Magic Rules

Magic is the art of using words of power to compel mysterious energies to carry out your will. Casting magic drains your Spirit, leaving you stressed, depressed, or in a foul mood. Conversely, things that bring you joy and happiness replenish your Spirit and allow you to keep casting despite the strain.
Anyone who has any skill with magic can cast cantrips in the corresponding Domain of magic, but only by leveling up and taking the right talents can you attain your true potential as a caster. There are many different variations on magic, but they are all based on the following rules:

Tiers

There are 4 tiers of spells. Cantrip spells are the weakest, having small but useful effects that come at minimal cost. Great spells are a significant expenditure of magical energy. They cost 1 Spirit to cast but their impact is potent. That’s nothing compared to superior spells, which unleash significant, game-changing effects. It’s not uncommon to find a mage cast a superior spell to wipe out a whole room full of enemies, or heal an injury, or solve a problem with a few words of power that would have taken a dozen workers all day to work through. When you cast a superior spell, roll a regular die and lose that much Spirit. If this would cause your Spirit to fall below 0, leave it at 0, but you cannot cast any magic until your Spirit is raised, not even a cantrip.
There is one final tier of spells: ultimate spells. None are more potent. Only the most powerful mages will ever cast an ultimate spell in their lifetime, and rare is the mage who has cast more than a few. There are many theories about how the mind interacts with the realm of magic, but all of them agree that casting an ultimate spell makes it difficult to access that realm of magic again. To that end, you may only attempt one ultimate spell per session. When you successfully cast a specific spell as an ultimate spell, you can never cast that spell again with the same ease. Every future casting treats the cost of the spell as if it were 1 tier higher, while still giving the effects of the usual spell. So if you cast Bless as an ultimate spell once, from then on you cast Bless cantrips as if they were great spells, and great Bless as if it were superior. If you ever cast the superior version, that has the same penalties as an ultimate casting, and now all Bless castings are increased in cost and difficulty another tier. Failing your ultimate spell means you don’t pay these costs, but you still can’t attempt another ultimate spell this session. If an ultimate spell affects a target, but not in the way you hoped, that still counts as a success and you pay the full cost of the spell.

Casting

Different tiers of spells have different innate difficulties, called their tier difficulty. Cantrips require a roll of 2 or higher to succeed, Great Spells 3, Superior Spells 4, and Ultimate Spells 5. Your casting roll will need to meet or beat that difficulty or the spell will not go. Additionally, if you are targeting someone who is unwilling to be affected, they get to roll to resist with Soul/Warding. But if you’re casting on a willing target or one unable to resist, you only need to meet or beat the tier difficulty.
To cast any spell, you need to speak the words of power that command the energies you’re calling to task. A general rule of thumb is that you need to speak loud enough that a typical person would be able to hear your voice at the distance you’re casting, or else the spell won't affect anything at that range. Amplifying your voice won’t increase your range, this is only one of the limits on casting range. But realize that any target with decent hearing will be able to hear the verbal components of any spell you cast.
Spells also require hand motions to gather and direct the energies involved. A person who is bound or has their hands paralyzed will be unable to properly control magical energy. There are some casters, often working for Cora, who can get around these restrictions.

Basic Casting

The default way to cast a spell is to chant words and make motions and launch the energies at your target from afar. You can affect someone up to the further reaches of your range in this manner, or as close as right next to you, or even yourself. Each magic skill comes with a number of associated spells, and whenever you cast one of those spells, that skill they came from is called your casting skill. Roll your casting skill alonside the Intuition attribute to affect the target. Enemies defend with their Intuition/Warding roll, so long as they are able to speak words and make gestures to deflect the magical energies coming at them.

Touch Casting

Touch casting is an option for those who wish to get more hands on. You can cast any spell that affects a single target by chanting the words and channeling the spell through an open hand, or through a magical focus. In this case, you make an Agility/Magic Skill roll against the target's Agility/Warding roll (they use Agility even if they have equipment that changes the attribute they normally defend with). If you succeed, the target is affected; if not they are not. You can also use touch casting on yourself or an ally.

Incorporating a Spell into an Action

Some spells specifically state that you can incorporate the effect into an action. This often involves adding some magical effect on top of a weapon attack such as a status effect or extra elemental damage. But some spells enhance your ability to do a variety of actions. Regardless, roll for success with the skill as usual. If you’re incorporating a spell into an attack, roll your attack as usual, and your target defends as normal. If the skill succeeds or the attack hits, and it also beats the spell’s tier difficulty, the spell also succeeds. Incorporating a spell into a melee attack can be a good way of affecting a target with magic if their magical defense is better than their martial defense, since they only get the defense roll.
Note that the versions of a spell that can be incorporated into an attack are usually weaker than the normal version of the spell at that tier. This is because of the decreased focus you have for casting due to your trying to make an attack against a target that would rather not be hit. The advantage is you can still deal your full weapon damage in addition to the spell's effect.

