A Brief Treatise On Magickal Theory And Practice

[Yaw]

I'm going to build this up bit by bit, then rewrite it later for the players. The basic idea is that this thread will contain the theoretical background for each of the magickal categories in the RPG (Sorcery, Divination, Conjuration, Alchemy, and Ritual Magick) first. This will give us a solid basis for determining what each kind of magick can and cannot do, and how it goes about producing the desired effect. This will also give us a consistent magickal system, and avoid any problems of characters gaining godlike magickal powers that render the RPG itself ridiculous. Having the theory down, generating the math for the rolls and carrying them out when players decide to get creative should be easier.

I also intend to come up with rules for how to analyze whether or not a player is able to pull off a magickal effect in this thread. That will come after the theory, and should hopefully follow from it.

Comments on both the theoretical and practical end of this are encouraged.

[Yaw]

Sorcery

Sorcery is the spiritual manipulation of matter for a desired effect. The sorcerer works with the four elements (fire, water, air, and earth) and their associated correspondences (respectively energy, emotion, mind, and body), blending them to create magick. This means that for any spell, the sorcerer must be clear about what elements he or she is using, in what amounts, where they are originating, how they are being combined, and what final effect the spell is to have.

Let us say for example that a sorcerer has decided to travel into a cave, and needs light. This is a relatively simple spell on the whole, but will serve to illustrate some of the complications inherent in sorcery.

What elements are being used? Certainly fire. Other elements may be used depending on how exactly the sorcerer wishes to go about manifesting the light spell. If she simply wants to light a torch by magickal means, then only fire would be required. If she wants a glowing ball to fly around lighting the cave, then some air would be required for the effect.

In what amounts? Lighting a torch would only need a spark, so very little. The ball of light would need more fire, as the ball would have to be larger than a spark. It might also require new inputs of fire from time to time, to prevent the ball from dying out. The air used in the ball can be of any amount, but requires a clear delineation between it and the air in the cave itself, to avoid having the fire in the ball diffuse over the cave.

Where are they originating? It is necessary to transport fire from outside the cave into the cave. This resource gathering is the first lesson a sorcerer learns in magickal work. It will be easier during the day, when it is possible to gather fire from the sun's rays, than at night, when it is necessary to gather fire from candles or bonfires lit by other people. Any resource-gathering will cause a deficit in the element elsewhere, which may be noticeable if it is generally scarce. There are times when this must be done with care to avoid serious problems for others.

How are they being combined? At this point, for the ball of light, the sorcerer must work to create space between the air used in the ball and the air in the cave. The fire would then be introduced into the ball in such quantity that the air can sustain it as a glowing light. If too much fire is used, the resulting ball of fire may result in things getting burned. In addition, air does not burn well, so a ball of fire will die out fairly quickly.

What is the final effect? After the ball of light is completed, is it to remain stationary? If not, the sorcerer must keep it in mind at all times, manipulating the air around the ball to push it in various directions.

Most of the above will quickly become automatic to even the newest sorcerers. For common effects, the use of the elements will be well known. Sorcery, however, is not a static art, and knowing how to produce effects in a more general sense allows sorcerers to be creative in their art, producing entirely new magick. New effects do require far more consideration, and will naturally be more difficult because they require working through all the theoretical subtleties.

The key limiting factor is gathering the elements required for any magickal effect. This can be very dependent on time and space. For example, in Amstaad itself, producing a jet of fire will be relatively simple (requiring only fire and air, both of which are in abundance), while producing a jet of ice will be more difficult (requiring water, air, and manipulating fire away from the jet in sufficient quantities to allow the water to freeze). In a colder climate, the reverse will be true, as fire becomes scarce it becomes easier to produce the jet of ice and harder to gather the fire for the jet of that element.

As a final note, the elemental correspondences are also valid in producing effects. These can involve using air to influence the thoughts of others, using fire to give someone more stamina temporarily, using water for spells of love, or other similar work. For this reason, sorcerers (as well as other users of magick) are required to take an Oath upon beginning their training, holding them to a standard of magickal ethics.

[Yaw]

Divination

Where sorcery could be considered the manipulation of matter, divination concerns the manipulation of time. The diviner does not actually travel in time or read the future, but does have the ability to learn and see hidden events and motivations in the past and present, and to find influences on the future. With this information, actions can be taken on a more mundane level that can have far-reaching consequences because they can occur in the exact place, time, and manner to have the greatest influence.

