This is a post about D&D, but I thought I'd first mention one of the works that inspired me to consider this pretty in-depth topic: Dark Souls.
In Dark Souls, there are three kinds of magic your character can choose to pursue: Sorceries, Miracles, and Pyromancies. There are basically two main "spellcasting" stats you can choose to level up in Dark Souls - Intelligence and Faith. Each kind of magic requires the proper implement to cast them (held in the hand that might otherwise hold a weapon) and generally speaking, the staves that you use for Sorceries scale in power with Intelligence, and Miracles require a talisman, which tend to scale with Faith. Likewise, most spells have a minimum requirement in their respective stat to cast them. Pyromancies, in the first Dark Souls, actually didn't scale with anything - you got a Pyromancy Flame (treated as your spell catalyst) that you could upgrade like you might a weapon, but didn't scale with stats. In DSIII, they had the flame scale with both Intelligence and Faith, so you could actually dabble in the other kinds of magic, but to optimize your pyromancy, you needed a balance that would make hitting the high requirements for high-level sorceries or miracles tough.
In D&D, there are three kinds of spells - but it's three kinds in two different ways.
In the early "One D&D" playtesting, rather than having individual class spell lists, instead each class got access to the master "Arcane," "Primal," or "Divine" spell list. In practice, this was more or less the Wizard, Druid, and Cleric list, respectively, but it meant, for example, that Warlocks and Sorcerers were going to get all the spells a Wizard could, and that Paladins could get all Cleric they had the slots to cast, but also that all Paladin spells were now Cleric spells too (meaning a Cleric could easily summon a mount with Find Steed as early as 3rd level).
Ultimately, they pulled back on this concept - while I liked the way it future-proofed any later class additions (the Artificer would just get any new Arcane spells) I also understand that it took away some of the cool uniqueness of class-specific spells, like Armor of Agathys for Warlocks or all the smites for Paladins. But the flavor of these three kinds of spells is, I think, really fascinating: they really laid it all out: Divine Magic drew on the energies of the Outer Planes (the realms of gods and the afterlives), Primal Magic drew on the energies of the Inner Planes (like the Elemental planes, but also the Feywild and Shadowfell) and then Arcane Magic drew on the interconnecting energies, found in all planes but especially the transitory planes of the Astral and Ethereal planes.
But there's another triad within D&D's spellcasting that is a mechanical distinction: Of the core 12 classes, 8 are spellcasters, and two of the non-spellcasters have subclasses (popular and good subclasses) that turn them into spellcasters. Artificers, as the thirteenth class, skew things even farther toward spellcasting. Each of these classes uses one of three ability scores as their spellcasting stat: Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.
And these two triads don't really neatly line up. The "Primal" spellcasters, to be fair, use Wisdom, but then so does one of the "Divine" while the other uses Charisma. Intelligence is only found among "Arcane" casters (Wizards, Artificers, and the Rogue and Fighter subclasses) but the Bard, Sorcerer, and Warlock are all Charisma-based.
Now, I think these all make sense for the various classes - Clerics, Druids, and Rangers are kind of opening themselves to some force bigger than they are in the world and I think are less the source of their magic than the conduit for it. Wizards, Artificers, as well as Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters, have a kind of dispassionate intellectual understanding of the underpinnings of magic, treating it more like science or technology (though I'll note that the likely upcoming Psion class is going to complicate this a bit). Charisma, as a spellcasting stat, is a little hard to pin down. For Paladins and Sorcerers, I see it as a means of asserting their will, just believing something so hard that you make it real. Warlocks and Bards can also be interpreted this way, but I think you can also tie their spellcasting more closely to actual skills linked to Charisma - Warlocks might be played as constantly cajoling and entreating their patrons to cast every spell, making every cast something like a Persuasion (or Intimidation or Deception) check, while Bards might be seen as trying to nail the perfect emotional impact of a Performance check with each spell. I think it's easier to group them all together as that "force of will" style of spellcasting (the Warlock having been granted the power from their Patron and not needing direct intercession after the initial grant of power, and the Bard focusing their entire charismatic presence to effect the spells into existence).
