I'm working on another aspect of my western rpg - magic. I want to create a couple of types of magic that would fit the setting and I inspired myself by the elder scrolls game to balance it out and create a type of magic for every elder scrolls school.
Alteration - shapeshifting, indian type shamanistic rituals that can change you into different animals
Destruction - steelmagic, magic of metal, you can make bullets faster, bend traintracks and craft magical pistols
Restoration - healing, stylized for mexican or louisiana, strange - witch doctor magic
Illusion - illusion kind of like more traditional or xix century magic, from making stuff dissapear to mind control
Conjuration/mysticism - spirit summoing, befriending a spirit and being able summon and control it.

So what do you think of these ideas?

Rather than trying to match specific schools of magic to different traditions I'd suggest keeping the schools more neutral and then giving the various traditions their own take on them.

One thing I miss in Skyrim is a Black Art school.


I feel that Necromancy was really badly portrayed and had too few abilities. I also felt I wanted more evil looking spells xD

But necromancy doesn't really fit a wild west setting.

Why not? In this setting of yours, people can apparently communicate, summon, and control spirits to do their bidding. Why wouldn't someone be able to do something similar to the dead? For that matter, a western setting has plenty to lend itself well to ghosts, undeath, and hauntings, whether that be in the form of executed outlaws still causing trouble after death, ghosts of Civil War soldiers fighting neverending battles, or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUVwZoiH5ZU!

Too bad magic in TES is more of a science than "this is a good spell, this is a neutral spell, and this is an EEEEEVIIIIILLL spell" and other DnD classifications.

Necromancy in TES is nothing about being black, evil, blood sacrifices, and kicking puppies. The reanimation spell is, pretty much, necromancy. What the Hagravens do with the briarhearts is also a form of necromancy, as it's only the art of reanimating dead bodies. In fact, it's more about preparing the body, not its reanimation. As it stands, http://www.imperial-library.info/content/preparation-corpse, and I am extremely happy Beth didn't make undead summons as "EZ-Necromancy." However, I do wish they could have gone into more detail.

Also, not sure about destruction. It lacks...well...destruction. Instead, you could make it more of a natural weather based form, like sandstorms or something. If you're going for an industrial feel, I'd go with something else or call it steelmancy or something.

I don't want to make the offensive-type magic anything like weather-contoling or sandstorms cause there's no variety to it. steelmancy can shape weapons, help you dodge bullets or make them faster, bend anything from guns to railways or contoliing machinery. How many possibilities does sandmacick give you? And weather contolling is too powerfull first of all and secondly all the effects would look differently but the effects would be the same.

Steelmancy is nice. So what about such a set?
Steelmancy - as you said a kind of industrial feal
Healing - a mexican feal
Illusion - a more traditional magic feal
skinshifting - an indian feal

and necromancy on the one side, and the second one could be more spirit oriented, talking to spirits, seeking guidance with them? - and what feal could they have?

It could. Why don't you call it dark shamanism? Like some forbidden Indian magic? Take a look at Deadland, zombies are fun in wild west settings.

Lessee, voodoo magic would fit in and cover the necromancy angle pretty well imo, native american shaman type stuff for healing and spirit animals, maybe even some aztec evilness. Im sure you could dig up some hillbilly wives tales to build something around too.

Healing and spirit summoning I'd like to seperate. By the way, it's a fantasy wild west, with magic, and a setting ephasising on freedom. The players are kind of cowbow-mages with a code based on freedom, who are hunted by inquisitors and "evil" governement officials (instead of corporations). So I don't know if necromancy really fits the idea. I mean the players don't have to follow the code but I don't want any of these magics to be defined as good or evil, every magic should be available to both a scoundrel and a hero .

Is it the West as Texas? Or is it more of a sterotypicaly west with Indians and Cowboys running around?

If it includes a lot of Indians I think all but destruction could somehow be fit with them well. Alteration, Summoning, and Restoration would be my choices to give to some Indian tribes.

Shaman - can call upon spirits (in the Native American nature or Shinto Kami sense...not dead people) to create effects using nature, communicating with animals, shapeshifting, etc. Some enhanced physical attributes that are tied to the shaman's animal totem.

Medicine Man/Primitive Priest - can cast blessings and curses ("juju") as well as use symbolic magic (like voodoo dolls, etc.), can make herbal potions and posions, perform healing rituals.

Witch/Warlock - can alter the behavior and perceptions or animals and people using potions, rituals, and demonic possession. Telekinesis and other powerful alterations of the physical world can be gained through making deals with demonic forces (but there are always negative consequences for the witch/warlock as well...like some disfigurement, medical malady, or major sacrifice).

Mystic - the classic clairvoyant, remote viewer, hypnotist, and mind-reader. Can plant hypnotic suggestions into the minds of others, probe the thoughts of others, see/hear distant places, sense things about people that have touched certain objects in the past, etc.