Unlike sorcery, divination tends to be very culturally defined in terms of methodology. While all sorcerers in all cultures effect magickal work in a similar manner, divination relies on the use of various artifacts to direct the concentration of the diviner, which may vary greatly. The result is that diviners of different cultures have varying effectiveness when it comes to certain common subjects of divination. The common ritual artifacts are as follows:

Trancework: Only used by the Tiktuk. Through the use of drums, the diviner slips into a trance and is inhabited by one of the Tiktuk goddesses or ancestral spirits for the delivery of a message. Because of the amount of work involved, trancework is never used for personal issues, but only for community information.

Automatic Writing: A system primarily used by the Passani that involves using the copying of passages from their holy scriptures to induce a trance. Interpretation of what the diviner writes while under trance reveals hidden messages. This is the most prophetic of the divination schools, and the messages tend to refer to future influences to the exclusion of all else.

Tea Leaves: Pioneered by the Elves, this system involves swirling the leaves of a nearly-finished cup of tea across the sides of the cup, producing patterns for interpretation. Results tend to centre around how interconnected with the world around him or her the questioner is and will be. It lends itself well to personal questions, and deals only obliquely with community issues.

Stone Scrying: Pioneered by the Dwarves, scrying involves allowing variations in different stones and ores to suggest images in response to a question. Different stones are said to be better for inquiring into different issues. Results centre around unlocking the influences of the past on the issue presented. This method is poor for divining future influences. Similar to tea leaves, scrying is also better suited to personal questions.

Bone/Rune Casting: This method is preferred by the Slith. A series of marked or unmarked items is thrown at an empty space of earth, and the patterns suggested by where the bones end up is interpreted. If the items are marked (runes), when which rune ends up where is also part of the interpretation. Being more complex than many other methods, casting is generally good at answering any question, but does not give the detail a more specialized method would.

Astrology: The preferred method of the Aerin works through interpreting the positions of various stars and planets. Through the use of carefully derived charts, they are able to determine influences on situations in any time. This method has issues with specifics, and cannot deal well with particular events except through relating them back to the influences expected after the fact.

Tarot Cards: This specialized set of cards is used by the Briaf diviners. It works through the interpretation of a randomized layout of cards. Effectiveness is similar to that of Slith casting methods, though there tends to be a difference in the sense of information derived. The cards are less direct and more subtle, which seems to allow for finer detail.

Many cultures also use crystal balls, which are a finer variation on Dwarvish scrying. All diviners also hold to a standard of magickal ethics.

[Yaw]

Conjuration

Conjuration is the only Magickal art that can be described as "discovered" -- in this case by the famed prophet Isun al-Istari of the ancient Passani Empire. He became the first conjurer through a series of visions, in which he was shown a great silver door to the Astral Realms guarded by a powerful Efreet. He was shown inside, and gifted with the ability to call forth Astral objects and beings to the waking world. By founding a small but prestigious mystical school, he was able to pass this skill on. It has since passed beyond the Passani Empire to other races and cultures, but in a very clear lineage traceable back to al-Istari.

At its most basic, conjuration consists of making an out-of-body journey to visit Efreet. The conjurer there makes a request for what he would like to manifest from the Astral Realms, which is provided. The conjurer does not pass through the silver door; only al-Istari has done so.

Gifts from Efreet come with two conditions. An offering must be made to Efreet for each successful visit, otherwise he will cease to answer supplications. The type of offering is worked out individually with Efreet when the conjurer is initated into the school of conjuration, though most choose to use a blood offering as a blood offering forms a significant part of the initiation ceremony.

In addition, gifts from Efreet are always tied directly to the essence of the conjurer, the only thing keeping the Astral object in this realm. That is, any Astral object exerts a continual drain on the conjurer proportional to its power, and will revert back to the Astral Realms when the conjurer no longer has enough energy to support the drain. This is a safety mechanism worked out between al-Istari and Efreet. Conjurers have the ability to summon great beings through their magickal work, such as ancient dragons and greater demons, which could wreak great havoc if permitted to overwhelm the conjurer that summoned them. However, because of this limitation, overwhelming the conjurer will simply send these beings safely back to the Astral Realms.

