The Apprentice Mage's Spellbook
A downloadable game
Every apprentice mage has to go on a journey and visit all the licensed spellcasters they know in the big wide world out there before they can graduate from the Academy and leave with their own license in hand. You need to know how magic works in practice as well as theory in order to discover your own personal magical talents and affinities, after all. And you yourself have completed all your theoretical training, learned everything the academy library has to offer and so now it's time to set out on a journey of your own.
The Apprentice Mage's Spellbook is a small solo RPG of practical magical education in which you'll play as a student mage travelling the word and filling out your personal grimoire. Will you learn combat ice magic high in the mountains in winter or a spell to summon butterflies for the summer solstice festival? Or will you uncover an archmage or two and learn their signature spells? Only your spell book knows the answer..
This game was made using the On Poetic Tides SRD, made by Beth and Angel Make Games” for the Celebrating SRDs jam. It is a brilliant SRD , full of good advice for the On Poetic Tides system and for hacking system and using SRDs more generally. If you're interested, you can check it out along with the rest of Beth and Angel's terrific work at https://beth-and-angel-make-games.itch.io
Please give the other entries to the jam a look as well :)
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Your descriptions are gentle and vivid and full of imagery. Your prompts are always so lovely. I really enjoyed reading through this.
Using the tarot deck is a clever way to make the use of the SRD your own. But I also love how you went a step further and had a prompt that leads to another draw table. The Major Archana prompts are so cool. Each one unique and descriptive and touching on looking for the magic in every single aspect of life. Can't wait to play through it.
Also, I added a widget to the On Poetic Hacks page of this game. Thanks for using our SRD! I do believe you're the first.
~Angel
Actually looking through the prompts, it seems you have a second set of Minor Arcana prompts on pages 5 and 6 which are from some other game? (They talk about "corporate" and "inflencers" and "videos", which definitely doesn't fit the setting).
Ah, that should now be fixed with a new version. I mixed up templates..
I think you're missing some rules - the game tells you to have a separate deck for the major and minor arcana, but never tells you when to draw from the major arcana.
The Minor Arcana tables prompts you to draw from the major arcana when you draw a minor arcana ace.
It felt contrived and awkward to find a place to say that in the overall rules, so I left it as an entry in the table
Ah - I hadn't examined the tables because I wanted to preserve the surprise for when I played it...
Thinking about it, perhaps include a statement in the "Playing the game" section like "You will draw from the major arcana deck when prompted to do so."