Magic

When you buy a the ability to cast magic spells your character gains access to one of the ‘schools’of spellcraft. These are detailed below along with a description of the spells available to them. Magery, Calling and Healing all cost 4 character creation points per level. Each level provides you with 4 spell points to use per day an also with access to the spells of that level. For example, If you have bought Magery at level 2 (costing 8 points) then you would have 8 spell points to use per day and access to the spells Fumble and Strikedown (costing 1 point each to cast) and Fear and Bolt (costing 2 points each). With magery 1 and calling 1 (also costing 8 pts) you would again have 4 mage spell points and 4 calling spell points per day and the spells Fumble and Strikedown (which cost 1 mage spell point each to cast) and Dismiss Unliving and Barrier to Bolts (both costing 1 calling point to cast). 

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Magery

Magery is the use of power innate within the Mage to affect the world. This can be power of the book learned sort or something the Mage just naturally knows how to do but the ability to do it comes purely from inside. Due to this Magery is by far the most aggressive of the main schools of magic, granting the power to hurt someone from a distance, destroy objects or make your enemies run in fear.Sample vocals: ‘I draw upon my power to strike you down.’, ‘By the power within me I shatter that sword.’

• L1) 1 pt - Fumble. Target enemy drops their weapon.
• 1 pt - Strikedown. Target enemy falls over. Their chest or shoulders (depending on whether they fell forward or backwards) must contact the ground before they can get up again (for those who cannot fall for medical reasons, fall to your knees for an appropriate amount of time). The target may still fight while on the ground.
• L2) 2 pts - Fear. Target enemy runs away in terror (role-play it) for 10 seconds.
• 2 pts - Bolt. Does one point of damage to a target enemy. Is stopped by armour.
• L3) 3 pts - Halt. Target enemy stands still for 10 seconds. They may still fight and do anything which does not involve moving their feet.
• 3 pts - Sharpness. The weapon that the spell is cast on ignores armour for the next 5 minutes. May only be cast on bladed weapons. Call ‘through’ while using it. (contact)
• L4) 4 pts - Piercing Bolt. Does one point of damage to the target ignoring armour.
• 4 pts - Strength. The person this is cast on does extra damage for the next 5 minutes provided they use whatever weapon they wield 2 handed. Hits with that weapon will destroy all armour on the location it hits. If there is no armour on the location it will be taken straight to –1 hit points. Call ‘crush’ while using it. (contact)
• L5) 5 pts - Shatter. Breaks any non-living, non-magical object of approximate size 6ft square or less.
• 5 pts - Paralyse. The target may not move at all for the next 30 seconds.
• L6) 6 pts - Soulfire. Takes whatever location is targeted straight to – 1 hit points, destroying whatever armour is present as well. May not be countered.

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Calling

Calling is the ability of the pious and faithful to call upon their ancestors for aid. Anyone using calling must have an ancestor or group of ancestors that they follow and who grant them their power. As it is an ancestor looking after their faithful calling is a heavily protective school of magic, granting its followers and their allies a much better chance of surviving battles.Sample vocals: ‘I call upon the ancestors to hallow that sword.’, ‘I call down the power of the ancestors to bless you.’

• L1) 1 pt - Dismiss Unliving. Does exactly what it says on the tin. Costs one point per level of the unliving. Multiple callers may combine points to destroy high level unliving.
• 1 pt - Hallow. Makes an area of aprox. 10 ft radius from the target impassable to low level undead (except for the target if it is undead) for 10 minutes. Target may be a person or inanimate object.
• L2) 2 pt - Shield. Grants the target one point of global magical armor. (contact)
• 2 pt - Tranquility. For the next ten minutes no attacks may be initiated from within 10 ft of the caster. Damage calls initiating from outside that area will still effect those inside the circle.
• L3) 3 pts - Counterspell. Counters any one spell targeted within arms reach of the Caller. If the spell targets someone other than the caller then they must touch the target to counter it. (contact)
• 3 pts - Chant of Immunity. May be cast on any person other than the caster. As long as the caster keeps them within line of sight and they can hear the chant the target is immune to all damaging magical effects (chant)
• L4) 4 pts - Chant of Protection. May be cast on any person other than the caster. As long as the caster keeps them within line of sight and they can hear the chant the target is immune to all damaging physical effects (chant)
• 4 pts - Resist. Grants the target one counterspell to be used whenever they want. This lasts until used to counter a spell or the character sleeps, whichever is sooner. (contact)
• L5) 5 pts - Cleanse Magic. Removes any spell which has a lasting effect (strength, sharpness, befriend, avatar, etc.). This also includes any chants.
• 5 pts - Mute. The target cannot speak for 30 seconds.
  
