Third Verse, Same as The First, Little Bit Louder and a Little Bit Worse

Well, hopefully not worse. Still, you get the idea. Here I am again, starting even later than yesterday, after watching Lord of The Rings all day! Call me crazy. No, really, go ahead. I just did this less than two weeks ago! Oh, well. I enjoyed it, and that's what counts. Anyway, on with the real stuff.

More Heraldry, I think. Stats for the Companions:

Companion
Large Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 6d10+24 (57)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 100 ft (20 squares)
Armor Class: 17 (-1 size, +2 Dex, +6 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 15
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+14
Attack: Hoof +11 melee (1d8+4)
Full Attack: 2 hooves +11 melee (1d8+4) and bite +5 melee (1d4+2)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks:
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft, low-light vision, unflagging, telepathy 100 ft, spell resistance 16
Saves: Fort +9, Ref +7, Will +8
Abilities: Str 18, Dex 15, Con 19, Int 13, Wis 16, Cha 13
Skills: Listen +14, Move Silently +13, Sense Motive +13*
Feats: Endurance (B), Improved Natural Attack (hoof), Run (B), Weapon Focus (hoof)
Environment: Any plains, hills, or forest
Organization: Domesticated
Challenge Rating: 5
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always good
Advancement: by character class
Level Adjustment:

A silver-white horse comes up the road towards you, its hooves sounding almost like chimes as they strike the road. It raises its head, and you see unexpected intelligence in its deep blue eyes.

Companions are magical creatures that serve the cause of good, bonding themselves to a particular human of high moral character (a Herald) in order to aid people and fight evil.
Companions have excellent endurance. Although they appear to be pure white horses, they are tougher, faster, and last longer than the most well trained warhorse. They are always pure white, with deep blue eyes, and hooves that have a silver sheen to them.
Companions are intelligent, compassionate beings. They tolerate no evil in their presence, and always attempt to bring evil creatures to justice, if at all possible. They prefer to work through humans, particularly their Heralds, but they will take more direct action if they feel there is no other way.
A Companion is externally essentially identical to a light warhorse, standing a similar height at the shoulder.
Companions can speak telepathically to any intelligent creature within 100 feet, but they usually restrict their conversation to their Herald and other Companions.

Combat
Companions attack with their hooves. They attack with excellent tactics, working in tandem with their Herald as much as possible. However, if their Herald is slain or seriously injured, many Companions will go berserk, attempting at all costs to destroy that which struck their Herald.
Enduring (Ex): Companions can move faster than a normal horse, and keep up their pace far longer. A Companion does not take lethal damage when hustling for long periods, regardless of whether it is being ridden. A Companion can also make Constitution checks when making a forced march, and again, does not take lethal damage if it fails.
Spell-Like Abilities (Sp): At will - detect evil, detect good, detect magic
Skills: *Companions recieve a +8 bonus to Sense Motive checks.


There. Now, that Supernatural Comrade feat I mentioned:

Supernatural Comrade [General]
You are bonded to an intelligent magical being, who aids you and supports you.
Prerequsites: At least 6th character level, alignment matching that of the type of comrade you want.
Benefits: Choose an intelligent creature with a challenge rating of at least one lower than your character level. You have a supernatural bond with one creature of this type. The creature is treated as a cohort (see the Leadership feat) for purposes of XP gain. The creature is loyal to you and will fight or otherwise act to aid you. In addition, you and the creature forge an empathic link with one another, with a radius of one mile. This acts like the empathic link between a wizard and her familiar: emotions and general impressions can be transfered along it, although actual speech requires other powers.


Some general stuff about magic in the Valdemar world:
I'm not sure there should be separate sorcerer and wizard classes. I'd probably start with the wizard class, but give them a very limited number of spells of each level that they could cast spontaneously. So, a wizard would have, say, 4 spell slots of a given level that they fill with memorized spells, and 2 slots for spontaneous casting, with one or maybe two known spells to fill them.
Also, magic in this world takes energy. So... Hmm. Spells cost a number of "spell points" equal to their level squared. Mages have personal spell points equal to their Constitution times 3. So, a very strong mage could cast a powerful spell using his own reserves, but it would be draining. (The Gate spell could probably stay at 8th level, but with the caveat that you can't use any of the extra energy from outside that I'll talk about in a minute; you have use personal energy, which means you have to have a Con score of 22 to do it at all, and even then it drains you down badly.)
Mages can also get extra energy from outside. Journeymen can get energy from the earth, Masters from ley lines, and Adepts from the nodes where ley lines meet. Probably, tapping each type of energy requires a spell of a given level. That way, it fits into the current system for limiting spell access: mages with low levels of Mage Gift are those with Inteligence scores (or possibly Cha; that might make a better spellcasting prereq score in this setting) too low to cast the spells required to tap the extra power. I think 2nd is a good level for the Journeyman spell, 4th for the Master, and 7th for the Adept. Also, there should be the opportunity to bank your personal energy, probably through feats and suchlike.
Death energy is also available. Of course, the described behavior of mages without the Gift is that they often turn to death magic, because they know the power will be there. So maybe limiting Mage Gift based on an ability score is not as good an idea. I'm not really sure on this one. Perhaps I'll sleep on it, see if I can't get a better idea when I'm not half dead. Signing off for now...