The Snowman is a person's simulacrum. Treat this page as a draft for now: I'm just trying to nail down the character.

(Questions from here.)

1. What is the character’s go-to drink order? (this one gets into how do they like to be publicly perceived, because there is always some level of theatricality to ordering drinks at a bar/resturant)

2. What is their grooming routine? (how do they treat themselves in private)

3. What was their most expensive purchase/where does their disposable income go? (Gets you thinking about socio-economic class, values, and how they spend their leisure time)

4. Do they have any scars or tattoos? (good way to get into literal backstory)

5. What was the last time they cried, and under what circumstances? (Good way to get some *emotional* backstory in.)

6. Are they an oldest, middle, youngest or only child? (This one might be a me thing, because I LOVE writing/reading about family dynamics, but knowing what kinds of things were ‘normal’ for them growing up is important.)

7. Describe the shoes they’re wearing. (This is a big catch all, gets into money, taste, practicality, level of wear, level of repair, literally what kind of shoes they require to live their life.)

8. Describe the place where they sleep. (ie what does their safe space look like. How much (or how little) care / decoration / personal touch goes into it.)

9. What is their favorite holiday? (How do they relate to their culture/outside world. Also fun is least favorite holiday.)

10. What objects do they always carry around with them? (What do they need for their normal, day-to-day routine? What does ‘normal’ even look like for them.)

Starting off: we're locked into either wizard or bard, as they're the only two classes that can choose the Simulacurm spell. As a core part of the character is that it's a trick, and that nobody suspects it's not him, he can't outsource this kind of thing. However, he can cheat. By taking only a few levels of wizard, and spamming Simulacrum scrolls (with advantage, or luck points, or whatever have you) he could reasonably get it done at massive expense.

This opens the rest of the build up for the main problem. I love this kind of puzzle - because the Simulacrum can't cast spells, our question is: 'What's the best playstyle that relies solely on cantrips and other non-expendable resources?'

I see some stuff on this thread about how RAW, sorcerers and monks are a viable option. However, this tweet from J Crawford says the intention was for all expended features to never refresh once used. For our purposes, we'll be going somewhere in the middle, because limitations make it interesting. If we need to step outside them, it'll be for a story or character reason, and it won't break RAW.

Option 1: full wizard up to level 13, where 7th lvl spells come online. We'll cap it at 13 for the rest of the builds, as too far past and the lack of spells is too big a weakness for the way the game is balanced.

The next obvious basic spread is wizard artificer, but the exact spread is tricky. Don't need to go all the way wizard: this strategy follows the 'I stole a scroll to do this, but I understand the arcane theory behind it' explanation. Infusions would be doing a lot of the heavy lifting, as well as ritual spells such as find familiar. Both use intelligence, too, so not MAD.

Now that the obvious is out of the way, we can get creative!

Our advantage is that the Simulacrum doesn't exist for combat: he exists to fool his peers into thinking he's the original. But also, he is the original. So we have the question: how aware is the original that he will be relying on his own talent for subterfuge in attempting this trick? In other words, does he change himself in order for the copy - our Snowman - to be the most successful copy possible, or does he live his own life seperately, not understanding that part of his awareness will live on within it?

As much as it pains me mechanically, I must admit it's likely the latter. Towards the end, I think he would give it some attention - realising he wouldn't be able to regain slots, he would make strategies to manage it. He would review which spells would be the most useful, he would source particular magic items to help it avoid notice. But overall no: the man who makes the Simulacrum without understanding it is also the man who will become it.

If we were going to play this, we'd lead with the 'I'm the great wizard so-and-snow', because we'd want to have the Simulacrum reveal be intuitive. If we're a - like, a fighter/wizard for example - we have the reaction of 'wait, how did you get that spell?' It breaks immersion in the character. But wizards - they've got loads of spells. You'd believe it if he says he's a wizard.

(Also melee classes are right out: healing is way too expensive. But not impossible.)

Moving on!

Our main roadblock here which I didn't expect is the specific magic system we would be using for the 'Snowman' fantasy setting. This is a world building issue, but I'll brainstorm some ideas here until I nail something down:

• Runic Magic
• Geometric Magic
• Write A Functional Magic System
• Sandersons First Law
• Hermetic Magic
• Fantastic Science
• Vancian Magic
• Magic Is Mental
• Functional Magic
• Utility Magic
• Magic A Is Magic A
• Ritual Magic
• Language Of Magic
• Magical Incantation
• Alchemy Is Magic

Note: DnD uses Vancian magic, but given we're not making this guy to play, per se, we're using that as a sketch. In other words, we want our magic system to be an oil painting, and we're using DnD like a PicCrew.