Medium - can commune with spirits of dead humans, granting abilities similar to a mixture of Witch, Mystic, and Shaman through the use of a network of cooperative spirits. The Medium gains power as he/she cultivates his/her network of known spirits through discovery and negotiation.

Illusionist - the ultimate trickster. Think stage magician, but for reals.

Engineer (of the Fantastic) - supernaturally brilliant engineer. Designs and uses gadgets and weapons that bend and break the laws of physics. Sort of a mechanical alchemist. Get your steampunk on.

Physical Adept - doesn't cast spells, per se, but semi-unconsciously channels his/her magical aptitude into some kind of physical skill. Results in a person that can pull off amazing, physically impossible feats of marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat, knife throwing, etc.

Just some ideas...

Win.

Well yeah, there is a race that's kind of like indians. Physically the look the same, but psychologically they're kind of different. They are kind of "anarcho-individualists", they have no rulers and they don't live in tribes just travel in solitude and meet only to share wisdom, trade, and sometimes for lonfer to raise a child. They are much more powerfull than the colonists cause everyone of them can use magic. The humans learned magic from them, but after a civil war in the colonies, magic prohibition was introdused, many of the mages moved to the outlands, where the federal governement's power didn't stretch. These "indians" hate the federals because they think authority and governement are evils cause they take away freedom, on the other hand they have more respect for the wild westerners, cause they see they have more respect for freedom.

About these ideas, I want to make these magic types more orderly, what you wrote seems to me somewhat chaotic and overlaping. Engineering will be a skill not a type of magic, although there is steelmancy, I don't want to have warlocks cause none of the magics should be predefined as "evil" and mystics and illusionists will be kind of connected.

Why don't you create a world withou humans. Maybe something on four legs. Maybe with a horn. Maybe something that goes on hooves.

I have another rpg that's like that. Here I am trying to make the differences more in the mentality and psychology of the rases and not looks or physic.

I see. Since you were talking about a Western setting and associating magical abilities with cultural "flavors" I thought it made sense to break the magic down by where it comes from and how it manifests rather than to organize it into schools. That way it fits into the folklore of the culture whose "flavor" it's going to evoke. If the magic is more organized (as though each school is another branch of the same magical "science") then it seems weird to associate each school with a separate culture to me. That's just the way I'm looking at it, though.

As far as magics being predefined as "evil," I suppose spirits and demons don't necessarily have to be evil. Then again, wouldn't there be any "evil" magic users that might call upon the assistance of malevolent forces in your setting?

Yes, there would be evil magic users, but the magic itself would be neutral. So I would connect the medium and warlock magic, and a native would use the magic to summon spirits of animals, the good human wizard a spirit of his friend or ancestor and an evil one a spirit of warrior or ancient mage against his will. The esthetics is just to make it a bit more interesting and not so "grey" like in TES, but for mechanical reasons I want the magic to be organised just for balance basically.

Also I don't want the different magics overlaping, that's why they should be specialised.

If you copy TES all you're going to end up with is a copy. Be orginal. Come up with your own schools of magic. Or create a system that doesn't rely on schools. Or have each school cast magic in a different way, like have one rely on components, have another only work during the day, another at night, another only during a thunderstorm... Use your imagination!

You really shouldn't concern yourself with your that. If you're finding that there's some overlap between all of your magical categories, it's due to the fact that there's a lot of overlap between we categorize in real life. Categories don't reflect how the universe works, they're human constructs meant to help us understand it. As such, they're fundamentally flawed and subject to change over time. Don't be afraid if your world's magic schools aren't quite as distinct as you would like them to be. If anything, show that the schools are often subject to debate and controversy in-universe; things like that enrich the world.

take your ideas for destruction and call it technomancy

your ability to enfuse technology (revolvers, clocks etc.) with magical properties

IE: take an old pocket watch (something from the 1800s and infuse it with an ability to slow time
take a gun and infuse it with an ability to fire rounds that explode on impact, or freeze opponents
take a pair of glasses that icrease accuracy

I would say that a good idea for your game would be to not emulate TES, but to make magic a bit more of a subtle entity within your world.

rather than bombastic fire-balls or summoning creatures, maybe you could do attribute affecting hexes (hexes are something many shamanistic cultures believed in)
Instead of conjuring you could have a turncoat spell that turns enemies unwittingly to yourself
do you see what I mean?
in a world dominated by technology it's likely that magic would become something more mysterious and hidden. I imagine it being akin to the vaudevillean age where magic was something conducted in private that covertly affected people.

of course I don't know what the full extent of your world is going to be. I have not been on here and thus have not kept up to day with its progress.

anyway that's just my suggestion