Perhaps the weirdest type of magic outlined here, world mind access comes from my own future fantasy campaign, Kelandra. World mind access is really advanced technology disguised as magic, but not even the sorcerers themselves know this. Kelandra is a fantasy world set inside a huge spaceship. This ship has been traveling for generations, and the culture inside has decayed to a sort of savage swords and sorcery barbarism. The managing artificial intelligence has broken down, but still grants random individuals access to certain functions. This can be functions designed for police and military use, such as lethal or incapacitating attacks, or maintenance functions like force fields or the ability to create objects out of thin air.
Magical ability is essentially random but improves with practice. A sorcerer who devotes himself to the art will grow in power, much as they do in other fantasy worlds.
Examples and References
The novel Titan by John Varley, my own Kelandra campaign.
Limitations
Geas
A sorcerer with world mind access may not use armor or heavy weapons (those doing more than Strength +3 damage). Why is unknown; this seems like a totally arbitrary decision by the computer.
Manifestation
World mind access magic has no effect whatsoever in areas where the technology of Kelandra do not exists - which is rarely a problem in this world.
Nor can they do things outside of what is possible at Kelandra's level of technology - which is not a problem, either, as this technology is beyond imagination.
Another limitation on Kelandra spells is that they are just that: spells. World mind access sorcerers can only invoke the standard effects described in the various schtick descriptions, or new effects that they take time in a lab to research and define beforehand. No spur of the moment invention of new effects is allowed.
This also means that a genuine magician cannot use any power designed to affect magic against a world mind access sorcerer because this is just not magic. Nor can a World Mind Sorcerer affect "normal" magic. On the other hand, Technomancy may have odd and unpredictable results in Kelandra.
Common Schticks
- Blast
- Forces
- Gate
Rare or Prohibited Schticks
- Healing
- Technomagic
Summonables
Rather lame virtual constructs manifested through kinetic force fields and holograms they seem real, but lack much personality, are not very powerful, and usually do not stay around for long.