December 11, 2022December 11, 2022 hex culture clerics, is this gonna work, magic, spell

offerings

Watching Chainsaw Man, thinking about Alex’s discussion of designing adventures around spells (and the vagueness of OSE’s phantasmal force) and well as Deeper in the Game’s magic items and philosophy behind them.

These are two abilities PCs can pick up; I would consider putting them at the end of their own adventures, seeding them in as treasure, or making them the result of magic research. I would think they’d fit most into what characters can do around level 5 (the Snake can do 5d6 damage in a very similar manner to lightning bolt, plus a bunch of other mean bullshit, but only a very limited number of times). They also require the DM to commit to particular kinds of games (not being too wishy-washy about how much time has passed for the Snake, making sure that a looming threat of social violence eventually gets acted on). The Snake also assumed that enemies have 1d8-sized HD; it becomes too strong if HD are 1d6 (so just bump its damage die size down to d4, I guess)

I would also think about making these count against follower limits imposed by Charisma, since someone cutting creepy deals is offputting and it categorizes them as a social relationship mechanically.

You could also drop these in at level 1 as a DM if you were comfortable to running the kind of game where the consequences of how PCs solve problems really matters. If anything goes in the dungeon, then these are just strong and creepy (which is fine); if a bunch of scrubs punching a hole through the local dragon subjects them to all kinds of troublesome scrutiny, then these are much more interesting.

I don’t imagine the Snake or the Foxes as having much explanation in the world; they are cruel and unfamiliar things that have an unknowable interest in a particular PC.

The Snake

Congratulations. You have formed a contract with the Snake. You may sacrifice one of your fingernails to give it a single command. You do not know why the Snake wants your fingernails. It probably just enjoys hurting you.

Photograph of a snake skeleton arranged in a spiral — Year of the Snake by Shenhung Lin CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Any time the Snake’s damage is mentioned, use 5d6. For each fingernail you give it, add +1 to the roll. For each creature it devours with more HD than it has damage dice, add 1d6 to the roll. For example, if you have given it 3 fingernails, its damage is 5d6+3. If it successfully devours a 7 HD wereboar, its damage increases to 6d6+3.

The Snake can only materialize in places within your line of sight and within earshot of your voice. The Snake materializes without fanfare or sound for the briefest moment to perform the acts you command before vanishing.

On your turn, you can command the Snake to do any of the following.

Snake, strike. You can simply tell the Snake to attack. It can attack a single target, or all creatures in a 100’ by 5‘ line. The line can originate from any point in range and has the orientation of your choice. The attack deals the Snake’s damage, Save (vs Magic) to take half damage. If this attack deals more damage than ½ their maximum HP, they must Save (vs Magic) again or the attack will kill them instantly as the Snake carves a hole through their body.
Snake, devour. You can tell the Snake to devour a single creature. This deals the Snake’s damage, Save (vs Magic) to take half damage. If this damage exceeds their maximum HP, the Snake successfully devours them, and can vomit them up as a separate favor. If this does not reduce the enemy to 0 HP, they stick in the Snake’s craw for a moment before it dematerializes. This annoys the Snake, and the next favor you ask of it requires an additional fingernail. It will tell you if it thinks it will not be able to devour a creature before it takes the fingernail.
Snake, release. You can tell the Snake to vomit up an enemy it has devoured for you. This enemy has ½ their normal HP and 10 AC, but retains all other abilities and statistics and acts as your perfectly loyal follower. It dissolves into oily smoke when reduced to 0 HP or the fingernail you sacrificed for it finishes growing back.
Snake, destroy. You can tell the Snake to obliterate a tube of solid, non-magical matter up to 100 ft in length and 5 ft in diameter. The tube can be in any shape or configuration (a cylinder, a spiral, a torus). The Snake obliterates this material by traveling through it; if it encounters a creature, it will deal its damage to them as if it had attacked and then immediately vanish (leaving the job of destroying the object or volume incomplete).

At any time you or an ally in range are about to take damage (after the attack is declared but before any dice are rolled)

Snake, protect. You can tell the Snake to block the attack. Roll its damage, then deduct incoming damage by that amount. If it does not negate all damage, its physical body is destroyed, which it will spend many mortal lifetimes regenerating. It is in your best interest to be dead by then.

Fingernails

Trace your hands (or at least your fingers) on the back of your character sheet and draw on fingernails. Whenever you offer one to the Serpent, right the in-game date you used it, so it’s easy to remember you’re missing it (and also to make it easier to remember when it grows back)

Though it always hurts more than you expect when the Snake claims a fingernail, no matter how many times it happens, you find your reaction oddly muted: no desire to flinch or cringe or clutch your hand. The Snake is particular and precise, and so the wound is nearly nonexistent; there is minimal bleeding and no trauma to the tissue. The Snake simply makes you unwhole. This is also what it does when it attacks your enemies.

The Snake always leaves your nail matrix perfectly intact, so that you can grow more fingernails for it to claim. It takes six months in-game months for a fingernail to grow back. If your game has downtime turns where there is a change of a random event, six of those will do.

If you need to call the Snake and have no fingernails left, there is no cause for concern. Perhaps there is something else you could offer instead?

The Foxes

Oh dear. You have formed a contract with the Foxes. Decide how many out of the five of them you have made a contract with, here and now. For each one, someone in your future will tell you a disastrous and believable lie, even if it contradicts their own nature and they believe they have no reason to deceive you. Everyone has a reason now, and it is the Foxes.

You can now command any number of Foxes to create illusions. Assigning more Foxes to an illusion increases the number of people it can deceive and the number of senses it can manipulate. Targets of an illusion may make a Save (vs Magic) to avoid being deceived, with a penalty equal to the number of Foxes assigned to the illusion. On a successful Save, they realize something is pushing and pulling at their mind.

No. of Foxes	No. of Targets
1	1
2	2
3	~5
4	~10
5	~20

Foxes are fickle and lazy. When you create an illusion, roll 1d6 for each Fox you assign to its creation. For each die that comes up a 1-3, one of your Foxes loses interest in helping you until your next downtime, preventing you from commanding them until then.

The Foxes do not accompany you on your adventures. However, your shadow, reflection, and appearance to other in dreams sometimes seem to have yellow eyes, sharp teeth, or perhaps a bushy and poorly concealed tail.

Illusions

Illusions can deceive senses in any way you please. You can make a target perceive something that does not exist at all, like a person or a wall. Illusions can move and act, such as an illusory wave fluttering in the breeze or an illusory person conversing and moving around (though it’s just the Foxes acting behind the scenes, of course).

You can also alter perception: wholly occlude someone’s vision, make an ally in their sight look like someone else, or prevent them from perceiving a particular person or object. You can also do something like make someone’s voice sound higher or lower, or make it sound like everything they say is an insult.

