Teeth are Magic Crystals.

We all know wizard teeth are full of magic.

But in fact, all teeth and bones are full of magic to varying degrees. Living animals accumulate magic in their bodies when interacting with the aether. This magic settles in the form of magicite crystals, which integrate neatly into the apatite crystals found in non-magical bones and teeth. Any creature which lives in a magically rich environment will develop a more magicitic skeleton, and grow more resistant to injury as a result.

(This is also why the cheapest form of mana potion is simply concentrated bone broth. Makes a good stew and recharges your fireballs too.)

Bones and Teeths with Special Powers

Some creatures have adapted to direct their bioaccumulation of magicite towards specific parts of their skeletons, and to shape it for more esoteric effects.

In big apex predators like wolves and lions, the magicite concentrates in the fangs. This imbues their bites with supernatural killing power. The most dramatic example of this is the smilodon's ability to bite things from several paces away.

Other examples of tissues with high magicite concentration include the horns of antelopes, the clubs of mantis shrimp, the dermal denticles of certain sharks, and the tusks of the mighty porcine unicorn.

(Larger animals and apex predators tend to accumulate more magicite, but there are exceptions to this rule.)

Magical Bird Pearls

Birds (and frogs and some other creatures) lack teeth or other bony protusions, and tend to have unenhanced skeletons. Instead, they ingest a small rock or particle of sand, and then coat it with layers of magicite. The resulting magicitic gastroliths, or mana pearls, are most commonly used simply to aid in digestion, but can also be channeled to more exotic effects.

Who can forget the fire-breath of the flamingo, the shield-penetrating honk of the celestial goose, and the psychic calls of the songbirds?

You can never quite be sure what a hawk is capable of. They ingest and store the pearls from the birds they eat as prey, and elderly hawks are on par with young wizards in terms of the diversity of their spellcasting abilities.

Teeth are the Catalyst for Verbal Spellcasting

In humans, the magicite concentrates in the teeth, but not as a weapon. Human dental magicite is the reason that song and incantation enhances spellcasting.

A child's milk teeth are essentially mundane, being apatite-based. The second set of developing adult teeth are imbued with magicite throughout the first years of a child's life. And it is only once they erupt that a child begins to display magical aptitude. Wisdom teeth are so called because they develop for longer and so accumulate a higher concentration of magicite.

People often lose their teeth as they age, and it used to be that they needed ivory dentures to maintain their magical abilities. This all changed, of course, with the discovery of arguably the most important spell of the modern wizarding era: Fauchard's Renewal

Wizards Regrow Teeth Like Sharks

Anyone who practices magic frequently, and thus cycles more aether through their body, will accumulate additional magicite. But because their teeth have already erupted and stopped growing, most of this magicite goes towards strengthening the skeleton and generally enhancing the constitution.

Fauchard's Renewal is a spell with stimulates the growth of a new set of adult teeth. It was initially used as a way to improve the quality of life of the elderly. But it was quickly discovered that when grown in the mouth of a spellcaster, this tertiary set of teeth has an incredibly high magicite-to-apatite ratio. It is thus now standard practice to apply this spell to students at the conclusion of their magical training. Practicing wizards have lost both their baby teeth and their adult teeth, and now have "wizard teeth".

Wizard teeth are powerful magical items and valuable ritual components. Some mages are thus tempted to apply the spell multiple times, harvesting teeth to enhance their power. However, this process is stressful on the body. The nutrients that would be directed towards reinforcing the bones and counteracting the effects of aging are instead directed towards growing more teeth. Those who abuse the process risk premature aging.

(Also, if you beat up a wizard and steal their teeth, you can make dentures which give you a wizard level.)

Wizards in Rayon Stockings: Some worldbuilding notes on plastics.

How reasonable is it is include plastics in a psuedo-medieval fantasy world without fossil fuels? 

 

A better title might be "Alchemists in Rayon", because of course you can just wave your witchofingers and summon tupperware from the realms of chaos. But even restricting ourselves to low-magic fantasy, for many plastics, it's totally reasonable to throw them in. They'll probably just be rarer and considered high-quality objects instead of throwaway trash.

