Magic (Arden-Vul)

Arden-Vul > Rules > Magic

Foundations of Magic

The Metaphysics of Spells

• The focus, study, magical attunements, and other requirements to pursue holy, primal, or arcane magic interfere with one another. A practitioner can only pursue one.
• Spells are prepared, woven from energies that are patterned with assistance from ritual tools, reagents, paraphernalia, meditation, and other techniques.
  • Once prepared, they are bound to nexii within a caster's spirit until ready to unleash.
  • Skilled casters can bind a spell in ink and paper, creating scrolls.
• Over time, a caster cultivates their spirit through the methods of their tradition, expanding and deepening it, adding more nexii.
  • Nexii occupy spiritual shells radiating out from the core of the caster, like electron shells around a nucleus. As these are usually depicted as concentric circles, they have come to be called circles.
  • Nexii within higher circles are able to contain more power and complex spells, and so spells are considered to be of a certain circle.
    • e.g. fireball is a third circle spell, requiring a mage who has cultivated themselves enough to possess nodes in the third circle of their spirit.
• Once a spell unleashed from the nexus that contains it, the nexus is disrupted and cannot contain another spell until, stability is restored by several hours of sleep or meditation.

Spell Preparation

• Preparing a spell requires 2 Turns per level of a spell and a vacant, undisrupted nexus of high enough circle (high enough level spell slot) to contain the spell.
  • You must be reasonably comfortable and secure, able to meditate, focus, take ceremonial actions, etc. While working, you have a +1 chance to be surprised.
    • Mages require access to a spellbook containing the spell to be prepared.
  • Spells can be prepared into higher circle nexii than their minimum, but there is no additional benefit to doing so.
  • If interrupted, the preparation must be restarted, but the nexus is not disrupted.
• A spell remains prepared until cast, or until the caster allows it to dissipate (effectively casting without any effect), leaving the nexus disrupted.

Casting

• During combat, a caster must declare their intention to cast a particular spell at the start of the turn, prior to rolling initiative.
  • They cannot move before casting without aborting, and can't move after casting.
  • If they take damage or fail a save before completing the spell, the caster rolls save vs Spells. If failed, the spell is lost, as if cast without effect. If successful, the casting is aborted, but the spell is retained.
• Each kind of caster requires certain tools to cast, and their lack introduces a chance of spell failure (treat as casting without effect).
  • Cleric: without a holy symbol or suitably hallowed location, +50% chance of spell failure.
  • Druid: without a primal crystal or suitably elven location, +50% chance of spell failure. If disrupted by the use of metal tools or armor, +100% spell failure.
  • Mage: without raiment (not compatible with armor), +50% spell failure.
• Components
  • A spell with a Verbal component requires that the caster speak clearly at conversational volume.
  • A spell with a Somatic component requires that the caster have a hand free to gesture.
  • A spell with a Material component requires that the caster have a hand free to manipulate the reagents (thus both hands for Somatic and Material).
• The invocation of magic is obvious to onlookers, but not necessarily what the spell's effect will be.

Arcane Magic

Learning Arcane Spells

• When you study an arcane scroll for a Short Rest, roll % Chance to Understand Spells (based on Intelligence), to see if you are able to fully comprehend it.
  • You can attempt this once per level per instance of a spell available (e.g. if you acquire a second copy of a scroll, gain tutelage from another mage who knows it, etc).
• There is no limit to the number of spells you can learn, but you must commit them to spellbooks, and reference those to prepare the spells.

Arcane Spellbooks

• Tome (1000 gp, 30 lbs, 48 capacity)
  • Leather-bound wooden covers, metal corner bosses, metal clasp.
    • Sturdy, saves as wood / metal.
    • +X to save against magic, where X is the highest capacity taken up by any spell in the book (e.g. +6 if it has a 7th level spell in it).
• Traveling Spellbook (500 gp, 6 lbs, 12 capacity)
  • flexible leather cover, cloth tie or leather buckle, oilskin cover protects from splashes of water/acid, limited exposure to flame, etc.
    • Saves as leather / paper.
  • Binding the magic into a more compact form, with less "tome infrastructure" to assist it, doubles the cost of transcribing spells.

