Spellcraft
Structure
Spellcraft is the craft of working magic in battle and of reaching beyond your own tradition.
Spellcraft has no trials of its own. Its mastery die is added to, or replaces a die in, other rolls, as each discipline and ability says.
At Untrained, you gain Duelist. At each mastery level, you choose one Spellcraft ability. At Basic, Expert, and Grand Master, you also choose one tradition discipline.
| Level | Gains |
|---|---|
| Untrained | Duelist + 1 ability |
| Basic | 1 tradition + 1 ability |
| Skilled | 1 ability |
| Expert | 1 tradition + 1 ability |
| Master | 1 ability |
| Grand Master | 1 tradition + 1 ability |
Duelist
When you make a trial in a duel, add your Spellcraft mastery die to the roll.
Tradition Disciplines
Choose a tradition other than your own. You can draw new spells from that tradition's sources as well as your own (see Magic Mastery, Discovery). At a foreign source, perform your own tradition's practice and roll your Spellcraft mastery die + your mastery die in the source's form. A spell you learn this way belongs to your own tradition.
- Occult Spellcraft: occult writings and teachings, such as grimoires, treatises, and the instruction of other practitioners. Reading and writing scrolls remains part of Trade (Scribe). If your own tradition is Telluric, you can draw from a written source only by giving it voice: it is read aloud, by you or another, and recomposed into memory.
- Priscan Spellcraft: fonts of priscan magic, where wild magic wells up through wind, earth, and water.
- Telluric Spellcraft: natural sacred sites, such as ley lines, faerie circles, and sacred groves.
- Theurgic Spellcraft: holy sites, such as shrines, temples, and sacred grounds.
Spellcraft Abilities
At each mastery level, choose one ability you have not already chosen.
Bolster, Magical Absorption, or Magical Reflection
These are three ways to meet magic aimed at you. You can choose only one of them.
Bolster: Before you make a trial to resist a magical attack or effect, you may spend 1 AP and 1 magan to add your Spellcraft mastery die to the roll.
Magical Absorption: Before you make a trial to resist a magical attack or effect, you may spend 1 AP to make it a Spellcraft mastery trial instead, using the attribute tier die the trial normally uses + your Spellcraft mastery die. If you succeed, you resist the effect and regain magan by the rank of its source: 1 for a Minion, 2 for an Adept, 3 for a Leader, 4 for a Champion, 5 for a Master, 6 for an Epic, and 7 for a Legendary creature, up to your maximum. A source with no rank gives 1, or as the GM decides.
Magical Reflection: Before you make a trial to resist a magical attack or effect that targets only you, you may spend 1 AP to make it a Spellcraft mastery trial instead, using the attribute tier die the trial normally uses + your Spellcraft mastery die. If you succeed, you resist the effect and may pay magan by the rank of its source to turn it back on that source: 1 for a Minion, 2 for an Adept, 3 for a Leader, 4 for a Champion, 5 for a Master, 6 for an Epic, and 7 for a Legendary creature. A source with no rank costs 1, or as the GM decides. The effect keeps its own DC and dice. A reflected effect that cannot affect its source fails.
Diacope
You can pay a spell's magan with health, 1 health per magan, up to twice your Spellcraft mastery level for each spell. Each point paid lowers both your current and maximum health by 1 until you rest. If this takes you to 0 health, each magan paid this way removes 1 round from your dying timer, and you gain an Injury for each spell paid this way. A spell paid partly in blood cannot use a material component.
Magical Shield
When you defend against a mundane attack, you may spend 1 magan to add your Spellcraft mastery die to the defense roll. You can defend against ranged attacks even if not wielding a shield. You cannot add Magical Shield to a defense that is itself a spell or cantrip, such as Aegis.
Magical Strike
When you make a weapon attack, you may spend 1 magan to add your Spellcraft mastery die to the attack roll.
Pretermit
When a spell you are casting is lost, you may spend 1 AP as a reaction to regain magan equal to your Spellcraft mastery level, up to the spell's magan cost.
Snye
When you stop casting a declared spell, you may begin casting a Fast spell you did not declare instead. It resolves in the Slow phase. The declared spell is lost (see Magic Mastery, Interrupted Casting). The Fast spell is cast normally, with its own magan and AP.
Wale
When you cast a spell with an area, you may exclude up to your Spellcraft mastery level in 5-foot squares from it, paying 1 magan per square on top of the spell's cost. This magan does not count toward the spell's cost for its speed or miscast trial. Creatures in an excluded square take no damage and no conditions from the spell, though anything the spell creates still forms around them.