Clearly, the question on everyone's mind when they see this compilation of public domain witches is
"Where did they get those sweet leggings?"

Skip to the end if you just want a bulleted list of which plastics I thinks a witch might be able to brew in a cauldron. But otherwise, come with me on this scatterbrained journey into the world of organic chemistry.

 

GLOG: Spells Bound to Minor Magic Items: Replace your spellbooks with something the barbarian can also use.

Here's an enjoyable aesthetic:

In the opening to the Harry Potter series, we see Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard alive, use a a little trinket to do his dark deeds. Instead of just willing the street to be dark, he comes prepared with a nifty little piece of artificery.

The first Harry Potter is full of this kind of device-based magic. The Deluminator, the invisibility cloak, the remembral, the philosopher's stone, everything in the quidditch trunk. Does Harry even use a wand to cast a spell during the film?

As the movie series goes on, magic shifts towards being more about laser gun fights. Pew pew. But in Deathly Hallows, the snitch and deluminator make a suprise comeback, and additional hidden abilities are retconned revealed.

I like this vibe. Let's adapt it to tabletop rpg magical items. 

Each item below has two abilities -- a "cantrip" and a "spell".

The cantrip is a magical effect which can be used freely and repeatedly by anyone with even the slightest bit of magical experience, or even by the magically ignorant if they fiddle around with it for a few hours.

The spell is a more powerful effect, maybe taken from your standard wizard spell list, and can be used by anyone magically powerful enough to actually cast spells. Using the item's spell will deplete its charge, preventing either the cantrip or spell effect from being used until the next dawn.

I'm using GLOG-style magic, where spells are levelless and limited by the caster's pool of "Magic Dice". (See here or here for an explanation, and here for the full ruleset I'm using.) Anyone with Magic Dice can spend them to activate the device's spell effect, using the same system as if they had that spell in their head instead of in their hands.

If you adapt this concept to a system with leveled spells, then allow the device's spell-effect to be activated by expending a spell slot of the appropriate level.

On to the list! 

Wizard Pets! Eight Delightful Magically Engineered Creatures to Help Make Your Wizarding Tower feel like A Wizarding Home.

The Whole Menagerie. Wizard Shown for Scale.

Each of the following critters is made by some mad wizard to help with domestic tasks. Each exhibits some helpful behavior comparable to a cantrip. And each is capable of casting some sort of spell if a spellcaster touches it and focuses on feeding it some of their magical energy. (For GLOG, this would be Magic Dice; for a typical system, you would expend a spell-slot.) Think of them kinda like scrolls, but more huggable.

OSR Class: Meat Mage

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a cosmology for a food-based version of the inner planes, and of course there has to be an Elemental Plate of Meats.

Then recently, I came across Chris Tamm's Xor setting, which has loads of excellent tables for a meat world. (Though it focuses more on the body horror stuff instead of the food stuff.) There's even a list of meat spells!

So here's a horrible meat wizard inspired by that list.

Original art by Sara Winters

(This is a wizarding school for Arnold K's GLOG system. The base details for the wizard class can be found here, and the spellcasting rules can be found here.)

OSR Class: Skeleton Wizard

You are NOT a necromancer, and quite frankly, you are tired of commoners mistaking you for one. You went to a chartered wizard college and are a respected member of the wizarding community. Sure, you wear a skull for a hat and have a bandoleer of bones and you cut people open and one of your mentors was a talking skeleton and ...

Your dear old academic advisor.

This is a wizarding school for Arnold K's GLOG system. The base details for the wizard class can be found here, and the spellcasting rules can be found here. (The short version is that spells are level-less, you spend Magic Dice to cast them. More MD spent means more powerful magic but also a higher risk of something going wrong.)

GLOG Class: Arcane Inventor

"Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."
--Neil Gershenfield

The spirits called spells operate on theoretically analyzable principles.  Through careful observation you can replicate their effects.
You don't cast spells, you build gadgets! Instead of Magic Dice, your gadgets each have a Power Level. Instead of magical mishaps, your gadgets suffer mechanical failures.