Illusions exist purely in the perception of their targets, but are shared amongst targets; an illusion brings a single, attenuated reality into being for those its deceives. For example, if one illusion affects two enemies, they must both perceive the same event unfolding. You could not make one enemy see an illusory dragon and the other see an illusory tree. You could create an illusion that depicts both or either, however. You could also set two groups of Foxes on two different illusions, though this would take more rounds if you are in combat and the individual illusions would not be able to deceive as many senses.

You can give false solidity to an illusion with the sense of touch. This does not allow illusions to support weight. For example, the victim of an illusion can’t walk through an illusory wall if the illusion deceives their sense of touch, but they would fall through illusory stairs. An illusory gale that includes the sense of touch would make its victim stumble and fall, but it could never lift them off the ground or propel them.

If an illusion ends up depicting something impossible (someone falls through solid-feeling illusory stairs, for example, or an illusory dragon picks them up with painful and powerful claws and then they are not actually lifted off the ground), the victim who witnesses the paradox may make a Save (vs Magic) to see overcome the illusion, thus losing all perception of it but experiencing stark reality once again. If they fail, they will confabulate the paradox away.

You can perceive your illusions and underlying reality simultaneously and without confusion. Illusions last until they wholly leave your perception.

Example

You have a contract with four of the Foxes, having decided five grievous lies in your life would be too many. You encounter a party of six goblins who seem like they might attack you. You command three of your foxes to deceive them with an illusion; you decide the illusion should impact sight, sound, and touch and affect five of the goblins. You tell three of your foxes to make it appear in the sight of five of the goblins that the sixth has drawn his weapon and attacked his fellow. The five deceived goblins see the sixth raise his club and strike; they feel the splatter of blood. The false target feels the impact of the club and the sound of it crunching his bones. The goblins gang up on the false attacker, and then begin brawling amongst themselves.

August 22, 2018June 26, 2019 jacinto adventures, amateur hour, demon, encounters, intro, is this gonna work, magic, monsters, occult

katabatic age

Shin Megami Tensei/Annihilation/Stalker citycrawling mashup modeled after Pearce’s Troll World.

// THE NEW AGE

In the depths of the environmental and resource crisis of 20XX, the discovery of a fifth esoteric phase of matter, upon which the laws of physics act weakly but the principles of perception and desire act strongly, promised a path to a better future. Wonderful machines and miraculous technologies, new cities clear of the rising water, humanity’s eyes once again turned to space, all with a price that did not reveal itself until too late. As esoteric substances filled the oceans and esoteric particles filled the atmosphere and esoteric fields tangled with the Earth’s own, all the shadows of the human mind, nightmares, rumors, figures from the old stories, took form and will and pried apart civilization. This new technology did not bring a Golden Age, or an Age of Humanity, but an age of dreaming deep without waking, an age of drowning in the collective unconscious, a Katabatic Age.

from Akira

// THE KATABATIC ZONE

The heart of the end of the world, where esoteric pollution is strongest. A mutating mirage-city build from the dreams and memories of its dead inhabitants, sometimes as clean and new as it was in its heyday, sometimes dilapidated and vine-chewed, its dimensions expanding and contracting so that circumnavigating it might take a week or a year or forever. It is occupied by dream-beings, eidola created by the city’s dead inhabitants: nightmares given flesh, heroes and monsters from the old stories, saints born from the prayers of the dying, archetypes aggregated from a billion human minds, kaleidoscopic psychic artifacts that corrode reality just with their presence. Rumor has it that in the deepest and strangest parts of the Katabatic Zone, there are eidola as intelligent and coherent as humans, who plot against each other and the humans who made them. The one certainty and constant of the Katabatic Zone is that a great deal of money can be made by conducting expeditions into its depths–information, instrument readings, and esoteric substances taken from the Zone are all extremely valuable on the black market.

// CUATROS SANTOS

A small city living in the corpse of a big one. Bright paint on old plaster, new plaster on old cinder block, new cinderblock on tired foundations. Neighborhoods sprung up beneath orphaned overpasses, jury-rigged locomotives coughing diesel smoke as they follow routes that once belonged to electric monorails, pickup trucks and motorcycles blast down cracked highways that once carried thousands. And looming above it all, from the corners of the city, the four colossal namesakes of Cuatros Santos, skyscraping eikons forming an esoteric mechanism that just barely keeps the city from collapsing beneath the weight of so many human minds.

from Dorohedoro

// CHARACTERS

Step 1: Roll or choose your background and make note of your favored attribute and starting skills.

job	preferred attribute	starting skill
employee	appeal	bullshit, linguistics
gearhead	intellect	engineering, computers
PI	physique	athletics, streetwise
delinquent	speed	driving, larceny
esper	psyche	mantia, science
merc	combat	firearms, first aid

Step 2: Roll 2d6+6 for your favored attribute. For everything else, roll 3d6 in order. Attributes are Appeal, Intellect, Physique, Speed, Psyche, and Combat.

Step 3: Max HP = 6. Make a Psyche/Mantia check. If you succeed, you have 1 Nous Die.

Step 4: Determine starting gear. You start with five items a competent shoplifter could get out of a Walmart and a random weapon. Italicized weapons can be hidden, bolded weapons require two hands. You can find armor and more gear on your misadventures. Guns are available, but illegal and hard to find.

roll	weapon
1	machete [d6/d6]
2	sword [d8/d6]
3	baseball bat [d4/d8]
4	switchblade [d4/d8]
5	hairpin [d4/d6]
6	chef knife [d6/d6]
7	mall sword [d4/d6]
8	crowbar [d6/d6]
9	signpost [d8/d6]
10	bicycle chain [d6/d6]

from Michiko and Hatchin

// SHADOW SCIENCE
Mantia is the shadow-science manipulating esoteric phenomena and entities. If you have a Nous Die, you can roll to start with one random Mantic trick. Mantia is extremely illegal in Cuatros Santos, but you can learn Mantic tricks from samizdat manuals and cooperative eidola. If you don’t have any Nous, imbibing (and surviving) esoteric substances, surviving eidolon attacks, spending time in esoteric fields all might give you some.

from Toujin Kit of Genius Party anthology

1. Summon
Instantiates an eidolon of [dice] levels or fewer you have made a contract with. You can dismiss it at will unless it has failed a Morale check since you last summoned it.

2. Apotropaic Tone
Sing a low note note bearing a repulsive polarity, requiring eidola to make an Aptitude check to get within [dice] yards of you. Lasts for as long as your voice lasts. Eidola that succeed their check can ignore the tone until the next time you use this ability.

