It mentions in the second paragraph of the right column:
In most cases, humans and surface dwelling D-bees not adapted to speaking and living underwater, must use spellsongs only as Ritual Magic
Firstly there appear to be some spellsongs which are always rituals anyway regardless of who is casting them (although I guess via TTGD any ritual could be turned into a spell)
It MIGHT be useful to know because of the necessity to perform underwater, the 1/10 range and the 10-60 minute casting time addition. These might be conditions unique to surface-dwelling creatures not adapted to underwater living/speaking. I don't think whales who would cast the following rituals would have 1/10 range and the way Reversal goes out of its way to specify having to be done underwater I think implies that the other 4 do not have to be done underwater (although that's usually where they would be)
Ones which are already rituals:
- 1. Song of Calling "this ritual allows the song caster to communicate"
2. Song of Life "The music is a powerful ritual" .. "The ritual takes 20 minutes to one hour"
3. Song of Reversal "This powerful transformation ritual" .. "This ritual must be performed underwater"
4. Song of Severing "companions must defend him while he completes the ritual" .. "If successful, the ritual" .. "The ritual was used several times"
5. Song of Weaving "This ritual creates a set"
6. Stormsong "this powerful ritual can change the weather"
In these cases I don't know if you would just ignore the 1D6x10 minutes if it has another stated time, or possibly add that to teh time.
- Calling doesn't mention a casting time so I figure it's 10min to 60min as standard, regardless of who uses it. Kind of a sucky investment for a mere 6 minutes of talking.
Life is 20-60 so same max but double min.
Reversal doesn't state a time so I'm guessing it would be 1D6x10 for anybody doing it.
Severing says it takes 3-9 melee rounds to cast, so I'm guessing that would be 3to9+40to240 for humans trying to do it.
Weaving doesn't give a duration so like Reversal I figure it's 10-60 for everyone.
Stormsong doesn't list a duration so I figure it's 10-60 minutes for everyone.
The big difference between the unadapted and the adapted would be with those spellsongs not called rituals:
- Song of Danger
Song of Doubt
Song of Fear
Song of Grief
Song of Joy
Song of Protection
Song of Revenge*
Song of Sea Sickness
Song of Sleep
Song of Strength
Song of Summoning**
Sonic Boom
Sound Blast
Sound Spike
Valorsong
**even though I can't find 'ritual' in Summoning's description, it is described as "a variation on the song of calling" and since the Song of Calling is described as a ritual, one might interpret Summoning to be considered a ritual by extension
Getting back to what I opened with:
humans and surface dwelling D-bees not adapted to speaking and living underwater, must use spellsongs only as Ritual Magic
This is described as "in most cases" which implies there are some cases in which humans not adapted to speaking&living underwater are not obligated to using them as ritual magic.
What do you think would be the exceptions to this?
It can't be "humans adapted to speaking and living underwater" because they are already excluded from that restriction.
Perhaps if "adapted to speaking" refers to a permanent state, the "not most cases" could be describing humans TEMPORARILY adapted to speaking underwater?
The Whale Singer OCC begins with the ocean magic spell "speak underwater" (4th level spell, page 68)
Do you think it is reasonable to believe that a Whale Singer who casts this spell on themself would then be able to cast without the "only as Ritual Magic" condition and thus be able to cast them without being underwater?
That doesn't cover the "and living" part but that's vague so I'm not sure what spell could cover that aside from Breathe Without Air (it is listed as Ocean Magic on page 63 so could be selected from the 'two of choice' for the Whale Singer OCC.
I guess that means Whale Singer OCC Sea Druid OCC are both like Temporal Wizards in a way, their 'of choice' doesn't have a level cap like the Ocean Wizard OCC (level 5 max) meaning they could start at first level with very high level magic like Calm Storms, Close Rift, Restoration, Sanctum, Summon and Control Storm or Transformation.
I'd overlooked that for a while and thought the 12th level (120 PPE) 'Metamorphosis Shark' (monster) or the 11th levels (150 PPE or 120 PPE) Calm Waters or Metamorphosis Crustacean (monster) were the highest level Ocean Magic.
Necromancers are similar in that respect, it isn't just the 6 necromancy spells they can start with like the five 13th level spells (eye-skull, know-skull, goblin-necklace, hell-back, magot) and 14th 'Return from the Grave', but the 6 common wizard spells are similarly not given level limits so they could also start with 15/14 Transformation/Restoration 13ths Shadow Wall/Sanctum 12ths Zombie/Ensorcel/Soultwist or 11ths Mummy
Players opting for that route would be less useful early on (probably can't scare up the PPE) but they could make bucks selling one high level spell to others and then use that to buy training in lower level spells.