CP 2020 Fantasy Hack - Magic 1.0

Magic Users utilize a basic roll of POW + "Arcane Arts" + School Skill + d10, plus situational modifiers vs. a DIFF that varies based on the scale of the magic attempted. Anyone with "Arcane Arts" may attempt any spell, even if they do not have the relevant School Skill, but it is more difficult and will take them longer. Each casting reduces POW by one point, none on a critical success, by 1d6 on a critical failure. Each hour of uninterrupted sleep or meditation restore one POW. Once POW reaches 0, all spells are one level of difficulty harder, and any failure is a critical failure.

Modifiers - These modifiers apply to standard Aestas "Arts and Techniques". Note that some magical traditions are quasi-religious, and benefit from both sacrifices and additional participants. These modifiers are indicated with a *, and do not apply to all spell casting.

• • Range - Self                                            +6

  • Range - Touch                                         +2

  • Range - Sight                                          +0

  • Range - per 50m out of LOS                      -1

  • Basic knowledge of target                         +2

  • Intimate knowledge of target                      +4

• Spell affects extra people                          -2 per person

• Per hour of meditative preparation              +1

• Instant ceremony (1 turn)                           -5

• Brief ceremony (5 minutes)                        -2

• Ceremony (per half hour)                           +1

• Performed on "Power Day"                        +1 or more

• Performed at "Power Location"                  +1 or more

• Performed with "Power Item"                     +1 or more

• Expert (Ritual Magic)                                +1 per 2 levels

• Sacrifice (per $250)                                   +1*

• Sacrifice (small animal)                             +2*

• Sacrifice (large animal)                              +4*

• Sacrifice (human)                                     +6*

• Per 25 participants (chanting along)           +1*

  • Per 5 trained assistants (with the Arts)       +1*

  • Per co-caster (knows the ritual)                 +1*

Resistance Roll - In all cases where magic is used directly against a target, a resistance roll is made. The basic roll for a prepared, magically trained foe is the same as the casting roll, POW + "Arcane Arts" + School Skill + d10 against the caster's actual roll. The defender wins a tie in this case. A prepared defender may use their school skill, assuming they know the spell being used, while an unprepared defender (surprised or simply caught unaware) may not. A normal human resists only with POW + d10, and will rarely resist a magical attack. Some mundane skills, such as "Meditation", "Endurance", or "Resist Torture/Drugs" may apply and can be used in the resistance roll.

SCHOOLS OF MAGIC

The specific skill involved depends on the spell being cast, but can be defined as one of several "schools", a broad category of magic that is considered a single individual skill in CP2020 terms. These are referred to as "Arts and Techniques".

Animalism - Spells involving control of plants and animals. Note that communication with plants is usually very slow and fatiguing, due to the difficulties involved.

• 15 - Detect animals or plants of a specific type within 100m.

• 20 - Summon all animals of a specific type within 100m; Cause a single tree or patch of plants to grow or give fruit rapidly

• 25 - Influence an animal or plant, transmitting emotions and simple ideas; Cause a single tree or patch of plants to move, snaring pursuers, hiding traces, et cetera. 

• 30 - Communicate telepathically with an animal or plant.

Divination – Spells providing information, whether through scrying or classic divination. These spells operate alongside the "Infomancy" rules in Grimm's Cybertales p.102-105, and are somewhat more reliable in operation than more traditional forms of divination as practiced by hedge wizards and village soothsayers. 

• • 10 - Detect an attempt to scry or divine on a particular target; Increase the difficulty of divination of a subject by +2;

• 15 - Sense all who have touched an object within a few years past; get a usefully specific foreboding about an event soon to occur; 

• 20 - Sense a major event in a person's past; Heighten one sense by +1 or more; Project one sense to a distance, usually hearing or sight;  

• 25 - Sense a major event in a location's past; 

• 30 - Sense a major event in an item's past;  Detect a target's location within a range of a few kilometers; Sense the future course of events with some reliability. 

• 35 - Sense all beings within range; Detect a targets location within a range of hundreds of kilometers.

Elementalism - Spells involving natural forces, including weather, fire, and so forth.

