I just want cool powers.

I think the choice between these affinities and the D&D schools would largely hinge on one of two viewpoints in deciding how magic is built fundamentally.

1) the utility and general effect of a person's magic is intrinsic, and they learn to express that form through various elements or "lenses." (D&D system) Someone born into Evocation would be able to utilize that through blasts of fire, lightning, ice, force, sound and so on, but night need training to branch out to Conjuration before they can summon anything.

2) the flavor of one's magic is intrinsic, and how they refine it to specific uses is learned (your original system and mine). Someone born of pyromancy can shoot blasts of fire and summon fire elementals, but might need training to branch out and perform those same blasts or summons for lightning, ice, force, sound and so on.

Personally, for a non-stats non-dice rp, I prefer the 2nd method.

<Snipped quote by Blizz>

Haha, yeah, sounds like a cool idea, but certainly the students would not have access to Necromancy unless they did it in secret, but if they god caught, they'd instantly be expelled from the Academy XD.

Hmmmm... Okay, that actually gives me an idea. I think one of my characters will have parents who are secretly members of the newly-recruiting Cult of Tiamat, and they want their child to recruit other student to take part in secret dark magic classes. So, anyone who wants to play a dark character, feel free to choose a Forbidden Art as a secret Tertiary Arcane Art, but they won't actually learn anything in that field until the secret dark magic classes start. So, even for dark characters, still pick from the eight approved Arcane Arts to start. As for how the secret class works, my character will lead any interested students through a hidden tunnel system under the mountains around the Academy. Members of the Cult were secretly part of construction crews who were refurbishing, repairing, and updating various parts of the Academy over the Summer, and they often stayed late to work on building the tunnels and the Secret Arena after everyone else went home for the night.

When the students/aspiring villains come to the Secret Arena, they meet five members of the Cult, each one a master of a specific Forbidden Art that they will teach. The leader of these is an older woman who is very similar to a Sith Sorceress, having specialized in Cerebromancy and Electromancy during her youth, and then Psychomancy after she joined the Cult. She is wise but has a sharp tongue and issues a warning to the students: "You will see things during your time in this Arena that are not for the feint of heart, but I do not tolerate cowardice. If you want to leave now, I will wipe the memory of this place from you mind, but if you commit and then betray us later, your exit will be considerably more... violent. Are we clear?"

Gives me another idea. Someone who is, for lack of a better word, sick in some way. No doctor can help them, no healer can heal them, and the only people who can make the slightest degree of progress, even if its ultimately futile, is someone with dark magic. The character is afflicted with some kind of illness, either magic or mundane that is killing them slowly, and they believe the secret to finding a cure is through necromancy or hemomancy. Therefore, their motivation for wanting to study the forbidden arts is self-preservation. Their life would literally depend on it.

I'm gonna think about other ideas for a forbidden character because I like the idea of the whole Sith teacher vibe. Totally not because my monk is basically a Jedi lol.

I think the choice between these affinities and the D&D schools would largely hinge on one of two viewpoints in deciding how magic is built fundamentally.

1) the utility and general effect of a person's magic is intrinsic, and they learn to express that form through various elements or "lenses." (D&D system) Someone born into Evocation would be able to utilize that through blasts of fire, lightning, ice, force, sound and so on, but night need training to branch out to Conjuration before they can summon anything.

2) the flavor of one's magic is intrinsic, and how they refine it to specific uses is learned (your original system and mine). Someone born of pyromancy can shoot blasts of fire and summon fire elementals, but might need training to branch out and perform those same blasts or summons for lightning, ice, force, sound and so on.

Personally, for a non-stats non-dice rp, I prefer the 2nd method.

I like the second one too

Personally I don’t have any problem with the original stuff you had with the primary and secondary, but the 2nd idea that Light has makes sense when combined with that I think

To be clear, I'd still want us to be able to pick two of these affinities for our characters to blend them in a primary and secondary way. Even as you've said before, two people with the same affinities can have vastly different magic. Let's make an example of Air and Water as a pair:

The first mage calls the storm, cracking the sky down onto their foe with torrential rain, ear splitting thunder, and the devastating stroke of lightning from on high.