More advanced conjurers learn how to direct the actions of Astral beings. It is possible for lesser conjurers to summon Astral beings -- and if the beings are sufficiently weak, to keep them around for a while -- but it is in many cases unwise as the beings will behave according to their own natural wills.

The Astral Realms contain items and beings of every possible description. For this reason, conjurers must be precise in their requests of Efreet. If they are not, the results could be quite unexpected.

It should be noted that the Tiktuk were found to have a related conjuration art, developed independently of the al-Istari school. In many respects, the two arts are the same. The Tiktuk, however, make requests of their Lady Death, who guards a curtain of the palest violet to the Land of the Ancestors, where they believe the dead go. Scholars in comparitive magickal theory have determined that this is another doorway to the Astral Realms, which has led them to speculate on additional, as-yet unknown doors.

[Yaw]

Alchemy

Alchemy is the magickal manipulation of nature. As such, it is quite different from sorcery, which sees the world as a series of inert elements. Alchemy sees life in all things, and attempts to work with this living nature.

According to the alchemists, there are three processes inherent in everything. The first of these is the physical nature, symbolized by salt. There is also a spiritual nature, symbolized by sulfur. Meditating between the two, as a conduit connecting the two previous natures is the third, symbolized by mercury. The fundamental alchemical work involves separating these three natural processes, purifying them individually, then recombining them.

Practically, this ability to work with life forces makes medicine the exclusive domain of alchemy. This frequently takes the form of potions and balms. Herbalism is a related ability that all alchemists study.

From a philosophical standpoint, the goal of each alchemist is to purify himself through alchemical work. It is because of the differing goals of alchemy that it is usually taught as two separate items. Alchemical knowledge covers herbalism and other natural subjects, as well as the philosophies behind alchemical work. Alchemical magick covers the actual processes of working with nature, both to produce practical results and to point the alchemist forward in the work of self-purification.

It should additionally be noted that alchemy is the only magickal branch that can produce truly long-term effects. A potion can be bottled and kept for a long time without any additional cost of magickal energy to the alchemist. Maintaining an effect through sorcery or conjuration always requires a continual drain on the sorcerer or conjurer. As with all other branches of magick, alchemists are held to a standard of magickal ethics.

[Yaw]

Ritual Magick

Ritual Magick is actually composed of four separate magickal skills, one for each of the previous categories of magick. It allows sorcerers, diviners, conjurers, or alchemists to work together, pooling their magickal abilities to accomplish greater effects. The methodology involved proceeds naturally from the magickal art itself.

Since sorcery, divination, conjuration, and alchemy are based on such different philosophies, they cannot be blended together through the use of ritual magick. It is very difficult for anyone to even acquire the use of more than one magickal art, with the exception of divination. This is not to say that it cannot and hasn't been done, but those who have tried to learn multiple forms of magick frequently describe the experience as trying to perform carpentry with washing equipment. For the vast majority of people, it only promotes confusion and is not recommended.

[Yaw]

Ok, that's the first pass. PLEASE, comment on what's there -- what you like, what you don't like, etc. In particular, I kept making references to an ethical code for the use of magick. I think this is a good idea to have one written up, but would like input as to what sorts of things should be included. That is, what would you consider to be wrong for anyone using one of the above magickal systems to do?

Thanks.

[Yaw]

Yeah, the math is coming, and it will use experience points and all. Just want to run the concept through everyone before I try to model them.

As for ethics, think of doctors as an example. We expect doctors in our society to abide by an oath to help people, in addition to laws regarding medical practice. In Amstaad, the alchemists

are

the doctors. At any rate, that's sort of the idea. With many of these abilities, exerting powers may be untraceable by those enforcing the law, so an additional set of personal limitations would be required.

[Yaw]

Well, it should be sort of like the real world, I think. Ethical standards exist, and those that take oaths are supposed to hold themselves to them. That said, there may be circumstances which place strain on the code, and in these situations people may choose not to follow the code. These choices should have consequences (and similarly, following the code should have consequences).

Don't think of this as necessarily a rigid thing, though. It can be a set of generalized principles, and it can be fairly open-ended. I don't necessarily know where this ethical code is going right now, so it's entirely possible to have things you're concerned about not covered by it.

[Yaw]

First off, just to gather everything in this thread:

* There are two different skills called Alchemy: the Knowledge: Alchemy Skill represents a person's accumulated knowledge of the sort of things that have been and could be created via Alchemy, whereas the Spirit Skill Alchemy represents the person's ability to actually brew potions and so forth.

