Magus Novice Opus: Prima Materia

It's back!

Rules

Resolution is roll Xd8 and compare success counts. The default success number is 5 but this may be raised or lowered by circumstances. No successes and 1/2 or more 1s rolled produces a botch.

Great Work

To wield magic is to undertake a quest.

A character's Great Work is the objective of their journey in magecraft. Daedalus had the Great Work of 'human flight over the sea'. Nikola Tesla had the Great Work of 'harnessing the power of lightning'. While some are more readily achievable than others, the great work must always be a grandiose or transformative act- capable of escalation to greater and greater heights as the character finds the low-hanging fruit of early achievements sour and unsatisfying.

Characters regain will when they achieve or work towards their Great Work.

Failings

To wield magic is to face failure.

A character's failing is the fatal flaw which undermines their success, whether a lack of courage to face hardship, hubris or simply being the wrong fit for their goals. These are rarely externalities, although illness or terrible curses come with complexes and fears of their own which may make them suitable. In all cases, failings make 1s subtract from rolls. Botches from these rolls also have scenelong effects, rather than simply being dramatic failures.

Suffering the fall of a failing bestows wisdom, allowing magi to overcome themselves.

Legends

To wield magic is to stand on achievement: your own and those who came before.

A character's legends are elements of their being which exist in the realm of mystery, either as mystical trappings inherited from the myth and folklore or simply their own oft-rumored traits. Above the vagaries of fate and manipulating the world by will alone, the seemingly mundane traits of magi take on lives of their own. Sustained contact and control of the azoth transforms and purifies the stories of the will-worker's life, making them unnatural and fantastic: the school's track star becomes a record-breaking athlete and the part-time model is remembered as a legendary beauty. Magi who seek normalcy and modesty find themselves sinking into a stylized, shockingly tasteful sort of hyperreality.

Legends are divided broadly into two types: legacies, mythical objects or traits the character possesses (the bloodline of Merlin, the broken sword of Orlando Furioso, a geas sworn to Macha) and rumors, their mundane yet larger-than-life traits (being a master swordsman, a wizard-class hacker, an impossibly wealthy socialite).

Legends empower the character, with each one adding one Azoth to their limit and one Azoth per scene unless deprived of a means to store new points. Magical society is based on the common links between these legends, both among magi and their otherworldly ancestors. Those without old bloodlines, bequests of storied artifacts often have trouble breaking past the superficiality of modern magi society. Such gifts are not without their own penalties- plenty of people are keen to defeat the latest scion of Merlin to prove the power of their own line, or connive and find a way to turn the geas on its user.

Legends may impose boons or benefits of their own, beyond the social ramification. The man who carries the Sword of Orlando might very well cut apart a small army alone, while the scion of Merlin will entertain great benefits when casting spells. Conversely, a child who carries the blood of wolves might be vulnerable to silver and easily fly into rages.

Stats

Power (P): Physical power and strength.

Finesse (F): Physical precision and swiftness.

Toughness (T): Resistance to pain and injury.

Sensation (S): Situational awareness, mental agility and keen senses.

Intellect (I): Mental horsepower.

Charisma (C): The ability to dominate a situation and attract attention.

Deception (D): The ability to deceive others about your nature and intentions.

Skills

Academics (specify):

Athletics:

Craft (specify):

Delinquency:

Etiquette:

Lore (specify):

Martial Arts (specify):

Military:

Occult:

Rule:

Perform (specify):

Servant:

Sneak:

Technology:

Resources

Will is your reserves of determination. Characters have a permanent Will that determines the maximum they can stockpile, and is sometimes rolled to defend against some mental assaults (many use Sensibility or Intellect instead).

A point of temporary Will can be spent to:

Add a success to a roll. Can be spent retroactively to negate (but not overcome) a botch.

Cast spells when Azoth is exhausted.

Automatically defend against magical effects.

Wisdom is the 'reward' for suffering a Failing. Enduring a botch without paying out of it provides insights that magi can use to climb to ever greater heights. Wisdom has no permanent stat, and is instead accumulated session to session.

A point of Wisdom can be spent to:

Obtain an insight on how to resolve a situation.

Dynamically learn a new spell of any available level, ignoring the Azoth cost. Can be used to go into XP debt.

Enhance social checks with other magi, or other beings of vision and ambition.

Also known as ain soph and mana, azoth is the metaphysical solvent that is essential to magecraft. It allows them to dissolve rigid aspects of reality and refine them according to their vision, and make these changes permanent. With the exception of illusion and divination magic, all spells cost one Azoth per level of the spell (so an L1 spell costs 1 Azoth, an L5 spell costs 5 Azoth, etc.) Magi collect azoth in a variety of ways, from gathering it in their blood or fatty tissues, trapping it in coins of precious metals or gemstones or decanters of alchemical crystal.

Magic

Magic is the term applied to a variety of supernatural arts, which can be categorized in a cause-and-effect manner. While other forms of willworking exist these are not typically learnable and exist as externalities to the world of magi.

Magic that may be learnt by magi are called spells, although programs and invocations are other common names. Spells are constructed using the Heirarchy of Achievement, a pyramid structure where the most advanced discoveries depend on the magi's foundational creations of magic. Spells have a numerical rating, corresponding to approximately how much Azoth is expended to realize them and the number of foundational crafts they needed to be possible for the user.

Level 1 spells require no prior foundations, while any spells a character has of Level 2 must be combined out of two Level 1 spells. Any Level 3 spells must be created out of two Level 2 spells. While common foundations for spells being combined into the next level are allowed, the total number of foundation spells must always be higher than those above (e.g.: having a single Level 3 spell requires 2 Level 2 spells but also 3 Level 1 spells.)

