Magus Novice Opus

A darkly comedic game about young magi in a highschool setting.

Chargen

Your character's mental and physical self are built on 21 CP. Note that in combat, hitting targets with magical effects is actually determined by an appropriate attribute, with net successes over the defense adding to the effect of the roll. In mundane combat, those net successes get rolled as the /only/ damage.

Stats

• Physical: Running, jumping, shooting, etc.
• Smarts: Thinking, general knowledge, etc.
• Perception: Tracking the invisible, spotting clues, reading fine print, etc.
• Integrity: Resistance to enchantments, ability to keep stony faced, etc.
• Charisma: Persuasion, moe, bargaining with demons, etc. Be glad you're a college student and get slightly more respect than higschoolers.

Costs:

• 1: 0 CP - People picked on you about this.
• 2: 1 CP - You're perfectly average, and that's okay.
• 3: 3 CP - You're uncomfortably close to being good at something but sometimes beaten by total amateurs.
• 4: 6 CP - You probably headed up a club or team in high school and might have taken them to a regional something.
• 5: 10 CP - Are you sure you're a normal highschooler, and not a babyfaced Spetsnaz operator with a PHD in disguise?
• Specialities Cost the same as a stat of one level higher. They do not have to be linked to a particular stat.

Magic

You have 21 MP to generate your character's magical abilities and may divide them into any of four Arts:

Nigredo (Black Magic)

The blackness creates entropy and chaos in the world. Using Nigredo Arts allows a magus to conjure forth flame or other destructive elements, create illusions or fill things with energy.

• Specialization: Sample specializations for Nigredo first ascribe an image or an element on which they fixate, such as Fire (+1), their chaos is later bound to a single motion such as Destruction (+2) and finally becomes sealed within a specific easily circumvented process such as Incineration or Rotting (+3).
• Techniques: Fireball, Curse, Mental Suggestion, Illusions, Lightning Sword.

Albedo (White Magic)

The whiteness is the art that purifies and orders. Albedo Arts can restore living or inanimate things, protect people and locations and distort time and space.

• Specialization: Sample specializations for Albedo make emphasize a single aspect such as Time (+1) or a narrow but generally useful category of target like Living (+1) that does not significantly alter how the art can be applied, escalating to a specific category of subject such as Humans (+2) or a limited range like Touch (+2). Extremely specialized Albedo could have a personal-only range of Self (+3) or be limited to a single act like Heal (+3).
• Techniques: Heal/Repair, Remove Curse, Barrier/Ward, Time Dilatation, Switch Teleport.

Citrinitas (Yellow Magic)

The yellowness represents the awakening of power, consciousness and spirituality. Citrinitas is used for crafting magical devices for single-shot applications, summoning creatures and turning the mundane into the sublime and supernatural.

• Specialization: Sample specializations for Citrinitas first define the art of the maker to a single craft such as Artificing (+1), then draws it down to a specific type of creation such as Golems (+2) and finally ends with creations with inherent flaws or exploitable qualities such as Flammable Rabits (+3) or Salt Golems (+3).
• Techniques: Summon Familiar (Unique), Imprison, Create Automatons/Create Familiars (Generic), Enchanted Weapon/Ammunition.

Rubedo (Red Magic)

The redness is wisdom, synthesis and excellence. Rubedo is used for augmenting and transforming things in the world as well as the arts of divination.

• Specialization: Sample specializations for Rubedo limit the applications to a specific type of subject such as Living (+1) or branch of effects such as Augmentation (+1) and peak at Self (+2) and Augment Living (+2). Highly specialized Rubedo includes specific techniques such as Augment Physique (+3) or Danger Sense (+3).
• Techniques: Armored Skin, Superstrength, Mind Reading, Doppelganger, Hyperskill (Choose).

Costs

Each new rank costs (New Rating x2) until rank 5, at which point it becomes ([New Rating -5] x5).

• 1: 2 MP
• 2: 6 MP
• 3: 12 MP
• 4: 20 MP
• 5: 30 MP
• 6: 35 MP
• 7: 45 MP
• 8: 60 MP
• 9: 80 MP
• X: 105 MP
• Extra Technique: 1 MP

Techniques

Regardless of their various Arts, all magi are assumed to have the ability to fly and project psychic invisibility, the strength and speed of which are determined by their regular rather than magical attributes.

In addition to these, each magus has a number of Techniques, specialties within their Arts that they excel at. These are refined and natural abilities that are rolled with a bonus of +1d at Art 1, +2d at Art 3, +3d at Art 6 and +3d at Art 9. Since Art X is arbitrarily powerful, any techniques by such a preeminent Magus can instead assume to roll as many dice as it is being opposed with if that number is higher than 14.

A magus normally has a number of Techniques equal to their Art rating. Individual techniques can be upgraded by sacrificing (or buying) extra slots, converting one of the dice into an automatic success on an odd-numbered upgrade and adding another dice on even-numbered upgrades. A single technique cannot be upgraded more than the rating of the Art it belongs to. (Therefore an Art 4 Technique upgraded 3 times would have a total of 5 dice and 2 automatic successes, 4 times would have 6 dice and 2 automatic successes, etc...)

This can also be used to represent extra-strong familiars, magic swords made of fire or even particularly unusual inherent powers like being made of invincible fire.

Magnum Opus

Each magus has a Magnum Opus, the ultimate goal of their practice of magic (or in some cases, the goal of an entire lineage of magi), an ideal that they try embody or the shape of their magic unleashed to its fullest and most uncontrolled.

Magnum Opus is acquired by spending XP in the middle of session at a dramatic moment rather than during downtime and accrues slowly. Every interval of 12 grants a character a Magnum Opus point that can be spent at any time to automatically succeed at a challenge in a way thematic to the character.

NOTE: These points are single use and trivial applications like winning at pachinko or watering the housecats, while hilarious, would also be catastrophic.

Equipment

Finally, a character has a number of magical accessories that add flavor.

• Hat Color/Style: Wide-brimmed hats are in fashion, but uniform style have fallen out of favor of self-expression. This is good news for magi with cat ears, who've always gotten a raw deal wearing normal hats.
• Cape Color/Style: The average magi's cape is bulletproof if enhanced with the right magics and stores a nearly limitless number of utility items for casting spells. It's fairly standard to match cape to hat style in order to avoid committing a fashion faux-pas.
• Personal Accessory: A magic wand, staff, living ermine cape or even a sword in the rare cases such an item isn't a temporary artifice of Citrinitas Arts but a permanent wonder. Each character is allowed a specific example that modifies their usage of attributes and rounds out their abilities.
  • Weapons: Apply the character's Physical (+net successes) in the damage step instead of only rolling the net successes.
  • Wonders: Have a single fixed 'Technique' that applies when activated, dealing d4 +[1] effect dice at chargen and scaling up as the character improves. This can be from an Art the magus does not possess.