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Advanced Spellcasting Rules

Introduction​

This covers advanced rules for spellcasting, explaining what a spell would look like in lore and the surface effect mechanic.

Audiovisual Effects​

All schools are associated with different audiovisual effects and gestures. Gestures are necessary for any caster of that school to use and master to cast the appropriate spells.

  • Color: Nearly all schools are associated with one or more colors, which is usually the color most commonly associated with the element in the world.
  • Circle: All spells cast on a person are associated with a visible circle, but the content inside the circle varies.
  • Chant: Chant is the audio component of a spell. Nearly all spells must be cast with an utterance, whether it be calling out the literal name of your spell, invoking the fury of nature, or blessing the name. This is done in the caster’s native language, making it hard to tell foreign caster’s intentions.
  • Gestures: Gestures are necessary to cast a spell.
  • Symbol: Color is not enough to tell apart a spell. Giving form to magic requires symbolic meaning. All schools have a type of symbol associated with it, which can be visually seen in the Spell Circle created by the spell.
  • Intensity and Glow: The intensity of the magical glow in a spell is directly proportional to its power, alongside the size of the spell circle. See the Mana Cost & Intensity part for more details.

Each school will have their Color, Chant, Symbol and Gestures detailed in its description

Mana Cost & Intensity​

The cost of a spell in mana, size of its magical circle (If cast on person) and intensity of its light (Measured in area it can light up) is as follow:

  • Level 0: 1 Mana | 3cm Across (1 inch) | A small section of a paper
  • Level 1: 4 Mana | 5cm Across | Illuminate an entire A4 Paper
  • Level 2: 8 Mana | 10cm Across| Illuminate a typical work desk
  • Level 3: 12 Mana | 15cm Across | Illuminate a typical work desk
  • Level 4: 16 Mana | 20cm Across | Illuminate a small living room
  • Level 5: 20 Mana | 25cm Across | Illuminate a large living room

And so on thereforth. The temporary nature of the light makes it unreliable to illuminate a room and provides no advantage in combat. However, in a dark place it is sufficient to alert everyone you’re casting a spell.

Permanent Spell​

Some spells can be rendered Permanent. Those spells will be listed as Permanentizable in their statblock.

Permanentization requires a ritual circle equal in size to 1.61m x the Spell Level. Level 0 spells cannot be made permanent.

Permanentizable spell have a paragraph on the materials, silver cost and motions / cast required within the circle to render it permanent. Sometimes it can vary.

Surface Effect​

Some spells modify a piece of terrain, by modifying the ground. They have the following properties:

  • Normally, they can only apply to solid ground (No setting water on fire). Tiles that target non-solid ground simply don’t have the effect applied.
  • They last until they expire, which is usually 3 rounds.
  • If a surface effect spell is cast on top of another, then the surface effects of the lower level spell is canceled. If equal level, then the newer spell overrides the old spell’s surface effect, including on non-overlapping tiles.
  • Can be used by GM to represent map hazard
    • When used to represent environmental hazard, they cannot be overridden (Unless otherwise stated)
    • Rule about non-solid ground doesn’t apply when used to represent map hazards
  • Surface Effects are split into Weak and Strong effects

Surface effects can be used to represent map hazards blah blah. It is explicitly stated that it applies a surface effect in spell blah blah. Surface effects override each other if their areas overlap with no special interactions. Unless it is map based, then it doesn’t.

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