Spellcasting

Magic is the manipulation and harnessing of a form of energy that permeates the world of Mystara. People that cast magic are, in effect, shaping a glyph of energy, formed through a combination of physical jestures, spoken sounds and occasionally physical components.

The Spellcasting trait reflects the character's ability to manipulate that energy. The rating of the Spellcasting trait is the number of dice that a mage gets to roll for any effect, and is also the highest level spell that any mage can cast.

Casting

To cast a spell, a mage needs to have learnt the spell in question. Spells aquired through the Spells Background are assumed to have been learnt already, but any new spell must be learnt. This process may take between one day and a month depending on the power of the spell.

If a mage knows a spell, they may cast it at any time. The casting begins at the normal initiative time, and comes off at their initiative time minus the level of the spell. This is a kludge, deal with it. For example, Tom rolls his Wits + Alertness. He rolls 4 successes, and thus goes on a 4. He decides to cast a Web spell, which will come off on 2. The Spellcasting roll is made in the instant the spell would come off.

Actually creating a spell requires a Spellcasting roll. The difficulty of the spell is the spell level plus 4 plus the armor penalty minus the casters intelligence. Using the above example, Tom rolls his Spellcasting of 3 dice. The difficulty for a Web spell is 2 (the spell level) + 4 + 0 (Tom is wearing no armor) - 3 (Tom is above average intelligence). So the difficulty is 3. Tom rolls his three dice and rolls 2 5 7, thus gaining 2 successes.

In addition, if the spellcaster is damaged (takes health levels) whilst casting, the difficulty is raised by 1 for each health level taken. This is in addition to the dice pool penalty, if any.

If the Spellcasting roll is unsuccessful, the mage loses one temporary willpower for every 1 rolled on the Spellcasting roll. If the roll is botched, then the mage loses 1 temporary Willpower for every dice rolled. If the character drops below 0 Willpower, they lose a permanent point of Willpower, and take the excess loss in aggravated wounds.

For example, Tom, who has used his Willpower excessively during the day, has a temporary Willpower of 2. He tries to cast a fireball, rolls his Spellcasting but unfortunately rolls 1 2 2. This means he has botched. Thus Tom should lose three points of temporary Willpower - but he only has 2 points left. So Tom drops to 0 willpower, loses a permanent point of Willpower and takes one aggravated wound.

Faith Clerics, paladins, shamans and any serious servant of a God has a Faith rating. This is a combination of their knowledge of the doctrines of their God or Godess, their general devotion towards that Immortal and how much power the deity has devoted to their cleric.

The priest who desires to effect a clerical spell must pray to their God or Goddess to give them the ability to cast it. The Immortals have their own preferences for which spells their followers use, and it varies from situation to situation. For instance, a follower of a God of fire who prays for Resist Fire is almost certain to cast the spell, but a follower of Sorwe the Healer is unlikely to be granted Finger of Death.

Casting

Faith is used to cast spells and to Turn Undead. To cast spells, the priest in question rolls their faith rating, against a difficulty of the spell level + 3. In addition, the priest may only call for spells of a level equal to their Faith - other requests will be ignored.

If the Faith roll is failed, the cleric loses 2 temporary faith points (or to 0 temporary Faith if they only have 1 faith left) until a minor service is performed. If the roll is botched by one 1, the cleric loses all their remaining temporary faith until they perform a major service of some sort. If the roll is botched by two or more 1's, the cleric loses all of their remaining temporary faith, and a permanent faith point until the cleric performs a major restitutive service to the Immortal in question.

Alternatively, if the caster obtains 1 or 2 successes on the Faith roll, the spell comes off, and they lose a temporary faith point until a minor service is performed. If the caster obtains more than 2 successes on their Faith roll, there is no faith cost.

For example, Jane is a cleric of Petra with 3 faith. She wants to cast Cure Light Wounds upon a wounded comrade. The players rolls her Faith dice and the character prays to Petra for aid.

If Jane's player rolls 3 successes, the spell comes off without a hitch. If she rolls 1 or 2 success, the spell still succeeds, but Jane loses a temporary faith point, until she renews her faith.

If Jane's player had rolled 1 1 4, Jane would have botched by 1. As a result, she would have lost all of her temporary faith, and be unable to cast spells until she had meditated in a church and performed a day of fasting and good works.

Other factors can help reduce the difficulty of spells. Performing an elaborate ceremony of some sort can help the cleric focus their mind and belief upon the job at hand, and make sure they have their God's full attention.

Length of ceremony Reduction in Difficulty

1 minute 1

10 minutes 2

1 hour 3

1 day 4

Holy ground also has an effect upon spell difficulty. Different areas have a rating between 1 and 5, which is also the reduction (or increase for opposing faiths) in difficulty of spells.