3. Beckoning Tone
Sing a low note that bears a compelling polarity, requiring eidola within [dice] yards of you make an Aptitude check or reveal themselves and approach you in their true form. Lasts for as long as your voice lasts. Eidola that succeed their check can ignore the tone until the next time you use this ability.

4. Esoteric Lens
Form a simple loupe in the form of a translucent stone in your clenched fist. If gazed through, reveals eidola and esoteric fields within [dice] yards. Lasts for [dice] turns.

// NEGOTIATION
Roll Disposition Die + Faction Die on below table to determine encountered NPC’s reaction. Disposition Die is how the NPC views the party/leader/interlocutor personally, so stuff like high Appeal or cool clothes help. Faction Die is the party’s credibility with the encountered NPC’s organization or alignment. Both start at d6 and raise or lower based on various factors.

roll	reaction
2	hostile – attack
3-5	unfriendly – attack in 1 round without a good reason
6-8	uninterested – ignore the party without a good reason
9-11	talkative – will help the party for a good reason
12	amused – will help in the party for a decent reason

Human hirelings and contracted eidola are a key component in surviving in the Katabatic Zone. PCs can’t have more allies (whether they are humans or contracted eidola) than 1/3 their Appeal score, rounded down. If an ally is endangered, compromised, or insulted, their employer may be required to make an Appeal check to not lose their loyalty.

from Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse

// DAMAGE AND WOUNDS
Notice how each weapon in the list had two dice? The first is the Damage Die. If an attack lands, roll it and subtract the value from the target’s HP like normal. Easy. Being reduced to 0 HP means you have to make a Physique check or die, and are incapacitated still on a success.

The second is the Location Die which determines where the attack lands. Some weapons are more deadly/lends themselves well to clonking people on the head, and so have a better Location Die.

A location that’s been hit has a minor wound. Until it’s patched up with a turn of effort, any action that requires using that body part has disadvantage.
A location that has an untreated minor wound that gets hit again has a major wound, which means it any action that requires using that body part has disadvantage until you spend time laid up to heal.
Further injury to a location with an unhealed major wound renders it useless. If it’s your head or torso, you’ll also need to make a Physique check to see if you die, and are still incapacitated on a success. If you’re alive when the smoke clears, you may have permanent consequences.

roll	location
1-2	legs
3	Torso
4-5	Arms
6+	Head

Armor is per hit location and reduces all incoming damage by its Armor Score. An attacked reduced to 0 damage does not injure its hit location. A turn’s rest in a safe place restores 1d6 HP, as does resting in a dangerous place and eating a snack.

// MISADVENTURES

Shady Dr. Sepulveda has a standing offer for esoteric substances and artifacts extracted from the Katabatic Zone. The Administration that runs Cuatro Santos certainly frowns/prosecutes such exercises, but she pays pretty well.
Sepulveda’s bitter rival Dr. Jimenez wants eikonometry readings from the Seventh Heaven, a particularly rarefied region of the Katabatic Zone ruled by eidola born from a desire for order. He’s willing to pay quite a bit for your trouble.
Word on the street is that a commando expedition armed with exoskeletal Frames never came back from their mission into the Katabatic Zone. Whatever got them is probably still lurking, but it sure would be sweet to have a mech or two.
Somebody’s been constructing eidolon familiars from dream-stuff and selling them to gangs inside Cuatro Santos as obedient heavy muscle. Old Man Ramiro will pay good money to anyone who can shut down his rival’s suppliers, especially since the Bureau of Affairs has started sniffing around.
The Bureau of Affairs is keeping something really tasty in one of their labs not far from the edge of the city. Nobody knows what it is, but everyone knows it’s valuable. Up for a heist?

August 9, 2018June 26, 2019 jacinto clerics, demon, elves, encounters, fairy, idyll, magic, monsters, npcs

watched by the waters, watched by the sky

Been playing around with Mageblade, and I quite like it. Working on more monsters for that community-building game, and the system has been a good fit.

I made these with their relationship with a community of people in mind–the kingfisher spirits might steal fish from the players and their village, but they could also be bribed into helping them sail, for example. The monsters are also the source of potential local taboos–ringing bells in the woods might attract moon beasts, for example, or gutting fish might lead to the local deities noticing and stealing them. I also designed them so that they could be plugged into the magic system, Pokemon-style, but that’s another post.

Major inspirations are Mushishi, Shin Megami Tensei and Bloodborne.

from shin megami tensei IV apocalypse

Two house rules to keep in mind:

If a monster does something they’re good at, roll under their Aptitude. If they do something they’re bad at, roll under half their Aptitude. Use the tags in their stat blocks to help you decide what they’re good and bad at. Unless otherwise stated, monsters are always good at fighting.
Spirits appear as a mirage-shimmer to people with +1 Wisdom modifier and can be fully observed by people with +2 Wisdom modifier or more.

Wind Spirits

Wind spirits can raise, banish, strengthen, weaken, or redirect wind in line of sight. The maximum strength of the wind they can control depends on their level.

sylphids

Level 1 (4 hits), Defense 0, Aptitude 10, Damage 1d4

Ability Magnitude Gentle breezes

Young wind gods, cat-sized and blue-green, singing with a voice like a panpipe. They are like the glimpse of a kingfisher out of the corner of your eye, even when you manage to look at it directly. They love gifts of ribbons and fresh fish–they congregate in a great viridian haze when the scent of fish blood is strong in the air.

sylphs

Level 3 (12 hits), Defense 1, Aptitude 12, Damage 1d6

Ability Magnitude Stiff breezes and lesser winds.

Minor wind gods, hound sized, a confusion of emerald-blue wings, calling out in a clear contralto. They are like the reflection of a great kingfisher in troubled water, an elfin face peering out of its mouth, sometimes walking like a bird, sometimes walking like a human. They love rare flowers, jewelry of any sort, and the flesh of fish from the deepest sea. They can be seen whirling around leviathans that have risen to the surface, looking for a chance to eat.

greater sylphs

Level 5 (20 hits), Defense 2, Aptitude 14, Damage 1d8

Ability Magnitude Powerful gusts and lesser winds

True wind gods, human sized, wings unfolding like petals on a blooming flower, watchful eyes peering from the center. They can take the shape of a beautiful human of indeterminate gender, or else a tempest of cerulean and green wings and flashing beak and claws. They desire the true names of islands, exquisite treasures, and the flesh and blood of sacred fish. They appear singly when artifacts are excavated or when sea-gods make themselves known, looking for a chance to steal or feast.

high sylphs

Level 7 (28 hits), Defense 3, Aptitude 16, Damage 1d10

Ability Gales and lesser winds.

Elder wind gods, bigger than a draft horse, like a dream of a kingfisher in flight, a corona of wings and feathers that recalls the motion of waves and the arc of sea-spray. In human shape, they are gorgeous giants, but they can also take the form of a flock of brilliant kingfishers or an enormous kingfisher crowned and jeweled.

