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 an Arcane Text of the spell (scroll, spellbook, etc).
  • 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 Text (scroll, spellbook) using Read Magic, you learn its purpose and nature, and can read it without magical aid thereafter.
  • You can cast the spell from the text, consuming it.
  • If you are high enough level to prepare the spell, you can roll % Chance to Understand Spells (based on Intelligence), to see if you fully comprehend it.
  • If successful, you can now prepare the spell from the arcane text. If you fail, you can attempt comprehension once per level per instance of a spell available (i.e. try again if you acquire another copy).
• There is no limit to the number of spells you can comprehend.

Arcane Spellbooks

• Traveling Spellbook (25 gp, 5 lbs)
  • 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.

• Spell Tome (250 gp, 30 lbs)
  • Leather-bound wooden covers, metal corner bosses, metal clasp.
    • Sturdier, saves as wood / metal.
    • +X to saves (X is half (rounding up) of the highest level spell in the book).

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

Immortal Flame

• 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.

Cult of Ptah

• 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

• As an action, you brandish your holy symbol (requiring a free hand) and verbally rebuke the undead and unholy.
  • As long as the turning affects at least some undead each attempt, you may continue to turn on subsequent rounds. If you affect no targets, you cannot turn again until you take a Brief Rest.
  • Turning is a spell-like ability and can't be interrupted.
• Consult the chart and roll against the DC.
  • If successful (T = auto-success), turn 2d6 creatures (or only 1d2 Type 13). On a result of D, destroy 1d6+6 creatures, who crumble to dust.
  • Turned creatures flee for 3d4 rounds, fighting only to break through to a path of escape.
  • The lowest HD undead are affected first. If enough creatures are turned, the excess can move up to the next higher HD undead. Apply the same roll against the new DC to see if they are affected.

Turning DC (OSRIC p130)

Type	Example	Cleric Level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9-13	14-18	19+
Type 1	Skeleton		10	7	4	T	T	D	D	D	D	D	D
Type 2	Zombie		13	10	7	T	T	D	D	D	D	D	D
Type 3	Ghoul		16	13	10	4	T	T	D	D	D	D	D
Type 4	Shadow		19	16	13	7	4	T	T	D	D	D	D
Type 5	Wight		20	19	16	10	7	4	T	T	D	D	D
Type 6	Ghast		--	20	19	13	10	7	4	T	T	D	D
Type 7	Wraith		--	--	20	16	13	10	7	4	T	T	D
Type 8	Mummy		--	--	--	19	16	13	10	7	4	T	D
Type 9	Spectre		--	--	--	20	19	16	13	10	7	T	T
Type 10	Vampire		--	--	--	--	20	19	16	13	10	7	4
Type 11	Ghost		--	--	--	--	--	20	19	16	13	10	7
Type 12	Lich		--	--	--	--	--	--	20	19	16	13	10
Type 13	Fiend*		--	--	--	--	--	--	--	20	19	16	13

• Lesser Fiends (imps, quasits, etc) turn as lower type creatures.

Primal Magic

Acquiring Primal Spells

• Druid spells are loosely grouped into domains, which they gain access to through (costly) training.
  • Fire (fire, light, lightning, heat)
  • Earth (earth, stone)
  • Flow (wind, water, ice, cold)
  • Green (plants, wood)
  • Red (animals, flesh)
  • Cycle (healing, harming, vitality)
  • Sight (divination, concealment)
  • Unseen (spirit, mind)
• A druid begins with access to 4 domains. Learning a domain costs 1,000 gp and 1 week for first new domain, then doubles in cost and time for each subsequent domain.
  • Some spells may fall into multiple domains, e.g. Hallucinatory Forest Green and Sight), Sticks to Snakes (Red and Green), Animal Friendship (Red and Unseen), Protection From Fire (Fire and Flow).

Identifying & Using Magic Items

Scrolls

• Ancient magic combined divine and arcane aspects in ways modern magic doesn't.
  • Modern mages (and thieves and bards) can only activate arcane-leaning scrolls (those in the mage spell list), while clerics can only activate divine-leaning scrolls (the spiritual process is accessible, even if it was prepared with the aid of a different god).
• To know the spell within an Arcane scroll, it must be deciphered using Read Magic or the thief skill Decipher (which may reveal only a general notion of the effect, if the spell is unfamiliar).
  • A scroll can be activated by those with the arcane skill, even if it's effect isn't known yet.
• Divine and Primal "scrolls" are actually talismans imbued with power. Their purpose can be understood with a successful use of the Sense Magic ability.
  • Arcane casters can grasp the purpose of a talisman, but only those able to wield divine or primal magic can activate them.

Command Words

• Magic items that require command words to activate may have them inscribed on them, either in arcane runes (requiring Read Magic) or mundane languages.
• Some items merely require a cogent command in any language, and thus knowledge of the item's purpose and effects (e.g. telling a Wondrous Figurine to "arise and do my bidding"), provided by bards, sages, divination, etc.

Potions

• Identifying Potions
  • Smell and feel the faintest of effects (almost always harmless) that may offer a clue.
  • Sip and feel somewhat stronger effects (can be harmful with poisons).
  • Test on a lab animal or hapless hireling.
  • Test on a scrap of material (for oils, dusts, etc).
  • Potions of the same type produced by the same magical tradition will look the same.
  • Hiring a sage or alchemist to analyze it in a lab.
  • Using the Identify spell or similar.

• Potions can be subdivided, shared among multiple people or used gradually.
  • The effects are subdivided, usually either in magnitude (a healing potion) or duration (a levitation potion).
  • When first consumed, the DM determines the outcome of any random elements of the potion. If the effects can't evenly divide into the portion consumed, any fractional effect is lost.
    • e.g. if a healing potion would heal 3 hp, drinking half would heal 1.5, rounded down to 1. Drinking the other half would also heal 1, so the potential 3rd hp would just be lost.
    • Durations measured in Turns can be subdivided into minutes or rounds.
• Exact durations are not known by the imbiber, but they can usually feel the power waning as the end approaches.