Concentration

Most spells have instantaneous effects, but some keep a particular effect going as long as you concentrate. As a general rule of thumb, you can keep a concentration effect going as long as you can reasonably keep a thought going in your mind, and you can only have one concentration effect going at a time. Every time you take an injury, you need to succeed on a Soul/Willpower roll at the tier difficulty for the spell or you lose concentration and the effect ends. If that effect was something like you levitating yourself 100 feet in the air, the results can be disastrous. You can of course end concentration any time you wish.
You also need to make a Soul/Willpower roll after concentrating on the spell for ten minutes, and again at 1 hour, and again at 8 hours of concentration, and finally after 24 hours, this last one at a disadvantage due to fatigue. Beyond that, even the most highly disciplined mage’s mind will lose focus around the three day mark, especially given the lack of sleep. And falling asleep always breaks your concentration.

Components

Components are small items infused with magical properties that can be used to make potions and magic items as well as being useful in other magical situations.
Cities with a magical economy might sell components, though the cost varies (we recommend the GM roll 2d6 and multiply by 1 aquill to get the price per component).

Combining Magical Effects

No player may be under the benefits of the same spell more than once, even if that spell derives from different archons or Domains. So if two mages in the party know the spell Quicken, they can’t have those effects on the same target on the same turn. Even if the effects come from two spells with different names, the effects do not stack. So, the same person can’t be taking persistent poison damage from multiple spells. Furthermore, no person may get a bonus to the same stat from two different sources, such as two spells which both happen to increase the Strength attribute.

Creating Magical Items

There are many types of magical items. While enchanting leaves the device with a small trickle of power, a person may attune to one to allow it to draw energy from the Magic Power that flows from their Soul. In doing so, the attuner’s Magic Power is depleted.
The list of spells you know determines which magic items you are able to create. A list of magical item formulas follows, which shows you how to create magic items based on the spells you know and the materials you have on hand. Each item has its own Magic Power rating equal to your Magic Power when you made the item. The power of its magical effect is based on that rating. Creating the item requires a number of components equal to its own Magic Power rating, which can be lower but not higher than the Magic Power rating of its creator. And creating a magic item requires extensive time and concentration, meaning a caster cannot benefit from temporary effects nor from magic which requires their own concentration.
Magic items usually lack the full breadth of variety that a skilled caster can achieve with the spell. Instead, they have a single specific effect. For example, while Wild Form allows you to take the form of any animal, if you were to create a talisman based on that spell, it would likely turn you into a specific creature.
Here are the various templates for Magic Items:

Magic Weapon

You can craft a weapon that has its damage in an elemental type, such as fire or lightning. Alternatively, the weapon can deal its normal damage type, but also do +1 of its own or another type of damage.
At an attunement cost of 1, the weapon can incorporate a cantrip effect into its strike, dealing that effect on top of any damage it does. This should be limited to effects that a great version allows you to incorporate into a weapon attack, but at the GM’s discretion you can include other effects.
At an attunement cost of 3, the weapon can incorporate a great spell effect into the strike. Again, this should be limited to spells which allow you to incorporate the great effect into a weapon attack at the superior tier.

Charm

This item grants a particular static effect. Choose any spell effect that requires concentration to maintain; this item maintains that magic as a constant effect without requiring concentration. It takes an action to start the effect or stop it. By default, this is a cantrip effect but at an attunement cost of 2, it can be a great effect and at an attunement cost of 4 it can be a superior effect.
Note especially the spell formula for Empower(Generic), as it’s a great way to get bonuses. With the GM’s permission, you can use empower as a formula for figuring out what effect the charm has without needing to use that specific spell. For example, perhaps you use the Command Wind spell to create a charm that grants you a bonus to Athletics or the ability to fly.

Talisman

This item casts the spell used to create it. Choose any spell. It can cast that spell at the cantrip level at will and has a number of charges equal to the attunement cost. Expending one charge allows you to cast once at the great tier while expending 3 charges allows you to cast once at the superior tier (provided the one who made it had the ability to cast at those tiers themself). Charges are refreshed at the end of a session, regardless of how much in-game time that represents. If your sessions run long, they refresh after 4 hours of gameplay instead.
While the power of the spell is determined by the item’s Magic Power, you choose the skill that is used in place of casting skill. It always takes an action to cast a spell with a talisman, so you can't make a talisman that releases magical energy without some sort of action on the user's part and bypass the action economy in that manner.

