As it is in most fantasy RPGs, magic and spellcasting is a central pillar of the game and the world of CORE20. “Magic Among the Worldborn” in the introduction to the CORE20 Magic Grimoire sets out the broad history of magic and its evolution in Isheridar — the fantasy world that establishes a baseline for the rules of the game. Your CORE20 campaign absolutely doesn’t need to be set in Isheridar (with a number of GMs I’ve talked to running CORE20 campaigns set in the Forgotten Realms and other classic settings). But talking about the relationship between that world and the game’s rules is an effective way of letting GMs and players understand how to adjust that relationship for their own worlds.
Primordial Power
Primordial arcane power was the first magic wielded by the worldborn, arising among the kobolds in their migrations out of the forbidden dragon heartland of Taliyad more than ten thousand years ago. The origins of primordial magic’s chaotic and destructive power are long lost to time, and are occluded by folk history that almost certainly misstates how the kobolds were granted the mastery of magic by their dragon kin. (Among other things, such lore is contradicted by the fact that dragons have never used primordial magic as far as any histories note.) Still, the magical and elemental fury of the dragons was almost certainly the model that the kobolds sought to mimic when they channeled eldritch power for the first time.
In the lands closest to Taliyad, the oldest tales of kobold witness history record that the first mystics to channel arcane power did so in a legendarily destructive and uncontrolled manner, driven by endless curiosity and a profound lack of self-preservation. Unlike spellcasting’s ordered flow of magic, primordial magic was a personal shaping of magical potential, catalyzing magical effects along the boundary between an invoker’s intent and the raw fury of arcane power.
Over millennia, the kobolds honed this new art of personal arcane craft, recording it through narrative traditions and stone inscriptions in shrines dedicated to magic. In its earliest forms, primordial magic was an even more chaotic art then the longstanding primordial forms known and learned in the world today. Only a select few were able to fully shape and master the art in the days of the early kobold clans. But over time, the goal of taming the capriciousness of arcane power passed beyond the heroes and warlords who had first mastered its destructive potential, becoming the subject of critical research by kobold scholars and sages. Those who studied primordial magic were the first to understand the broader potential of arcane power — and it was through them that the channeling of magic spread to the folk of other lineages.
The Old Arcana
As it’s presented in the game, primordial magic is the oldest form of arcane magic, predating the spellcasting traditions that have long since supplanted it. Primordial magic is a personal magic, shaped and honed by intent and necessity in ways beyond the rigid forms that spellcasting allows. But within the game, primordial magic is defined in terms of spellcasting, with the rules effectively reversing the relationship between primordial magic and spellcasting to make primordial magic as easy to play as possible.
Primordial magic is modeled very much after the first presentation of the warlock in D&D, from 3rd edition’s Complete Arcane — the first D&D book I ever worked on as an editor (though the warlock class wasn’t one of my sections). Primordial magic is manifested as invocations — magical features that resemble the spells they evolved into, but whose casting is more fluid and more flexible.
Altering Invocations
Invocations respond to your will as a caster, and are channeled as unique representations of your magic. Historically, spells are the fixed representation of primordial magic that was once more freeform and personalized. As such, you alter your invocations by changing the mechanics of the spells you use as a baseline for those invocations, in ways that a spellcaster can’t.
A primordial caster in CORE20 has the freedom to shape their invocations in many ways. They can alter the presentation of their magic, deciding whether an obscuring mist effect takes the form of swirling fog, clinging shadow, or a swarm of intangible insects. Casters can alter the range of their invocations at the expense of strength, creating a fireball at twice the distance by imposing disadvantage on the challenge throw that sets the save DC. They can increase the duration of their magic by dampening its effect, or can heighten effects by shortening duration. They can expand the number of creatures targeted by their magic by spreading out a slightly weakened effect over more targets.
You can check out the full scope of the rules for primordial magic in chapter 10 of the CORE20 Player’s Guide, or in a four-page PDF sample.
Building an Invoker
For simplicity’s sake, chapter 1 (“Building Your Character”) of the CORE20 Players’ Guide focuses on traditional spellcasting. The “Spellcasting Options” in the “Feat Packages” section don’t present an option for primordial magic — but you can use the following custom feat package and fast-start suggestions if you want to get your invocations on.
Primordial Caster
6 Feat Slots
You are a practitioner of a form of arcane magic older than spells and magic items alike. As a channeler of primordial magic, you harness raw arcane power, shaping it to your will and intent. Take this feat package if you wish to make use of arcane spells with your own distinct flourishes. You’ll benefit the most from this feat package if Intelligence (the spellcasting ability for a primordial caster) is one of your best ability scores.
Eldritch Spirit (arcane) ×1: You channel the power of arcane magic.
Primordial Caster ×1: You can channel arcane magic in its primordial form. You gain a number cantrip invocations equal to your Intelligence modifier, based on any arcane cantrip.
Invocation Mastery ×3: You are caster level 3, granting you three invocations based on any arcane spells of 3rd level or lower. You can manifest those invocations up to three times per day (or a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier if it’s higher than 3).
Arcane Blood ×1: You negate the penalty to your critical points imposed by Invocation Mastery.
Fast-Start: Invocations
To quickly build a primordial caster character, you can select starting invocations and cantrip invocations reflecting common and useful spells. The CORE20 Magic Grimoire has full information on these spells.
The cost is broken out for each level of invocation, which comes out of your 150 gp starting wealth. You know a number of cantrip invocations equal to your Intelligence modifier. You know a number of higher-level invocations equal to your caster level, which can reflect any spells of your caster level or lower.
Primordial Invocation Package
This package contains the following invocations and cantrip invocations, reflecting the spells of the same name:
0 level (5 gp each): Detect magic, eldritch blast, mage touch, touch of fatigue
1st level (7 gp each): Mage armor, mesmerism, shadow shroud
2nd level (12 gp each): Blighted claws, harrowing retreat
3rd level (25 gp each): Blade storm, energy resistance
Art by Vagelio Kaliva
