One-Spell Powerstone

One-Spell Powerstone is a non-canon spell idea to give further options for Powerstone construction.
One-College Powerstone reduces the price from 20 to 12. That's 60%: or -40%, the same reduction of a "One-College Magery" limitation.
Since One-Spell Magery is -80%, a similar approach would reduce 20 to 1/5 the cost: 4 points.
==going further==
One College / One Spell are just a slew of dozens of known Magery modifyers, all of which might be used to construct variations in powerstones or manastones. The basic idea is that the energy is only usable when functioning as a mage suffering that limitation: ie a "Fire Powerstone" only works when casting Fire College spells, as if one's magery has the "Fire College Only" limitation.
For example:
*Aftermath Powerstone : like disadvantageous below, but harder to avoid the problems due to the 10 minute minimum. Requires something like Maximum Duration or Costs Fatigue to prevent it being left on at all times to avoid the Aftermath.
*Ceremonial Powerstone : can only be used to fuel ceremonial magic
*Cyclical Powerstones:
**Astrological Powerstone
**Lunar Powerstone
**Personal Powerstone
*Dance Powerstone : can only fuel magic when full gestures are used, energy is not released when they're omitted
**the usual benefit of not requiring speech to cast spells is ignored, and is a weird idea to begin with
*Dark Powerstone : can only fuel magic in darkness
*Day Powerstone : can only fuel magic during day
*Disadvantageous Powerstone : must be Switchable (per below enhancement) and when on, user suffers a Temporary Disadvantage until switching it back off using a 2nd ready maneuver.
**applying the disadvantage to the powerstone is one possible option, but probably very prone to abuse. If allowed it shouldn't be permitted for stuff that alreay applies to the underlying object, like No Legs (Portable).
**this could be especially problematic if switching it off requires contact with the powerstone, if a user is deprived of it.
**required Disadvantage is another possible approach: instead of inflicting a disadvantage on people who use it, it only works for people with that disadvantage
**Vulnerability is a good idea here, per Polarized Magery ideas, especially when combining with a One-College Powerstone.
*Easily Resisted Powerstone : there's a bonus to resist spells powered by the stone
*Enchantment-Only Powerstone : can only be used to enchant items, not cast spells
**T24's distinction between the Enchantment-Only Magery and One College Only (Enchantment) limitations becomes muddled here
*Extravagant Powerstone : spells cast with this have trouble omitting ritual elements
*Fading Powerstone : spells cast with this don't have effects last very long
*Fatiguing Powerstone : 1 fatigue point needs to be paid to be able to draw upon the Powerstone's energy for a period of 60 seconds
*Injurious Powerstone : only the -30% version makes sense here, only allowing this energy to assist with spells costing 2+ energy where the 1st energy is supplied by HP.
**alternatively: one might take the approach that instead of spending the HP of the user, it spends the HP of the powerstone itself, in which case the -50% version COULD be used. It should not be simple to restore HP of a powerstone if that is possible at all.
*Musical Powerstone : can only fuel magic cast with an instrument
*Night Powerstone : can only fuel magic during night
*Solitary Powerstone : can fuel any magic, but forces caster to incur B67's penalties for nearby sapients (unless they already suffer them due to being a Solitary Mage)
**as with "Dance" this should not impart any special ability to detect sapient lifeforms, which is already a strange ability to endow via a LIMITATION
*Song Powerstone : can fuel any magic that doesn't omit spoken components where they are sung
*Triggered Powerstone : requires some kind of substance to use the powerstone for a minute
*Unmaintaining Powerstone : cannot be used to pay maintenance costs for spells, and any new spells cast using the powerstone's energy cannot be maintained
*Unreliable Powestone : there's a chance when you attempt to draw on the power, you don't, and retries after such a failure cost 1 FP
*Unstable Powerstone: spells powered by the stone which fail may (-10%) or will (-30%) become a critical failure.
Three limitations require special considerations
*Can't Use External Energy since this actually prohibits powerstones
**unless in this instance it means "external to the powerstone itself" which would then prohibit not just other powerstones, but the caster too. That's a pretty big penalty for merely -15% cost
*External Energy Only allows not only a single powerstone (you can never use more than one) but also sacrifices/paut and has -60% suggested.
*Total Spell Incompetence doesn't make much sense, as powerstones don't really have any kind of purpose other than to fuel spells, unless the idea is to have a useless receptacle for mana to attract those seeking powerstones and use it as a red herring
**only possible option though, might be to allow people to "buy off" limitations with subsequent enchantments, in which case this could be a prep spell meant for upgrading to spread out high-energy investments
These step on the toes of the Exclusive Powerstone idea too: which also prohibits combining the stone's energy with personal energy. In that instance the triple output only applies to spells cast through/via the item though, not spells known to the caster, so they remain unique concepts with some overlap.
If these are collectively considered a Limited Powerstone then Enhanced Powerstone which increases creation cost by adapting Magery enhancements is also an additional idea:
*Easy Powerstone - spells cast ENTIRELY via the stone's power can easily omit ritual elements
*Solitary Ceremonial - spells cast ENTIRELY via the stone's power can be done ceremonially without helpers
*Stable Casting - spells cast ENTIRELY via the stone's power can stabilize crit fails into normal ones
*Subtle Powerstone - there's either -5 or an inability to detect this powerstone as an enchanted item
**alternatively : mages holding the powerstone (as only mages can use powerstones) are hard or impossible to detect, but ONLY while in contact with the powerstone (and while it's switched on)
***both approaches could be used but should require buying the enhancements twice
*Switchable Powerstone - you need to "Switch On" a powerstone (using a Ready maneuver) to cast spells with it. This is done on a per-user basis, preventing enemies from casually grabbing it and using it before you can get it off them.
**instead of being undetectable as a mage, this perhaps can make it undetectable as an enchanted item while off
***alternatively, this might just endow Switchability to mages wielding the powerstone: but if they use it to turn off their magery then it only stays off as long as they hold the powerstone: it's automatically turned back on (they lose the enhancement) as soon as they let go of it
****this could be grounds for allowing Temporary Disadvantages on non-Switchable Magery : they're always-on except when using a Powerstone or Temporary Enhancements to gain brief access to the Switchable enhancement
==Comment==
While an interesting idea there is one key problem with it: since the Spell Power of an item is based on the Enchanter it logically follows that any enhancements and limitations on their Magery also carry over. So a powerstone enchanted by a Day-mage could only be used during the day.
==See also==
*One-Spell Manastone
category:spells