Ora Marin, the Kingfisher God

Level 10 (40 hits), Defense 4, Aptitude 18, Damage 1d12

Ability Whirlwinds and any lesser wind.

The God of Wind-Over-Water. His wings are beyond counting. He moves like a stormcloud of azure feathers or a wave of green iridescence through the sea or a golden-crowned kingfisher with wings to block the Sun. As a human, he is a crowned dancer, raising fair winds with his fan of blue feathers and sea-oat, whipping up foul winds with his fan of green feathers and palmetto frond.

Moon Spirits

Moon spirits can shed soft white light or summon a pall of darkness. The intensity of the brightness or darkness depends on their level.

elvers

Level 1 (4 hits), Defense 0, Aptitude 10, Damage 1d4

Ability Range As far as light shed by a candle

Larval moon gods, small enough to fit in your cupped hands. They are something like a white-furred moth and something like a flower blossom, always reduced to a milky silhouette as if occluded by mist. They are delighted by the ringing of bells, the scent of burning incense, and warm spilt blood.

elving-children

Level 3 (12 hits), Defense 1, Aptitude 12, Damage 1d6

Ability Range As far as light shed by a torch

Moon god nymphs, the size of a small dog. They are gracile, fronded, petaled, and winged, with wet human eyes concealed in their folds like pearls in a mound of silk, everything blurred as if by a haze of water. They adore the pealing of bells, the scent of burning sacrifice, and spilt lifeblood, which they lick with deep red tongues.

elves

Level 5 (20 hits), Defense 2, Aptitude 14, Damage 1d8

Ability Range As far as light shed by a campfire

Imago moon gods, the size of a child. They are thin, pale, sharp-toothed, four-armed, moving as easily on all limbs as their hind legs, and human-like when standing, with a ruff of white hyphae on their heads and necks, a cape of flower petal wings that unfold from their backs, revealing wet raw flesh like the meat beneath a fish’s gill. They are attracted to the tolling of great bells, the burning of the living, and those near death, who they kill and drain of blood if they are able.

from bloodborne

elving-beasts

Level 7 (28 hits), Defense 3, Aptitude 16, Damage 1d10

Ability Range As far as light shed by a bonfire

Elder moon gods, the size of a stag. They are pale creatures of gossamer and bone, their many thin limbs concealed behind luxurious effusions of white hyphae, their fronded flower wings trailing like a veil, concealing the gills-slits on their back. They swim as swiftly as they fly and run, but wherever they are, the sounding of old ritual bells, the sudden deaths of many, and living sacrifices prepared in accordance with the ancient agreements draw their attention without fail.

Moon Orphan, the Abandoned God

spirit | huge | graceful | wise

Level 10 (40 hits), Defense 4, Aptitude 18, Damage 1d12

Ability Range A light like the full moon or a darkness like the new, as far as the eye can see

The terrible God of Moonlight, luminous, fronded, billowing. It drives its immense and delicate body through the deepest waters or celestial heights with uncountable limbs, shedding gently glowing clouds through its blue-lipped sporangia, singing lunar hymns through uncountable mouths in communion with the Moon, guiding it through its course in the sky and the cycle of its phases.

October 10, 2017June 26, 2019 jacinto classes, flowerland, is this gonna work, magic, monsters, rituals, spell

flower power

I have been rereading about Coins and Scrolls wizards and Goblin Punch spellcasters and have been thinking about my own dice pool magic system (scroll down a little past the fishing stuff). The dice pool makes magic feel more like this amorphous reserve of supernatural influence instead of a bunch of bullets in a gun, while preserving the resource management aspect that makes Vancian magic appeal to me. You’re never quite sure how much you can and should do in a day.

I’ve also been rereading Wonders and Wickedness and reading Paolo’s Marvels and Malisons. I like the distinctness of spell schools and have been thinking about how those would manifest in Flowerland (i.e. the blog post below)

ON HOUSES
Planes are the Old World’s crude understanding of the shape of Creation. As the peoples of Flowerland know, our world is made of structures, not surfaces–Houses, not Planes. The Grass House, the Mud House, the Moon House, the Iron House, the Ash House, the Salt House, and the elusive Labyrinth Betwixt are the most known in Flowerland, though of course there are others, some obscure, some defunct. The Houses respect neither topology nor topography–if you walk towards the palmetto scrub, you approach the Grass House as well, and as midnight or noon draw near, so too does the Grass House, whether or not you think you are moving. Should you, in the heat of summer and the brightness of noon, find carrion-eaters crowded around a kill out in the scrub, watch your step carefully–when the auguries of Grass are many, you stand on the threshold of its House.

Magic is: opening a door to a House and shaping what comes out, calling forth its denizens to do your bidding.

SORCERERS
HP, XP, Saves, Skills as wizard/magic-user

You have Power dice equal to your level. When you cast a spell, you can roll as many of them as you like; the more dice you roll, the greater its effect. When a description refer to a spell’s Power, that is the number of dice the caster rolled for it.

For each die that comes up a 1 or a 6, after you resolve the spell’s effects, remove a Power die from your dice pool until you take a long rest. (Rolling a 1 means you whiffed it a little and rolling a 6 means you exhausted some part of yourself)
If you get pairs, Something Bad happens
If you get triples, Something Terrible happens

At level 1, pick a House: Grass, Mud, Moon, Iron, Salt, or Ash. You know two random spells from its list. you can cast any spell you know, but you can only learn spells from your House. you do so by exploring your House, by bribing and pestering other sorcerers into tutoring you, or studying another sorcerer’s notes. You can learn to cast spells from other Houses, but each has its own requirements.

THE GRASS HOUSE
If you are a sorcerer and did not choose Grass as your House at level 1, you can gain attain its power and access its spells by eating the divine carrion at the center of the Grass House, soft like custard, rich like dessert, foul beyond comprehension.
Sorcerers who can cast Grass House spells find carrion equally delicious and disgusting and can live off of it without fear of disease or malnutrition.

GRASS CURSE
Under the roof of the Grass House, your shadow is a curse, and when you cast your shadow you cast your curse also. The sorcerer can cast their Grass Curse on someone touching their shadow, inflicting them with a persistent sunstroke that bestows a penalty to all rolls equal to the spell’s Power on a failed save. If sorcerer’s shadow is being cast in the hot sun–the Grass House sun, the cruel sun that scorches the palmetto scrub and bakes the sugar sand trails–spell gains a +1 Power without the sorcerer needing to roll another die. This hex lasts until the victim immerses themselves in very cold water or another sorcerer lifts it with magic.

