My apologies if there's an existing thread for suggestions on future magic systems--this is my first post, so be gentle.
I remember one of the late video games in the Ultima series required herbal components that had to be gathered from plants that would be expended when a spell was cast, and it was pretty fun--it encouraged a lot of exploration in the wild to find elfmint or blacktoad mushrooms or whatever.
Would that be a system of magic suitable for Dwarf Fortress? Maybe rare surface plants for Elvish spells and rare cavern fungi for Dwarvish spells? It would make a fun trade item or fun questing system.
You could also do something similar for Alchemy and require extraction of nitre or phospher or particular gems for casting Earth magic spells, or essence of toad and eye of Olm for particular spells to make hunting be the route to gathering some components.
The magic system could be generated at world creation, so each time you play you need to research or experiment to figure out ingredients, and the spell would need different ingredients in different games--the "wall of fire" spell might need ground ruby dust from mines, a scale of a dragon, and cactus needles one time you play, but when you generate the next world, the same spell might need ashes from a creature burnt in magma, sundew, and blood orchid flowers the next time you play.
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Topic: Magic Using Herbs and Alchemy (Read 848 times)