This is an optional magic system that can co-exist with other magic systems. This is a system for clerics, since it involves intercession with the spiritual world and constrains the kind of magic that can be worked.
Kami are spirits; virtually everything has a spirit, from the table to plants to bugs. To effect simple spell, all the cleric has to do is reach into the spirit world and pull a kami’s essence into the real world. Pulling a firefly kami into the real world might effect a light spell, for example.
Design considerations:
- Strength
- Great flexibility for players.
- Balancing Forces
- The kami present and thus the spells available are determined by the current environment. No long distance magic unless delivered by a weapon. Powerful spells can require negotiation and the doing of favors.
- Similarities
- RuneMagic, but dependent on the environment instead of on the known runes.
The dependence on the local spirits “available” to a would-be magic user is essential. No fireflies in a hall full of dancing drunkards. No exploding sulfur kami out in the woodlands without a burning torch or campfire nearby. In a way, it could work like controlling the fire spirit in the movie Howl’s Moving Castle (2004).
For more interesting applications, the essence of a kami can be bound to physical objects such as doors, animals, or weapons. Pulling a spider kami into the real world, binding it to an arrow, and hitting a target with it will do damage as normal and effect a fear spell involving webs and bugs and many spiders crawling out of the wound, into the victim’s face, and so on.
More powerful spells require more powerful spirits, which might request the doing of a favor before effecting spells. Evil effects might require evil kami which may be interested in cheating the cleric unless successfully threatened by even bigger bullies. This is why evil kami magic usually involves something akin to selling your soul to evil demons… Enlisting the help of well-meaning kami, on the other hand, might entail some questing on their behalf.
If high-powered magic is controlled via such negotiations, it should not be necessary to take alignment into account. Any kami will serve, if either forced (if weak) or convinced (if strong).
The effect of kami magic is usually one HD affected per spell level, one die of damage done per spell level, or similar. In dire need, it should be possible to invoke stronger spells, by negotiating with stronger kami, if the current environment is appropriate.
Clerics should prepare a list of commonly used kami & their effect when used (including their signature spells!) and refer to this list for quick reference during game play.
If you’re a cleric with very high DEX, you might want to play a Kami Archer. Almost all spells will be effected by binding kami to arrows and firing them at enemies. Any spell effected by binding a kami to an arrow and shooting the arrow at a target would be considered a signature spell. The binding to the arrow itself takes a single round for simple spells, and lasts for ten rounds, unless a separate binding spell is used. Thus, up to nine arrows can be prepared with simple spells and unleashed starting in the tenth round. Kamis can also be used to increase the range of arrows, fly around curves, etc.
Magic