Something Bad: You put too much of yourself into the curse. You can’t regain any dice lost in the casting of this spell until the victim is cured or you eat them (takes at least an hour).
Something Terrible: You are afflicted with the Grass Curse, but the only way to lift it is to cure the victim while they still live. Failing that, there are some exceedingly rare and dangerous to procure cures.

WEAVE SIGN OF GRASS
A sorcerer casts this spell by spending an evening weaving grass, withes, reeds, or similar vegetable material into a palm-sized medallion bearing the Sign of Grass. If they lose any Power from this casting, they cannot ever recover it from resting, and must restore their lost Power in some other (dangerous, difficult, and probably disturbing) way. The wearer of the Sign of Grass receives a bonus to stealth checks equal to the spell’s Power while in scrub, forests, the prairie, or other similar environs.

Something Bad: the Sign bestows a minor curse in addition to its benefit.
Something terrible: the Sign bestows a major curse in addition to its benefit.

If the sorcerer wishes, they can automatically incorporate a minor or major curse into the Sign. However, this causes Something Bad and Something Terrible to permanently afflict them with the same curse bound to the Sign.

PACT OF GRASS
Summons a Child of Grass with HD equal to the spell’s Power and HP equal to the sum of its Power dice. The Child appears as an oversized coyote on all fours, a thief with hair the color of dust and eyes the color of rainwater when it lurches to its feet, and a crow when it leaps into the air (as wolf, as thief with levels equal to its HD, as bird with trivial combat statistics). The Child of Grass remains as long as it pleases, but it only remains bound to the sorcerer’s service for a number of turns equal to the spell’s Power, at which point it is free to do as it pleases, though the sorcerer may bribe it into further service.

Something Bad: the Child of Grass wants something like: to eat carrion (either very fresh or very ripe), to make mischief, to know where its summoner lives. It will turn on the sorcerer if it doesn’t get it very soon.
Something Terrible: the Child of Grass appears and turns on the sorcerer, either attacking right away or fucking off back to town to start raising hell. It cannot be summoned again until the sorcerer hunts down and eats it.

BLADE OF GRASS
Make a blade of sawgrass or a saw palm frond impossibly strong and sharp. Sawgrass acts as a one-handed, bladed weapon of fine make (1d6+1 damage) while a saw palm frond acts as a two-handed, bladed weapon of equal quality (1d8+1 damage). The blades are sharp enough to cut through steel as if it were firewood and damage enemies resistant to nonmagical damage. The effect lasts a number of turns equal to the spell’s Power.

Something Bad: the Grass House turns against the sorcerer, making all grass like blades to them. Leaves and fronds are as sharp and strong as steel: walking on grass deals 1d4 damage/round and ruins shoes and boots, walking through scrub deals 1d12/round and reduces AC by an equal amound (down to sorcerer’s unarmored AC value). Lasts
Something Terrible: the Child of Grass appears and turns on the sorcerer. It cannot be summoned again until the sorcerer hunts down and eats it.

MILKWEED GIFT
The sorcerer cuts open their inner arm, dealing damage as dagger, and milkweed sap oozes out. When applied to an injury, it heals HP equal to the sum of the spell’s Power dice. The sap can be apportioned between multiple people, but it loses its power after a turn. The HP damage caused by this spell can only be healed with time–only time can give back what the Grass House has taken.

Something Bad: The Gift’s sap attracts a colossal swarm of red butterflies to the caster. This makes stealth nearly impossible, and the caster takes +1 damage from weapon attacks as the butterflies lap at the wound with anticoagulant proboscises.
Something Terrible: The Gift does not heal properly. Each day, the sorcerer must make a saving throw or the wound will ooze milkweed adulterated with blood and the sorcerer loses 1 point of Constitution. This lasts until the sorcerer undergoes some pretty serious curse-lifting effort or they die.

EAT SHAPE
This spell has two uses: if the sorcerer casts this spell on a ripe animal carcass that had HD in life equal to or less than the spell’s Power, they can eat it to turn into the creature. They can also cast the spell to turn into a creature they have already consumed in this manner, though the Power still has to meet or exceed its HD. The spell lasts until the sorcerer chooses to change back, but they cannot speak, cast spells, or recover Power until they do. In animal shape, sorcerers look like carrion–sticky with blood, broken bones emerging from their hide, dirt and roots tangled in their ruff.

Something Bad: the sorcerer cannot turn back into their original shape until sunset or dawn, whichever is further away.
Something Terrible: the sorcerer cannot turn back into their original shape at all, barring powerful ritual intervention

THE NATURE OF HOUSES
Unclear. Dungeons/universes/deities/spell schools. Some were raised or destroyed just past recent memory (such as when Heche Ke Eche, Cacica of the Dead, stopped shut all the doors and ways to the Ghost House with great lead nails and destroyed all of its extant dwellers in a terrible fit of pique, or the night the Moon House was born or perhaps opened agin from the disastrous sinking of Don Fernando’s barge). Others have been around for as long as recorded history, maybe built by something that came before, maybe born from the ritual weight of natural phenomena. Some Houses seem to have volition, some seem content to be a location, others are nearly impossible to enter and barely have internal geography. The Ghost House had doors of the sort that Heche Ke Eche could nail shut (according to legend), but the ways to the Moon House are still waters and bone-filled groves and the shadows of the jacarandas in moonlight.

July 20, 2017 jacinto clerics, flowerland, is this gonna work, magic, new barbary, occult, san serafín, spell, type v

hocus pocus

An open-ended magic system I’m going to use for my simplified 5e game, but you could pretty easily hack it for most D&D-likes. Owes a lot to Pearce’s 5e ritual system.

A warlock or cleric can perform a ritual to achieve nearly any effect, as long as it pertains to a Ritual Court they belong to. The casting time of a ritual depends on its intensity, value, and utility; the more expensive and difficult the ritual’s effects would be to achieve using mundane means, the longer it takes to perform the ritual.

by Berta Lum

A ritual’s difficulty is determined by the value of the goods or services it replicates. Warlocks make a CHA check and clerics make a WIS check.

If it’s no dearer than a copper piece: DC 12 and take a Turn
If it’s no dearer than a silver piece: DC 14 and take an hour
If it’s no dearer than a gold piece: DC 16 and take a day
If it’s no dearer than a platinum piece: DC 18 and take a week
If it can’t be had for love or money: DC 20 and take a month, from new moon to full

As an example, if a Annie Oleander of the Ritual Court of Ash wants to kill a rival from afar, she might decide to fill his house with poisonous smoke. Because hiring an assassin to kill someone costs more than a gold piece, she must pass a DC 18 Charisma check and take a week. Unburning a spent torch, on the other hand, would only take a Turn and require a DC 12 check , because a torch can be bought for a copper.