...

*** All of these Skills represent a person's ability to utilize a specific form of Magick. Sorcery is the stereotypical "spellcasting" depicted in "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings" books. It can have many different effects, from blasts of fire to flying high above the clouds. The limits of Sorcery are set only by the limits of the imagination of the magick-wielder. (NOTE: Sorcery never duplicates Divination or Conjuration.) Divination is the art of being able to use different ritual items to learn knowledge the diviner wouldn't normally have access to: crystal balls, tea leaves, astrology, etc. Conjuration is the magickal ability to summon objects, forces, and even living beings from other places or planes of existence. Ritual Magick is the ability to work with another magick-user to achieve a greater effect from one of the above Skills. Two or more magick-wielding people can both use their Ritual Magick Skill to attempt to combine their Skill ratings in another form of magick to produce a more powerful effect.

This is the original information from the Character Creation. I believe we should be sticking to

this

as much as possible, since it's out there already. There isn't much information here, though, so lots of room to work. The posts I made above were attempts to flesh out what Dourgrim's written to a point from which it could be codified, but those posts are quite open to modification.

Now for specifics...

I've come up with four schools of magic to use. Evocation is the magic of manipulating energy to create an effect out of nothing. Examples of Evocation would be a

fireball

, a

lightning bolt

, or

ray of frost

.

Let's keep the names the same, at least. So this is Sorcery.

The description is different from what I had, but I sort of like the elegance of this one. All matter contains potential energy, so manipulating energy should be sufficient to describe what's happening. It's more of a modern Physics definition than what I had (with the four classical elements), but I don't see why we couldn't go this way. (Mind you, I haven't thought out all the implications yet.) I'd take off the "out of nothing" part, because it's unnecessary and somewhat confusing -- you're manipulating latent energy, not creating effects from a void or vacuum.

mikehart edit: this was a typo. it should read: in effect, making something out of nothing.

Divination is the magic of manipulating time to see the past, present, and future. Divination also includes spells that would give someone more information than a person is normally privy to. Examples of Divination would be

scry

,

clairvoyance

, or

read thoughts

.

Two points that need to be looked into here.

1) Free Will vs. Determinism. Which is our philosophy on time going to resemble? It matters in that "seeing the future" looks very different depending on whether or not you believe people can change it. (My definition tended towards Free Will, this one tends towards Determinism. I'm not sure if that's what was intended.)

2) I sort of like the idea of divination methods being culturally diverse -- Amstaad is rather multicultural, and it presents more ways for that to matter. I'm not sure how that might fit into this defintion.

I find it interesting that "Read Thoughts" works well with Dourgrim's definition, while I completely missed that implication. I do think that idea belongs here to some extent.

Conjuration is the magic of bringing and sending manifestations of objects, creatures, or energy over distances and/or planes. Examples of conjuration would be

summon creature

,

teleport

,

cure minor wounds

, and

wall of iron

.

Yes, basically. I had it specifically as over planes, but the other is an interesting application I hadn't considered that works fairly consistently. (That is, teleport by transporting

yourself

into, then out of the Astral Plane.) The only difference is that it would become possible to make things go physically into the Astral Plane as well, while previous defintions only had objects going in the other direction. So conjurers could actually make people vanish!

Abjuration is the magic of manipulating energy and people to protect others, bend others to your will, or changing others basic qualities. Examples of Abjuration would be enlarge person, magic shield, and hypnotize.

This feels unnecessary. Sorcery already manipulates energy, and could be extended to healing of the "laying on of hands" variety. Alchemy does fit reasonably well for protective and healing applications. I'll admit that my definition of alchemy was a hodge-podge of the ideas of medieval alchemy and classical fantasy magical potions that didn't necessarily hold together well, but I'm not convinced this is the best way to solve that problem.

Creating Spells

Players creating spells will work in a submission faction. Whenever a player gets a skill rank in a spell school they will submit a spell for each additional spell slot they gain to mods in this fashion.

Spell Level:

Spell Name:

What will happen when spell is cast:

Description of the component(s) needed to cast the spell:

The mods will use this information to decide what the base damage/benefit this spell will create and possibly modify the components needed to cast the spell. A good rule of thumb will be to require a minimum of two types of component.