The second skates across the battlefield like a dancer, propelling themselves up, down and around with flight. They weave razor sharp slivers of ice into blades that tear their enemies asunder, or snap freeze those unfortunate enough to survive the first assault.

Edit (sorry km kinda scatter brained and afterthoughts are common for me haha): Now this definitely seems like the first is just hydromancy and electromancy, while the second is aeromancy and cryomancy, which is true. But with the affinities as I described, the first would still easily be able to fly or use wind magic as per the Air affinity (and ice with the Water affinity), and the second would be able to transform those icecles into water and attack with them, or just use electricity if they wanted. It might not be optimal for them these other ways, maybe they are more drawn to the depictions I gave them, but my goal is that the option is there.

For me personally, electricity has always been very closely associated with the element of air, and a lot of the other consolidations I suggested follow suit.

Hmmm... So I'm considering a simplified version that combines my ideas with some of Light's:

The Aetherscape is a giant energy bubble around the Mortal Planes and is split into four quadrants - the Elemental Planes of Air, Earth, Water, and Fire - and in the center between them is the Infernal Abyss, where all dark magic is pulled from. Beyond the outer edges of the bubble is the Cosmic Void, where magic pertaining to space, time, and gravity is pulled from. Any character can learn to harness any kind of magic with the right training, but they are born with a natural affinity to one of the Elemental Planes.

The actual classes at the Academy focus on different methods to use the magic. So, for instance, the Professor in Evocation class would teach students how to evoke blasts and such of their attuned element, the Enchantment Professor would teach them how to enchant items, the Runology Professor would teach them the various runes of the Ancient Tongue, etc.

What does everyone think?

I like the second idea that Light pitched, but honestly I’ll be down for it whichever way we go.

Hmmm... So I'm considering a simplified version that combines my ideas with some of Light's:

The Aetherscape is a giant energy bubble around the Mortal Planes and is split into four quadrants - the Elemental Planes of Air, Earth, Water, and Fire - and in the center between them is the Infernal Abyss, where all dark magic is pulled from. Beyond the outer edges of the bubble is the Cosmic Void, where magic pertaining to space, time, and gravity is pulled from. Any character can learn to harness any kind of magic with the right training, but they are born with a natural affinity to one of the Elemental Planes.

The actual classes at the Academy focus on different methods to use the magic. So, for instance, the Professor in Evocation class would teach students how to evoke blasts and such of their attuned element, the Enchantment Professor would teach them how to enchant items, the Runology Professor would teach them the various runes of the Ancient Tongue, etc.

What does everyone think?

I like this approach. It's open ended in picking what kind of magic we use, and it only makes sense that there would be teachers that instruct students how to do certain things with it. I'm just double checking that you did intend for us to only start with one affinity this way then (and only from among Air, Earth, Fire and Water), and we'd have to learn others as we go?

<Snipped quote by CaptainManbeard>

I like this approach. It's open ended in picking what kind of magic we use, and it only makes sense that there would be teachers that instruct students how to do certain things with it. I'm just double checking that you did intend for us to only start with one affinity this way then (and only from among Air, Earth, Fire and Water), and we'd have to learn others as we go?

Well, we can probably say they learned some from their parents or mentors in high school, so that they can start the RP with some knowledge of other elements beyond the one they're attuned to. For instance, let's say a character was born attuned to the Plane of Air, but then learned from an uncle how to draw Mana from the Plane of Fire to create tiny flame tornadoes or something. They can still use magic from different Planes, we can just say their attuned one is easiest to use, kind of like cantrips in D&D.

