Editing Eldritch Might (section)

==''Songs and Souls of Power''==
Here Monte sets out his bard and his sorcerer, against Wizards', interposing them at the very start of the book. This vision of the bard is a sonic sorcerer itself, well beyond D&D canon up to then, explaining why WotC said nuh-uh. There's also a goddess, Jode. After some relevant feats we get the Prestige Classes: Diplomancer, Eldritch Warrior, Knight of the <strike>Choad</strike>Chord, Song Mage.

Next up, Soul Magic. Imperative magic is [[Terry Pratchett]]'s idea of a spell with its own sentience with a will to get itself cast. Declamatory takes over the role of a magic scroll, allowing the caster to cast something s/he normally couldn't, at the cost of INT drain and/or maybe WIS and CHA. So [[rape|consent]] is involved, or not. The third one is Extemporaneous, more "like a ''[[wish]]''". By it you, perhaps not even an arcanist, may cast any spell you want; but you take an ability-score hit when you do. This is how Monte punishes you for running a low-magic campaign, should he ever let you run one. Maybe Tevaeral in ''BCD''.

Monte then gives the bard and bardlikes something to do in Spellsongs. Three tiers: spellnotes, spellchords, spellmelodies. Twenty pages of full-on spells follow; Monte lets Malhavoc narrate his design-notes in this chapter's sidebars.

Having filled up so much space on these new character-classes and spells, and since Soul Magic was arguably in the treasure genre, Monte only has five pages for physical magic items. Although here's the Book of Eldritch Might itself. That and the Black Grail will be ''very'' important for later work.

New monsters lower the curtain on this one. First are two types of Arcane Angel: one still good; the other more like a [[I3-4-5: Desert of Desolation|Thune Dervish]], but for arcana. Then the Eye Golem, another construct. Finally the Unholy Riven: a mortal fully corrupted by arcana, like an in-house [[bodak]].