• 10 - Sense the presence and qualities of elemental forces; Raise or lower the ambient temperature by a few degrees;

• 15 - Do 1d6 or more with a direct attack using fire, ice, or lightning; Raise or lower the ambient temperature drastically;

• 20 - Manipulate the environment in the immediate vicinity, bringing a tremor, storm, rain, winds, et cetera; Summon elemental spirits to serve the caster;

• 25 - Raise or lower the ambient temperature dangerously fast; Create unnatural displays of elemental forces, doing 2d6 or more; Make oneself immune to elemental hazards for a time

• 30 -  Manipulate the environment in the local area, bringing tremors, rain, wind, storms, et cetera; Manipulate the environment in the immediate vicinity, bringing dangerous earthquakes, winds, hail, or lightning

• 35 - Manipulate the environment in the local area, bringing dangerous earthquakes, winds, hail, or lightning strikes.

• 40 - Summon up a drought, hurricane, volcanic eruption, major earthquake, or similar regional disaster.

• 50 - Permanently change the climate of an entire region.

Enchantment - Spells that give, remove, or modify arcane properties to items. Enchantment is kind of a special case, and requires a few special rules, which are detailed in the next section.

• 10 - Detect the presence of enchantments; 

• 15 - Identify enchantments on items that are determined to be magical;

• 20 - Place or remove a single enchantment on an item with a short duration or single use.

• 25 - Place or remove a single enchantment on an item with a long duration, or multiple uses.

• 30 - Place or remove a single enchantment on an item with a permanent duration or unlimited uses.

Evocation - Spells involving the spirit world, including summoning and binding of spirits of various sorts.

• 10 - Detect the presence of spirits within range; Gain some insight into the nature of spirits present within range;

• 15 - Communicate with spirits in the spirit world;See phased objects and anything within range on the spirit plane;  Inflict pain upon spirits in a direct attack, reducing COOL, EMP, or INT by 1d6.

• 20 - Summon spirits to manifest in the material world; Command a spirit to perform a single specific task and then return to the spirit realm; Phase objects into the spirit plane, making them incorporeal;

• 25 - Bind a spirit to service for an extended period; Banish a spirit from the material world for an extended time.

• 30 - Character can physically enter the spirit plane, body and all possessions become invisible and incorporeal, allowing for travel in this plane.

• 35 - Open a gateway for extraplanar entities to bodily enter the material world from another dimension.

Force - Spells creating or modifying kinetic energy, levitation, force fields, or blasts of direct damage.

• • 10 - Sense the presence of forces and force-based magic;

• 15 - Throw a small object with sufficient force to act as a weapon; Exert force in a precise way, acting roughly like a human hand; Reduce the force of physical attacks using a shield of force, SP=5;

• 20 - Direct force attack doing 1d6 or more; Reduce the force of physical attacks using a shield of force, SP=10; Manipulate objects weighing many kilograms, at a maximum of 10km/hr; Levitate one's self or others, slowly and imprecisely.

• 25 - Direct attack doing 1d6 or more, but treated as an "edged" weapon for armor purposes; Reduce the force of physical attacks using a shield of force, SP=15;

• 30 - Fly using redirected kinetic energy, at tens of kilometers per hour, for many minutes; Reduce the force of physical attacks using a shield of force, SP=20;

• 35 - Manipulate heavy objects, weighing several tons, at a maximum of 10km/hr; Reduce the force of physical attacks using a shield of force, SP=25;

Fortune – Spells affecting probability, such as blessings and curses with a duration of one day or so.

• 10 - +/-1 to a single skill roll; Sense the presence of a blessing or curse on a target; Determine the sender or intended target of a blessing or a curse;

• 15 - +/-2 to a single skill roll; Ward off or dispel a blessing or curse;

• 20 - +/-3 to a single skill roll; +/-1 to a skill for a time; Gain a lover;

• 25 - +/-4 to a single skill roll; +/-2 to a skill for a time; Good or bad luck, friends or enemies on Lifepath; +/-1 on Death Saves; Illness, nausea and -4 REF for a week;

• 30 - +/-3 to a skill for a time;+/-2 on Death Saves;

• 35 - +/-4 to a skill for a time; +/-3 on Death Saves

• 40 - Wish for $1000 or more to fall into one's possession; +/-4 on Death Saves

• 45 - Wish for a 'Minor Event" to occur

• 50 - Wish for a "Major Event" or for someone's death

Health – Spells manipulating the internal processes of living things.