Considering my character is basically self taught/homeschooled up until now I would sure hope we could have some experience before now lol

That sounds good to me

@Light

Oh, and I forgot to answer the other part of your question - Yes, natural affinities would only be tied to the four Elemental Planes. To harness magic from the Abyss, one must plunge their mind into the farthest depths of their own inner darkness, which requires training and meditation, unless they've experienced some horrible trauma that caused them to draw upon the Abyss subconsciously. Conversely, to reach the Cosmic Void, one must attain a keen mind through rigorous emotional and academic self-discipline.

And to make things easier, we'll just say Raw Mana is an invisible energy that doesn't take form or color until it is filtered into the Mortal Planes through the Magi channeling it. There can be some abilities known as Universal Magic that just use Raw Mana regardless of what Plane it comes from, which any Magi can easily use. The easier abilities from this would include stuff like magical blasts without a particular element and force/sound effects, while more advanced applications can be telepathy, greater telekinesis, etc.

To give everyone creative freedom for how their magic looks, we'll just say the color of their summoned Mana and the subsequent magical effects are purely visual flavoring, like the color of one's hair or clothing. That means if someone is attune to the Plane of Fire, for instance, their flames can be any color they want.

Hmm, so if I wanted to keep the casting illusions and telekinesis, what plane would I go with?

So, to recap, if we go with this newest idea, these are the magic types I'm thinking:

Universal Magic (any magical effect not tied to the Elemental Planes, the Infernal Abyss, or the Cosmic Void)
Fire Magic (powered using Raw Mana from the Elemental Plane of Fire)
Water Magic (powered using Raw Mana from the Elemental Plane of Water)
Air Magic (powered using Raw Mana from the Elemental Plane of Air)
Earth Magic (powered using Raw Mana from the Elemental Plane of Earth)
Infernal Magic (powered using Raw Mana from the Infernal Abyss)
Cosmic Magic (powered using Raw Mana from the Cosmic Void)
Chaos Magic (extinct form of magic without a known source, thought to originate with the gods)

Of course, none of our characters will touch Chaos Magic (at least not until much later on), but I included it because it has historical context within the world. I'm thinking the ultimate goal of Tiamat is to return Chaos Magic to the Mortal Planes so that she can be free of all constraints, and perhaps our characters eventually hunt down the Vestiges of Bahamut, which can be super-powerful Arcane Conduits that allow them to temporarily use Chaos Magic themselves to thwart Tiamat and her forces. But that's a long ways off, we'll worry about that when we get there XD.

So, does that sound good to everyone?

Hmm, so if I wanted to keep the casting illusions and telekinesis, what plane would I go with?

Telekinesis would be covered by Universal Magic, and you could flavor some of the elements to cast illusions, such as using water vapor/moisture in the air to reshape the flow of light through the atmosphere around you, kind of like casting a rainbow. Or you could use air itself to reshape the light. Or you could have that covered by Universal Magic as well by using mild telepathy similar to the original idea for Cerebromancy.

That system sounds interesting. I’m fine with that, as long as I can keep my character ideas lol.

Also, now that we’ve got a bunch of people interested in this, do you think we should get everyone into a discord server? Might be easier to talk back and forth between each other that way

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Telekinesis would be covered by Universal Magic, and you could flavor some of the elements to cast illusions, such as using water vapor/moisture in the air to reshape the flow of light through the atmosphere around you, kind of like casting a rainbow. Or you could use air itself to reshape the light. Or you could have that covered by Universal Magic as well by using mild telepathy similar to the original idea for Cerebromancy.

Yeah, I’m probably going to use the Universal magic route.

That system sounds interesting. I’m fine with that, as long as I can keep my character ideas lol.

Also, now that we’ve got a bunch of people interested in this, do you think we should get everyone into a discord server? Might be easier to talk back and forth between each other that way

I haven't logged in to Discord in a while, need to figure out my log-in credentials, lol. But yeah, once I do that and have a server ready for us, I'll send a group PM with the invite, though I won't be super active in the chat myself until I have everything for the IC, intro post, and character sheet template written up.

If you need help setting a server up let me know, I’m pretty good with it