Alternative Spellbooks: Litter of Kittens

What can I say, +Jensen Toperzer inspired me asking about the special features of dungeon kittens, one of my comments was "They are the Lich's spellbook, each one is a spell", and my brain meats kept going. Aside from these kittens, I have some pretty simple-to-run versions of stuff from Al-Quadim and a setting I ran like 2 sessions of last year. Anyway, if I get enough of these down I'll make a PDF with lots of tables to roll on. We'll see.
These are phrased as if talking to players/PCs, but can totally be used for NPCs as well. "Kitten" below could be any animal smaller than a dog, really.
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Every time you learn a spell, a kitten is born from thin air∆. That kitten is both a kitten, a real goddamn kitten that will eat and poop and meow, but it is also your knowledge of and ability to cast that spell. To memorize that spell for the day, you have to spend at least a few minutes with that kitten, petting and playing. In a pinch, two-way scrying will work (IE even if physically apart, if you have some way for the kitten to see you and you to see it, time can be spent in this way). If you can't spend time with that kitten, you can't re-memorize that spell.

If the kitten dies, you don't know whatever spell is associated with it any more.
The kitten has no other abilities beyond that of a kitten. They get 1 HP for every level you have.

All the references to kitten above could be a puppy, mouse, snake, frog, etc - whatever animal is cool with your DM.

Other Magic-Users can try to steal each other's animal-spells. If a Magic-User comes into physical contact with another Magic-User's spell kitten (or whatever), they can ply it with petting, treats, play, etc to try and bond. The "stealing" Mage makes a Charisma roll with their current level as bonus and the level of the kitten's current "owner" as a penalty. (CHA + your level - their level). If this roll is successful, the "stealing" Mage then chooses: the kitten is either bonded to both (both Mages know the spell and can play with the kitten to memorize it) or the kitten is now "owned" and bonded with the "stealing" mage, and the original mage can no longer cast that spell*.

Animal-spells cannot be "stolen" in combat or any other stressful situation. They must be completely comfortable to bond with a new person. They can be stolen in the mundane, physical sense, of course.

This would not work in every game, and would require a bit of management and commitment. Fun though.

Perhaps Rogue-types might be able to "read" spell-kittens like a one-use scroll?

A Magic-User can try to determine what spell an animal bonded to someone else stores by concentrating on observing it for one round. During that round, the Magic-User makes an Intelligence check, modified by the difference in level between them and the animal's "owner". If successful, they know what spell that animal "stores".

Make sense?

∆ or perhaps you only learn spells by stealing other Magic-User's animals, and new ones are only made via magical research with all the time and cost that entails.
*EDIT: I'd probably give the kitten's original "owner" some kinda roll to fight this, maybe.

 EDIT EDIT: Spike posted some great stuff in the comments below, check it out! 

A Proposed Magic System for My New Home Game

The premise is that spirits do magic, spirits are everywhere, but not many people can talk to them or get them to do things. The more you want them to do, the more risk you assume. It's mashing LotFP Summon with (1-3e) Stormbringer's magic system, trying to make it a little more accessible and broadly useful, but not losing too much flavor.
Note: the equation to get one's POW score below assumes "3d6 in order, swap one" for Ability Scores. If your Ability Score method is more forgiving (i.e. 4d6 drop lowest), use 30 instead of 28.
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Magic is primarily done by elementals, ghosts, and demons. Humans are not inherently magical creatures. Some gifted men (and beasts) can communicate with the spirits and find minor spirits bored enough to fulfill simple requests. For more powerful magics, more powerful entities must be summoned and bound by a Sorcerer or Witch.

POWer: this Ability Score is found by adding the two highest of INT, WIS and CHA, then subtracting 28. If the result is positive, your character is one of the gifted individuals with some instinct for communicating with Elementals, Spirits, and Demons.
How POW is expended is detailed below.
A character recovers 1 POW by sleeping 4 hours uninterrupted. Another point is recovered for every 2 hours' continuous sleep beyond the initial 4.

Vespers are the most minor of spirits, immature and playful, like small children. They can be asked to do minor favors easily, since they are often bored. The favors they do are called "Cantrips." This list is not exhaustive, but covers most basics. To get a Vesper to do a Cantrip for you, spend 1 POW attracting their attention, then make a successful roll under the relevant ability score to see if you were convincing. If the character wishes the Vesper to bluntly enact their will, the roll is straight or at a penalty. If the player enacts the conversation with the DM or does a little ritual, the roll may have a bonus.