For the most part, an emphatic yes to this. It will make things a LOT easier on the mods to be able to plan first, and a lot better for the players if they know what to expect from a "spell". A part of me doesn't like losing the allowance for creativity that was there under the more "free-form" system, but I think we gain more than we lose. This still allows players to be creative, as they have to submit stuff.

We don't exactly have levels -- it's more a system in which relevant experience can be traded off for attribute and skill points. That could be mapped on to a level system, or more easily, allow a certain number of new spells for every new skill or attribute point. I'm not sure if that's the best option, but it's moving in the right direction. (It also eliminates the need for funny formulae based on attributes.)

Limiting Spells per Day

The number of spells per day a caster may cast will be the number of spells that player knows + POW/3 rounded down. For instance, Bobo the Wondermage knows 7 spells and has a POW of 9. Bobo can cast 10 spells per day. If Bobo wishes he can cast 10 copies of the same spell or use all seven of his known spells. For a player to regain his ability to cast spells, he must get at least 8 hours of rest.

We definitely need a way to limit what the magick people can do. What I don't like about this is that it doesn't consider scale -- lighting a candle requires far less energy than creating a large fireball, which means a sorcerer

should

be able to do the former more often in a day than the latter. Fatigue might not be the way to go, but some idea of a "degree of difficulty" needs to be here.

Casting a Spell

Casting a spell will be similar to the D&D mechanic. The player will decide what spell to cast and will expend the components to cast it. There will be three main types of components used in spells. Somatic, an arcane motion or other motion; verbal, a word of command or chant; and material, a bit of sulfur or other item are the three types. This is to allow some kind of restriction on casting. You can’t cast a spell with a verbal component if you can’t speak, you can’t cast a spell with a material component with items in both hands without dropping one, and etc. We will assume that all spellcasters have a material component pouch necessary to cast their spells.

This is an area I hadn't really thought about. This seems specific to sorcery -- the other types don't feel like they'd work this way. I'm still not sure if I want sorcerers dependent on having material reagents (that seems to feed more into alchemy), but I could go either way on that. One option would be to open sorcery up to cultural differences in a similar way as divination, with different races/subraces having different methods of getting off the same spell, or different specializations. So some might be dependent on having materials, but others might be dependent on something entirely different. There's some interesting room for exploration here.

[Yaw]

That's more along the lines. The formula you proposed doesn't actually consider the level of the spell being

cast

, which is why I pointed it out. (Or at least, it implies that all spells are of the same level.)

[Yaw]

That's a good point. Perhaps it would be more efficient to just have "schools" of sorcery? It wouldn't change Dourgrim's definitions any, and it would get players to specialize to the point where sorcery wouldn't be an uber-magic. That would also allow for more variation than just offense vs. defense.

[Yaw]

Ethics, initial thoughts:

This is going to have to be fleshed out into a set of rules, but just a bit of brainstorming here.

Definitely bad -- Screwing with the dead in any way. Not somewhere I think we want players going. (Also, it's not like any inhabited area would want ghosts or zombies wandering around.)
-- Mind control. This just feels very much like violating someone.

Sorcery issues -- In sorcery, ethics seems to creep in in the sense of what is being done. So the primary idea here would probably be to only use magick to harm in self-defense. I'm sure there's other stuff to think about, though...

Divination issues -- According to what's been defined, there's not much risk of a diviner seeing someone's sexual exploits, or anything of that level. On the other hand, a diviner can't really control what information they're going to get. What can be controlled is what they do with it. One issue here would be misleading others (although that can get tricky). The other deals with respect. For example, if the diviner finds out his client has been sleeping around through divination, and both he and his wife are right in front of him, what is his responsibility?

Conjuration issues -- The big thing here isn't action. It's negligence. We don't want some powerful conjurer summoning something nasty and letting it run amok. The issue is how to word things to make that clear. (We can't just put it under harming others, because the conjurer isn't technically doing harm. He just summoned the demon that's doing harm!)

Alchemy issues -- The big issue I see here is the issue of poisons. This sort of fits with the conjuration points, and whether it's an issue to create the poison in the first place even if you never are the one to use it.

That's a start. Any other issues inherent in the magick categories? Stuff you think should be banned in general? (Banned here means shunned by society and all right-thinking magick-users...these things are still

possible

.)

[Yaw]

I missed stealing. Good point.