Duration
A ritual’s effect has a usage die that represents its duration. Each time the ritual’s effects are used or strained in some way, check the die. Ritual effects are fleeting and the die should be checked frequently; a ritual-created sword might be checked every time it is used, while a golem created by a ritual might be checked every time it takes damage. The poisonous smoke Annie Oleander conjured would be checked every time her victim finished reciting a Bible verse or opened a window for ventilation.

The sacrifice a cleric or warlock offers as part of a ritual determines the size of the ritual’s usage die:

1d4: requires nothing
1d6: 1d6 HP in blood, a favor that takes a brief part of a session, or a component worth at least a copper piece
1d8: 1d8 HP in blood, a favor that takes the better part of a session, or a component worth at least a silver piece
1d10: 1d10 HP in blood, a favor that takes an entire session, or a component worth at least a gold piece
1d12: 1d12 HP in blood, a favor that takes several sessions, or a component worth at least a platinum piece

The Ritual Courts

Ash
Mud
Grass
Corpses
Beasts
The Sun
The Moon
The Dark

January 24, 2017 jacinto classes, flowerland, magic, new age dnd, new barbary, occult

something is wrong character creation

strange beings come out to make mischief in the weirding light of the spiral moon

A super-pared down 5e-ish thing for Flowerland/Weird Florida. Checks are the typical 1d20+ability score mod+proficiency bonus (if applicable), but classes are more thematically defined packages of proficiencies instead of discrete lists of skills and abilities. Magic is an unreliable accretion of superstitions rather than a very formalized list of abilities, and HP is a small, easy come/easy go buffer between mobility and death. All of this should fit the mood better than the more high fantasy feel of rules as written 5e D&D.

ABILITY SCORED

Roll 3d6 for Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Use the following ability score modifiers. If your modifiers have a negative total, you can reroll all of your ability scores. Once you have a viable character, you can swap two ability scores of your choosing.

HIT POINTS

Don’t exist. We are using the endurance/stopwatch system. Everyone starts out with 6+CON mod EP.

You can recover EP equal to your hazard die by resting an exploration turn (triggers an encounter check). Each time you rest, your max EP reduces by 1. Eating a ration lets you recover EP without losing any points from your maximum.You can’t take a rest in situations that are draining your EP.
You recover all of your EP, and you max EP returns to normal, when you take a long rest in a safe place.
You gain +1 max EP when you level up.

CLASS/BACKGROUND/PROFICIENCY
Your proficiency bonus is +2, and increases by +1 every 4th level. Add your proficiency bonus to tasks your class is good at. The listed die value is your Hazard Die, which determines how much EP you can recover when you rest and how much your weapon attacks deal.

Cacique [1d6] bullshitting, winning contests, brawling, barking orders, making friends/rivals, etc
Warrior [1d8] fighting, climbing, swimming, jumping, athletics, etc
Thief [1d6] picking locks, picking pockets, sneaking, climbing, etc
Cleric [1d4] performing apotropaic rituals, speaking with authority, praying to spirits, etc
Witch: [1d4] performing dark rituals, inuiting, animal handling, bargain with spirits, etc
Hunter: [1d8] ambushing, marksmanship, tracking, naturalism, hiding, etc
Scholar: [1d6] knowing languages, history, teratology, medicine, etc
Diva/Adonis: [1d6] dancing, singing, seducing, conversing, distracting, etc

EQUIPMENT AND INVENTORY You start with 3d6×10 dollars. $1 = 1 sp. Buy stuff off of the LotFP equipment list.

We are using this inventory system.

SAVING THROWS
Basic ability score checks. Pick one saving throw; you can add your proficiency bonus to it.

MAGIC/RITUALS
Anything that we would recognize as a spell from D&D is far beyond the capability of humans, and generally requires the intercession of a god or demon. Rituals are slower and quieter and subtler, but they are also powerful rules the supernatural world must abide by. Anyone can try to perform a ritual, but people who spend their time close to the supernatural (witches and clerics) are better at them.

Players do not get to see the list of rituals. They discover rituals as rewards, by accident, in books, through rumors, by joining factions. Some are common and most people know about, some are kept secret by powerful organizations. Players will be part of an adventuring Company that will help explain why a new crop of characters might know a bunch of weird rituals after the last group got a TPK.

[simple] rituals are easy to do. You just need the right component and the right action, like throwing salt on a monster or chanting a certain phrase. Some simple rituals people perform on accident, and this can be dangerous.
[complex] rituals are hard. They require a lot of practice and knowledge. Making a talisman, reciting a long passage of holy writ, or inscribing a pentagram just right are all complex rituals. They take a month to learn from a tutor or a text. Complex rituals are easy to perform incorrectly, and this can be dangerous.
[apotropaic] rituals are the rites clerics use to drive back the supernatural and defend humanity. When they require a check, use WIS. When they require a saving throw, the DC is 8+WIS mod (+proficiency bonus if ritual caster is a cleric)
[dark] rituals are the rites witches use to have their way with the world. When they require a check, use CHA. When they require a saving throw, the DC is 8+CHA mod (+proficiency bonus if ritual caster is a witch). These rituals are often illegal.
Players can perform impromptu rituals if they make sense. If someone is bitten on the arm by a werewolf and the cleric makes a rosary tourniquet, it is ritually potent enough to work even though it’s not listed below. These might have high DCs, or the victim might get advantage on the saving throw.

purity rite [apotropaic] [simple] Cast salt on an impure creature (devils, demons, undead, fey, etc). They must make a CHA saving throw or flee for a turn.

warding rite [apotropaic] [simple] Pour salt in a circle around you. Impure creatures must make a CHA saving throw to cross it. Lasts until disturbed or you leave the circle.

nazar [apotropaic] [complex] DC 14 Spend a long rest and 10 gp making a blue eye bead. Anyone who carries it will have advantage on saving throws versus curses. It cracks the first time its bearer is the target of a curse, whether or not they succeed the saving throw. If a would-be creator fails a check to make a nazar, all nazars they have already made lose their power.

casket rite [apotropaic] [simple] Seal a coffin with silver nails. If the interred has the will and ability to rise as a restless corpse, they must make a CHA saving throw to succeed and will not be able to try again if they fail. If a witch is trying to raise them, they must make a CHA saving throw before they can attempt it, and cannot try again if they fail.

revenant rite [dark] Bury someone with a smoldering piece of cypress charcoal on their chest, and they will return as a restless corpse. If they don’t want to come back, they cane make a WIS saving throw.

ill rite [dark] [simple] Cast grave dirt on a human as you whisper a cursed syllable. They must make a WIS saving throw or suffer a wasting illness, losing 1 EP a day until they die.

rite of calling [dark] [apotropaic] [simple] Summon a corpse by calling its name at night at the edge of the woods, the mouth of a cave, the bank of a river, or the shore of a lakeThey may or may not be friendly, and if they don’t want to come they may make a CHA saving throw to avoid the summons.

red ribbon rite [dark] [simple] tie a red ribbon to a bound or incapacitated spirit (fiend, fey, elemental, undead, celestial). It must make a CHA saving throw or consider you its master. It can remake the saving throw every time your orders humiliate it, place it in danger, or require it to violate its nature.

shrine rite [dark] [apotropaic] [complex] spend a turn building an impromptu shrine from ritual stones to a spirit (fiend, fey, elemental, undead, celestial) to communicate with it directly. You can ask it to cast a spell, perform a task, guard you, reveal a secret, etc. It may or may not be friendly. Each spirit has its own shrine rite, and they must be learned separately. Ritual stones may be reused.