Cantrip Name (Vesper type)	Roll Under	Effect
Light (Fire)	INT	Produce one small globe of light (40 foot radiance) for 1 hour per level of caster. Produces heat if the requestor wishes, enough to light torches from.
Control of Body (Earth, Water, or Air)	WIS	Total control over body (breath, heart beat, grip etc) for 10 minutes per level of the caster.
Clairvoyance (Ghosts, Demons)	INT	Can see through walls and other obstructions up to 50 feet from caster for 10 minutes times the caster's level.
Telekinesis (Air)	INT	Objects within site-distance of the caster may be moved up to 50 feet. Object can weigh no more than one ounce per level of the caster.
Cure Wounds (Earth)	WIS	Cure 1d6 hit points damage. Also stops fatal major or critical wounds from bleeding out.
Comprehend Language (Ghosts, Demons)	CHA	Can read/write/speak any language for 5 minutes duration per caster level.

(table adapted from  +Chris Kutalik 's Stormbringer Hack with ideas from Beyond the Wall.)

Sorcerers and Witches
These are individuals who, through a teacher and intense study of magical tomes, has discovered shortcuts and systems by which they may more easily contact spirits, demons, and elementals. Even if they are not naturally gifted in such matters (IE not high enough INT/WIS/CHA to have POW) they can contact spirits. They have a number of POW equal to their level, plus any gained as figured above or through other methods that come up during play.
Eedited to add: Sorcerers and Witches cannot use their POW while wearing metal armor. The studied form of this magic cannot be channeled and focused while in contact with lots of metal.
Sorcerer and Witch are interchangeable terms, and used for both sexes depending upon the region.
These individuals are able to summon and bind beings more powerful than Vespers.

Summoning and Binding
There are many types of spirits more powerful than Vespers, but the three who most commonly traffic with mortals are Elementals, Demons, and Ghosts. One can attempt to summon Elementals of Earth, Air, Fire, or Water, and Demons, at any time. Ghosts tend to be bound to specific locations, and thus can only be contacted in those locations.
Step 1: Attract Attention
Determine the type of creature you would like to summon, its number of Hit Dice, and number of powers. A creature's Hit Dice is always equal to or more than the Power spent to summon it.
Spend the appropriate amount of Power.
Minor Elemental or Ghost: 1 POW
Minor Demon: 2 POW
Major Elemental: 3 POW
Major Demon: 4 POW

Step 2: Make an Ability check to determine the entity's disposition toward you; you are trying to roll under the relevant ability...
plus your Power score after spending the above and any points from Garmonbozia or Rituals
minus the creature's number of Hit Dice and powers.
•If you have no previous experience with this type of creature roll under your Charisma, modified by Intelligence modifiers.
•If you have studied this creature from a book or another Sorcerer's anecdotes, you may choose to roll under Intelligence, modified by any Charisma modifiers.
•If you have previous experience with this type of creature, you may choose to roll under your Wisdom, modified by any INT and CHA modifiers.
Success: the creature will do the first thing you ask of it, then accompany you for a number of rounds equal to your success. On a critical success (roll a 1), add 1 to your POW for a day. If you roll your current max Power or less on a d100, the bonus is permanent.
Failure: The creature is angry at being bothered, and will manifest for a number of rounds equal to your failure. Your companions may be able to reason with it, depending, and it will probably not sacrifice it's life to destroy you, but it's first instinct will be to attack.

Elementals are similar to the descriptions in Stormbringer, editions 1-3 by Chaosium
Demons are as the LotFP Summon spell, except they have one Spell from the Magic User list or the reverse of one spell from the Cleric list per Hit Point. These are chosen by the summoner prior to summoning ("I call forth a Demon with the power of...")
Ghosts are each unique and what powers they have are unpredictable. They are not so much summoned as stumbled upon and communicated with. They can be powerful allies at little cost, or terrible enemies, possessing the summoner's body. It is not wise to meddle with ghosts one knows nothing about.

Garmonbozia
...is the energy produced by strong human emotions. Spirits of all types are attracted to it, and Demons especially feed upon it. Sex and death reliably produce it. It is the reason virgin sacrifice is associated with demon summoning. Not only do you get the fear of the sacrifice, but the melancholy of the cultist thinking on the virgin's wasted potential in life.
The producer of Garmonbozia does not have to even be aware the summoning is taking place, however, only be nearby. Several couples have been surprised when their conjugal tryst helped some Sorcerer in the next room.
The methods of attempting to create Garmonbozia near the summoning are left to the player's imagination and the DM's discretion; when in doubt, use INT modifiers.

