Magic Rules
From Cult of the Turtle Wiki
This post needs some major clean-up, I know. Brain dump so far.
When the gods left, so did magic. All magic, not just Divine magic, but Arcane, too. Maybe it was because the gods were gone, and without them there was no magic, and maybe it was because the world's destruction pulled Magicite too far away for easy use.
The latter is a useful theory, since it it by Magicite that Haven gets its portals, and Haven's Magic users get their power. But before the Cataclysm, magic worked differently. Casters didn't have to be bound to a crystal in order to tap the Ethereal and Astral magics. Then it was just a matter of learning the ritual or praying to the proper deity to get what you needed. Maybe the gods are were mediators between Magicite and the casters of the world.
Just as no one is certain what role the gods played, or even who "won" the Cataclysm, no one is certain how magic really worked before, but they know a few things about how it works now.
When someone wants to channel magical power, they get it by binding -- via a glyph -- to a Magicite crystal. By Haven law and convention, the glyph is painted on the forehead of the caster, and is unique to their spellcasting. A Knowledge(Arcana) check can determine the class of spell (divine or arcane) from the glyph, and its possible to tell by the glyph who cast a spell using Detect Magic and Knowledge(Arcana).
Some spells just don't work: Summon Monster, Commune, Speak with Dead -- any spell that contacts or brings an entity from a far plane fails. The gods aren't there to ask, but neither are the elementals, or the spirits of the dead. It is still possible to animate the dead, but this practice is illegal within the Haven Alliance (and generally considered taboo).
Spells which detect alignment, or protect form an alignment (eg, Detect Evil, Protection from Evil, Know Alignment) no longer work. The caster's guild is looking into a divination to detect allegiances, but that's currently no more successful that a Sense Motive check.
Arcane elemental damage hasn't changed, but holy and unholy damage are now astral damage (of positive and negative varieties).
Wizards and Clerics no long prepare spells, instead they know the proper rites and rituals and power them from their Magicite, much like Sorcerers and Favored Souls do. The latter can know less spells, but have many more spellpoints to spend on it.
As a conversion (for now) a caster gets a number of spellpoints equal to 10/spell levels castable (+5 points for each 0-level spell). So a Wizard with 2 second level spells, 3 first level spells and 4 zero-level spells would have (2 * 2 * 10) + (3 * 1 * 10) + 4 * 5 == 40 + 30 + 20 = 90 spell points. A spell cost 10 * spell level points to cast, and metamagic feats that adjust level do it by 5 points per level.
(I can help with this math, but it'll make managing a Wizard or Cleric simpler in the long run.)
[Need to figure out how to handle clerical domains and spontaneous casting]