Cleric Spells

1st Level

Cure Light Wounds
Range: Touch
Duration: Instantaneous
Resist: Stamina
Effect: Casting this spell heals [Succ] Wound Levels of the recipient. This spell can be reversed to become Cause Light Wounds, which causes [Succ] Wound Levels on the next person the caster touches.

Detect Evil
Range: [Succ]*10 feet.
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: Allows the caster to sense any and all hostiles within the spell range. No physical manifestations occur - the caster is merely aware of creatures and other beings that wish him harm.

Detect Magic
Range: [Succ]*10 feet
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: Once cast, this spell allows the caster to sense any and all magic within the spell range. The more successes rolled, the more accurately the caster can determine the exact strength of the magic. ie: With one success, the caster would not be able to determine between a potion of cure light wounds and an artifact - both would simply register as 'magic'.

Light
Range: Touch
Duration: [Succ] hours.
Resist: Willpower
Effect: This spell creates a sphere [Succ] * 10 feet in radius of reading light. This spell can be cast directly on a creature - if they fail their Willpower roll, they are blind for the duration. This spell can be reversed to form the Dark spell, which has the opposite effect.

Protection from Evil
Range: Caster only
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: Once this spell is cast, the caster's soak rolls become [Succ] easier. eg: Tom would normally soak damage on a 6 - after casting this spell and getting 2 success, he would soak on a difficulty of 4. This means that it becomes much easier for the caster to soak damage, and therefore is less likely to be hurt by any blow. In addition, Enchanted creatures (charmed, undead, constructs) cannot directly attack the caster - they are simply incapable of using any form of melee against the caster. They can, however, use missile weapons and spells.

Purify Food and Water
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Resist: None
Effect: This useful spell changes enough stale or foul food for [Succ]*2 people into edible food. Not only human food may be affected, but larger animals require more successes - for example, a horse-worth of food requires as many successes as would be necessary for 4 humans.

Remove Fear
Range: Touch
Duration: [Succ] rounds
Resist: Willpower
Effect: This spell calms and removes fear from one creature. If cast upon a composed creature it adds 2 dice to their Willpower. If reversed, the Cause Fear spell causes the victim to run in fear if they fail the Willpower roll.

Resist Cold
Range: Caster only
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None.
Effect: This spell gives the caster [Succ] extra dice to soak against cold damage.

2nd Level

Bless
Range: 60'
Duration: [Succ] rounds
Resist: None
Effect: This spell affects all within 20' not yet in melee that are of your faith or similar. Those affected have their Willpower difficulties lowered by [Succ], and have extra [Succ] worth of dice on their hit and damage rolls. Blight, the reversed spell, has the opposite effect.

Find Traps
Range: [Succ]*10 feet
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: Once cast, this spell causes all traps within the range to glow with an eerie blue light.

Hold Person
Range: 180
Duration: [Succ] rounds
Resist: Willpower
Effect: The caster may choose up to 4 creatures to be paralysed. They resist with a Willpower roll. If the spell is cast at 4 creatures, the difficulty is 5 - if cast at one creature, the difficulty of its Willpower roll is 8. This spell can be reversed to become Free Person, which removes any form of paralysis from a creature.

Sense True Nature
Range: Caster only
Duration: 1 round
Resist: None
Effect: This spell determines the Nature of 1 creature. If reversed, it hides the true nature of the creature for 1 scene.

Resist Fire
Range: Caster only
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: This spell adds [Succ] worth of extra dice to the caster's stamina, but only for soaks against fire and heat damage.

Silence 15' radius
Range: 180'
Duration: [Succ] hours
Resist: None/Willpower
Effect: Creates an area of absolute silence in which no sound can be created. The effect is centred wherever the caster decides within 180 feet, although if it is centred on a creature, they may make a Willpower roll to avoid having the spell 'stick' as such. The creature that the spell is cast upon may, if the caster decides, hear noise created from outside of the 15'.

Snake Charm
Range: 60'
Duration: [Succ] rounds or hours
Resist: None
Effect: Charms [Succ] worth of snakes within 60'. If the snakes are already attacking or hostile, the spell lasts for only [Succ] rounds, else it lasts for [Succ] hours.

Speak with Animals
Range: Caster only
Duration: [Succ] rounds
Resist: None
Effect: This spell allows the caster to speak to animals of one specific type for as many rounds as they rolled successes (effectively, it allows as many questions or orders as the caster rolled successes).

3rd Level

Continual Light
Range: 120'
Duration: Permanent
Resist: Willpower
Effect: This spell creates a sphere of light [Succ] * 10 feet across. The light is clear but not as strong as sunlight. If the caster casts it upon a specific creature, it may make a Willpower roll to resist being blinded until the spell is removed. This spell may be reversed to cast Continual Dark.

Cure Blindness
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Resist: None
Effect: Upon casting this spell upon a recipient, it cures that creature of blindness, or cancels [Succ] worth of light or dark spells. This spell may be reversed to Cause Blindness, which causes a physical blindness, reducing the victim's Perception by [Succ]. If the victim's perception is reduced to 0, they are blind.