Rituals
...let the players have fun making these up, but they cost 500 silver pieces worth of components for every +1 bonus desired. Alternatively, a ritual circle can be constructed from materials in the natural world over a continuous period of 36-INT hours for a +1 bonus, but the summoner cannot sleep, rest, or carry out any other meaningful work while constructing the circle.

Binding
After a spirit is summoned, instead of requesting an immediate favor, the summoner may choose to Bind the spirit instead. An item must be chosen for this purpose beforehand, and the same amount of Power spent to bind that it took to summon. Make the same Ability Check in Step 2 above. The creature is bound to the object for 1 day for every point of success, and can be summoned forth from the object at no additional cost during that time. At the end of the time, the creature is freed from the object, and will treat the summoner and his companions appropriately for how it was treated.
A Sorcerer/Witch can only have one creature summoned or bound per level, except...
At the expense of one Power point permanently, a spirit can be Bound to an object for a year per level of the summoner. At the end of this time, the spirit may choose to remain in the object. A spirit bound so does not count toward the Sorcerer's maximum.
A Witch can try to give the object some effect of the spirit by making a check as detailed in Step 2 above, with the difficulty adjusted appropriate to the effect. There are also less predictable events that can cause Bound spirits to affect their objects.

Necromancy
...is the binding of a spirit to a corpse. The spirit is caught in the corpse for a number of months equal to the amount of bonuses gained from Garmonbozia and/or Rituals in the binding. It can also be freed if it's "body" is destroyed by violence.
This process forces the spirit to use whatever brains the body has left, or only be able to carry out simple one sentence commands. Decay is arrested by the binding.
(Necromancy will be fleshed out - har har - by the demon "construction" rules from Stormbringer if need be. I think it'll be an NPC thing mostly, though).

Alternate magic system for D&D/OSR Clones/Etc?

All the twists to magic in systems like DCCRPG, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, OSR blogs, and on G+ has got me thinking about designing an alternate system, using numbers from the book, that is both functional and easy to extrapolate from existing rules. If one of the reasons OSR folks enjoy older systems is that non-magic classes don't have defined 'moves', and thus players are encouraged to be creative in thinking of their own, why shouldn't there be a system that opens up this freedom for Magic-Users?
This is just going off the top of my head at the moment.
My thoughts currently look like some weird point buy system, where the points after level 1 are determined by the spells/level charts in class descriptions.
So 1 point per level, and 1 point per spell slot and level on the chart in the PHB. (So a 3rd level Mentzer Magic User would have 7 points: 1 for each level, 1 for each of his 2 first level spell slots, and 2 for his second level spell slot). A first level Magic-User would have 2 points (1 for his level, 1 for his First level spell slot).
No pre-written spells. Slots become points. What do you do with the points?
- Points put towards a spell can add either an effect, an area, or a target.

- Effects: effects cost 1 point per effect per target. Parts of the body count as 1 target each. Effects that cause damage cost 1 point per d4 per target. Effects that cause damage are visible and clearly caused by the caster unless 2 points per d4 of damage are spent to disguise it. Illusions are tricky; the original must be erased before a falsehood can be constructed - making something invisible is 1 pt, making something look like something it's not is 2 points (per target).

- Area: 1 point per 5 feet (or whatever your basic square/unit of area for spells is). Spells affecting targets the cast can see can ignore area in favor of specific targets.

-Targets: 1 point per target. Living things count as 1 target for general damage, and 2 for illusion effects (upper body, lower body). It takes 2 points total (1/effect, 1/target) to damage someone, 3 (1/effect, 2/target) to make them invisible, 4 (2/effect, 2/target) to disguise them. (Called shots can be helped along with point expenditure = spend 2 points to hit your called area on a 19 OR 20, instead of just 20).

Replicating the effects of Magic Missile takes 2 points - 1 target, 1d4 of damage. However, the player gets to describe it however they want without being influenced by the words "Magic Missile"

Replicating Sleep is more tricky - 1 target or 5" is 2 points, etc.

Point burn is possible - extra points can be bought with ill effects. For every point beyond what the Magic User actually has that his/her player wants to put towards a spell or effect, the more likely there is to be a fumble or random effect (or maybe just 1 random detrimental effect per extra point?)

I think it provides a reliable base of spells but the point burn adds a whole field of temptation akin to the corrupting effects of magic many of these OSR clones are trying to get at. A magic-user can be boring ol reliable and do a few things, or more powerful but with more risk.


I'll keep thinking about it, and would be delighted to hear input.

(edited to make illusion stuff clearer.)