Savage Spellbook & Trappings

Savage Spellbook is a 20-page guide to spell trappings written by Zadmar from the Pinnacle Entertainment Group forums. Its the single best document I’ve read about spell trappings – basically variations that are applied to spells and other abilities to make them distinct from one another.

Apparently, there’s a misconception that the SW magic system is thinner than most, because it has a “limited” number of spells and abilities to choose from. Trappings are supposed to help handle this, by allowing players and game masters to customize abilities to their liking in a smooth and supported manner. Yet, it seems that many people, both new and experienced alike, don’t quite apply trappings as intended and when making comparisons to other game systems, grow more enamored of page count and padding than scalable functionality.

What do I mean by this? One of the examples I read somewhere goes something like this: In Dungeons & Dragons, mages have an entry-level attack spell called Magic Missile (magus strike!). As they grow in power, they can obtain other damaging spells which are similar, like Melf’s Acid Arrow and Flame Arrow. The basic function of these three spells is the same though – throw some damage at the enemy. What makes them different are the details, or as SW puts it, trappings.

In SW, there’s a basic attack power/spell called Bolt. What it does is let the character attack a target with a damaging projectile. For example, a mage could call forth mystic energy to blast his foes, or in a superhero game, the character might have the ability to produce bursts of charged energy and fire them a distance at a target.

Now, where do trappings come into play? They’re used to color and alter the given ability. There are several trappings listed in the SW core book. Here’s a quick summary along with suggested effects:

• Acid: Corrosion, Burn
• Cold/Ice: Armor, Fatigue, Skate, Slow
• Darkness: Darkening, Shroud, Stealth
• Electricity: Armor Piercing, Conduction, Jazz, Jolt, Spasms
• Fire/Heat: Armor Piercing, Aura, Fatigue, Flammable
• Light: Beam, Enhance, Glow, Sunlight
• Necromantic: Feat, Feign Undeath, Shards
• Sound: Absorption, Aquatic Boom, Deafen

So, if a player chooses to give his/her character the Bolt power, it can be colored with the Fire trapping, to produce a fireball, or the Ice trapping to produce a hardened shard of ice, or the Electricity trapping to fire a bolt of lightning. These trappings can lead to a power having altered effects, like the fireball causing items to catch fire, the ice causing a slowing effect or the lightning causing its target to spasm from its bodily systems being shocked with electricity. These are all permutations of a single ability in SW, where in a game like D&D, each of these would be a different power in its entirety.

Zadmar’s book really cleared this up in my head. He goes through several of the powers in the core book and provides variations based on the application of various trappings. His take on Bolt, to use our running example, includes the following:

• Acid Arrow: A magical arrow which does damage over time and uses the Acid (Corrosion) trapping
• Baleful Polymorph: A blast of energy which can transform a fallen enemy into a frog using a custom trapping
• Bone Spear: A spear of barbed bone which uses the Necromantic (Shards) trapping
• Chain Lightning: Lightning blast which arcs to multiple foes and uses what I think is a custom trapping and Electricity
• Dishearten: Targets the victim’s heart like in Indiana Jones using a custom trapping
• Disintegrate: Uses a custom trapping to disintegrate a foe or object
• Divine Light: Projects light which harms undead, demons and evil supernaturals using the Light (Beam) and Fire/Heat (Flammable) trappings
• Finger of Death: Point at a target and command it to die. Depending on how hurt it is, it can even be killed – custom trapping, and I’d assume Necromantic flavor
• Fire and Ice: Fires two bolts – one of flame and the other of coldfire, with fire and ice effects and trappings
• Flame Dart: Basic dart of fire which can cause items to catch on fire. Uses Fire/Heat (Armor Piercing & Flammable) trappings
• Lightning Bolt: Fires bolts of lightning with increased effects to conductive materials and water using the Electricity (Conduction & Armor Piercing) trappings
• Magic Missile: Basic magical energy attack with some special targeting options
• Malediction: Magical damage and the potential to place a curse on the target
• Ray of Frost: Ray of freezing air with fatigue potential using the Cold/Ice (Fatigue) trapping
• Scorching Ray: Ray of scorching air with fatigue potential using the Heat/Fire (Fatigue) trapping
• Shadowbolt: Damaging bolt of darkness that can dispel light spells, loosely based on Darkness (Darkening) trapping
• Sonic Blast: Sonic energy that’s stronger underwater, affects hearing and uses the Sound (Aquatic Boom) and a modified Sound (Deafen) trapping

That’s 17 powers which are alterations of a single basic ability. After seeing that, I see the opposite of a lack of variety. I see versatility and reward for creativity. I’ve condensed what these powers do quite a bit, for the sake of reading speed, but what I read somewhere basically stated that what SW did is take the fluff for powers out of rulebooks and put it in the hands of the actual gamers. I really like that approach a lot. It appeals to my desire for creativity, customization and crafting. Its like a step or two removed from Mage or Ars Magica.

Anyway, I highly recommend that anyone looking for more information about how to customize spells or powers in SW download and review the PDF from Zadmar’s website. A link is provided here, and the page has a bunch of other materials he’s created, of similar quality.

• Zadmar’s Savage Worlds Stuff

I’ll post later with some links to other pages with blurbs or discussions about trappings that I found helpful.