Super-Colleges for GURPS Magic

Super-Colleges for GURPS Magic

Many years ago, preparing for a GURPS 3e game set in the time of Alexander the Great, I was looking for a way to group GURPS Magic spells into fewer colleges than the book presented.  I liked the idea of wizards with talents focused more on some areas than others, but found the existing 20+ colleges too specific.

Aaron Kavli had done some work on a GURPS treatment of Harn's magic as "convocations", which I took as inspiration to group GURPS colleges into these super-colleges.  For the Alexander campaign, I actually forbade any generalized Magery and instead required all mages to purchase Magery by Convocation only.  This, obviously, is a campaign switch that should be adjusted to taste.

GURPS Thaumatology (p.42) suggests that reducing the number of colleges to 9 makes Single-College Magery a -30% disadvantage [7 pts/level], so we'll go with that here.  

If you're planning to forbid standard Magery, you might do what I did then and reduce it to a flat 5 pts per level as a campaign setting, both to sweeten the pot a little for players who are sad about standard Magery, and to preserve GURPS pentaphilia.

Convocation	GURPS Colleges
Earth Secrets	Earth, Making & Breaking, Metal spells
Cool Water	Water, Cold, Darkness, Silence spells
Whispering Wind	Air, Movement, Sound (but not Silence)
Bright Flame	Fire (not Cold), Light (not Dark), Illusion (not Creation)
Ways of the Mind	Comm. & Empathy, Knowledge, Mind Control
Nature's Ways	Animal, Plant, Food
Ways of the Body	Body Control, Healing
Wizard Ways	Enchantment, Meta-Spell, Protection & Warning
Grey Arts	Creation, Gate, Necromancy

Richard Cochener from the GURPS forums had an interesting suggestion, to allow overlap between super-colleges so that some GURPS colleges appear in 2 different convocations.  He suggested the following alternate breakdown.  I didn't go with it, but these groups feel good as well.

Convocation	GURPS Colleges
Earth Secrets	Earth, Making & Breaking, Metal, Plant spells
Cool Water	Water, Cold, Darkness, Silence spells
Whispering Wind	Air, Comm. & Empathy, Movement, Sound (but not Silence)
Bright Flame	Fire (not Cold), Light (not Dark), Illusion (not Creation), Knowledge
Ways of the Mind	Comm. & Empathy, Illusion (not Creation), Knowledge, Mind Control
Nature's Ways	Animal, Earth, Plant, Food
Ways of the Body	Body Control, Healing, Necromancy
Wizard Ways	Enchantment, Meta-Spell, Protection & Warning
Grey Arts	Creation, Gate, Mind Control, Necromancy

In conclusion, it's possible to give standard GURPS Magic a little different flavor just by grouping colleges together in ways that fit your campaign and your idea of how mages should work.  Even if you don't want to tweak Magery itself, groups of colleges can be a fun way to theme spellbooks found as treasure, or to use as limitations on Powerstones and Manastones, etc etc.