Unmaking, School of
The School of Unmaking, sometimes known by the vulgar masses as the School of Destruction, is concerned with the physical bonds that hold together all creatures and matter. By loosing those bonds, the primal magi of this college can revert any object or substance back to its natural elements.
Realm: All physical entities, both living and unliving.
Foci: Magi use tools of destruction, real or symbolic, to act as foci for their unmaking spells. Swords, daggers, and staves are popular tools, but also rings, rods, and crowns. Unmakers commonly scribe runes on parchment or carve them into bone or wood talismans to serve as fetishes to channel their magic. A piece of the target’s body or personality often serves as a material link for the spell, making it much more difficult to resist.
Ritual: Unmaking is primarily a function of will. As such, it requires incantation. Some magi use lengthy incantations that spell out exactly what the spell will do in exacting detail, but some prefer short, loud incantations that get right to the point. Typically, the more comprehensive an unmaking spell has to be, the longer it takes. However, time is not the most pressing concern in unmaking; the risk of backlash is a far greater deterrent.
Effect: A thousand spell rituals created over countless years and across all corners of the world make up the body of learning that forms the school of unmaking. Some concentrate on the target’s molecular bonds. Others operate on an atomic or quantum level. Others simply separate the target into component pieces. The common thread that joins them is that the target suffers internal damage that threatens to tear it apart from the inside. Another huge problem with unmaking spells is that any spell you cast, even a successful one, also deals damage back to you. Generally, this takes the form of rashes, lesions, or boils, and inflicts 1d10 backlash damage for every 3d6 the spell deals, with a minimum of 1/2d10.
Resistance: Always. Since these spells unmake the foundational essence of a thing, living creatures and magic items always get a Saving Throw for half damage with either Constitution or Wisdom, whichever is higher.
Backlash: Nasty. Backlash from an unmaking spell almost always takes the form of physical damage. More serious levels of backlash can melt or fuse skin, cause terrible burns, or spur hideous mutations in the caster; or expand beyond the caster and start unmaking things and people around hir.
Corruption: It may seem like the tool of a killer, but the nature of this school does not absolve the caster from hir actions. Any time a caster uses this magic against a living creature directly, whether it kills the creature or not, ze gains a point of Corruption.
Restrictions: Unmaking, more than other forms of magic, tends to branch out and infect the rest of a magus’ life. It has no restrictions, per se, but in any scene in which a magus uses unmaking magic, any action ze takes runs the risk of causing backlash—not just spell casting. If the magus botches any check during the same encounter, something around hir unravels or disintegrates in a way that thwarts hir success. Almost always, that something is a minor, mundane item that makes life difficult for the character without inflicting serious harm.
Realm: All physical entities, both living and unliving.
Foci: Magi use tools of destruction, real or symbolic, to act as foci for their unmaking spells. Swords, daggers, and staves are popular tools, but also rings, rods, and crowns. Unmakers commonly scribe runes on parchment or carve them into bone or wood talismans to serve as fetishes to channel their magic. A piece of the target’s body or personality often serves as a material link for the spell, making it much more difficult to resist.
Ritual: Unmaking is primarily a function of will. As such, it requires incantation. Some magi use lengthy incantations that spell out exactly what the spell will do in exacting detail, but some prefer short, loud incantations that get right to the point. Typically, the more comprehensive an unmaking spell has to be, the longer it takes. However, time is not the most pressing concern in unmaking; the risk of backlash is a far greater deterrent.
Effect: A thousand spell rituals created over countless years and across all corners of the world make up the body of learning that forms the school of unmaking. Some concentrate on the target’s molecular bonds. Others operate on an atomic or quantum level. Others simply separate the target into component pieces. The common thread that joins them is that the target suffers internal damage that threatens to tear it apart from the inside. Another huge problem with unmaking spells is that any spell you cast, even a successful one, also deals damage back to you. Generally, this takes the form of rashes, lesions, or boils, and inflicts 1d10 backlash damage for every 3d6 the spell deals, with a minimum of 1/2d10.
Resistance: Always. Since these spells unmake the foundational essence of a thing, living creatures and magic items always get a Saving Throw for half damage with either Constitution or Wisdom, whichever is higher.
Backlash: Nasty. Backlash from an unmaking spell almost always takes the form of physical damage. More serious levels of backlash can melt or fuse skin, cause terrible burns, or spur hideous mutations in the caster; or expand beyond the caster and start unmaking things and people around hir.
Corruption: It may seem like the tool of a killer, but the nature of this school does not absolve the caster from hir actions. Any time a caster uses this magic against a living creature directly, whether it kills the creature or not, ze gains a point of Corruption.
Restrictions: Unmaking, more than other forms of magic, tends to branch out and infect the rest of a magus’ life. It has no restrictions, per se, but in any scene in which a magus uses unmaking magic, any action ze takes runs the risk of causing backlash—not just spell casting. If the magus botches any check during the same encounter, something around hir unravels or disintegrates in a way that thwarts hir success. Almost always, that something is a minor, mundane item that makes life difficult for the character without inflicting serious harm.
Type
Metaphysical, Arcane
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