First, Harry wrote
I'd like to stick more to psionics than magic, because the bad Latin and ridiculously complex terminology I keep seeing in spell descriptions makes my brain ache.
Then Scott wrote
Incidentally, where have you seen bad Latin? All my spells use Spanish, and I don't think Eric writes out his incantations.
Graeme uses a smattering of Latin in his spells. I lean more to Koine Greek in mine, but my forum character (who is distinct from my regular play character) learned magic in a world in which it was all sung, so most of his magic is based on singing songs.
Harry, you don't need to use bad Latin, or any Latin, for that matter. The "trick" with Multiverser magic is that the power of the spell is directly proportional to the complexity of the ritual--the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. One of the things that can get you a bonus in chance of success is using a "magical language"--which is any language which you, as the player character, associate with magic (and not your ordinary conversational language). Bonuses on chance of success can be traded for increases in power, or shortened casting times, et cetera. In this way you can tweak a spell to do what you want, if you're willing and able to pay the price for it.
What often happens, though, is versers wind up in worlds in which someone there already knows magic, and the verser then patterns his magic after what he learns in that world. The Architect did his first magic in a world in which it was all faith-based, so his magic starts with quoting scripture (in Greek); my game character here began, as mentioned, in a world in which magic was sung, so he perceives a connection between music and magic. Adam's character started using magic in Orc Rising, and patterned his spells after those in his Hackmaster books which he'd brought with him, so his magic has a very D&D feeling to it. Graeme had had a very brief contact with some magicians in Quest for the Vorgo, and had only just discovered that he could create magic rituals before he was killed, and then in his experimentation he tends to bring a lot of his engineering background into his spell designs (a shrink and grow spell that includes burning the written formula for volume while the target object is at one end or the other of a telescope, for example).
In short, when your character starts to discover magic somewhere, you will start to create your own rituals in whatever manner feels magical to you, influenced by what the other magic-using creatures around you do.
On the other question, generally I answer such things with, "How would you know?" The best thing (and the fairest) is to tell me what you want to do and how you think you're going to accomplish it, and let me figure out whether that's possible where you are. For example, psionic invisibility has been mentioned. You could do that psionically by
- Planting the suggestion in the minds of those around you that you are not there, or not important;
- Making your body physically transparent such that light passes through you;
- Interfering with the memory processes of those around you such that although they see you they do not remember from moment to moment that you are there;
- Bending light around you;
- Creating a shield around you that prevents objects within it from being seen from the outside but does not obscure vision of the opposite side;
- Shifting yourself to a hyperspace or similar dimension which occupies the same points in space but is not visible from normal space;
- Probably several other ways which haven't occurred to me in this quick pass.
Those have different levels of difficulty, and they can be experientially different--if you bend the light around you, you will be in total darkness, and will need some way to see outside your bubble; if you block memories, people will stare right at you, constantly surprised that you are there but unable to understand their own surprise. This also doesn't touch on changing yourself to appear like an object or person or creature who will be overlooked because it is normal there, or creating the illusion of the same, or any of many other ways to cause yourself to be unnoticed, including direct mental attacks such as distractions and thought interruptions. What you decide to try is up to you; you'll learn what's easy over time, by experimentation. Then you won't have to ask what's easier and what's more difficult--people will be asking you.
--M. J. Young