January 6, 2017 jacinto clerics, demon, encounters, flowerland, intro, LotFP, magic, monsters, new barbary, Not Dead Yet, npcs, san serafín, witch

the earth does not want you

hey guys. it’s certainly been a while. i’ve been thinking about a weird fantasy florida, recently, out in the palm scrub, where everything is mean and sharp and unfriendly and unnavigable and really kind of beautiful in a careless sort of way.

sinner
her flesh moves like fire on her bones, her hair roils like a plume of smoke from her head, her feet barely touch the water as she strides across it and you smell the black magic in the air: hot metal and raw meat and ozone.

Each sinner knows a random cleric spell with a level equal to their HD. They can cast it at will.
Sinners cannot cross lines of salt or enter holy ground or consecrated buildings like churches, and they must flee the sounds of church bells and calls to prayer as if they had failed a Morale check.
Sinners can walk on water, walls, and ceilings; they are supernaturally light when it suits them, and any surface or structure that can support the weight of a crow will also support a sinner.

corpse
they are pale, luxuriously dressed in black veils and black lace, they move in groups of two or three, they dart about close to the ground in the edges of your vision. they never seem to be what they should, seeming to be very large and very far away, or else very small and very close; you always have to reach farther than you think to strike them with your weapon, but they can just raise their hand and touch you all the same.

Each corpse can cast a random magic-user spell with a level equal to their HD. They can cast it at will.
If a corpse sees an open grave (dug for the purposes of burying someone, at least 6 feet deep, a burial marker at the head of the grave), it must climb inside and lie down. If it hears properly recited funeral rites (INT check and a round of effort), it must make a Morale check. Corpses cannot cross lines of salt.
As long as nobody can see its point of departure or arrival, a corpse can teleport to any location in 120′.

palm devil
a figure standing at the edge of the pines, a little too tall to be human, the contours of its body beneath its ragged coat too long and slender, it’s holding a palmetto frond in front of its face, and when it turns to you, all the leaves on all the trees as far as you can see rattle, malicious and filled with volition

a palm devil’s face is indescribable; should anyone see it they must Save vs Magic or become Feebleminded. They will transform into a sinner by midnight of the following Sunday unless restored by Remove Curse.
Can cast Gust of Wind, Move Earth, and Plant Growth twice each per fight.
Can fly by riding its palm frond.
In a palm devil’s hands, a palm frond functions as a vorpal axe and can easily cut through any mundane substance.

venomous augury
someone has nailed a huge rattlesnake to the trunk of a dead pine tree at regular intervals, tied lengths of red silk to each nail head. it looks at you with wet human eyes and tells you something horrible.

the venomous augury knows everything, probably. A player can ask it anything and it will give them the true answer. This can amount to a wish–ask it where the elixir of eternal life it, and it will tell you, whether or not there was an elixir before you asked. However, every answer introduces an evil equal in influence or power to the wealth or knowledge being sought. Ask “where is the woman who will save the world?” and the augury is liable to answer “in the house of the man who will one day destroy it”
once someone has asked the augury a question, it forevermore appears to them as a stinking dead rattlesnake grotesquely nailed to a tree.

prophet of mud
a huge hairless face emerges from the muck in front of you. it does not bother to turn its head, but swivels its bulging yellow eyes towards you as it begins to hum a hymn

the prophet of mud is a third level cleric and knows Bless, Command, and Augury and can cast spells from its head or its hands.
the prophet can emerge from any body of mud. it can reach its hands up from any body of mud or murky water that is contiguous with the mud it head is in.
the prophet’s head and two hands get their own turn in the initiative order. it can only see what its head sees, naturally, but will feel things out with one hand to help the other.
the prophet can spend a round singing hymns to cast Rock To Mud at will.

mother
there is a mother deep beneath the earth, she once had a shell of many hard plates and swam with many sharp legs and saw with a constellation of many watchful eyes. she died long ago, when this land was still a sea, but she is still here, she is a hollow in the bedrock far below, a long spiral in the dark. sometimes she tells the land what it used to be, and when she does it listens.

photos by me

June 9, 2016 jacinto classes, LotFP, magic, occult, rituals, table

lamentation final fantasy

that stupid tonberry shanked your summoner before she got all the words out, and now whatever it was she was trying to call up is coming out wrong.

from final fantasy tactics a2

How Is Your Summoner Ruining Ivalice?

RAMUH. He’s gnarled arms and twisted hands, with skin like lightning-blackened bark, braided into concentric rings. They spin like a confused gyroscope around a lone eye, brilliant with the spiteful white flare of a lightning strike.
SHIVA. She’s a storm of pale blue flower petals, each frozen stone-hard and razor-sharp. They ring like crystal when they strike each other, producing a beautiful, piercing tone that hurts the roots of your teeth and makes your nose bleed.
IFRIT. He’s a creeping patch of consumption, a heaving mass of cinder and charcoal that burns without flame or light everything it touches. Sly yellow eyes well up out of IFRIT as he slides forward, quickly boiling away to nothing from the heat of his internal flame.
MADEEN. She is an endless rotting blossom of wings: swan wings, bat wings, insect wings unfurling, growing, and putrescing off of her shoulders. They twitch and flap, but do not allow for flight; she uses them to drag her limp body on the ground, leaving a trail of black ichor behind.
FAMFRIT. He is a silhouette in the distance of a rainstorm, a shadowy figure seen only in the reflection on the lake’s surface, he is slender black hands rising up from the waters, dozens of them, dragging in fishing lines and nets and boats and swimmers, he is a great slick bulk resting at the bottom, where it is too dark to see.
CARBUNCLE. She is a strange and contagious growth, painful cysts filled with crystallized pus, garnet buboes and diamond teratomas that tear at the flesh around them, epidemics of priceless corpses and hospital massacres.

