Back to the Ol' Magic Word Rodeo

I've been thinking some more about magic words.

Over at d4 Caltrops there are a couple of lists of words - one from standard spell lists and one list of "weird" words.  Adding the weird word list is a really nice touch.  I like how one word like "Fungal" can tilt a Magic-Users spellbook in a whole new direction.

LS's idea to incorporate these magic word combinations by allowing a M-U PC to propose one new spell at the end of each session is pretty much perfect as is.  At character generation you can choose or roll up spells however you normally would so as to not slow down the char-gen process. The DM can then use the magic words from the d4 Caltrop lists as treasure to add to a wizards repertoire after the game is kicked off.

The level One spells listed as magic words could look like this:

1	Charm	Person
2	Detect	Magic
3	Floating	Force
4	Hold	Portal
5	Magic	Light
6	Magic	Missile
7	Protect (ion from)	Evil
8	Read	Language
9	Read	Magic
10	Person (al)	Force
11	Magic	Sleep
12	Unseen	Voice

I took Parker's suggestion to make "Ventriloquism" "Unseen Voice" instead, and changed "Disc" to the more generic "Force". The Shield spell is now "Personal Force" (I like this because it draws a connection between those two spells which really seem like the same spell just cast vertically or horizontally and also kinda explains why they are two different spells)

If you did want to give beginning M-U characters the option to use Magic Words in a more free form style but still be limited to the first level spell list you could do it like this:

1	Charm
2	Detect
3	Floating
4	Hold
5	Magic
6	Force
7	Protect (from)
8	Read
9	Portal
10	Person
11	Light
12	Unseen
13	Missile
14	Evil
15	Language
16	Sleep
17	Voice
18	Phantasm
19	Fire
20	Ride

The Moldvay Basic level one spell list has 17 words in it.  I added the last three words based on what I thought looked good from the AD&D and 3e spell lists.  "Ride Phantasm" is what I've renamed the Mount spell. I never really liked the Mount spell, but Ride Phantasm sounds awesome: 

Alternately you could break the words down by the part of speech:

VERB
1	Charm
2	Detect
3	Hold
4	Protection from
5	Read
6	Ride

ADJECTIVE
1	Floating
2	Magic
3	Unseen
4	Phantasmal

NOUN
1	Magic
2	Force
3	Portal
4	Person
5	Light
6	Missile
7	Evil
8	Language
9	Sleep
10	Voice
11	Phantasm
12	Fire