Oh, oh, oh it's magic~
Magic can only be performed by those with the Arcane Background (Magic) edge, aka unicorns (and a few of the other races). Those without it can still take the Spellcraft skill, but it only represents their arcane knowledge and can't actually perform spells (except perhaps in certain situations the GM allows, like Arcane Background (Weird Magic) or rituals (see below)).
Magic in My Little Pony: Savage Adventures uses the No Power Points Setting Rule, to reduce on bookkeeping. Optionally you may decide to use the standard Power Points setting rule instead.
In My Little Pony: Savage Adventures, Arcane Background (Magic) works as follows:
As is standard in Savage Worlds, the skill used to activate Powers via Arcane Background (Magic) is Spellcasting, which is linked to the Smarts Attribute. Twilight ur an egghead
Activating a spell works as usual with the No Power Points rule:
You get 3 free starting powers. In addition, all unicorns automatically 3 "freebie" powers; see Inherent Spells below.
Each new additional Power (and associated Trapping) is one Advance, as per usual Savage Worlds rules.
If your spellcraft die rolls a natural 1 (regardless of the Wild die), you suffer a backlash effect:
Spells cannot be (easily) maintained indefinitely. Maintaining a spell beyond its duration imposes a -1 Fatigue penalty (cumulative with each extended duration). (Why else would Cadance and Shining Armor get tired keeping up their respective shield spells?). This "spell" Fatigue doesn't lead to Incapacitation by itself, but over time it will make it very, very, very difficult to do anything else, and if you're hit by any other source of damage or Fatigue, that can push you over to Incapacitation.
Example: Cadance is maintaining her "make love not war" (Boost Trait: Spirit) spell over the Crystal Empire to stop King Sombra from taking over. To be extremely generous, her "Make Love Not War" spell has a 1 hour duration, so every hour she keeps that spell up she gets an additional -1 Fatigue penalty. As Shining Armor states in The Crystal Empire pt1, Cadance doesn't sleep and barely eats: after 3 days of this she has a whopping -72 Fatigue penalty to do anything else. And that's why her husband had to chuck her off the balcony. :D ...i mean D:
Casting another spell while maintaining another also imposes a spellcasting penalty as usual with the No Power Points rule; for each current maintained spell it's -1 to the Spellcast roll.
Once you stop maintaining the spell, the spell Fatigue penalty goes away at a rate the GM feels is appropriate (~1 Fatigue/hr).
Interruption in MLP:SA works as usual with the No Power Points setting rule.
Your horn must be uncovered (and for the most part, unbroken) in order to cast magic (at least one inch freedom).
So basically if you saran wrap a unicorn's horn, no spells. No, dropping a bag over a unicorn's head doesn't count. See Hearth's Warming Eve; it's implied that if "Clover's" horn had been fully encased in stone they all would've frozen.
If a unicorn's horn is broken or otherwise damaged, they have a -6 additional penalty to spellcast.
All powers start with the generic unicorn "oooh glowy" trapping, but at first taking a Power a player can also choose a single optional trapping that the character can use on and off.
For instance, Rarity can take the Entangle spell. Generically the spell just magically ties an opponent down, but Rarity can also use her Trapping to make it so it's the clothes of her target unraveling and restraining her target.
Trappings are the life and soul of magic in Savage Worlds; use Trappings to make your spell unique to your character! Every pony is unique, and your spells should be too. It's not called Bolt, it's called Twilight Party Cannon! :D For some inspiration, check out the Savage Spellbook and the Example Trappings for MLP:SA.
Note that Trappings can also give your spell additional effects, like Light, Sound, or Electricity, for the cost of additional spell penalties or smaller effect radius. See the core Savage Worlds rulebook.
Every unicorn knows some inherent basic magic, which are basically three things: lifting things with their magic, create light, and knowing when something is magical in the first place. Inherent Spells represent these basic concepts, and saves unicorn characters from "wasting" spellslots. ;D
Inherent Spells have these characteristics:
In return, you get these "spells" effectively for free as Inherent Spells:
Also remember you can take the Power straight up and attain its full ability, which means that you get to personalize the Power with Trappings (which means it can have additional effects) and tailor it to your character's spell repertoire.
Unicorns can also cast spells they've learned from spellbooks, without having to actually take the Power as an advance.
In order to do this, they must be 1 rank higher than the Power, and when they acquire the spellbook they have to make a successful Investigation check, which takes 1 day for Novice, 1 week for Seasoned spells, 2 weeks for Veteran, and 1 month for Heroic spells. If failed, you'll have to make another Investigation check and spend additional time.
Afterwards, to cast from the spellbook, you must make an additional Investigation check right before casting, to make sure you remember everything. This means you need to carry the spellbook around with you. Each time you cast, you must first reference the book (and make an Investigation check, which takes an action), then make your Spellcast skill check.
Depending on what kind of pony-universe your group wants to play in, you may want to include some Arcane Background (Weird Science) elements as well.
This would cover things like Flim Flam's apple cider machine (something magical powering something mechanical), Pinkie Pie's flying gyrocopter (by all counts that thing is held together by candy canes and bubble gum and defies physics), or the cloud-producing machine of Cloudsdale. Your character may have invented some super cool awesome gizmo, and instead of just leaving it lying around in your inventory, you're going to use it!
Creation and use of any Weird Science gizmo should be up to the GM, as well as how you want to mechanically categorize it. Your GM may require the actual Weird Science skill to create/activate the device, or use a related skill instead. Depending on the extent your GM wants to include Weird Science to the game, Edges such as Gadgeteer and Mr. Fix It may also be included or tweaked.
Under the standard No Power Points setting rule, Weird Science has a backlash malfunction occur on a natural 1 on the skill die, where the device blows up for 2d6 damage to the attempted user, and will require a Repair roll of 1d3+1 hours to fix.
Since we've seen Zecora brew potions before in the show, it would be remiss to not mention the option of including alchemical components to MLP:SA.
Due to the nature of needing to brew potions before using them, Alchemy requires the use of the regular Power Points rules (rather than No Power Points) and is best mechanically categorized as Arcane Background (Alchemy) as described in the Savage Worlds Fantasy Companion (available via Pinnacle, Amazon, driveThruRPG, or your local game store), summarized as follows:
While unicorns can cast spells via their horn, there's also the typical fantasy tradition of elaborate complicated rituals with fancy arcane drawings that can have even greater effects.
For simplicity, the GM can run this as a Dramatic Task. For more options, you can refer to the Savage Worlds Horror Companion (available via Pinnacle, Amazon, DriveThruRPG, or your local game store) or the setting East Texas University (available via Pinnacle, Amazon, DriveThruRPG). In there, you'll find options describing how rituals can:
With rituals, you can have additional casters/participants, extended casting time, or required materials. But be warned: with the potential power also comes with dangerous risks - see the Savage Worlds Horror Companion! (Don't worry, you don't have to have failure mean a portal to the netherworld is opened...unless you want to. :P)