How does it look?

Casting a spell involves a few seconds of speech in a highly inflected and tonal language, gestures using both hands and the manipulation of Ingredients and/or Components. Ingredients do not have to be held and are often stored in pouches, but Components may be an integral part of the gesticulations involved in the spell. Ingredients vanish when the spell is completed, usually with a flash or puff of smoke. Pracitioners of Lorecraft may not work together to combine their Powers, as Savants and Bards often do.

Spellbooks and Memory

Lorecraft spells are simply too complex to be remembered perfectly for long. The written form of the spell (which includes Glyphs to be visualized, phonetics for the Words to be spoken and encoded movement patterns for the Gestures, plus a list of Ingredients all written in a Secret Language), must be studied periodically or the Mage will begin to loose skill in that spell. The decline is rather steep, especially for Immortals. Without a Spellbook, a Mage can expect to completely forget a spell within a year. Frequent casting helps retention, or a Spell can be written down from memory (though the chance of error is high), assuming a Book is unavailable.

There are two generic types of Spellbooks:  Librams and Tomes. Librams are portable Books that contain only the barebones information related to spell (2-5 pages per spell). Tomes have all that Librams have, plus details for sources for components, history, simple variations, advanced techniques and personal notes and are MUCH heavier (10-20 pages per spell). Librams are interchangable, but Tomes are personal. A Mage must have access to a personal Tome (and a writing implement) to improve his Lorecraft skills.

In ideal circumstances, Spells are cast directly from the book, which must be on a pedestal or otherwise supported as both hands are required in the casting. Flunkies (Corporeal or otherwise) to turn the pages are also highly recommended. It is difficult to flub a casting in such circumstances.

Familiars

One of the Hallmarks of Lorecrafters is the use of Familiars, which are small usually Monsterous companions which are bound to the Mage. Dragonettes are the classic Familars. Reptiles, rodents and giants insects are also used, as are a few less common Monsters.

SpellList and GURPS

Spells follow the basic description from GURPS Magic. Colleges are not recognized (just one big progression chart) and specialization is not allowed. The names of the Spells are more colorful, if somewhat tedious, and are based on Mythic figures. Example:  Firebolt becomes Alue's Ball of Flame. Each Spell may have many variations with the same basic effect, but having different names and requiring different Ingredients. Examples:   Alue's Ball of Flame requires a spark, Niokolen's Flaming Doom requires a pinch of sulphur, but both do the same thing.

The High Metals and Lorecraft

A Mage may use the energy in a High Metal compatible with her Nature instead of her personal Mana. The Metal must be within her aura and either vanishes or shrinks, depending on how much is used. Generally, 1/4 oz of metal is 1 Mana. One would expect Mages to be walking treasure vaults, but this does not work. In fact, it is highly inadviseable for a Mage to have any Metal in his aura unless he plans to use it immediately. Unfortunate side effect, of, say, mithril armor, include having a spell spontaneously retarget itself on the armor instead of the intended target, and a chain reaction that converts all of the metal into mana and supercharging the spell (and usually incinerating the mage). Mages are much more likely to use Weirwood, Vitredur or one of the alloy metals (Electrum or Adamantril), which cannot be converted to mana. The process of drawing Mana from Metal is a M/H skill called Transmution, which is affected by the amount of Metal to be converted and the amount of excess Metal in the Mage's Aura.