• • 10 - Diagnose an injury, sickness, or parasite in another;

• 15 - Cure or inflict a minor disease in another being; Ignore stun saves and death saves for a short time, with interest. 

• 20 - +/-1 to an attribute; Double the daily healing rate of another for a few days;

• 25 - +/-2 to an attribute; Bestow COOL points to another, maximum 12, for a few hours; Mend broken limbs and ruptured organs, healing a few points of damage, or stabilize a dying target; Exert fine control over one's own metabolism, reducing need for food or air, or to feign death. 

• 30 - +/-3 to an attribute; Cure or inflict a major disease in another being; Perform magical surgery on another without requiring equipment. Alter one's own appearance by changing one's skin.

• 35 - +/-4 to an attribute; Bestow EMP points to another, maximum 12, for a few hours; Restore the recently deceased, as per the rules for mortality; Restore a crippled or amputated limb.

• 40 - Restore the less recently deceased to life, within no more than a few hours of death.

Illusion and Creation - Spells creating illusory objects without material existence, or involving the manipulation or temporary creation of matter.

• 10 - Create a two dimensional image of varying size; Detect the presence of an illusion or created matter; Discern or detect the location and qualities of matter.

• 15 - Alter the shape of unliving matter as desired, without changing composition or density; Place an unmoving illusion over the outside of a real object, making it appear as something else;

• 20 - Create a moving illusion with the capacity to fool most people. 

• 25 - Alter the size and density of unliving matter by 10% per turn or more. Destroy unliving matter by scattering its atoms, of varying size or density (difficulty depends on how tough it is)

• 30 - Create new unliving matter out of nothingness, of average density and any shape, but limited duration; Create a long last illusion, capable of independent action until dispelled.

• 35 - Create new unliving matter of average density and shape, but of permanent duration; 

Mentalism - Spells directly affecting sentient minds, including telepathy and mental attacks.

• 10 - Sense the emotions of a target;

• 15 - Influence initial reaction roles by +/-10% as desired; Induce sleep in a target; Amplify one emotion present in a target; Learn one major bit of info about the target's identity; Force memory onto a target;

• 20 - Influence initial reaction roles by +/- 25% as desired; Send messages a target via dreams; Suppress one emotion present in a target; Read surface thoughts of a target; Distract a target mentally, -1d6 on all skills for a time; Force memories deep into the subconscious of a target

• 25 - Cause a target to trust or distrust a person implicitly; Communicate with a target in their dreams; Cause a target to not be aware of some object or person; Learn the prime motivations of a target; Render a target unconscious for a short time; Permanently erase a memory in a target's mind.

• 30 - Deaden a target's senses, making them blind or deaf; Reduce or increase a target's COOL or EMP by 1d6 or more for a time; Learn hidden information from a target; Seamlessly insert new memories into a target, which they will accept as real; Inflict nightmares on a target that can result in permanent loss of COOL;

• 35 - Change a target's long held opinions on a subject; Inflict a long lasting phobia on a target; Search through the memories of a target and see them; Directly attack a target's psyche, doing 1d6 damage and reducing INT by 1d6 or more for a time. 

Necromancy – Spells involving death and the undead

• 10 - Detect death and the undead;

• 15 - Summon or banish mindless undead; Summon the spirits of the recently dead for questioning; Do 1d6 or more with a direct necromantic attack on the target.

• 20 - Control mindless undead; Summon or banish willful undead; Summon the spirits of the long dead for questioning; Force a death save by disrupting the target's life force.

• 25 - Create mindless undead; Control willful undead; Force a death save at -2

• 30 - Create willful undead; Force a death save at -4

  • 35 - Create liches and similarly powerful undead; Force a death save at -6

In addition to the "Arts and Techniques" listed above, other forms of magical arts are available. These include: