Schools of Magic

There are quite a few schools of magic, all of which do different things. Most mages end up joining a school of magic (or apprenticing themselves to a higher-level-but-still-not-insane wizard) to pick up knowledge of high-level spells, because without the training you get from a school or wizard there’s a high (10% each time you cast the spell) chance of the spell misfiring (the effects of the misfire are up to the dungeonmaster) in the first 100 times you cast that spell.

The School of Illusion.

The spells this school teaches are primarily for working illusion; higher-level spells include some that actually create items. The illusionists provide a slightly different base of spells; rather than getting more higher-level spells as you increase in level, you are given training on how to memorise more low-level spells.

Illusionist
level
Spells they can use
12345
11     
22     
321    
431    
532    
633    
7331   
8431   
9432   
10442   
114421  
124421  
134431  
1444321
1544322
1654321

The International Civil & Mechanical Engineering Society

This is not really a school of magic, but an engineering society. However, engineers use magic when building things, and have a large collection of ritual spells that are quite effective for their purposes.

Society
level
Spells they can use
1234
11    
32    
521   
722   
9221  
11321  
13322  
153221
173222

Note that there are no level 5 or 6 spells in this level tree. The bulk of the training is ritual magic, and this magic is kept as a society secret.

The Dark Order of Necromancy

This is an outlawed, and quite heavily persecuted, variant magic. It is death magic – to work the higher powered spells, you must sacrifice something; all of the low-level spells require a material component taken from something living (or formerly living.)

WARNING!
  1. Above the third level, all of the necromagical spells are ritual magic.
  2. The list of spells that can be used is not a limit; it's the number of spells you can safely use in a day: there is no memorisation time, but if you use more than your limit, you run a (10%/spell over) chance of attracting unwanted attention from the dimensions where these spells get power from.
  3. (These spells are offerings to the not-nice-at-all creatures from those dimensions.)
Necromancer
level
Spells they can use
123
11  
22  
321 
422 
5321
6321
7432
8432
9543
10543
11654
12654
13765
14765
15876
16876