Transcribing an Arcane Spell

• You must have a source document and a suitable spellbook to transcribe into. The process takes 1 day per spell level and requires costly materials and space in the spellbook as listed below.
  • 1st - 2nd = 2 capacity, 100 gp per level
  • 3rd - 4th = 3 capacity, 150 gp per level
  • 5th - 6th = 4 capacity, 200 gp per level
  • 7th - 9th = 6 capacity, 250 gp per level
  • Transcribing into a traveling spellbook costs 2x the listed price, but takes the same time and capacity as a tome.
  • If you consume a magical scroll while transcribing it, it covers the cost of transcription.

Recreating an Arcane Spell

• If your spellbook is lost or destroyed, you can recreate spells you know from memory and experimentation.
• For each level of the spell, this takes 300 gp and 1 week, after which you may also pay the normal time and cost to transcribe it into a spellbook.

Arcane Research

• Each time a mage gains a level, they invent 1 spell.
  • The player chooses a level and picks from a set of 3 randomly-selected spells (rerolling any the mage already knows).
• They must transcribe the spell at normal cost.

Divine Magic

Acquiring Divine Spells

• Clerics of the Immortal Flame have all spells relating to the following domains automatically available when they are high enough level to cast them.
  • Healing, purification, divination, flame, light, warding, protection, smiting / banishing evil
  • Other cleric spells that aren't antithetical to the Flame's ethos are obscured miracles associated with particular saints.
    • A learned devotee of the saint or a rare manuscript may need to be found and accessed to learn a saint's spell, followed by special (costly) study and devotional practice (3 days / spell level) dedicated to the saint.
      • 1st - 2nd = 200 gp per level
      • 3rd - 4th = 300 gp per level
      • 5th - 6th = 400 gp per level
      • 7th - 9th = 500 gp per level
• Reversed spells that cause harm, darkness, or other evils are generally not available. Some rare, strange saints might make them available.

• Dwarven clerics of Ptah have all spells relating to the following domains automatically available when they are high enough level to cast them.
  • Healing, purification, divination, warding, protection, smiting / banishing evil, earth, stone, metal, craftsmanship
    • Spells of stone, metal, and craftsmanship from mage and druid spell lists may be taken as cleric spells.
  • Clerics of Ptah can't gain further spells, except lost rarities from the old cult of Ptah.

Turning Undead - Once per Dungeon Turn, as an action, you brandish your holy symbol and rebuke the undead with holy words. Roll d20 and consult the chart. Up to 2d6 individuals are affected. Apply the single roll against all types of undead, resolving each case, from weakest to strongest. - This is not casting and can't be interrupted. - Turned undead attempt to flee for 3d4 rounds. They may fight, but only to break through to a path of escape.

Primal Magic

acquiring primal spells

• druids have to develop their abilities through training. they get some (4?) free spells of their choice added to their repertoire with each level, and can train to develop others (effectively spending time and cash like arcane research)

???learning a spell: 1 week per level? roll chance of success? can retry, you just lose the time and money trying

Identifying an Arcane Scroll

• scrolls can be activated without knowing what they do.
• a scroll's effect can be deciphered by reading it during a Short Rest (1 hour). Can also decipher 1 spell in an unfamiliar spellbook (foreign tradition, written in code, crazy author)

• ancient magic combined divine and arcane aspects in ways modern magic doesn't. modern wizards (and thieves, and bards) can only activate mostly-arcane scrolls, clerics can only activate-mostly divine scrolls (the spiritual process is accessible, even if it was prepared with the aid of a different god).

potions - sipping (or maybe just smelling?) a potion gives a clue to its effects - can share a potion around, dividing its duration among multiple uses / people? (some minimum amount must be used)

identifying and using magic items