Attunement

You will likely encounter many magical items on your journeys. Magical items provide you a small benefit, but if you attune to them, they draw on your own soul to power their magical effects. Each magic item has an attunement cost that usually runs from 1-4, and after attuning, your Magic Power is reduced by that amount and you get access to the magic item’s much more potent attuned effect.
Attuning to an item takes an hour of focused concentration with the object. The details vary from person to person. A warrior may take a sword of lightning and go through weapon drills with it, repeating the motions until she feels the weapon is an extension of her body. A nature mage may go into the wilds and mark the ground with ritual symbols to attune to her staff of power. A thief may go out drinking while wearing his cloak of concealment, passing out drunk and waking up attuned. Different people have different ways of clearing out the distractions. The point is, you must dedicate an hour working with your item, and after that, you are attuned.
While attuned to the object, no one else can attune to it until you release your attunement, which you can do as a standard action. If a person dies, all their attunements are severed, and someone else may attune to any of their items.
There are rare magical items that do not require attunement. These have a person’s soul bound into them, and as such have a certain will to them. Some are saints who gladly gave their lives to watch over this world. Their magic items generally require noble character on behalf of the bearer. But most such items contain helpless victims whose souls were trapped by a necromancer to power the device. They look for ways to get through the cracks in the magical bonds that contain them and inflict their madness and pain on anyone who would exploit them. Either way, the cost for these items is not in the attunement, but in the personality and will of the item and the soul within.

Variant Magics

The rules above are the classic forms of magic, which work well for most instances. For those wanting a different approach, here are some suggestions.

Runes

With rune marking, magic users prepare their spells ahead of time and inscribe them as runes on an object, to be activated by various methods. While this system requires more forethought than typical casting, it is a great way to strengthen and empower the entire party.

Patron Magic

With patron magic, rather than drawing power from yourself, you draw it from an archon. A system of vows governs your relationship with that archon, and the better you serve the more power you have available to you. This adds more of a narrative focus to magic for those who want something more personal than mechanical.

Alchemy

Alchemy is a more complex and convoluted magic system. Like runic magic, it requires preparing spells beforehand. However, it requires more expenditure of money and less in Spirit. It also allows the person to tweak the spell formulae a little bit. This system is good for those who enjoy digging into rules and thinking through ways to combine effects to achieve useful outcomes.

Pushing the Limits of Magic

Sometimes you might want to do something with a spell that would make sense for that spell, but isn't specifically mentioned in the spell description. Maybe you want to use Command Light to perform shadow puppetry. Maybe you want to clothe a centaur with Pants of Perfection. Maybe you want to conjure an anvil via Armory. All of these are things that may or may not be possible for those spells.
In an RPG, when you're not sure what will happen, you roll the dice, and spells are no different. If an effect for a spell seems only plausible, the GM can adjust the difficulty of the casting check upward to see if the caster has the talent to stretch a spell and achieve the required effect. This only affects the tier difficulty. So if it's an opposed roll, the odds your spell

Example: Command Fire

The spell Command Fire allows you to create and control certain amounts of fire. Here's a guideline as to how we would handle modifying a spell.
Things that are mostly cosmetic changes to the spell have no change in difficulty, such as changing the color of the fire. Also, breathing fire from your mouth would also be a standard spell effect, since both the cantrip and great versions allow you to damage a single person with fire and breathing fire is a simple enough way of doing that. You could also ho Since you can conjure or extinguish fire, you could certainly suppress or enhance a fire.
But some things might be more difficult. Command fire is mostly about harming with fire as well as moving or extinguishing it. But it's possible you could change a fire to put out more or less smoke, or to have it burn in a specific shape. The spell doesn't say you can do these things specifically, but it allows you to do similar enough things that it would make sense. But you'd have to reach a higher difficulty than the usual tier difficulty to pull one of these. A lenient GM might allow you to extinguish all the candles in a room or make all the torches glow with eldritch light, even though the spell only specifies one fire at a time.
However, there are some things you won't be able to do no matter how well you roll. These might include increasing the damage, or casting the spell twice in the same turn. There are talents that allow you to mess with some of the core functions of a spell, but a simple high roll is not enough to make such significant change.

Ultimate Spells

Ultimate spells are usually allowed more leeway than magics. The significant cost to casting one, and they can achieve amazing effects. The player and GM should feel free to discuss the possibilities of an ultimate spell and what they can achieve with one.