Magic Guidelines

Supernatural powers exist on Erd, but magic workers are rare. Perhaps 1 person in 10,000 is a full-fledged mage or saint, capable of casting multiple useful spells. 1 in 10 mages in capable of enchantment, and their services are highly valued. There are 10 or 20 times as many hedges mages, petty saints, and other lesser magic workers, but some of those are children and others might have a single supernatural ability of minimal utility.

## Types of Magic

These types of magic are general vernacular, not an exact taxonomy.

Sorcery
Sorcerers draw spectral power from a place beyond convention senses, an act that is physically taxing. They then use that energy to perform a wide variety of supernatural effects. Sorcerers generally know a few spells of significant power, and can cast a wide variety of trivial effects. Sorcery is the most common type of magic in the USC, and most of the other magic types follow the same general rules and restrictions, though the details of spell-casting may vary.

The ability to perform sorcery is an innate trait, not passed through bloodlines as far as anyone can tell. Sorcerers can train to learn new spells, but all sorcerers gain their basic ability to work magic at birth and anyone without that ability cannot learn sorcery.

Sorcerers are generally classified in a hierarchy of power:

* Hedge mages choose between a few minor or specialized magical effects. Being a hedge mage is often a path to some status and wealth (Comfortable Wealth at Status 1) but many hedge mages make no more than a common shopkeeper.
* Mages can create a variety of different effects, with decent power. Mages are more likely to be respected and well-off with Comfortable Wealth at Status 1 or Wealthy at Status 2.
* Enchanters use a wider variety of effects than mages, and also know how to enchant their effects into permanent magic items. Enchanters are almost always wealthy and respected, if not more with Wealthy and Status 2 or more.
* Archmages are the pinnacle of magic-workers. They can enchant and cast a wide variety of powerful effects, and they create the most valuable and complicated enchantments. In addition to the respect they get from their great wealth, archmages often have positions of authority: senior specialists in the military, Chancellors of universities, and other positions of rank and prestige. Almost all archmages are Filthy Rich and Status 4.

Sainthood
Saints claim to be in communication with a deity who allows them to perform miracles, more or less on demand. Saintly miracles do not tax the body the way that sorcerous spells do. Saints can draw on the strength of their faith community to further empower their miracles, and can sometimes create much larger effects than their day to day miracles. Saints have to conform to the theology of the deity or they will lose their powers.

Petty saints are saints without much mystical authority. They have one or two minor miracles they can perform regularly, but they rarely if ever invoke great miracles.

Sainthood is not an inherent trait, but a miracle bestowed by a deity for that deity's inscrutable purposes and reasons. Anyone has the potential to be a saint, if a deity chooses to favor them.

The Rapturous Mystery Faith is very hostile to saints outside of the Faith, and those saints rarely live long. The Church of the All-Encompassing Void has its petty saints that live longer, but perform very few miracles. Most Elf tribes and Dwarf clans used to have magic workers on the line of saints, called shamans or earthspeakers, but the Rapturous Faith has executed them for heresy and new saints have not revealed themselves.

Some magical theorists believe sainthood is just another form of sorcery, and the deities do not exist. Misbehaving saints lose their powers because they believe they will. This is a very controversial view.

Diabolism
Some people are empowered by bargains with devils or demons. These people are called diabolists, and are characterized by their love of murder, treachery, chaos, and destruction. Diabolism is illegal in most civilized lands, and the USC provides a substantial reward for capturing diabolists and turning them over to soul stones.

Diabolists use obscure, occult rituals to contain their patrons, but non-magical folk can perform these rituals. Thus, diabolism is one of the only controllable ways to get magic, and some power hungry people turn to diabolism. Trafficking in diabolism tomes or scrolls is just as illegal as diabolism.

## Spells

Magic abilities generally should be Spells as Traits. There are many ways to accomplish this, but the most used books are:

* Powers: Divine Favor
* Thaumatology: Sorcery
* Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers

Mages do not have to use any of these frameworks. They are examples of how Spells as Traits work, but the exact implementation of Sorcery isn't required.

However, there are some restrictions and requirements:

* **Spells are obvious when cast.** You can cast silently, or you can cast without waving your hands around like a madman, but there is no option for casting without making it obvious to observers that you're doing something strange. Sleight of Hand can be used to mask spell-casting motions, but alert observers may see through the ruse.
* **Spell activations are visible, and hostile spell effects are usually visible** Telekinesis must take the Visible limitation (Basic p 92) and other spells cannot take the Low or No Signature enhancement. Specifically, Mind Control and Mind Reading have a visible link between caster and victim.
	+ Spells that enhance the target are visible when the spell is cast, but the enhancement does not have to be noticeable. Observers can draw reasonable conclusions: a DR 20 force field may be invisible, but if it it stops a bullet in mid-air, people will figure out that the spell is active.
	+ Spells that create a continued harm for the subject may or may not be visible. Mind Control usually is, but Mind Control w/Suggestion can be non-obvious.
* Healing spells that can be cast on other people need to be limited so that they can't be cast indefinitely. This can either be a maximum daily usage of 10 or less, or Preparation Required (including Immediate) of an hour or more.
* Some percentage of the population, to be determined but probably around 20-30%, will have Magic Resistance 1-6, or sometimes 7-12, or sometimes outright Immunity to Mind Control or Immunity to Magic.
* People are aware magic exists and will take reasonable steps to counter it. *Anyone* can make a salt circle to give themselves small amounts of Magic Resistance. Anti-magic metals exist, such as lead reducing the range of detection spells and other metals negating it entirely. Bank vaults doors might be placed in no-mana areas or include materials that can't be effected by magic so you can't manipulate them with magic. The Arroyo Grande town jail probably doesn't have an anti-magic cell, but it does have meteoric iron hand shackles that cannot be removed by magic.