Okay, the peer reviews are in! (I asked my parents what magic systems they liked best.)

Mum says 'Magic that's a gift - you're given it, and need to learn how to use it'. That's useful. Dad says 'Magic that uses physical parts to make it happen. Like parts of the natural world, or creating something. Singing and harmony too.' This is also useful. My sister says she likes the 'burdened Chosen one' narrative. She likes when the magic comes from emotions, or is affected by them. Also when the power comes from a familiar, being connected to an animal that fits your personality, soulbond style. If you're a fox, you get sneaky powers. Also if everyone has a 'power', shown by a certain sign, and particularly dangerous sign-holders are killed at birth...

I was thinking sewing, or runes to be honest. There's also the petty suggestion: magic is a curse, where people recieve powers that they are disposed to hate - and thus never use.

Geometric stuff, circles, those work very well when setting hard limits... but they're too limited I realise. (Note, I also found this homebrew subclass, and also this one, which both follow the 'Geometric Magic' source.)

Crap, yeah, that's the thing, isn't it? The deal with all these supposedly hard magic systems - specific runes for specific uses, a language of magic, even alchemy to an extent - all of it isn't actually intuitive to readers. It's fine from an authorial perspective, like, maybe you make the conlang, and maybe you have a way to visually depict it. Readers can follow along, more or less. Manga can handle this like a champ.

But reading something that uses a system like this, I would need a fair bit of time to get a handle on it, and I might never be able to say 'here's where I fit in this system'.

Yet again, Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic series ticks all the boxes I want it to. Hm. Nothing wrong with copying, but we'd need to do it in a way that explores a different side of it, that the original series was unable to. When you pick column A, sometimes that means you can't pick column B. Certain fantasy world themes conflict, depending on the story you want to tell. For example, the 'natural magic' of the protagonists in CoM is rarer, with the most common kind of magic in the series being more arcane. As such, a big part of way 'natural magic' relates to the wider society is that it's usually unexpected, that it's not well-known or well-practiced, and that it's constantly compared to this bigger and more powerful dominant system of magic. But if we were to take this 'natural magic' system and introduce it to a world where it's the only system of magic, a lot of stuff about the world would change.

I do want to do more than this, though, so just 'natural magic' on its own isn't a perfect solution. It's a good thought experiment for starters. Hm. I guess what would I want to play, and what would be the most fun to read about?

(You know, it doesn't really fit for our purposes, but the Curse Workers series fuckin' rules. Love that magic system. It's intuitive.)

Skulduggery Pleasant has a great magic system, but it hits the issue of being too 'wide'. Fuckin' rules though. When I say wide - I mean that it has a great rune system, and a great elemental system, and a great necromancy system, and a great 'quirk' system... but for our purposes, there are too many systems. Come back to it.

Okay okay okay, while I was fucking around with this, I had an actual character idea. So the core of the story is that our man gets taken to magic university as a kid. It's compulsory, and for the safety of society, so-on-and-so-forth - usual buy-ins for people who seek to uphold it. But our man's too good-hearted to thrive in it, so makes a constructed double of himself to act in his position, while he fucks off into the wider world to do his own thing with nobody any the wiser.

From this we know two things about him, actually: he's good at tricks, and he's at odds with the dominant system of organised magic - likely the governing power of this particular area. Crap, it doesn't need to be a government at all. It could be a super rich family that just kept expanding their area of influence. Wait, do I need to research fuedalism? Crap!

But anyway, our boy's at odds with it. As such, it would be extremely funny if he was the most un-wizardlike personality we could possibly manage. Hmmm! Now, this does give us the question of 'where do wizards usually come from, class-wise?'. But what I'm really saying is 'What if he was a completely fraudulent bastard-man?' and/or 'What if he thought of himself as something other than a doctor or a wizard, first?' Like maybe he's a gardener, or a cook, and all his learning of magic is put to that goal instead. That's the most fun thing to build in DnD, isn't it? A character optimised for something completely mundane. Stoneworking. Woodcarving. Architecture. A person whose main concern is the perfect survival techniques for a particularly harsh biome, like the desert or ice fields. Maybe he just really likes poisons, and becomes a doctor partly because it puts him in contact with them more often.

Something a little fucked up, something extremely specific, something that plays on his history - where he came from, before the ruling governers grabbed his ass. Er, figuratively.

