Thread: TARAK TALES BACKGROUND THREAD - WORLD MATERIAL (no comments)

Magic System This magic system is based off the old Force Skills, but it's been home-brewed and modified, and will be done so some more as time goes on. There is a distinction between Enchantment and Sorcery . Enchantment can be done by anyone with sufficient Craftsmanship skills to understand and complete the magical rituals, the recipes for enchantment. Enchantment allows the creator a chance to bestow magical powers on an item crafted, with the usefulness and ubiquity of the item determining the difficulty. Also, once in a lifetime, an enchanter can create a masterwork, a Legacy Item with special powers. Legacy items carry a small piece of the creators soul -- literally. As such, they are very rare and are almost never found for sale. Sorcery is active magic, spells and the like. Sorcerers can be enchanters, and can create items far beyond the capability of a mundane enchanter. Active magic requires training, and that starts early. If one is to learn to use magic, one must either establish one skill with starting attribute dice or purchase it later with 30 character points. Later magic skills can be added as normal skills 3 character points to establish a new skills. Magic skills are not attached to an attribute, and therefore start at 1D, and, when training is available, they are raised as normal skills. Certain tools add bonuses, such as foci 1 to 1D, amulets 1 to 1D, consecrated ritual spaces 1 to 2D, and short or long rituals to focus the mind and magic 1 to 2D, and so forth. With the right assistance, any sorcerer can be formidable. The ends to which this power is used is determined by each type of magic skill each skill is concerned with a particular type of magic. Some magical effects require more than one type of skill. As is always the case when trying to employ more than one skill at a time, both suffer penalties. However, the effect may still be workable. A magic skill represents some control over a specific field of magic or the universe. The skills are Biologics dealing with living things, primarily healing or identifying or influencing, Energetics affecting the energies of the universe, from fire to cold, light and dark, kinetic force, etc., Entropics working with chance and decay, Metamorphics changing the shape or composition of things, Procreatics creating things from nothing, Sensorics detecting and interpreting things in the universe, and Theologetics dealing with powerful spiritual entities, specific to the Clerical Orders. For each skill, there are a number of applications. If one knows the application, one can attempt to use the skill to that end. As a rule of thumb, a sorcerer can learn one application per pip of skill so 3 applications per die. The way it works is, the caster determines which application he or she intends to use, and rolls the appropriate magic skill dice to try and beat the difficulty number required to enact the effect. If successful, the effect happens. If the effect requires two different magic skills, both must be rolled, and both must succeed for the effect to happen. Some effects happen immediately or almost immediately, such as in the case of a spell-imbued missile that isnt fired for a couple of rounds, and others must be maintained. Maintaining a spell is a draw on the casters concentration it affects skill usage just like using multiple skills in a round.