• L6) 6 pts - Avatar. The caller gains magical Plate mail armour and the equivalent of the strength spell. The armour lasts until all used or the character sleeps, whichever is sooner, and grants all of the bonuses of the Plate Armour Proficiency skill without the need for a physical representation of the armour. This armor may not be repaired except with the Mend spell.

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Healing

Healers are perhaps the hardest to explain of all the magical schools. Their power comes directly from some kind of link with the power of life itself. They have the ability to tweak this power in subtle ways, but, de to the nature of the connection, never in a way which is directly harmful to the target. By far the most well known use of the power is channelling extra life force into a person to heal them, but there are other, more subtle uses too.Sample vocals: ‘I call upon the power of life to heal this wound’, ‘I use the power of life to cause you to sleep’

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• L1) 1 pt - Chant of Healing. Heals one point of damage per 10 seconds. (chant) (contact)
• 1 pt - Chant of Anchorage. Puts the target in stasis as long as the chant is kept up. The character will not die from disease, poison or massive damage while the chant is maintained. Note. This does not hold ememies or anything similar, it merely prevents the body from sickening or dying (chant) (contact)
• L2) 2 pts - Soul Scan. The caster can tell what kind of Creature the target is and any unusual physical effects on them (disease, poison, etc.) (contact)
• 2 pts - Embolden. Makes the target immune to fear for 5 minutes. Removes any fear effects they are suffering from. (contact)
• L3) 3 pts - Purge. Removes the effects of any non-magical poison or disease from the target. It does not make them immune to poison or disease, nor does it heal any damage they have already taken as a result of them. (contact)
• 3 pts - Gift of Life. Instantly heals any damage on the target. The healer then looses one hit point from the casting arm. Armor has no effect on this. (contact)
• L4) 4 pts - Mend. Repairs any broken non-magical object measuring approximately 6 ft square or less. (contact)
• 4 pts - Befriend. The target acts as though the caster is their best friend for the next 5 minutes or until any hostile action is taken in the vicinity of the target.
• L5) 5 pts - Sleep. The target is sent into a magical sleep. For the first 10 seconds they cannot be woken, after that loud noises or shaking will bring them round.
• 5 pts - Heal all. Removes all damage from the target and fully heals them. Also removes any non-magical diseases or poisons they are suffering from. (contact)
• L6) 6 pts - Chant of Shielding. As long as they do not carry weapons or make any overtly hostile actions then for the next ten minutes the caster instantly regenerates any damage dealt to them and automatically has the effect of the ‘Chant of Healing’ spell on anyone they touch without the need to chant.

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Necromancy

Necromancy is your classic dark magic. It is generally for use by your classic moustache twirling bad guys and intelligent animated skeletons with eerie glowing eyes only (i.e. it’s only for monsters). Necromancy has the power to rip apart people’s souls and destroy their life force before raising them again afterwards. PC’s shouldn’t have access to any of this except under exceptional circumstances but I’m sending it out as people will need to know what the calls do if one is used on them. Level by level it works the same as other magic schools…Sample vocals: ‘By my dark Necromantic power I Raise you as a Ghoul!’ or ‘I use the dark power of Necromancy to Rend your Soul!’ Maniacal laughter afterwards is optional…