An overly incestuous line of development is likewise a limitation on the character's ability to formulate advanced magecraft, making them overspecialized and vulnerable to logical counters.

Each spell has a set number of parameters. Certain parameters are only available for stronger kinds of magic, and may increase the cost of purchase:

Target

• Self: yourself
• Other: some particular other thing or person
• Scene: larger elements of the scene (req level 3)
• Category: affect all of specific category of things within the range e.g.: people, cats, chairs, knives, etc (req level 3)

Range

• Touch: You need to touch the target
• Local: Can target within a few dozen metres
• Distant: Can target in line of sight (req level 3)
• Realm: Can target in the same dimension (req level 5, 3 XP)
• Cosmos: Can target anywhere (req level 10, 9 XP)

Duration

• Momentary: one round or less
• Transient: one scene (req level 2)
• Persistent: long-term (req level 3)
• Generational: extends across lifetimes (req level 5, 3 XP)
• Aeon: arbitrarily long-term (req level 10, 9 XP)

Effect (spells have default 1 effect, can buy extras for 1 XP)

• Damage: Break stuff (like people)
• Repair: Fix stuff (like people)
• Create: Create substantial things
• Move: Move things
• Transform: Otherwise alter things (specify)
• Scan: Gain information about things

Some spells have modifiers which change their functions and may decrease or increase their cost.

Modifiers

• Coincidental (-1 cost): effects take place through coincidences over time, being less convenient but more deniable.
• Condition (-X cost): the domain has a condition for use, such as only being usable when injured.
• Familiar (+2 for scenelong summon, double for permanent): one of your spells is a unique familiar, manifesting as a creature with (Level x 4) points of HP and (Level) dice to all mundane pools as well as the benefit of your skills. It may cast the spell it is created from freely without Azoth, as well as any spells you place beneath it on your hierarchy of achievement. Additionally, you may 'promote' your familiar by building more spells underneath it and paying the cost to increase this spell's level, allowing it to rise in Level as long as the spells beneath it fulfill normal conditions.
• Mundane (double XP cost): the spell costs no Azoth to use.
• Onerous focus (-2 cost): the domain can only be used through some non-trivial process such as a ritual or use of technology.
• Reflexive (+2 cost): the spell can automatically be activated on a conditional trigger. This does not count against the action limit.

Complications

Unusual traits of magi, owing to eclectic bloodlines. For the purposes of how they work, these are single automatic successes as they apply for and against you.

The possible complications are:

• Druid/Witch: You are a member of a magical tradition with only male or female casters. You may receive hostility from 'modern' magus that see you as outdated, although you have an inexplicable allure to people of the same sex. If you are a male witch or female druid you instead have the undivided enmity of your own house, who view you as a usurper, and have great allure to the opposite sex.
• Famous: You are famous, in the sense that people in the mundane world might recognize you or as a consequence of being the scion of an ancient magical bloodline. People will normally treat you better, but some may secretly plot your downfall.
• Half-Human: Unlike someone with unusual ears, you are actually half-human, possibly a mix of a supernatural species such as a djinni or a vampire and a human. Your style of dress and Magnum Opus probably reflect the sensibilities of your inhuman parentage, such as half-djinn granting wishes to end fights and dhamphir ensorcelling their foes.
• Icy: No matter how hard you try, everything you say comes out flat and probably with a ":I" face. This means people can't tell when you're kidding or serious, and it's actually really creepy. On the upside, your emotions can't be read without Rubedo Arts.
• Immortal: No amount of physical punishment can knock you out, although wounds can accrue until you are physically incapable of moving. You regenerate within a few minutes, but the intervening seconds are unpleasant as you lack an immunity to pain.
• Infernalist: You dabble in various maligned magics, convening with alien intelligences on other worlds and imitating them for power. Your arts are harder to identify, but the strange images and smell of fire and brimstone makes others suspicious when they see your magic.
• Likeable: People just naturally like you because of your good looks, cool demeanor or something weird like pheromones and display fanatical devotion in response to minor kindness, although this can backfire as the people you like can become the targets of jealous followers.
• Necromancer: Using corpses as a material for magic is a taboo art, so many necromancers withdraw processed bone from alchemical subdimensions and assemble them into various undead-like constructs. Despite this, the imagery of a walking corpse is intimidating and may make others uneasy around you. Alternatively, you could be the original type of necromancer that only communicates with spirits, but often get mistaken for the former.
• Poor: You have very little money, which has forced you to be resourceful. While a rich person can easily get anything that can be bought, you know where to get some things that can't. On the other hand, you're always hungry unless your friends split lunches or tired from working a lot of part-time jobs.
• Rich: You are fabulously wealthy and most of your problems are distinctly 1st world, leading to some resentment. Purchased twice and you're rich enough to be a kidnapping target by homeless magi.
• Rival: You have a rival who constantly wants to one-up you. They may be a close friend or hated enemy, but however annoying they might be is offset by the fact that you always seem to be at your best trying to beat them.
• Soul Jar: You don't have a phylactery, but you might be the spiritual prison to an ancient horror or a particularly dangerous ancient magus. Each spell to do such a thing is unique, but generally there's a trigger for its release that you have to be careful to avoid (often, this is being killed). Since they reside in your body, you may draw power from them for your Magnum Opus effects.
• Strange Ears: You have animal or elven ears, neither of which are rare enough to raise eyebrows in magus society. They do mean special hats or the risk of being accused of being a compulsive cosplayer by mundane people.
• Technomage: The industrial revolution didn't exactly leave magic untouched. You might be a new postmodern breed of magi that uses demon summoning programs running off a cellphone, projects electrified wires from your fingertips or pilots various-sized giant robots.