Sentient sacrifice might be redundant -- if we don't want people killing others using magick, we may as well just say that and let sacrifice fall under the umbrella.

Hadn't even considered local resources, but it is a good point. (For example, drawing all the fire out of a room, causing people to freeze to death. The wrong action isn't the spell itself here, but the means by which it's effected.) Not sure how to word this, but definitely worth saying something.

Conjuration is actually reasonably good for safeguards, but they apply primarily to less powerful conjurers. Demons certainly can't run amok unless the conjurer is both powerful, and

chooses

to let them run wild. It's possible to take the ethics out of character hands and just have a behind-the-scenes list of what the guardian of the Astral will approve, but I think that removes some capacity for storytelling (not that it would necessarily be used, but having to deal with a rogue conjurer could make for a good scenario). I also think that makes things a bit more complex than they need to be -- it's easier to just have an ethical law against negligence than to come up with a list of what is and what is not allowable for the guardian to grant under Conjuration.

[Yaw]

Sounds like a good idea for an addition.

I briefly considered the hedge magic "what you do comes back to you threefold" which was mentioned in FATE, because it essentially covers

everything

. But that would require making the world work in that way, which seems like too difficult a rule to enforce with what we have...

[Yaw]

Preliminary notes:

Like the first table. Elements are fairly ubiquitous, so there shouldn't be any need to make your own. If there were, I think it might be more interesting to just have that as a limitation on the system that scarcity matters.

As air becomes warm and rarefied, air becomes fire;
as it cools and condenses, it becomes water and then earth.

Minor point -- traditionally fire/water and air/earth are the opposing pairs. Here, it's air/water and fire/earth. Is that intentional? The nice thing about using traditional elements is that most people have a general "sense" of them even if they're not sure of how far metaphorically to stretch them. But if we're changing the traditional sense, it might throw off players' understandings of how to work this skill.

Not sure how I feel about the new pyramid of sorcery skills. In a way, I like that it makes sorcery in general accessible, but makes it difficult to get up to higher skill levels while maintaining, for example, fighting skills. I get a sense this is going to be unbalanced, though, because sorcerers now have to try to work with

two

pyramids where everyone else only gets one. (Also, what happens to the general Sorcery skill that opens up this second pyramid? Does going up to Sorcery: Fair do anything?) I'm not averse to taking Sorcery off the pyramid and running it like an extra -- that alone would temper being too good at magick and fighting together. But making it such an extensive thing off the pyramid feels like too much of a hit for a sorcerer to take.

In looking through this, I think we have to consider not just how the sorcerer character will conceive of his/her spells, but how we expect the

player

to give directions to the mod. For example, is it reasonable to expect a player to say, "I want to take a lot of fire, mix it with air to form a ball of a yard in diameter, and then propel it with air towards the goblin on the left?" Or is, "I want to throw a fireball at that goblin," acceptable? I wouldn't want this to get too unwieldy.

Modifiers -- I think there needs to be a consideration of scale in here somewhere. It's sort of in duration, but I don't think that's quite it. More the idea that making a spark is easier than a fireball because of how

much

fire has to be gathered, more than how long the effect will last.

• Time to cast: +1 if you take your time, -1 if you rush
  
• Abundance of Elements: -1 is rare
  
• Significant compression of element: -1
  
• Only one element: +2
  
• Each element beyond 2: -1
  
• All (at least 2) Elements in equal amounts: +1
  
• Elements in differing amounts: -1
  
• Requires Finesse: -1

Absolute yes to taking time, abundance, and finesse. Only one element makes sense too. The multiple elements stuff seems a bit odd -- Two elements in differing amounts is the same as three elements in the same amounts? I can see why adding extra elements increases the difficulty, but why does differing vs. same amounts matter?

Also, I'm not sure that sorcerers would understand compression of elements, or conceive of things in this way. Sort of a magic vs. physics thing. (Also, since this only could apply to air, it seems like more of an exception than a rule.)

[Yaw]

I think that it's probably simpler to run the other magic categories similar to sorcery (that is, aspect for Alchemy with Alchemy skills as extras, same for Divination and Conjuration). It gives the players some consistency for character creation, and we can make things fit into each category without having to worry too much. It also makes it clearer that some magics (like Alchemy and Conjuration) are mutually exclusive.

