Magic-User

A Witch draws a circle with salt and quicksilver. It is midnight as she gazes into her obsidian mirror. King Paimon’s face appears, whispering secrets.

A Sorcerer, through complex gesticulation and utterance, manipulates the protean chaos of the universe, gathering and concentrating fire in his hands to hurl at his enemies.

Magic-Users manipulate reality in many different ways. They use different techniques, practice different rituals, and cast different spells, but they all share this: they use the power of their mind to conform the world to themselves, not themselves to the world.

Overview

Prime Requisite: INT/WIS

Minor Abilities: Magical Resistance

Special Ability: Spellcasting

Magical Resistance

Due to your many exposures to magical energy, you have advantage on checks to avoid magical effects like being charmed, dominated, lulled, etc. This does not apply to damage from magical sources.

Spellcasting

To cast a spell, declare the spell, declare its power, and roll your Spell Dice.

Your Spell Dice are a pool of d6 equal to your Special Limit. When you cast a spell, roll your Spell Dice. You succeed if you get a number of successes greater than or equal to the spell's power. If not, you fail.

The spell's power is how many successes you have to roll to avoid spell failure. It is also the number of dice you can sum to create an obstacle, how many creatures you can affect, how far the spell fires, or how long it lasts - whatever is the best way to measure the spell's effectiveness.

If you fail, sum all the failed dice and compare with the magical misfire table. You still cast your spell, but whatever is on the magical misfire table also happens, and your Spell Dice decrease by 1. Sum the successful dice as usual to determine the spell’s parameters.

If you are not using more complicated rules for spells. the name of the spell determines how it can be used. Depending on how much of a stretch your interpretation of a given spell is, the Referee may let you roll your Spell Dice with advantage, disadvantage, or no modifier. Advantaged dice succeed on a 3, 4, 5, or 6. Normal dice succeed on a 4, 5, or 6. Disadvantaged dice on a 5 or 6.

Arcane Foci

Each Magic-User starts with an Arcane Focus appropriate to their character, such as a wand, staff, holy symbol, etc.

When casting spells using the arcane focus, your Spell Dice are automatically rolled with advantage.

But beware, your enemies will quickly notice the power of this instrument and will attempt to separate you from it.

Creating a new Arcane Focus follows the same procedure as creating a magic item listed later, except, you may not embed a spell in your Arcane Focus.

Starting Spells

Magic-Users start with three spells. These can be randomly chosen from a list, picked from a list, or just made up if you are using the spell rules in this book.

New spells must be created or learned from spell-books, meditation, the counsel of devils, etc. However your caster learns spells.

Preparing Spells

Magic-Users have to prepare their spells at a specific time each day. Depending on the type of Magic-User you are playing, you may pick a different time.

A Witch might prepare at three o’clock in the morning, a Druid at the lunar zenith, a Wizard at dawn, etc.

At the appointed time, the Magic-User prepares a number of spells less than or equal to their Special Limit. This takes 10 minutes per spell prepared, and these are the only spells they may cast before the next preparation.

Learning Spells

To learn a spell, you must pass a Prime Requisite check. If you fail, you cannot attempt to learn that spell again until you increase your Prime Requisite. Learning a spell and copying it into your spell book takes 1 day and costs 50sp.

Creating Spells

To create a spell, you must spend a number of experience points equal to the difference between your Prime Requisite and the sum of all your other attributes.

For example, if your Prime Requisite is 13 and the rest of your attributes were all equal to 10, you would need to spend 37 experience points to create a spell.

You must spend that many days researching the new spell. Negotiate with the Referee about the capabilities of the spell.

Malevolence, Benevolence, and Counter-Magic

When you create your character, pic an element, aspect, force, etc. whatever you like, to be your character’s Malevolence. You might pick fire, black smoke, light, etc. Do the same for your Benevolence. You can cast your Malevolence and Benevolence as a spell which you do not have to prepare. The same is true for Counter-Magic.

When you use your Benevolence, you use magical force to protect someone or yourself. Use the DoS of the spell as an obstacle for whatever harm is befalling them.

When you use your Malevolence, do the same but use the DoS of the spell as damage against your target.

To counter a spell cast by another Magic-User, you must roll a higher DoS (theirs is unknown) than they did for their spell.

Creating Potions and Magic Items

With the proper time, materials, and workspace, your character can embed spells into items or substances that can be used by themselves or others.

To create a new item or formulae for a potion, you must spend the same number of experience points you would to create a spell.

Creating 1 dose of a potion takes 1 Watch and costs 50sp for the basic supplies.

The cost of basic supplies to create a magic wand or staff are also 50sp, but crafting takes a number of days equal to the experience point cost of the item.

In addition, the referee may require that you have special magical ingredients which cannot be purchased. These you must quest to find.