Revised Pact Magic for OSR games.

First off, let me say that spinal headaches suck. I have been out of commission for two weeks with the mother of all migraines after getting a lumbar puncture. 3.2/10. Would not recommend. 

Second, a big thanks to Johnny Price for alerting me to some link rot that has occurred on my early articles. My old version of my Pact Magic system for Ær is gone, and so I wanted to share a newer version.

Revised Pact Magic

In 2020, I created the first Heroes & Homelands based campaign, entitled Ær. Much of the system that I still use at home today is based on that game. I wanted a Dragonriders of Pern inspired game where heroes of a floating island bonded with dragon mounts. With spiritual bonds being a major theme of the game. I also borrowed ideas substantially from Mercedes Lackey’s Last Herald-Mage trilogy and the video game Secret of Mana.

I wanted both magic and flying prowess to be based on the ability to work telepathically with other beings. Thankfully, I had a great template. Pacts & Blades by Lucas Rolim; the first game than an author sent me to review on Welcome to the Deathtrap and the first game I ever used to play a solo RPG. Still an all-time favourite.

I took the very bare-bones Pact Magic system in that game, which you can see me use over a series of several solo game journals (1, 2, 3, 4). It is simple, creative, and absolutely brilliant. However my players in my home games actually like a lot more crunch than I do. And so I set about making a more sophisticated version that walked a careful balance between Pathfinder-esque crunch and Old-School simplicity.

I eventually took the version I wrote for Ær and shared it on Welcome to the Deathtrap. It was popular enough that it spurred me to create a class built specifically for using Pact Magic and including it in my book of alternate magical systems: Strange Ways: Six New Classes and Magical Systems for Any OSR Adventure Game.

The original Ær Version of the Pact Magic system that I shared on the Welcome to the Deathtrap has unfortunately been lost from my Google Drive, but as I have recently had a few requests for that document again and so I am sharing here a revised, pared-down Version of it that does not require the Witch Class from
Strange Ways.

The version in Strange Ways is slightly more mechanically robust, and has both the Witch Class to support its use and a collection of example spirits for use in your game, but this version offers a few refinements that will be placed in an updated version of the book.

Read it Here