I don't think these separate triads are mutually exclusive as a foundation on which to build deep lore. Going back to the FromSoft catalogue, the Sorcery/Miracle/Pyromancy triad actually gets some exceptions. Sometimes, you'll find a Miracle that actually requires some Intelligence to cast, or a Talisman used for casting Miracles that will scale with Intelligence as well as Faith (and even sometimes better with Intelligence). In Elden Ring, which is a separate cosmos but borrows a lot of the core mechanical ideas from Dark Souls, the "Fundamentalist" Incantations (Incantations being the equivalent of Miracles) are always balanced equally between Intelligence and Faith for scaling, representing that this movement sought to find a rational understanding and justification for its religious teachings, or perhaps approached the existing articles of faith with a rationalist, scientific approach. (There's a cool irony in Elden Ring that the Fundamentalists are profoundly opposed to the world's equivalent of the undead, but that you also find a number of Death Magic Sorceries that also scale equally in Intelligence and Faith, so actually a character who's really good at one will be equally good at the other).
Think about ways you might use this and reflect it in your game's lore. Consider how you might hint at certain worldviews or certain truths that aren't immediately apparent.
One thing I really like to do is present religious traditions in which priests are not necessarily Clerics. In my homebrew setting, there's a God of Glory, who has historically been thought of as a god of warriors, but the truth is that he's actually the god of heroic, epic storytelling. As a result, his priests are primarily more like Bards than any other playable class - it's not that he wouldn't have clerics, but that the priesthood generally are Bards, honoring him and spreading his worship by sharing tales of heroism and glory. (I think the hidden truth is that he's not terribly concerned whether a story is fictional or not, so long as it stirs the hearts of those who hear it).
This can be an open thing: an aspect of the religious tradition that draws upon unconventional sources of magic. The truth is that gods in D&D are extremely diverse in their natures and vibes - you can have a physical being who is just powerful enough to be a source of divine power that might even live on the Material Plane, or some ineffable, formless force in the cosmos. Notably, at least in 2nd Edition Planescape, gods - or "Powers" as they're referred to in both an effort to fend off the accusations of the Satanic Panic (which is also why we devils were called baatezu, demons were called tanar'ri, and daemons were called yugoloths, though that stuck for some reason) and also a way to show how the way that Planar people framed their understanding of the cosmos - were not bound to any given plane, and free to make their divine realms in whatever plane that suited them. Asmodeus, who in modern D&D is treated as one of the most powerful gods and pretty much literally the devil, only in a polytheistic world where there's not some all-powerful creator god to whom Asmodeus is a clear inferior, in 2nd Edition is referred to as a lesser deity because even if he's in command of all devils across the entire Nine Hells, he doesn't get to pick where his realm is. Essentially, Asmodeus is the supervisor of the building while the deities who choose to be in the Nine Hells of Baator are the rich folks with luxury condos there. The plane itself is more powerful than he is, and the gods/powers who have realms there other than him are more powerful than the plane. (Tiamat is a complicated story, but I think the intent is that while he's got her in some kind of technical snare, in a fair fight Tiamat would kick his ass).
It makes sense for a religious order to use divine magic, but if a god can have its realm elsewhere, they might find it easier to draw upon other sources. A god who dwells in the Feywild might be more likely to have Druids as their priests, for example.
Another thing you could have a lot of fun with here is some kind of false religion. The priests of this faith might actually use Arcane magic to simulate as best they can the kind of divine magic that one expects from gods, but the priests are actually wizards or artificers. Indeed, the Divine Soul sorcerer might further complicate these ideas. In a current actual play show (which I'll be vague about to avoid directly spoiling things, though one look at the character's stats kind of gave it away) there's a character who is presented as a Cleric and is truly, genuinely devout, but it turns out that even he's not aware that what he really is is a Sorcerer (Clockwork Soul, judging by the use of a Restore Balance use). The magic, as it turns out, was granted to him by infusing him with the blood of a celestial ancestor (he's also an aasimar who assumed he was human) and so rather than being a conduit for some other being or force, that power has become a part of his own innate power.