June 1, 2016 jacinto amateur hour, Carcosa, intro, magic, modern, nephilim, Pop Tartary, pseudomonarchia

yer a wizard, henry

Henry Flagler was most famously a Florida industrialist, but he had other, more esoteric interests, pursued in ritual garb on the manicured lawns of his estate or chased down in a naked frenzy among the swamp and cypress. Henry Flagler was a dedicated occultist, and used a considerable portion of his wealth to establish Black Cypress College, a private institution with a mission to plumb the breadth and depth of the magical sciences.

actually Flagler College

You are a magician, possessed of a wonderful and secret power. As such, you have been accepted to Black Cypress College to further your craft and the advancement of magical knowledge. What you find there might be corrupt, venal, sclerotic, and frequently disturbing, but right now, it’s all you have.

Character Creation

Factors and Factions

Virgo Invictus
Something like the John Birch Society by way of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a far right secret society dedicated to the propagation, destruction, imprisonment, resurrection, or study (possible all of the above) of an ancient spiritual entity known as Virgo, Victor, or sometimes just V.

The Grecians
A mystic order of alcoholics who hold bacchanals in the cypress swamps. They claim to learn magical secrets during the ecstasies from Dionysus Krocodilia, an etymologically suspect and distinctly Floridian aspect of the Greek deity himself. Several Grecians have gone missing lately, perhaps drowned in the swamp, perhaps devoured by their fellows in a fit, perhaps feuding with the local Santeria community.

The Deans
The quasi-immortal administrators of the College. Nearly a century of access to the generous (and free) faculty dining hall has rendered them immensely fat, alcoholic, hematomatic, wracked with gout, yellowed with jaundice, and nearly identical in their grotesqueness. There are thirteen of them, each ruder than the last, and they hate each other more with every passing year. Rumor has it they have hatched a scheme to restore their youthful vigor

The ██████
Everyone knows that the College has a ██████, which is odd since nobody can bring themselves to talk about him. Or her. Or it, really, since the ██████ gone unseen since the founding of the school, and the door to their office is always and unpickably locked. Students and faculty have looked into the College’s reclusive ██████ over the years, and it has always ended in tears, murder, or mysterious disappearances resolved by sudden showers of gore during Commencement.

Golconda, by Renee Magritte

March 19, 2016 jacinto fairy, intro, is this gonna work, magic, occult, Pernicious Albion, spell, type v

MAGICIANS: THE MAGICKING: THE RPG

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is a very good novel that you should read. I have been wanting to run a game based on it (Austen pastiche in moody Napoleonic-era Britain; wicked fairies, whimsical magicians, intrigue, kidnapping, murder) for quite some time; my setting Pernicious Albion is me turning it into a D&D game. I have been wanting to run something more true to form, but it’s a bit tough. Magicians operate in quite a different scale than most people; one of my favorite parts of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a footnote where the author tells us Spain considered demanding reparations for one of the main characters after he rearranged a fair chunk of its geography.

Ars Magica and Fate are obvious solutions, but I’m not too hot on actually running them. This is a bullshit hack, but its starts to get at the feel I’m going for.

Character Creation
Make a 5th edition character. Pick human as the race, and do not pick a class. You are all Magicians.

Magicians start with 10d6 Magic dice. This represents the strength of their sorcery. They can temporarily lose Magic dice through exertion, but they can never have more than their maximum.

Magicians do not have a set list of spells. Each time they cast one, they determine what it does by assigning dice to its Duration, Range, Area Of Effect, and Intensity. Each category must have at least one dice, and can have up to 5. The total number of dice assigned to a spell cannot exceed a magician’s current Magic dice.

Once a magician has determined a spell’s effects, they roll all of the assigned dice.

When a dice comes up 6, the magician removes it from their pool of Magic dice until they take a long rest.
If a number of dice greater than a magician’s level come up 1, the spell is a botch. Something happens, and it is related to the spell’s effect, but only incidental to what the magician wanted to happen.

Casting a spell does not expend Magic dice unless they come up a 6. Unless the spell is a botch, the spell always works, even if the magician loses or runs out of dice.

The following charts state how many dice a magician must assign to a given category in order to achieve a given effect. All spells use the same Duration, Range, and Area Of Effect Tables, but no two spells use the same Intensity table.

Most of the tables are self explanatory. Area Of Effect details the size of the area effected around the actual spell. Intensity (each Intensity table is listed with each spell) details the greatest creature, object, or concept that can be affected by the spell. If a magician has an Area Of Effect that encompasses an entire city but an Intensity of “a torchfire” when casting the spell It Burns, they could put out every candle in town. If Intensity ever seems to encroach on Area of Effect, just use whichever the magician has placed more dice in.

DURATION

1d6 A moment
2d6 A day
3d6 A week
4d6 A month
5d6 A year and a day

RANGE

1d6 an arm’s span
2d6 a stone’s throw
3d6 shouting distance
4d6 within sight
5d6 out beyond the horizon

AREA OF EFFECT.

1d6 all within an arm’s span
2d6 all within the range of a thrown stone
3d6 all within shouting distance
4d6 all within sight
5d6 all to out beyond the horizon

Spells
There are, of course, far more spells than this. Magicians start with 3.

Utterance of Black Feathers
Allows a magician to perform feats of manipulation, transformation, summoning, and destruction pertaining to crows.
INTENSITY

1d6 one crow
2d6 thirteen crows
3d6 a murder of crows
4d6 crows to cover a field
5d6 crows to blacken the sky

Breath of the Holy Earth
Allows a magician to call forth, direct, and banish wind. (+Alex Chalk gets credit for this one)
INTENSITY

1d6 a draft
2d6 a breeze
3d6 a gust
4d6 a gale
5d6 a whirlwind

It Burns
Allows a magician to enkindle, throw, extinguish, shape, and otherwise manipulate flame.
INTENSITY

1d6 a torchfire
2d6 a campfire
3d6 a bonfire
4d6 a funeral pyre
5d6 a housefire

Fingers of Night
Allows a magician to create, shape, and banish darkness

INTENSITY

1d6 a shadow like that of a passing cloud
2d6 the gloom of a thick forest
3d6 night, just as the last of the sun is leaving the sky
4d6 a moonless night
5d6 a darkness heavy enough to be felt

Greatest Folly
Allows a magician to ignite, strengthen, diminish, and twist feelings of affection.

INTENSITY

1d6 Delight
2d6 Friendship
3d6 Infatuation
4d6 Craven Obsession
5d6 Love

Really should put up a setting sketch, but I’m tired and don’t feel very good so eh. Tomorrow maybe. Here’s some pictures of magicians.

the Lackaday Twins (not actual title, by John Singer Sargent)

John Pharoah, Ursurper to the Northern Throne (not actual title, from El Shaddai)

Lord Umberlin of the Bells (not actual title, from etrian odyssey)

Claude the Gaul, wanted in 10 counties for violating the course of history (from Persona 5, not actual title)