With sapphire eyes ablaze, a human extends her hand, summoning the radiant power that courses through her heritage. As the battlefield ignites with her ancient fury, her regal bearing becomes a beacon of majestic defiance. In the midst of the chaos, she calls upon the strength of her ancestors, intricate golden patterns catching the light around her, and rushing outward into battle in her royal name.
With his long hair streaked ebony and white in the tempestuous winds he conjures, a half-elf bearing a crazed and maniacle look on his face stretches his arms wide, his piercing orange eyes ablaze with inner turmoil. Tilting his head back in glee, he channels the seething abyssal energies that churn within him. For a fleeting moment, he is lifted from the earth by sheer force of the malevolent power exploding from his body in a cresendo of arcane might and growing into a torrent of shadowy lightning that engulfs the battlefield in a maelstrom of dark sorcery.
Taking cover behind a moss-covered boulder, a halfling extends her finger toward an oncoming troglodyte. With a sinister gleam in her eyes, she channels her magic, directing a surge of twisting, invisible energy toward her enemy. The troglodyte's body suddenly contortes and begins writhing as if gripped by unseen horrors. A piercing scream rends through the air as the creature clutches its head in sheer agony. The sorcereress, her eyes now glowing with an eerie and unsettling light, readies herself for her next mental assault as she crouches back behind the rock.
Sorcerers carry a magical birthright conferred upon them by an exotic bloodline, sometimes caused by interbreeding with otherworldly creatures or powerful beings, the infusing of magic directly into their bloodline, pacts and deals made by their ancestors, or even the lineage of powerful mages and heroes. One can't study sorcery as one learns a language, any more than one can learn to live a legendary life. No one chooses sorcery; the power chooses the sorcerer.
Raw Magic
Magic is a part of every sorcerer, suffusing body, mind, and spirit or soul with a latent power that waits to be tapped. Some sorcerers wield magic that springs from an ancient bloodline imparted upon them by their ancestors who studied magic to the point of overindulgence, infusing themselves with it in the end. Others carry a raw, uncontrolled storm within them, lightning leaping through their body as though through a wire.
The appearance of sorcerous powers is wildly unpredictable. Some draconic bloodlines produce exactly one sorcerer in every generation, but in other lines of descent every individual is a sorcerer. Even still there are some bloodlines that can lie dormant for numerous generations before suddenly appearing in full force. Most of the time, the talents of sorcery appear as apparent flukes. Some sorcerers can't name the origin of their power, while others trace it to strange events in their own lives. The touch of a demon, the blessing of a dryad at a baby's birth, or a taste of the water from a mysterious spring might spark the gift of sorcery. So too might the gift of a deity of magic, exposute to the elemental forces of the Inner Planes or the maddening chaos of certain Outer Planes, ora glimpse into the inner workings of reality.
Sorcerers have no use for the spellbooks and ancient tomes of magic lore that wizards and bards rely on, nor do they rely on a patron to grant their spells as warlocks do. By learning to harness and channel their own inborn magic, they can discover new and staggering ways to unleash that power.
Unexplained Powers
Sorcerers are typically rare throughout Elaris, though some areas track them much more closely and will even specifically breed for the purposes of infusing their bloodlines with power. People with magical power seething in their veins soon discover that the power doesn't like to stay quiet. A sorcerer's magic wants to be wielded, and it has a tendency to spill out in unpredictable ways if it isn't called on.
Sorcerers often have obscure and quixotic motivations driving them to adventure. Some seek a greater understanding of the magical force that infuses them, or the answers to the mystery of its origin. Others hope to find a way to get rid of it, or to unleash its full potential. Whatever their goals, sorcerers are every bit as useful to an adventuring party as wizards, making up for the comparative lack of breadth in their magical knowledge with enormous flexibility in using the spells they know.
Creating a Sorcerer
The most important question to consider when creating your sorcerer is the origin of your power. As a starting character, you'll choose an origin that ties to the source of magic you have inhereted, but the way you inhereted it is up to you. Is it a family curse, passed down to you from distant ancestors Did some extraordinary event leave you blessed with inherent magic but perhaps scarred as well?
How do you feel about the magical power coursing through you? Do you embrace it, try to master it, or revel in its unpredictable nature? Is it a blessing or a curse? Did you seek it out, or did it find you? Did you have the option to refuse it, and do you wish you had? What do you intend to do with it? Perhaps you feel like you've been given this power for some lofty purpose, or you might decide that the power gives you the right to do what you want, to take what you want from those who lack such power. Perhaps your power links you to a powerful individual in the world—the fey creature that blesed you at birth, the dragon who put a drop of blood into your veins, the lich who created you as an experiment, or the deity who chose you to carry this power.
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