Corruption, Magical

When magi use their arcane arts, it often leaves an imprint upon their auras. We call that effect Corruption. Corruption doesn’t change a magus’ personality. It doesn’t degrade hir morals or hir ability to empathize with other people. Instead, it affects the way other living creatures perceive hir. Magi with low Corruption scores function the same as ordinary people. As the amount of Corruption on a character’s aura builds, though, other creatures and people start to perceive hir either as a threat or as a nonentity. This effect has an especially strong influence on the weak-minded. To get rid of Corruption, a magus has two options: ze can stop using magic or ze can spend time within a source of pure magical energy like a ley line or a magic-rich zone.

Mechanical Effects by Level of Corruption

Corruption 0. No effect. The magus functions and interacts precisely as any other person.
Corruption < Charisma / 2. People around the magus begin to subconsciously give hir more space. Animals are nervous and begin to spook easily around the character. Character suffers a penalty to all Charisma checks equal to 1/2 hir level of Corruption.
Corruption < Charisma. People are frightened by the magus. If ze draws attention to hirself, they tend to be hostile; otherwise, they often go around hir without really noticing that ze exists. All kinds of animals are openly frightened of or antagonistic to the character. In addition to the Charisma penalty, all NPCs the magus meets start out unwary instead of neutral.
Corruption = Charisma (+/- 1, at GM’s discretion). The magus’ level of taint reaches the tipping point. At this level, even NPCs the character knows begin to ignore hir unless ze does something to harm or steal from them. NPCs ze doesn’t know start out unwary or hostile, depending on their worldview. Animals go out of their way to avoid or attack the character. Plants wilt in the character’s presence. Rather than suffering a Charisma penalty, the character now automatically fails all Charisma checks that involve social interaction.
Corruption > Charisma. As the character’s Corruption total rises, even strong-willed people begin to notice hir less and less, except to chase hir with pitchforks. Animals go mad with fear or rage around the character and often make frenzied attacks. Plants wither and die around the character. If hir Corruption continues to go up, weak-willed people start to experience fits of blind rage or terror in hir presence, just like animals do.
Note that the GM never takes the character away from the player, no matter what the level of Corruption.

Losing Corruption

For every week a magus goes without casting a spell, ze loses 2 points of Corruption. The magus doesn't actually have to be perfect about not casting spells. Ze can usually get away with casting a few Level 1 spells throughout a day, but ze cannot cast anything stronger or spend more than a few minutes in an area with a high Residue Count.
For every day a magus spends inside a ley line or magic-rich zone without gaining any Corruption, ze loses 1 point of Corruption. The magus doesn't actually have to spend the entire time inside the zone, but ze cannot leave it for more than an hour or two throughout the entire day, and it has to be in a single day.

Type

Metaphysical, Arcane