When introduced in 1980, Spell Law’s breadth and scope of spell lists was a revelation in TTRPG! Hundreds of lists, thousands of spells and spells up to 50th level. I was 13 years old when I first got my hands on Spell Law, and reading through the Alchemist, Astrologer, Monk and Mentalist lists fired my imagination.
Over the years the novelty of the original spell lists have worn off, and newer lists in the various Companions became more exotic, powerful and interesting. More importantly for me, the monolith nature of the base spells for the professions became an anchor on the system. Every Magician encountered had the same spell lists, every Cleric used the same few offensive spells despite their Diety’s aspect and my players could anticipate most of their opponents spell castings or, at the least, identify the exact spell cast based on it’s effects.
One of the appeals of Terry’s Shadow World material in the inclusion of specific organizational spell lists: Navigators, Loremasters, Steel Rain etc. I expanded on this effort with my own lists for the various Kulthean pantheons, spell lists for the Messengers of the Iron Wind among a few others.
It’s my belief that knowledge of any type, is transmitted through cultural or organization channels: communities, schools, cults, guilds and similar organized entities. In our own world, an education to become a lawyer and the knowledge and skills it imparts will be different between a student at Harvard Law and a law student at the Law School of Sao Paulo. It could be argued that the quality of the legal education may not be equal between the two schools and therefore it’s reasonable to believe that different cultures or groups may have similar but unequal spell lists of similar powers. A Fire Law list learned from the Fire Cult of “Volcano Island” may be different than the Fire Law list from a Cult of Nature worship somewhere else. Perhaps there are different spells, or similar spells but obtained at different levels–the belief that “balance” must be achieved is limiting. Fireball could be learned at a lower level by a Cleric of the Fire God than Fireball on a list of a general “Elemental Mage”.
I think this philosophy could extend to specialized skills and lores: they are only available through specific cultures and groups. Of course this doesn’t work in general with Rolemaster, but it can be incorporated into a setting like Shadow World quite easily. Obviously, Terry has already done this to some degree. I’ve been reading Cults of Prax which provides cult specific spells and runes for various sects and cults and it definitely provides another dimension to spells and lists in a specific setting. In my SW campaign I use my BASiL lists AND the original Spell Law lists to have the largest pool and variety of spell lists.
Does anyone restrict access to lists and skills in their campaign?