But can we go the other way?
While mechanically it's not easy to fake Divine or Primal magic via the Arcane given that you tend not to get any healing spells (though Artificers and Bards can get their hands on them - notably in earlier editions Bards were linked more to Druidic magic). But I think that you could play some fun games with so-called Arcanists who are actually drawing upon Divine or Primal magic.
One of the things that inspired me to write this was a video talking about the Cathedral of the Deep, a location in Dark Souls III where worship turned from the conventional (though also corrupted and sinister) Way of White to the worship of "The Deep," a vague (in classic FromSoft fashion) space represented by deep waters where the dregs of humanity ultimately settled. (Honestly, I think it could even be a metaphor for storing radioactive materials under water given how broad the interpretations of these games can go.)
To a large extent, the Deep-worshippers are probably just evil-aligned divine spellcasters, which is perfectly common in D&D with clerics of evil gods. But there's a common theme in FromSoft's games where secret, esoteric knowledge is often gained by looking at divine magic via an arcane lens, or vice versa.
In particular, I think that esoteric mysticism and alchemy can kind of blur the lines between these things. Truthfully, I think that a scholastic organization that might be looking into ancient practices and such might stumble upon divine magics that call upon some dangerous force, like a bunch of wizards who uncover some channel to the power of a banished god and wind up worshipping it. Indeed, this doesn't even need to be sinister: maybe the forgotten god was forgotten because of some evil act, and it might be a good thing to bring them back into the open.
It's a bit of a shame that the rules of D&D don't really support the "Pyromancy" style of stat spreads you find in FromSoft games. You'd probably need to have a very different style of game, focused on building out skills rather than having individual classes. But I do think you can at least play in that conceptual space of blending styles of magic when it comes to the Arcane/Divine/Primal divide. What does it mean when a subclass opens up the ability to cast a spell you normally wouldn't get? Is a Light Cleric calling on their god to intercede and cast the typically-Arcane Fireball spell, or are they approaching the idea of a Fireball spell in a totally different manner than a Sorcerer or Wizard would?
In terms of plot, what would be the ramifications of a group of wizards learning how to cast spells like Mass Cure Wounds or Revivify using their style of magic (already you can imagine this with Artificers building devices that can do this - though only Battle Smiths get the former). Would this be seen as blasphemous? Stealing the power of the gods in some Promethean manner? Would support for organized religion plummet if scholars of the Arcane could reproduce miracles? Or would a more enlightened society now dedicate themselves to a kind of grand-unified magic theory to bridge the gap between magical traditions and understand them holistically?
Of course, this categorization can also leave some interesting questions open: if magic tends to sort itself into Arcane, Divine, and Primal magic, then why is it that there seem to be so many more avenues toward Arcane magic? And why are Clerics and Druids so similar to one another?
Truly, especially if you look at the 2024 revision for these classes, many class features are pretty clear analogues (in the playtesting, they even wanted to make Wild Shape uses into "Channel Nature," which I actually think would have been more elegant, just letting Wild Shape be the default use of it akin to a Cleric's Divine Spark or Turn Undead). Maybe make this mechanical element into an in-universe topic of discussion. Perhaps some scholar comes up with an idea that suggests that Clerics and Druids are actually the same thing, practitioners of "Planar Channeling," which might earn some ire from a society in which clerical and druidic tradition are considered very different (maybe your isolated wood elf community considers clerics to be bringers of calamity and disaster to the pristine natural balance, or your urban, godly society of aasimar have a Manichaean disdain for any reverence of the physical world, and see the druids as worshipping the false material world).
All manner of conflict and intrigue can spring from the ways in which magic is divided in a game like D&D. And the fact that it always seems to come in threes aids in this - giving you a system that will never really reach balance, and thus fuel your drama and stories endlessly.
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