about a series of Magic the Gathering novels(Specifically Whipsering Woods, Shattered Chains, and Final Sacrifice) that I always thought had a general plot outline I thought would make for a good campaign. I think I'm going to make the leap to run this one since I've been tinkering with building a few settings of my own and since this is going to be fairly minor in changes from Terranoth to make it easier.

A relatively simple rundown of the campaign would have the players start off in a small village that is fairly isolated. Not a hidden village type situation, simply a village primarily of foresters with most getting their news of the outside world through a merchant and probably never having actually been to a big city themselves. Similarly, unusual races or magic being something most would have only ever heard of. The prologue for the story would have this tranquility shattered when two powerful warring mages have a skirmish that devastates the village and leaves behind a fair number of unusual warriors and creatures which were pulled from their homes and left stranded when the defeated mage was killed.

For the story I am looking to put the players in a position where they are left refugees by the loss of their village along with this selection of oddities and take on an extended journey to help the others find their way back to their respective homelands scattered over the world. I expect to take it some other ways, one player perhaps being a mage who is unaware of his own skills, some betrayals by those who would have seemed to help them on their path, perhaps hunting down some destructive mages with what amounts to their own voluntary legion rather than a summoned/enslaved one.

To make this setting viable there are a few things I was looking to address.

-Magic is rare, powerful and dangerous. I figure using the rules where you have to have magic as a profession skill helps with that, but I am interested in adding a bit more risk/reward system in there. Lower spell difficulty by taking health damage instead of just strain? Maybe a system for casters that uses a scale like morality did in star wars but isn't necessarily good/evil but you take a conflict equivalent when you cast a spell, gain 1d10 every session and then gain bonuses on casting when your number is high or negatives when low. Essentially a mana battery that lets you show off if you have been charging it.

-Summoning is a bigger deal than in the default setting. That it is a real thing being pulled to you rather than created is flavor. Having it need to be returned by the summoner so they would have access to it again later is the bigger thing I am looking to balance. I am thinking of having some sort of totem that can be collected, or maybe an item that represents an oath of fealty being required to summon. Its a challenging balance though as it requires the summon to be permanent until they are returned. This may be something that is easiest to simply define in lore of the world and how magic works. Summoning being essentially a contract, an agreement for some sort of payment or favor to be able to call them to serve at your will with most expecting to be released home during their off time and not realizing that such a contract is void when their master is killed. Though in saying this I realize that it may simply be a more pragmatic thing where a caster doesn't need keep a retinue that he has to feed and maintain if they can be home and called forth when needed.

Finally, I'm curious in people's advice on world building. I have specific ideas in mind for certain elements here, but part of the advantage of starting things off where the characters aren't very experienced with the outside world means I can introduce things to them through their characters rather than having the setting all laid out in advance. I'm not really looking to use an established world, the changes I want to make sort of void out most settings and I don't know Ravnica well enough to try and play in the MtG universe. Basically I can play it out however I see fit, so I am curious if anyone has any thoughts on tropes or setpieces or ideas on the nature of gods or magic that might fit in well with the above concepts so that I can bake that in early on?

Thanks for the long read and any help you all can give!

Magic:

Perhaps all Arcane spell difficulties are upgraded twice unless you perform a new manoeuvre called “focus” (or “channel”)

This has the effect of increasing the risk of casting unless you take time to prepare carefully.

Primal type magic could keep the twice upgraded difficulty, but mitigation of that requires you to suffer 1 Wound per upgrade as you fuel the spell from your own body.

Divine magic may instead increase the difficulty by 1 of all spells, it’s less risky (no Despair risk) But is harder to convince your deity of your devotion. Again this could be something that can be mitigated by a be manoeuvre called “Prayer”.

Verse magic could have that same increase in difficulty, but in this case it’s mitigated by suffering 2 additional Strain as you put more effort into belting out a tune.

Summoning:

What if any summon automatically has the summon ally effect added at no additional difficulty, but as soon as you stop performing the concentrate manoeuvre to maintain it the creature looses the benefits of summon ally and acts by its own free will.

To actually get the summoned creature to return requires an Average Difficulty Magic Skill Check.

I really like that summoning idea. Essentially instead of having to maintain the summoning, you have to maintain their cooperation. That is a clever solution and one that automatically builds in the reasoning for sending any summoned creatures home without the complexity of contracts. They don't want to be there, if you don't send them home you can't stop concentrating or they will be at your throat.

For the general magic, that is an interesting idea though it leans more towards weakening magic. I think my end goal is to strengthen its effects, but have it come at a cost. That cost could be physical, or some sort of burnout weakening someone who over casts. Currently, I think I'm leaning most towards the idea of a 'mana pool' using similar rules to conflict in Force and Destiny with your pool diminishing causing black dice to start to get added to spells while higher levels add blues. Adding in a few blood magic talents that drop a level of difficulty to make the strain from casting be wounds could help a lot too.