Let's see, I think I never had any normal dreams, I would consider all of them weird. Or most at least. Maybe you can use some of them.

Anyone remember the lemmings? In one game, I think it was Lemming 2: the Tribes you had about 100 different jobs you could let your lemmings perform to get them to their goal. In one of my dreams, I was with a few friends at a house we had been a few times before in the summer vacations, although not everyone gathered there had been there in reality. Now the weird part was, that there was a huge building (think storage depot) right next to that house, when in reality the house itself was surrounded by forest. Inside this building was only one large room that contained showers on the walls, like you would find in a waterpark. However, you could chose a shower and then be transformed into one of the Lemming Jobs, depending on which shower you used. I went back to the house to find everyone there had chosen the same, which was a different one that I went with. I went a couple of times back an forth, everytime the others had changed as well, but I was never able to match up to them. Finally I woke up.


Another dream, I had this one quite frequently for a while, always started out the same. I was just about to drift to sleep but was not quite there yet, when I was suddenly sitting on my bike, riding it along a path that was maybe 2 inches wide and falling down endlessly on either side. To both sides was nothing for miles, below me were thick clouds that almost looked like the floor. After a while the path was twisting more and more, and it became harder and harder to stay on track. Eventually I fall down, which took quite a while, but when I finally crash on the clouds, I kinda crash down on my bed as well.

In yet another dream I am wandering through a forest. After a while the trees change, because now there are some trees that grow swords. A few steps further a hovering sword suddenly appears in front of me and starts attacking me. I pick a sword from one of the nearby trees to defend myself. The attacking sword disappears after I hit it hard a few times, and I continue my journey. The forest ends in a huge city, huge skyscrapers to all sides. After a while one of them is hovering in front of me, like the sword did and starts attacking me again. I grab the nearest skyscraper to defend myself again, and I always wake up before the fight really begins.

I realise, I never thought about my dreams this much. Good Lord, I think I need therapy 

anyway, I hope you can use some of this. And I would really be interested to know how you are going to use dreams in your game.

Well yeah, it does need getting used to, though the best way probably is a practice game. But that is exactly why I started doing the characters, so I can run into problems like these and get them out of the way early 

To see if I got it: The sorcerer is ON FIRE, and because it is an aspect I just placed on him, I can tag it for free. Now I go and use some roots from the trees to grab him and put ROOTED on top of it. Now I have 2 aspects I can tag to entangle him even further, meaning I cast another rooting spell as an attack. At power 5 it becomes a weapon:5, discipline +4 plus 2 tags are +8 shifts without even rolling. Assuming a roll of 0, the sorcerer gets 13 stress, so the heat together with the roots wrapping around his body will be enough to take him out (or at least hurt like hell) and I can get away. With conviction at 5 this would give me 1 shift of mental stress (2 actually, counting the first rooting spell).

As for the opening the locked window with a houseplant idea that's totally a great use of Chloromancy, but I wouldn't worry about creating a whole mini chlorofiend every time you want to do something like that. Animating houseplants to do simple actions is probably a lot easier to do than creating a brand new plant matter homunculus for something that could just as easily be solved with a brick through the window, or a glass cutter.

I can't help but imagine the face of someone minding his own business, when suddenly one of his plants gets up to carry stuff around. Priceless 

I was never going to give her a gnarled staff, because, well... it has been done to death. I was going to go with a shovel or a spade as a ritual focus item. I realise it is still stafflike, but it fits the character. Plus most rituals will probably involve a lot of preperation in the form of gardening, so it is not only for magical use. For evocation I was going to go without a focus, but that's where the acorns come in, if I really need the extra power.

The Maze is a great idea. How long in advance would I be able to prepare such a thing? I am thinking of a kind of thing like Harry has around his apartment, when he lights that one candle. Seeing as the chloromancer lives in a shed in the tree nursery she works in, it wouldn't be a problem to set it up in advance all the way around her home.

Ok, having the acorns put a maneuver on the scene is probably the way to go, although it will be quite expensive having to spend a fate point to invoke them, but on the other hand, there might be enough options to get them, so I should be good.

And now that you mention it, how would I go about and create a chlorofiend? Even and especially a bonzai chlorofiend would be amazing 

There are two different things you have to consider when discribing the magic in the Dresden Files: energy and symbols.

now the energy is simply what fuels the spell, so your effect can actually take place. "White" or "life" magic takes it's power from what best represents life: emotions. "Black" or "death" magic takes its power from everything representing death, the force of ghosts for example.

There is a passage in White Night, that explains the whole energy part very good, I think:

White Night Spoiler (Hardcover, Chapter 20, Page 169):

The symbols on the other hand are a way to shield the wizards brain from the energy he is channeling to create the effect of his spell. This is where the elements like fire or earth or the color coding thing come in, and I suppose a wizard needs to categorize the use of his magic somehow in order to prevent his head from exploding.

Evocation in the books is mostly symbolicaly divided into the elements, and I think that is, because they can all be connected to some kind of energy (fire=heat, wind= kinetic, earth=magnetic, water=entropy), which is exacly what you want in evocations, and it is for example easier to think of a ball of fire than on acceleration of molecules to create heat. But evocation can also work with other symbols, like the shield-bracelet for example.

Thaumaturgy also uses symbols to help the wizard focus his magic on the effect or object or person or whatnot he wishes, but thaumaturgy uses more time than evocations, allowing the wizard to use more symbols to create a greater and/or more complex effect than evocation. Like when Harry conjures the Erlking, he uses a lot of things to get it right.

So a spell only really needs energy, the symbols are just a way to help the wizard to not go insane by the use of his magic by shielding his brain from the raw force of his spell.


That should pretty much sum up how I think the whole Dresden magic works.
If I missed anything or made a mistake, feel free to correct me.