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Magical Incantation: Difference between revisions
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== Tabletop Games ==
* [[Dungeons and Dragons]]
** 3.x got all metamagic converted into feats, so any spell can be muted with Silent Spell feat.
** [[Forgotten Realms]] approach, was also not given in details, but for the curious, [[Word of God|clarified]] via [http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1901&whichpage=8#34512 the fan site] is that ''usually'' incantations are arranged as couplets ending with "abracadabra" word triggering the effect. That's easy to remember and concentrate upon, as well as showy, of course. Activation words for items are almost always "abracadabra" type, for obvious reasons. According to ''Volo's Guide to All Things Magical'', after the fall of Myth Drannor there was a fad of crafting items so that their activation words could be concealed in a normal phrase, but it, uh, died out (though not without leaving some dangerous legacy behind).
* In
* Early editions of ''[[The Dark Eye]]'' had actual short rhymed incantations with every spell for the ''players'' of spellcasting characters, with a literal "if you don't say it, your character doesn't cast it" approach. To this troper's understanding, this was gradually phased out later.▼
== [[Video Games]] ==
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* In ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'', the verbal component of casting any spell is simply saying the ''name'' of the spell, as per the D&D rulebooks. For metamagic feats, the feat's name is appended to the spell's. For spells with a long casting time, the name is repeated over and over.
** Actually that's a mild parody more than anything else. It is true the D&D rulebooks before 4th edition (where from memory the issue seems to be dropped) do specify which spells have verbal components (because it could be relevant for gameplay - eg if your character is caught in a silence spell or gagged or similar), but it isn't specified what the actual words are. If you were interested in that sort of thing I suppose you could make up and actually say 'words of power' for specific spells but the usual procedure is just to tell the DM 'my character casts spell X', and it is assumed your experienced wizard or whatever your character happens to be knows what to do. Incedentally, for those unfamiliar with the system it is worth mentioning that the magical incantations aren't strictly necessary in 3rd edition, you can cast spells without them. However your character must be trained to do so and the spell counts as being one level higher than it otherwise would have.
▲* In warhammer fantasy battles there are arcane languages that must be used to cast spells.
▲* Early editions of ''[[The Dark Eye]]'' had actual short rhymed incantations with every spell for the ''players'' of spellcasting characters, with a literal "if you don't say it, your character doesn't cast it" approach. To this troper's understanding, this was gradually phased out later.
* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' Gwynn's spells sometimes require her to speak a [[Language of Magic]] that's written in bizarre letters no one outside the strip has any clue how to pronounce. The ''[[Harry Potter]]'' [[Expy]] wizards, however, use [[Canis Latinicus]].
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