Illusions
An illusion is essentially a matte painting and a set of stereo speakers. An illusion can easily conceal another object by putting an illusion of another object in front the second object. Concealing an object by turning it invisible is not possible. An illusion can be put over the surface of the object, projecting whatever is beyond the object, but this works best against a single, stationary observer and is nearly impossible against multiple observers or observers who are moving. An illusionist is aware of their own illusion but cannot see through it. Others who are aware that the illusion is false also cannot see through it.

Illusionary light is not true illumination. An illusionist can create an illusion of a torch and illusions of an illuminated things within the area of effect, but light does not extend past the illusion's area. Illusionary light depends on the knowledge of the illusionist and an illusionist cannot use illusionary light to read the text of a book he does know, since the illusionist would be creating an illusion of the text.

Illusionary sound originates from somewhere in the area of effect of the illusion and fades away naturally.

The origin area of a non-static, ranged illusion can be moved by up to IQ/2 yards as a Concentrate maneuver. Observers get a +1 to disbelieve ranged illusions that are more than their 1/2d from their creator, even if the illusion has Independence or Initiative.

If an illusion needs to *interact* with the subject, those interactions use the *lower* of the caster's appropriate skill or Artist (Illusion). For frightening illusions, use Intimidation (frequently at a bonus for circumstances: a convincing illusion of the Sheriff telling some deputies to back off should be more effective than the caster doing it himself). For illusions that can cause an actual Fright Check, build the spell on the Terror advantage instead.

Illusions are generally convincing. The initial roll to fool someone with an illusion is a quick contest of the illusionist's IQ or Illusion Art vs the observer's Perception -4. Anyone who is suspicious of an illusion may take a Concentrate action to reroll the contest as the illusionist's IQ or Illusion Art vs the observer's Perception. Being informed that an illusion is false is worth +2, and seeing a blatantly implausible illusion can be worth up to +6, but in a society with prevalent magic, many things aren't implausible.

Mental Illusions
Mental illusions affect a single person that the illusionist can accurately detect, usually by eyesight. Mental illusions have unlimited area of effect, can hide things by making them invisible, but still cannot use illusionary light to illuminate things the illusionist isn't aware of. Mental illusions are easier to detect, and the initial contest is the illusionist's IQ or Illusion Art (at cumulative -1 per victim past the first) vs the victim's Perception. It is a separate Concentrate maneuver to add another victim to a mental illusion.

## Imbuements

Imbuements mostly work as written in Power-Ups 1: Imbuements. There are some exceptions:

* Imbuements cannot be used for no FP by rolling the skill at -5. Pay for what you get.
* If a skill has modifiers, you can buy up to -4 points of them off as a Technique.
* If you have an Imbuement skill at 16+, you can take the No Nuisance Rolls (NNR) perk and use it without rolling as long as your effective skill remains over 16.
* Successfully using an Imbuement skill activates and allows you to reuse the Imbuement skill for 10 seconds. You still have to pay FP costs. If the skill has modifiers and you don't use them on your initial activation, you can't use them in the future without reactivating the skill. If you activate a skill with modifiers, you can continue to use those modifiers for the full 10 seconds.
* You can use as many Imbuement skills as you want in a turn, but you can only \*roll\* to activate a single skill per turn. Skills activated on previous turns, or skills activated this turn via the NNR perk **do not** count against this limit.
* Conic Blast, Guided Weapon, Homing Weapon, Multi-Shot, and Shattershot are unavailable, as is Lighten Armor from Pyramid v3#4. Shockwave can only be used on a single RoF 1 attack each turn.
* Dancing Weapon skill reduces by -3 every turn you don't spend FP on it. Dancing Weapon is not available for ranged weapons (including throwing attacks by melee weapons).
* Bonus damage enhancements only affect 1 damage roll in an RoF attack, though the attacker chooses which damage roll after seeing the attack and defense rolls. Other enhancements affect all parts of an RoF attack, as do transformations.

The imbuements used in Engravings are Skill-16, NNR. For damage type enhancements such as Drugged Weapon, they're made with the -2 modifier effect (so a Drugged pistol does it's normal damage + 1d-1 tx).

## Magical Equipment

Enchantment creates permanently magical items which can be destroyed, ruining the enchantment. Enchantments take fatigue to activate.

Engraving creates temporarily magical items. The engravings rarely require FP, but engravings wear out under use and have to be replaced.

# Known Spells

*Express Through Earth* (6 CP)

The caster must be standing on bare dirt or stone. They can convey a short message - no more than IQ + Talent words - to another location, where the words are written in stone or dirt. Anyone at the location can read the words. The words disappear after 30 seconds.
Telesend (Broadcast +50%; Vision Based -20%; Send Only -50%; Costs 1 FP -5%; Accessibility: Only while standing on stone or dirt on both ends -30%; Pact -10%; Reliable +10 +50%; Maximum Duration 30 seconds -65%) [6]
*Find the Wealth Within* (19 / 43 / 53 CP)

The caster must go into a meditative trance. At the end of the trance, they know the direction and distance to the nearest unclaimed deposit of a desired metal ore that is within a few yards. More powerful magic-workers can find ore at much greater distances, and can find all types of metal, not just metal ores.
Detect Unclaimed Metal Ore (Occasional; Cosmic: Can specify the ore type +50%; Precise +100%; Costs 1 FP -5%; Onset: 1 Day -30%; Pact -10%; Short-Range -10%)
At level 2, remove the Short Range limitation and change the detection to Metal, a Common class.
At level 3, add the Long Range enhancement.