Spells Middle-Earth

[Vin Ahrr Vin]

I didn't want to derail Machfront's thread on T&T in Middle-earth, but every time I see people discussing doing any RPG conversions for Tolkien's world I feel the urge to post my research on the topic.

What I did was to take notes as I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and look for spells cast by Gandalf. After I made a general list, I tried to organize them so I could see which were the most or least common.

I'll share this list for anyone who hasn't see it elsewhere.

[Vin Ahrr Vin]

I remember the article Gandalf was only a 5th level Magic-user from Dragon Magazine and I took notes this time that I am re-reading Tolkien. It is really interesting to note that Gandalf usually appears quite impressive, yet actually does very little. Without actually referring to the article, I wanted to create a list of Gandalf’s spells for myself:

Gandalf’s Spells from the Hobbit (page numbers are from my hardback edition)

21 Colored smoke rings from pipe are made to change color and dance in Bilbo’s place. Let’s call this one Control Smoke.

25 Blue light from end of staff. [Is this a spell or a property of the staff?] Call it Staff Light.

50 Ventriloquism against the trolls.

52 Open door to the trolls lair. [BTW – he failed at this one.] A Knock spell.

69 More blue light from staff. Staff Light again.

70 More colored smoke rings dancing. Control Smoke again.

71 Flash like lightning [With smell of gunpowder. Spell or alchemy?] Call it Flash / Spark of Light.

75 Extinguish flame lights in the goblin’s cave. We also get a tower of blue glowing smoke with white sparks. A variant of Control Smoke combined with Flash / Spark of Light.

78 More light from staff. Staff Light again.

113 Ignite pine cones with blue fire to drop on goblins from tree. Call it Ignite Small Fire. [This may not be a spell either, since G wields on of the Three Great Rings, which happens to be of fire.]

121 Started a fire. [Ignite Small Fire, same as the pine cone spell?]

140 More smoke rings, this time with shapes in addition to colors and dancing. Control Smoke.

292 Sound of thunder, also lightning from the staff that does not appear to be a true Lighting Bolt. [The lightning could be Flash / Spark of Light.] We also find that G can summon a black cloud. [An actual storm, or just Control Smoke again?] Lastly, the deep booming voice. Call this the Enhance Presence spell.

[Vin Ahrr Vin]

Gandalf’s Spells from Fellowship of the Ring (page numbers are from my hardback edition)

39 Magical fireworks. [We don’t know how long it took for G to make them, but they bore his mark and I assume they were his work. Note that this is the second reference to gunpowder. It is entirely possible that G uses gun or flash powder to enhance his spell repertoire. If they are truly magical, we can assume a combination of Control Smoke, Loud Noise, Ignite Small Fire, and Flash / Spark of Light. Fireworks may truly be a work of magical art since they may combine as many as four spells. No wonder the Hobbits were amazed.]

43 Another flash of light. Flash / Spark of Light.

46 G seems to appear tall and menacing. [Perhaps it isn’t even a spell!] Enhance Presence.

231 G shapes Elrond’s flood waves at the Ford to look like horses. A new one. How about Control Water, similar to his Control Smoke?

308 Using his staff, G lights a fire. “I cannot burn snow.” Ignite Small Fire.

316 In the battle with the wargs, G combines Enhance Presence with Ignite Small Fire. He manages to set a whole bunch of trees on fire, but he does so by just starting one fire that spreads.

321 G tries to Bless Bill the horse for luck. This may not even be an actual spell.

324 G claims to know 200 Knock spells to open doors – all of which fail to open the Gates of Moria. He eventually opens the door by cleverness, not by magic.

327 Staff Light again.

332 Big flash of light from the staff (like lightning). Flash / Spark of Light again.

342 Flash of Light from staff.

344 Flash of Light from staff. This one may do actual damage – a variant of Ignite Small Fire?

345 Hold Portal. This one works for awhile until the orcs break down the door.

349 Sheet of Flame upon breaking staff. This may not be a spell, either, but a property of the staff. I’ll give G credit for Ignite Small Fire to start the effect and assume the staff magnified it. Of course, at this point G dies and we won’t see any more spells for awhile. Also, perhaps a Sunder spell to break the bridge.

[Vin Ahrr Vin]

Gandalf’s Spells from The Two Towers (page numbers are from my hardback edition)

514 Some sort of Command Person spell used on Legolas and Gimli. It is worth noting that G gained this spell only after becoming The White, unless Command Person is just a glorified Enhance Presence or something like that.

515 Enhance Presence again.

516 Command Person and/or Enhance Presence as everyone drops their weapons. Legolas’ arrow bursts into flame – another Ignite Small Fire.

536 Still more Enhance Presence.

537 Sound of Thunder [Loud Noise.] Fires diminish and the room grows dark, and the staff is actually credited for this spell [Extinguish Flame.] Flash of Lightning [Flash / Spark of Light.]

