There is the ritual magic in Blood Rites.

Here is a twist, why don't you have it where Dion O'Bannon has ties to the Leansidhe(Lea).

Read a book called Moon Called not too long ago, forget the author, a mid-list traditional fantasy writer I think ... sort of about werewolves.  The protag is actually a native american skinwalker, but in the first book all that means is she turns into a coyote through innate magic instead of transforming physically into a wolf like her foster family.

Wasn't terrible.  One of the current spate of:  "Faeries and Supernatural Creatures Revealed Themselves In the World" setting books, as opposed to the Dresden style "They're There, But We Don't Know It".

Course it's also got vampires and faeries in it.  My favorite part is the faeries were more germanic than english victorian revisionist.  One of the characters is an old german gremlin.

--fje

Her name is Katherine Briggs, and the sequel comes out in a month or two.

One of my protagonists is very powerful, but he has to hide it. He has been reborn many times, and over these lifetimes, he as picked up knowledge, wisdom, and a few enemies. Also, if he were to use his full power, it would draw attention to him, because a couple of monastic orders think that he is the reincarnation of their founders. They keep trying to get him to come and lead them, and he has had to refuse them on more then one occasion, & once very violently. He also made an enemy of a group a few lives back, and the few members are trying to get even for supposed past transgressions.

Quote from: The Doctor on December 06, 2006, 06:02:21 PM

Quote from: The Corvidian on November 01, 2006, 03:59:50 AM

Would gunpowder be considered technology?

The argument could be made that gunpowder is an alchemical compound.

Yep.  It is part and parcel to the ferromancy that Mab talked about in DB.

-LN

One man's magic is another man's science.

Mine usually show up in my dreams.

My current nifty character concept for the RPG builds on the story of the Black University.  I think it's in the Blue Fairy Book.

Anyway the story is as follows: Somewhre there is a school that teaches every art, science, and science that has ever been learned by man.  This school is underground and has no light.  Books line all the walls and the way the students is able to read is whenever they open the books the letters on the page themselves glow with a flickering hellish light.   Each student is admitted entry into the school on the condition that he understands the last person to complete their studies and leave the school each year will belong to the master of the school (usually understood to be Satan) and be used in whatever way he see.

One year the student to finish last ran with the others up the tunnel leading out into the sun and when the master of the school grabbed his ankle he kicked at the hand freeing himself he just managed to escape shouting back "There is one other who left after me!" refering to his shadow.  And so he was able to escape but no longer had a shadow.

Anyway, the way that translates into the character I want to play is: A runaway probably from somewhere in the 1920s ends up attending the University.  The University itself is in the never-never.  He studies and learns, arrogant as he is he waits to go last having planned for this.  And he escapes using the shadow trick.  What he discovers though is a lot of time has passed while he was studying and the world has changed.   

To complicate matters he'ld have been tainted by black magic, probably a decently strong wizard whose specialty is evocation.   He'ld also know of the white council and as a result he'ld keep his head low and go out of his way to avoid using magic whenever possiable so as not to draw attention to himself.

aka The Scholomance. A variation on that theme would be that the Tenth Person has to stay and train the next class. The post is then passed on and on. He would be hunted because he upset the rule. (Just a thought.)

I would be a person who falls between the cracks. He comes from a long line of wizards, but he isn't a wizard himself. His family have been in the magic game for many generations, but occasionally, one is born without the means to do magic. He was this generations, but to make up for it, he is a weirdness magnet. In his travels, he's picked up a few things, like one of the Cait Shee, think Mouse, but only feline. Some powerful members of both Fairy Courts owe him some big favors, think something along the lines of the Unraveling. The best way to think about him is to combine the character of Hurley from Lost with the main character from the canceled FOX series, Strange Luck, with a bit of that character from the Donald Duck comics who is extremely lucky; he won the Lottery, and is pretty much set for life. He thinks that he might be a living embodiment of "What goes around comes around". Fate sends him out on missions from time to time, and he might set off a series of events that would take down a group of Red Court Vampires, or cause a dragon to be slain.

GURPS might work. Its magic system seems to be rather flexible, and it also has a ritual option.