Which breaks this down into three separate categories. (And we're going to have to figure out where Ritual Magick fits as well, but that can wait until we have the more basic things figured out.)

The key word for Alchemy in the original idea I had is "Nature". So I'm not sure going completely spirit quite works here. It's more like sorcery is fire/water/air/earth, conjuration is spirit, and alchemy is somewhere between the two (spirit in matter). Which seems to make sense here -- using the processes of Decomposition/Earth, Modification/Fire, Separation/Air, Union/Water to influence Spirit (Salt/Sulfur/Mercury), or vice versa. I just think it wants to be a little more holistic.

I also think the big elephant-in-the-room for Alchemy is the issue of time -- how long it takes to perform an effect, and how that relates in particular to healing. It's probably worth having a separate "Heart" skill (yes, I know that doesn't exist anymore for characters) for Healing anyway, which would be along the lines of a battlefield medic. It wouldn't invalidate Alchemy at all, but would allow for a bit more flexibility. (Think of someone with Healing skill like a first aider, and someone with Alchemy like a doctor.)

I'll leave Divination for when you have thoughts in better order. (Except for one thing -- I wrote out the different culture things; it wasn't Dour's. )

Conjuration is definitely entirely Spirit-based. Practically-speaking, I see it coming down to a couple of issues:

Time -- How long the journey to the other plane takes, and how long it takes to return with the item. This is more of a "what can you do on the field of battle" thing. I sort of feel like there's an "optimal time" and a "minimum time" here, and that anything between the two would get a time penalty. This is a success/failure thing.

Power of item -- This doesn't work on the level of success/failure. If you can make the journey, you can bring back the item. That said, power level ties directly into how long the item can stay "summoned" -- more powerful items drain the Conjurer's power faster, and so stay around for less time.

The basic idea would be to have two rolls of some type, one to determine success, the other to determine how long the item would stay. So at the end of the roll, the mod would know, for example, "X is successful in getting the magic sword. It will stay around for 2 hours." I don't expect the mod to tell the player that last part, though.

The other issue with conjuration is control. Completely irrelevant for inanimate objects. But if the conjurer summons something "live", what happens? Is it automatically under the conjurer's control, or does it have "free will" and there's a power struggle? And how does this relate to the power of item part?

Hope that helps a bit...

[Yaw]

I don't understand the comment about breaking this into three... it is split into three. I understand that there is no flavor in there to explain why they are exclusive. But they deal with spirit in different ways.

Sure. I think we were getting confused because you were speaking philosophically, and I was talking about how the rules might be better seen by the players...if that makes sense. Saying, "players must pick a conjuration aspect and choose conjuration skills as extras," doesn't say anything about what that conjuration aspect or those skills entail.

Ritual is the one that all magic users have and it's how they can work together. I don't see that being difficult to define, just so situational that the mods will be on the spot.

I don't see it being difficult either. I just figure it's best done last.

Isn't that how I had alchemy? It's the conduit between the physical and the spiritual that they affect.

Probably was. Consider it clarifying, then.

So with conjuration you CAN bring it back? Interesting... so it's just if you bring something too powerful, you can't necessarily keep it here. Okay, I can work with that.

Doesn't the existing description indicate that there is a power struggle?

Yeah. If you're successful in making the journey, you're getting what you asked for. It's just that if it's too powerful, it's only going to stick around for a millisecond.

I think there's two ways of running it. One would be to have living things come back as "slaves" -- they'd sit around and do nothing unless directed. The other would be to have living things come back with their own free will, which the conjurer constantly has to keep under control. This would mean living things, by their nature, couldn't stick around as long as inanimate objects. It also opens up a loophole whereby a conjurer could become very negligent and just let a living thing loose without trying to control it. We sort of have to decide which direction to go. I see both as valid.

[Yaw]

Well, crap. It would help if I could remember what I wrote in the first place.

[Yaw]

Divination -- I'm pretty much good with that. The only change I could see would be a harsher penalty to types of divination the character isn't used to. (Trying to read a message written in Japanese with no knowledge of the language or alphabet has to be worth more than a -1 penalty.)

Conjuration -- One item per aspect level sounds like a reasonable restriction.

For skip plot/advance plot, it almost feels a bit too subjective. While I agree that we don't want characters being able to skip entire quests just by "finding" an item through conjuring it up, it's probably easier to just have them incapable of doing so. ("I'm sorry, the astral plane is all out of those.") The other aspect here is that using conjuration to skip quests is unethical for another reason -- the item isn't going to be sticking around, and when it disappears, whoever received it is going to be rather pissed off at having been cheated.