Hm hm hm. A little more research gets us a bit more guidance in what we specifically want. Whenever a fantasy world tries to sell me a magic system from the get-go, I get turned off. No matter how much I like it! The more interesting thing, for me, is when a series goes to a great deal of trouble to set up a lot of worldbuilding, with interesting history, and a powder-keg of conflict potentiality; and then throws it all to one side to focus on something completely different. Maybe that worldbuilding comes back later, maybe it just exists to inform the present situation. Maybe it gets destroyed in the opening act! Whatever, but it fuckin' rules, gets me every time.

Okay, what am I currently thinking?

The problem is I do want the wider arcane tradition. Ultimately I'd love to be able to gut the setting for use in a homebrew - which means we need to resemble a Vancian system in some respects. We need "tabaxi", and "aarakocra", although we can't call them that.

The Snowman story concept we're going for at the time of writing this is an episodic murder mystery, but wizards. A demon as the murder weapon! An explosive rune placed under the bed! A sabotaged summoning circle! And then being solved by stuff like, 'only this person could possibly have purchased dragon-glass, therefore they must be guilty!' Fun stuff like that. Even better if it's a mundane person, like a cleaner, who has the right mind for analysis of this sort, and who knows the exact chalk a guilty person would use, because they clean it up all the time - or even supply it.

Hahaha one of my favourite series, Terra Nova, it's this sort of thing... and I love the episodes where they need to pull in the black-market bar-owner to help solve the mystery. It's so great. He's so at odds with what the community leaders want to make, and yet he's still very much a product of the community. And he's always so reluctant to help, but he's always so good at it. It rules.

Been thinking as well, I really want him to have a heartless friend. That sort of person is also interesting to watch, especially with the contrast of our emotionally driven main guy. Maybe the first murder is one he's just there for - he doesn't solve it - and it's this heartless person that did it. And it's only after that he realises they're the one who did it. But he doesn't have the evidence, or turning them in would be too risky, or they find out his secret (that he's a construct masquerading as the original), and so both agree to keep each other's secrets.

And then maybe they solve crimes together, idk. I had the idea of his partner being a more traditional detective, with him only serving as the initial forensic doctor? Maybe we still can. Here's the dynamic: our guy is forensics. He often works with a detective, but that person - while being hardboiled as all hell - is incompetent. Our Snowman notices something about the scene that doesn't fit.

From there, we have options. Option one, he nudges his incompetent partner towards the correct conclusion, without letting on his own secret - e.g. Case Closed. Option two, he gets assistance from a cleaner, or a maidservant, or the heartless friend, or some other kind of social contact, and unofficially they solve it together. This relies on a degree of social power - being able to ask questions, having permission to be involved. This works best in a system where there is no official 'detective', and that mysteries are solved by nosy people on behalf of important people. e.g. the Apothecary Diaries.

Hm hm. Of these options, the latter is more interesting.

Some more notes. Maybe he's into making alchohol? Or maybe he's a broom-maker - that would be the hobby, I guess, the way some people have useful hobbies. Skyrim notes: soul gems, enchantments, alchemy. Elemental sources: water, fire, earth, air, lightning, wood, starmatter? Sun and moon? My brother says he likes magic that's physical in some way: harmonies, power coming from balance with the natural world. He also mentioned the power of belief: enough people believing it can make certain things real. Demons, gods. Also what if crossbows?

Also, magic university is 100% somewhere remote: need to keep those dangerous mages away from good society. On top of a really high mountain, in the northern ice waste, at the bottom of the sea - somewhere really strange, inhospitable, and scenic.

Here are some big questions to answer. 1. What's the god's story? 2. What's the farmer's story? and 3. What's the dog's story?

What kind of magic does a fisherman have access to? A lamplighter? A lumberman? A sailor? A miner? A hunter? A town guard? A chicken or vegetable farmer? A blacksmith? A merchant or wandering trader? A builder? A bartender? A goatherd?

Oh woah, we organically ended up at Earthsea. Cool.

Okay, here's my personal take on it. Magic needs a reason to exist. I don't mean a source - although if I had to pick, the 'another dimension overlaid over ours' would be my go-to. I mean... what else exists in this world that makes magic a necessity for survival? What are the circumstances of its development in humanity? And why humanity? It's not like only humans have the will to survive.

Hm. Well, side note: I really like the selfish woman who's a carefree mess. You know the one - usually wearing a tank top and shorts, usually super hot, usually super rude? I'm really showing my taste, haha. I love a character who's a slob. In Witch Watch, the dragon familiar is this sort of character... and man, she's something.