The Rules of Magic
Spells are spirits, kindred to demons, souls or fairies. The runes and diagrams in a spellbook, the incantations memorised by a wizard, or the engravings on an enchanted item - these are just bindings for the spell-spirit and ways to control it.
When you cast a spell, you empower it with raw magical energy to manifest itself into the world. Raw magic released without a spell to refine and define it produces chaotic, dangerous effects and generates
octarine light. Concentrated raw magic has a tendency to explode unless stabilised into
occultum - an extremely valuable substance that still has a tendency to explode, but slightly less so. It can also power great workings of magic.
Minor spells, called
cantrips, infest a wizard’s soul and bind to it. They are like spiritual parasites. Unlike true spells, they can be used at will with no incantation or gesture, but cannot be learned or exchanged.
The above is what wizards believe about magic, though it might very well be wildly inaccurate. Wizards train in meditation and other, stranger techniques, modifying their own minds to make them more accommodating and alluring to spirits. A wizard's mind is a dangerous place - a menagerie of cantrips, spells and raw magic. For every ten students who enter an apprenticeship, only three emerge alive and sane technically not insane.
Spellcasting
Spells need magical gestures and an incantation to be invoked. Thus you must be able to speak and either have a hand free, or wield an implement (wand or staff). You cannot use a two-handed weapon in the same round you wish to cast.
Magic Dice
Raw magical energy you possess is represented by Magic Dice (MD). These are d6 and you normally get them from Wizard class templates. When casting in a place of power (ancient circle of stones, top of a wizard tower, near a ley line), step up your MD to d8, but beware of instability.
When you cast a spell, choose how many MD to invest into it. The results depend on the number of [dice], their [sum] and sometimes the [best] roll. Armour penalty decreases [sum] per each MD, applied after Mishaps and Dooms are assessed. Any spell with [sum] reduced to 0 fizzles.
Armour penalty (AP) is equal to 1/2/3 for light or shield/medium/heavy armour.
Any invested MD that shows 4+ is spent, otherwise you can use it again. When an effect says that a MD is burnt, it is automatically spent, no matter what it rolls. All spent MD are regained when you get a good night’s rest. Spells just return to their receptacle once cast and can be used as long as you have MD.
Magic is fickle and dangerous even to a well-learned mage. Rolling a double on your MD causes a Mishap (bad), while a triple leads to Doom (very bad). Still resolve the spell as normal, if possible.
Saoirse is decked out for a skirmish rather than spell-casting, with leather armour and a shield (AP 2), but she tries to heal her friend anyway. She casts with 2 MD, rolling 3, 3. This is a Mishap, but the spell still works, if weakened: [sum] = 3 + 3 + 2 × (-2) = 2. At least the friend survives.Concentration
When you are distracted, or attempt to cast a spell subtly, with no incantation or gesture, your spell may fizzle. You can be distracted:
- By taking damage from an attack of opportunity or when casting from a spellbook as a full-round action, unless you don’t feel pain.
- When drugged, drunk, very sick, in agony, or on fire.
- While swimming, grappling, or falling to your death.
Make an Intelligence/Concentration check. On success, the spell goes off as intended. On failure, the spell fizzles, but still roll the MD - some may be spent, and Mishaps or Dooms may still happen.
Overchanneling & Corruption
Your MD represent the amount of power you can relatively safely channel, but if you need more power, you can overchannel. Use any number of extra MD that work normally, except that they are always spent. Afterwards, gain the same number of Corruption Dice (CD). These represent the spiritual wounds on your soul where it burned from too much magic. They can be seen with supernatural sight as black, shifting scars on your aura.
All CD are rolled every time you use magic. They do not count towards [sum] and [dice], but do count towards Mishaps and Dooms. CD can only be removed with long ritual cleansing during downtime in Town.
Mishaps
Magic is inherently unstable. Mishaps happen when you roll a double on MD when casting a spell. Reference the doubled number on this table:
| # | Mishap Effect |
|---|
| 1 | The spell fizzles with no effect. Embarrassing. |
| 2 | You can't remember how to do language or magic for 1d6 rounds. |
| 3 | Spend the next round screaming in pain, or take exploding 1d6 damage. |
| 4 | You mutate for 1d6 rounds, then make a Save. Permanent if you fail. |
| 5 | Your spell mutates, permanently. |
| 6 | A burst of wild magic does... something. |
| 7+ | You explode, dealing [sum]+[dice] damage to everything nearby. You are quite dead, but then again you must have been tinkering with your MD, so that's on you. |
Some wizarding traditions may have specialised mishap tables instead.