I think I'd rather make the offering aspect simpler. Like no boost or penalty if they give an offering (since that's part of using conjuration by definition), but a definite penalty if they have an unfamiliar/inferior offering.

I'd like to see a time penalty in there somewhere. Time may pass differently in other planes, but the conjurer still has to get himself into a meditative state, go "out of body", and travel to the astral plane (and back) on his/her own. I'd tend to think even 5 minutes is pushing it for speed, particularly if there are distractions around.

Size, living/nonliving, complexity, power level, etc. should all have bearing, but more on the time the object will last than the success in getting it in the first place. If it's too powerful, the balance here is that it just flashes back to where it came from in under a second and the conjurer gets

very

tired.

Alchemy -- Looks fine. I think there was a bit of confusion in there with respect to ritual magick, but that's it. (Ritual magick only lets magic people of the same type work together. That said, it

is

possible for magic people of different types to "piggyback" on one another, for example, having a sorcerer create something, then handing it off to an alchemist fo be enchanted.)

Later stuff -- It's good that Pie raised the whole "lots of spells" issue, as it's what we were playing around with fatigue to try to get under control. Using up aspects seems like an elegant way to handle it -- the more you try to cast stuff, the more likely you are to fail at some point, and failure can hit in unexpected ways. This does get back at one of the minor outstanding issues -- we have to figure out the aspect refresh rate -- but that's not a big deal.

I definitely like keeping this more free-form. It gives players more control over how they want to tell their own characters' side of the story.

Also, just to clarify for Pie...FATE does away with attributes entirely. (FUDGE doesn't, but tends to minimize their use, although there are some ways around that...) So if FATE is being used, there's no POW attribute to use. There's only the magic skill itself. (That said, even though players don't have to consider the whole body/heart/mind/spirit thing in creating their characters,

we

as mods should still consider it when coming up with balanced quests/storylines for the characters to interact with. That's all that's really needed to make them important.)

[Yaw]

New Conjuration stuff looks good. Upon thinking about it over dinner, I'd consider a little addition to allow a mod-discretionary penalty for large stuff on the time roll. (For example, summoning a galleon vs. summoning a sword -- the galleon's so much larger you'd expect it to suck energy faster. Similarly for summoning a dragon vs. summoning a caterpillar.)

Also liking the Alchemy. No issues I can think of with any of it. Exomagic and endomagic are pretty cool ideas, and having magic as a catalyst makes perfect sense.

[Yaw]

Trying to get this in quickly...

Looking back up at sorcery, I sort of wonder if it's worth making it a touch more complex just to make interpretations easier. That is, instead of doing relative quantity on gathering of elements, do two tables and add them together before the roll -- one for how much of the element(s) you want to gather, and a second for how much is available. I know it's an extra step, but in trying to think about ritual magic (and if it isn't going to be overpowered) it would help to have a written-out idea of how large spells at each level (legendary, epic, superb, etc.) would be.

[Yaw]

Since this is the place for discussion of the other thread...

Explain difference between the life referenced in "fire" and the life referenced in "spirit."

The easiest solution would be that fire is life energy, while spirit is actual "soul" or consciousness. That's consistent while giving a clean break.

Numbered list has broken tags for spirit magic - basics.

Alchemy is the ability see and manipulate the conduit between spirit and aether.

This is the last, italicised sentence in the spirit magic - basics paragraph about alchemy. I think it's just a wording issue here...I'm not sure the best way to fix it, but I worry a little about confusion when aether is mentioned as part of the spiritual axis, which makes it look like the conduit connects spirit to spirit, doing nothing. I think some added clarity in the numbered list would help, particularly moving "aether" before the hyphen (maybe in brackets?) for consistency. There's nothing wrong with it conceptually, it's just that the sentence looks a bit funny.

Collecting the outstanding questions mentioned in the other thread:

Details on ethics need to be editted in here. (With respect to sorcery, but probably applies to other magics as well.)

EDIT IN EXAMPLES (With respect to alchemy/herbalism.)

Help define "simple" spell (For sorcery, differentiation from complex spells.)

(Any edits of that thread you see by me are fixing typos, not substance.)