538 G gives Theoden strength of mind and body. A spell, or just the power of suggestion? I’ll call it Command Person again, but this may be too simplistic.

606 G issues a Command Person to Saruman. This is also combined with Enhance Presence.

607 G breaks Saruman’s staff at a distance. This is a really neat trick! Call its breaking force a Sunder spell.

[Vin Ahrr Vin]

Gandalf’s Spells from Return of the King (page numbers are from my hardback edition)

841 Shaft of white light. [Staff Light]

925 Prolonged shining white light. [Staff Light]

[Vin Ahrr Vin]

So ... the total spells used by Gandalf (as I count them, anyway) are as follows:

1 Bless
4 Command Person
6 Control Smoke
1 Control Water
7 Enhance Presence
2 Extinguish Flame
9 Flash / Spark of Light
1 Hold Portal
8 Ignite Small Fire
2 Knock / Open Door
3 Loud Noise
6 Staff Light
1 Sunder (Breaking Force)
1 Ventriloquism

[Vin Ahrr Vin]

THe other list was alphabetical, and had a note of which spells appeared each time. Just today I had this thought that one could take that list and order it by difficulty by looking at the number of times a spell was used.

In other words, if Gandalf did it a lot it would be "low level" but if he only did it once it would be "high level".

I took the above list and calculated (10 - times used) with the thought that this new number could be a "spell level" of sorts. So Flash (or Spark of Light) might be a 1st level spell while Bless could be 9th level.What I get is this:

9 Bless
9 Control Water
9 Hold Portal
9 Sunder (Breaking Force)
9 Ventriloquism
8 Extinguish Flame
8 Knock / Open Door
7 Loud Noise
6 Command Person
4 Control Smoke
4 Staff Light
3 Enhance Presence
2 Ignite Small Fire
1 Flash / Spark of Light

Feedback? What do you think?

[Aramis of Erak]

I'd say cult the levels in half.

Also, I'd say Theoden is hit with either
1) Cure disease, heal, and freedom of will
—or—
2) Remove Curse

[Vin Ahrr Vin]

Feb 5, 2010 14:44:36 GMT -5 Aramis of Erak said:

I'd say cult the levels in half.

I suppose it comes down to how powerful you want magic to be in Middle-earth. This list of spells won't match well with standard lists because of the style that Tolkien uses for magic, but if you wanted to use these spells with a more standard list your "fix" would probably be fine.

[Hogscape]

Very interesting... I'll be keeping this locked away on the hard drive for future reference. Thanks very much for putting in the hard yards.

I remember when White Dwarf published Moria as a dungeon Gandalf was a cleric. This upset many readers at the time but looking at this list of spells, they might have been right!

[Hogscape]

By the by... I recently ran a one-shot in Middle Earth. I used no spell lists, instead the wizard had to explain what they wanted to achieve with their magic and how the spell would manifest (it was very, low-key). I rated the spell as level 1 - 5 and the player decided how they were going to make the Saving Rolls.

For example, the characters came to a rope bridge across a ravine it had been cut by their quarry so the wizard said she would use her magic to topple a tree across the gap. I decided that this was a fairly big deal but not something that couldn't be achieved by a few men equipped with axes. I gave it a rating of 3.

The player had 3 levels of Saving Rolls to make and could use 2 attributes (one must always be ST) she elected to make a L1SR on ST and L2SR on LK. It was successful and put the fear of Zod into the orcs they were chasing!

Initially, I didn't 'charge' for spell casting but later I decided 1 ST per SR level made seemed reasonable.

[mahrundl]

Nice, Vin. An Exalt for your hard work!

[Vin Ahrr Vin]

Feb 6, 2010 21:27:44 GMT -5 Hogscape said:

By the by... I recently ran a one-shot in Middle Earth. I used no spell lists, instead the wizard had to explain what they wanted to achieve with their magic and how the spell would manifest (it was very, low-key). I rated the spell as level 1 - 5 and the player decided how they were going to make the Saving Rolls.

See, now what would be cool for a non-oneshot adventure would be to keep a log of what spells they come up with, along with your 1-5 rating. After a while you would have in essence have created your own spell list. (Well, the players would have created it for you.)

[Hogscape]

Good idea, if we play again I might just do that. Mind you if I keep records I won't be able to paper over those poor judgment calls...

[machfront]

Excellent job, Vin! Congrats for all the leg work on this. Exalt!

Looking over these spells and considering spell lists in some games...it would seem that (sans a type of 'light' spell) that the list in ICE's Lord of the Rings Adventure Game (same rules and spell list in the Quest Rules in the Tolkien Quest and Middle-Earth Quest game books) are pretty well in keeping of the overall general spirit of the books/world (at least in the late Third Age anyway).