Dooms
Magic is inherently dangerous, even ruinous. When you roll a triple (or more) on MD, gain a Doom specific to your wizarding tradition. Dooms are gained in order: the first is a warning, the second is a hindrance, the third and final Doom will kill or ruin you, unless you can escape it via a quest. Should you survive your final Doom, all your future Dooms will instead be Mishaps.
You could also refrain from casting spells with more than 2 MD. But who would do something boring like that?
Counterspell
All spells can be countered by their
opposite. As a reaction when you know a spell is being cast, you may attempt to disrupt it with your own spell. Cast a memorised spell, but instead of its normal effect, decrease the [sum] of the countered enemy spell by your [sum]. If their [sum] reaches 0, the enemy spell dissipates with no effect, otherwise it goes off with the lowered [sum]. Note that [dice] are unaffected unless the spell was countered completely.
Elements have obvious opposites (fire vs water or ice, lightning vs earth, healing vs necrotic), but you can counter other effects, too, if your GM agrees. For example, perhaps hold person counters teleport, fear might negate charm, stoneskin might disrupt flesh to stone, etc.
The Language of Magic
In the time before time, the Laws of Magic were chiselled into the very fabric of Reality by the primeval powers that be. Scholars call the language in which the Laws were written
High Arkanum or
Venderant Nalaberong. That language is now long-lost and nigh forgotten. Only a few syllables remain known - the Words of Power that archmages and gods treasure above all.
Low Arkanum is the common language of magic, likely derived from Venderant Nalaberong but retaining next to nothing from its potency. Still, it is the only language capable of properly binding spirits and channelling magical energies, so all scrolls, spellbooks, magic circles and most magic items world-wide use it. If a wizard does not know Low Arkanum, they cannot use a spellbook, though they can still cast spells they know and gain new spells from another wizard. Note that incantations and trigger phrases are often in a different language, to make using the magic item easier for the intended and harder for a non-intended user.
Spellbook & Memory
As spirits, spells cannot be (
easily) copied, only moved. With an hour of meditation, you can move spells as you like between any
receptacles you possess - your brain, spellbooks, wands, scrolls. Casting a spell requires that it is prepared within your brain (an action), or in another receptacle at hand (a full-round action).
You have [Intelligence + magic-using templates]
Memory Slots to hold spells in your brain, while a
spellbook takes up 1 Inventory Slot and may contain up to 10 spells.
Scrolls & Wands
Scrolls are parchments with rune arrays and diagrams drawn in expensive inks that can hold a spell and 1 MD to cast it with. While scrolls are also drawn up in the language of magic, their trigger incantation can be read by any literate person to use the spell within, burning up the scroll.
A wizard with Leyline Lore may use their own MD instead, preserving the scroll and the spell within. They may also move the spell out of the scroll, the same way as from any receptacle, which results in an empty scroll. Draining the MD from a scroll is not possible, but empty, energised $crolls are used as a form of currency by some magi.
Wands are like an even more expensive scroll which isn’t destroyed when used. Any creature with magic can burn a MD to charge a wand, but depending on its materials, each wand has a limit to the MD it can hold.
Staff
Wizards often carry staves which serve as a focus for channelling magic and to poke at strange, glowing things. As a wizard, you may create your own staff. You will need some special wood and other materials, plus about a week of work, and may then roll or choose a staff on the table below. Or you can buy a staff, which is quite expensive and humiliating.
| d12 | Staff | Effect |
|---|
| 1 | Cascade | When you roll a Mishap, add +6 to [sum]. |
| 2 | Chanter's | If you spend a full round loudly chanting, add +2 to [sum]. |
| 3 | Flux | Retain MD on 1-4. |
| 4 | Fulminant | Every MD that rolled 6 adds +1 MD to the spell. |
| 5 | Ley | If you roll a Mishap of 7+, instead refresh all MD. |
| 6 | Maledict | All CD rolls add to [sum] and [dice]. |
| 7 | Power | Set any MD to 6, but burn all MD used in the spell. |
| 8 | Resonant | Add +1 MD if you, the player, can say an incantation in rhyme. |
| 9 | Safety | Set any one MD to 1. |
| 10 | Spellburn | Reroll any MD, but burn it. |
| 11 | Vancian | Add +1 MD, but the spell cannot be used again until you rest. |
| 12 | Warding | Gain +1 to all Saves for every unspent MD. |
Pointy Hat
Every self-respecting chartered wizard has a tall, pointy hat. Only members of the Mage Guild who have passed the
Candle Test may legally wear a wizard hat, so people will presume you to be one if you wear such a hat. The Mage Guild takes very unkindly to impersonators.
A pointy hat fills 1 Inventory Slot and can be destroyed (describe how) to add +1d6 to any Save.
Tingling Tongue
All magical things taste weird. A good lick will always tell if something (someone?) is magical or mundane, though probably not its properties.
Tasting a potion will never kill you and will give a hint to its effect.
I Need More Power
Each of the following can grant you permanent +1 MD, once.
Wear exquisite robes (worth at least 100 gp) and no armour.
Steal the staff of an archmage or a fairy godmother's wand.
Eat or marry a powerful creature of magic.
Learn your True Name.
Bind another wizard's soul. Willing possession by a demon.
Deal with a Devil, the Fair Folk, or an Outer Thing.
Start a cult that will feed you power through sacrifices.
Drink directly from a ley line or a pure elemental force.*
Consume an energy field larger than your head.*
Replace all your blood with a more potent fluid.*
Tattoo your whole body with magic runes.
Inject liquid occultum.*
Experience other dimensions.
Do all the drugs you can find at once.
Make a pact with a spirit to be your familiar.
Control a tower, a dungeon, or other demesne.
Learn the secrets of life and death to transcend mortality.
*) Without exploding, of course.
Rituals and Workings
There are other forms of magic and other ways of using it than just spellcasting. Rituals, borrowed power and inherent talent can all be used for magical workings, but their rules will have to wait for a future post.
“The only difference between wizardhood and godhood is a good night’s sleep.”
Andreas Alazar, archmage
“I have become omnip-” KABOOM
Andreas Alazar, last words
Wizards are… well, weird. They are the kind of people who would find an alien soul parasite which can control fire and decide that they want it in their mind. Who would not want to control fire at the cost of their sanity?
Wizards are what you get when you replace every ounce of common sense with child-like curiosity and every last scrap of self-preservation with hunger for more power.
Wizards are
the worst. Every undead or chimaera or other abomination of nature, every rain of frogs or acid, every cursed pair of slippers has a wizard behind it who had decided that it was a good idea. Wizards have a surprisingly hard time telling apart good and BAD BAD BAD WHY WOULD YOU EVER EVEN THINK ABOUT IT ideas.
Once upon a time, the plural of
wizard was
war.
Quest: per Wizarding Tradition
Languages: choose one option from
- literacy, the language of magic and one other language, or
- any three languages.
Items: simple robe, spellbook, ink & quill, plus per Wizarding Tradition
Skills: per Wizarding Tradition
A: The Gift, Wizarding Tradition, 2 Spells, +1 MD
B: Leyline Lore, Unshaped Expression, 1 Spell, +1 MD
C: Wizard Vision, 1 Spell, +1 MD
D: choose one of Signature Spell or Spell Ward, 4 Spells, +1 MD
The Gift
You can use
magic. For every Wizard template you have, gain +1 MD.
Wizarding Tradition
Roll or choose a
tradition that you are trained in. This gives you your spell list, cantrips, Perk and Flaw, and more.
You can still cast spells from outside your tradition, but you either have to cast them from a spellbook, or pay 100 XP the first time you memorise them.
Note that “Wizard” is your class; the traditions are an archetype within that class. Thus you cannot multiclass to take two traditions - you would still be a wizard. If you want different spells, find or buy them, but that doesn't change your wizarding tradition. Your Perk, Flaw and cantrips are stuck with you unless you take some drastic measures.
Spells
Every wizarding tradition has a list of (usually) twelve spells such wizards are trained in - 6 Basic spells, 4 Advanced spells and 2
Emblem spells. You will learn these spells as you gain templates. At each template, you:
A: Roll one (d6) and choose one Basic spell.
B: Roll one (d8) Basic or Advanced spell.
C: Roll one (d10) Basic or Advanced spell.
D: Choose any four spells from your tradition’s list.
Leyline Lore
With a touch, you may transfer MD to and from other willing magic-users or some magic items. This may not exceed anyone's normal limit of MD.
You can hear nearby ley lines and other places of power as a faint tingling.
Unshaped Expression
You can bodge together a spell-like effect appropriate to your tradition by pouring
any number of MD into a target and hoping for the best. Describe what you are trying to do, but exact effects are adjudicated by the GM and are usually haphazard and dangerous. Mishaps and Dooms apply.
Wizard Vision
With concentration, you can see enchantments and invisible things as a faint lensing of light and can tell roughly how big they are. By making eye contact with someone, you can tell if they are possessed, undead, ensorcelled, or a spellcaster.
Signature Spell
You have trained a spell so well it became a part of your very self.
Choose one spell from your tradition that you know. That spell is always prepared in your brain without taking up a Memory Slot. That spell never triggers Mishaps and Dooms.
Spell Ward
Reduce [sum] of all harmful magics targeting you by 2. Once per session, shatter a spell that targets you. This does not apply to the effects of Mishaps and Dooms.
