Magic, it is what sets fantasy apart from other genres of both literature and rpgs, exactly how it is implemented in the setting will have a huge impact on that setting, probably on nearly the same level as the choice of what species will be in the setting.
Gal Hadre really started because of my dissatisfaction with how D&D and pathfinder were handling magic. The problem wasn’t even with vancian magic, which at least somewhat helps balance magic and mundane characters. It was with spell selection. Players could pick any of hundreds of spells for their characters with little if any limitations except what they imposed on them. There was no need to have a fire cantrip or even an elemental one to learn burning hands or fireball. Generally casters picked whatever spells they considered best, maybe adjusting slightly day to day based on anticipated fights.
So I wanted magic that had more restrictions, which at first was simply dividing spells into groups of which you only had access to one of. As I started developing my own setting, it became logical to include my thoughts on magic in the setting. As one thing led the other and the Tund took form, then the Neverborn came as a result of that. At some point, it seemed logical to link the Neverborn and arcane magic as dragons have always been strongly linked to magic. It also made it interesting that arcane magic was directly linked to the evil gods. Even deeper, it allows for interesting campaigns exploring the existence of long lost paths of magic linked to dead neverborn.
As Gal Hadre is a dark age setting it made sense that magic is not taught in mage academies or has uniformly known lists of spells. Magic is explored by individual casters, often with the assistance of a mentor who may teach them spells that they have discovered or refined from their own mentor. This has the added side benefit of player characters not being able to look up a spell list and see what a fire mage will likely have in their repertoire. Magic staying dangerous and unknown makes things interesting.
I have spent over a third of a blog post talking about how dragon magic developed, now to get into the details of what dragon magic is. There are eight interlinked paths of dragon magic: the path of stone awakened, the path of manifest beast, the path of incarnate flame, the glacial path, the shrouded path, the path of the worldwind, the path of life and the path of death. Now these are not the only names the paths go by, often they are simply referred to as fire magic or ice magic, the path of incarnate flame is also called the path of living fire and the burning gateway. I say interlinked because while they each initially need to be studied separately, once understood they can be combined into hybrid spells that use two or three paths.
Mages start by exploring a single path of dragon magic, some progress purely along a single path others expand their knowledge to additional paths. Most powerful mages do a combination of both as it gets more difficult both to progress further in a single path and to learn more paths. It is incredibly rare for human mages to learn even the basics of all eight paths, though longer lived races generally have at least a few mages with that level of skill.
The path of stone awakened is focused on earth and stone related with some acid direct damage spells. It has a lot of generic protection spells, but can also manipulate stone and earth.
The path of the manifest beast is all about embracing one’s inner wild animal, rarely able to cause direct magical damage the vast majority of spells are about augmenting a humanoid in some way, often by taking on aspects of an animal. It is highly versatile in the hands of an experienced caster that is willing to get their hands dirty doing work themselves.
The path of incarnate flame is often considered the least subtle path as its spells generally do one of two things, cause lots of fire damage or heighten emotions to dangerous places. It is probably the most common path used by war mages.
The glacial path is in many ways the opposite of the path of incarnate flame as it deadens emotions and can often be used to slowly or subtly impact something. But it can also be used with very unsubtle damage dealing spells, magic is never as simple as direct opposites.
The shrouded path is one of shadow and light manipulation, including sometimes using one’s own shadow as something to be manipulated. I can sometimes be used to connect shadows that are at some distance from each other.
The path of the worldwind is the path of air, wind, electricity and time. It is a very flexible path and can be used for movement enhancement, defensive spells, precognition or attack.
The path of life is often thought as just a healing path, but it is really about bio-manipulation. It can be used to temporarily force the body beyond what it would otherwise do. It is also required for many hybrid spells that require temporarily imbuing something with life. Life magic is probably the path that the most mages know, as magical healing is always a helpful trick to have up one’s sleeve.
The path of death is often used for necromancy, but it does not have to involve creating undead. It can simply be used for fear and intimidation spells or damage spells that debuff those targeted.
The eight paths overlap in some ways, as different paths can be used to approach and solve the same problems. The path of incarnate flame for example can be used to seal wounds through cauterization, which may not heal wounds but at least prevents bleeding, it could also be used to heighten certain emotions that cause one to temporarily ignore penalties from wounds.
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