• L1) 1 pt - Raise Minor Unliving. Turns any recently dead body into a skeleton, zombie, ghoul, wraith or any other minor undead that seems fitting. These will be under the full mental control of their creator. May only be used on the truly dead not those in their grace period (grace period is the five minutes between a location going to -1 hits and you actually dying). (contact)
• 1pt - Interrogate Spirit. The necromancer may force any one recently dead but not undead person to answer 5 questions truthfully and to the best of their ability. The questions must be direct. Anything ambiguously phrased will not receive an answer.
• L2) 2 pt - Embody Minor Unliving. The necromancer may draw any minor unliving into themself either to heal themself or to gain a special ability of the creature for a short duration. The process destroys the undead. (contact)
• 2 pt - Soul Theft. The target takes one point of damage (ignoring armour) to the targeted location. The necromancer heals one point of damage to the same location.
• L3) 3 pt - Drain. The necromancer may steal the spell points from any character in their grace period. They may not steal more spell points than they themselves have used. (contact)
• 3 pt - Desecrate. Creates a circle of 10ft radius around the target that no living thing may enter bar the caster and target (if living).
• L4) 4 pt - Soul Rend. Does one point of damage to the targets head, torso and both of their arms.
• 4 pt - Possess. The character must follow simple instructions given to them by the Necromancer to the best of their ability for the next five minutes. These orders may not be anything that directly harms the character. (contact)
• L5) 5 pt - Terminate. The necromancer may instantly kill any character in their grace period. (contact)
• 5 pt - Decay. The necromancer infests the character with a magical disease which causes them to loose one hit from every location every minute. (contact)
• L6) 6 pt - Empower Major unliving. The necromancer may create Lichs, Wights, Mummys and other powerful, self aware undead creatures out of the recently deceased. While these will not be hostile to their creator, neither will they blindly follow orders. (contact) 

(contact): You must be touching the target to cast this spell.

(chant): This spell is maintained as long as you keep up a chant invoking it.

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Rituals

Each ritualist may conduct one ritual per day, either on their own or with help. The power of the ritual depends on a mixture of the skill level of the ritualist, the ammount of help they are provided with and how well the ritual is role-played.

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Rough guide to power levels and results:

15-25: Provided that they were not attempting anything too complicated, the ritualist probably manages to keep themselves and all others in the ritual circle alive. Whatever else they were attempting fails though.

25-35: The ritualist manages to create a minor plot effect (remove the magical warding on a door, form a bit of land into a bridge over a river, etc) or a minor magical item (item that stores a couple of Chaneling cards, lab equipment that halves the time to create poisons, etc)

35-45: The ritualist manages to reate a moderate plot effect (re-power all friendly spellcasters who did not contribute to the ritual, shatter all weapons that are brought through our frount gate, etc.) or a moderate level item (enchanted sword, banner giving all within 10 feet immunity to fear, etc)

45+: Major effects or items (level 20 dispell on all undead on this island, making the island invisible, permanent ‘crush’

effect on a weapon, etc.).

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How to get the levels:

• Ritualist: The ritualist’s levels entirely depend on how many points they have spent on the ‘Ritualist’ skill in character creation. The ritual also may not recieve a total score higher than twice its leaders ritualist skill or that skill plus 10, whichever is higher.
• Contributers: Any magic user may help a ritualist be appearing in the circle with them and aiding with the ritual. Moreover, every 5 spell points spent by contributers adds 1 to the power level of the ritual. No more than 6 people may aid in any one ritual.
• Role-play: The ritual itself must be acted out by the ritualist and their contributers. It should last betwen 5 and 15 minutes and will be awarded between –5 and 10 bonus points by a ref (i.e. me) acting as ritual marker. Also any ritual that scores less than 0 here will have bad side effects, no matter the total score. Entertain the GM, it keeps you alive.
• Ritual circles: No bonus points are awarded for performing a ritual in a ritual circle (small, magically charged areas of land), however 10 points will be deducted from the score of all rituals conducted outside of a circle.