Ritual Magic

To create and cast powerful spells, most nations have created a form of magic called ritual magic. This is complex and requires time, resources, and manpower, but has powerful results. The eternal jungles of the treants are maintained by ritual magic, for example. Ruskata’s powerful ice magic that halted the Khanate's advances was also ritual magic. Unlike the normal spells of your system, ritual magic has limitless potential, where the power of the spell is directly connected to how much time, resources, and manpower is put into it. As a GM, you have a choice to keep ritual magic out of the hands of the players and use it solely as a tool for the setting. You can also allow your players to access it in limited ways, or to use it freely. The choice is yours!

There is an optional rule for playing in Gloria-Etalia that the most powerful spells that your characters can access (like the 8th and 9th level spells in fifth edition of dungeons and dragons) are ritual spells. To cast a ritual spell, you will need to achieve four prerequisites. Time, Resources, and Manpower. For an example, let us take the 8th level spell clone and cast it using ritual magic. Please note that this is casting the spell clone using Gloria-Etalia ritual magic, and not as a 5e ritual. First let us look at the resources you need to cast a ritual spell. This can simply be the regular components to cast the spell, but at your GM’s discretion you can require more or less components or a special item to cast it. Next, the time to cast the spell is decided by the GM, but is usually no less than a day of constant casting. This however does not mean the same person or people have to cast the spell the entire time for it to work. This brings us to the final prerequisite: manpower. The amount of people needed to cast the spell will vary from spell to spell and system to system. The amount of people needed to cast the spell is decided by the GM, but less powerful spells usually require less people than more powerful spells. You can also decrease the amount of people needed to cast the spell at the cost of an increased amount of time and resources, and decrease the amount of time and resources needed to cast a spell with more manpower. How much is increased or decreased is decided by the GM.

Taking our example of clone, we can declare that it would require 3 people 1 full day to cast it, using the normal components for clone. If you had 6 people to cast the spell, you can have 3 casters each cast for 12 hours, or have all six of them cast for 10 hours and use less components. If you had 12 casters, they could take 8 hour shifts three at a time or cast it all together for 6 hours and a reduction of components. This is only an example however, and should not be used to argue with your GM.

Ritual Magic is difficult and dangerous. If by one reason or another a ritual ends prematurely, the consequences could be catastrophic. A premature end to a ritual can happen over small actions, like if a person stops chanting or moves away from his position. When a ritual ends prematurely, potentially anything could happen, from everyone in the area going insane to everyone’s hair disappearing and being replaced by living flowers. The exact danger that befalls botching ritual magic is decided by the GM, but can easily be dire.

Any spellcaster can cast a ritual spell, and they do not have to know the spell to cast it. However any caster that does not know the spell must be taught to cast it as a ritual by someone who does know how to cast it. This is not the same as knowing how to cast the spell, but rather the movements and chanting required to cast it using ritual magic. This will take time and effort, the amount of which is decided by the GM. A spellcaster can be a level below the spell level to cast it as a ritual. Using our example ritual spell clone, a spellcaster of 7th level or higher can attempt to learn it as a ritual, but a spellcaster below that level will not be able to learn it. Again, this is up to the GM to decide and if you use this passage to argue with him you are a ninny and have to announce, loudly!, that you are a ninny to the table. And you still can't use the passage to argue, no matter how loudly you declare your ninnyness.

A GM is allowed to declare the casting of a ritual to be impossible when set up in certain ways. He can also declare that certain spells cannot be cast using ritual magic. This is to prevent the use of spells like 5e’s simulacrum to cheese the ritual magic system away from its intention

Another optional rule is that normal ritual spells can be cast by PC’s. These are powerful spells not found in your system’s spell lists, but in the world of Gloria-Etalia. These can be learned through NPC casters, exploration, or by other means. A player can also attempt to create their own ritual, but it must be decided by the GM if the spell is possible to create. Creating your own ritual will be a difficult, adroudious, and time consuming process that is completely up to GM to determine.