Cure Disease
Range: 30'
Duration: Permanent
Resist: Stamina
Effect: This spell has the potential to cure almost any disease. With one success, a cold may be dispersed. With two successes, more serious diseases may be reduced or dispersed, such as influenza or measles. Three successes are necessary to remove deadly diseases such as malaria and plague. With five successes, magical diseases such as lycanthropy may be cured. The reversed spell, Cause Disease, may cause the equivalent diseases, but is resisted with Stamina.

Growth of Animal
Range: 120
Duration: 12 hours
Resist: None
Effect: This spell doubles the size of up to [Succ] number of normal animals. Their physical Traits are also doubled - eg: a rat of Str 1, Dex 3 and Sta 1 becomes a large rat with Str 2, Dex 6 and Sta 2.

Locate Object
Range: Caster only
Duration: 6 turns.
Resist: None
Effect: This spell allows the caster to find one normal object within [Succ]*60 feet. The caster must know what the object looks like (possibly a Perception roll to visualise it precisely), and it may not be a unique object.

Remove Curse
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Resist: None
Effect: This spell cancels the successes of another curse. The reversed spell allows the caster to cast a Curse.

Speak with the Dead
Range: 10'
Duration: 1 round per point of faith.
Resist: None
Effect: The caster may, upon sucessful casting of this spell, ask a number of questions of a recently passed-on spirit as she has faith points.

Striking
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: This spell adds [Succ] worth of extra dice to damage to physical attacks used with one weapon that the caster touches.

Mage Spells

1st Level

Charm Person
Range: 30'
Duration: [Succ] - Intelligence of victim days.
Resist: Willpower
Effect: This spell allows the caster to override another's will for the duration of the spell.

Floating Disk
Range: Caster only
Duration: 1 day
Resist: None
Effect: This spell creates a disk of [Succ] strength, approximately 2 foot in radius. It can be used as a beast of burden, and will stay within 6 feet of the caster.

Hold Portal
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent until broken
Resist: None
Effect: This spell adds [Succ] worth of strength to a door or other portal that it is cast upon. In effect, each success raises the minimum strength needed to break the door down.

Magic Missile
Range: 60'
Duration: Instantaneous
Resist: Stamina
Effect: Upon casting this spell, a glowing arrow appears next to the caster and shoots out to hit its victim, causing [Succ]+2 health levels (that may be soaked normally). The caster must make a perception and alertness roll at difficulty of 4 to hit the victim, who may try and dodge (base difficulty of 8).

Read Languages
Range: Caster only.
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: This spell adds [Succ] worth of points to the caster's linguistic ability for the duration of the spell that may be dedicated to any language of the caster's choice.

Read Magic
Range: Caster only
Duration: 1 day
Resist: None
Effect: In addition to allowing the caster to read any magical writing, it also adds [Succ] points to the caster's Magic Lore ability.

Shield
Range: Caster only
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: This spell raises the difficulty to hit the caster by 1 per success on the Spellcasting roll, to a maximum of 10.

Ventriloquism
Range: [Succ] * 10
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: Ventriloquism allows the caster to throw their voice up to [Succ]*10 feet away. The number of successes on the roll also adds to the credibility of the effect.

2nd Level

Detect Invisible
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: This spell allows the caster to try and penetrate an invisibility effect. For each success upon the Spellcasting roll, a success is removed from the invisibility effect from the caster's point of view. ie: If Bill cast invisibility on himself, and achieved 2 successes, and then Tom cast Detect Invisible and rolled three successes, Tom would be able to see Bill, although to anyone else, Bill would still be invisible.

ESP
Range: Caster only
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: Willpower (special)
Effect: This spell allows the caster to 'read' the victims mind. However, the victim may make a Perception + Empathy roll at the difficulty of the caster's Willpower to sense that something is up. If they do notice something is happening, they may make a Willpower roll to cancel out the caster's successes. In combat, this spell makes the caster harder to hit (+2 to difficulty to hit the caster) by the person whom the spell is affecting.

Invisibility
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: This spell makes the caster or the person the spell is cast on to become invisible, to a lesser or greater degree. With one success, anyone who would normally be able to sense the character normally may make a perception + awareness roll at difficulty 7 to sense them. With two successes upon the Spellcasting roll, the player is invisible unless they make sudden or loud movement. With three of more successes, the person that the spell is cast on is completely invisible unless they do something extreme (ie combat).

Knock
Range: Touch
Duration: Instantaneous
Resist: None
Effect: This spell removes normal and magical locks and wards. It requires one success to open a normal lock, two successes to remove a bar. If a door has multiple locks, one success per lock is required to open the portal. When cast on a door that has had Hold Portal or Wizard Lock cast on it, the Knock spell cancels [Succ] number of successes from those spells. If they are reduced to below 1 success, the Hold Portal or Wizard Lock spells are dispelled.

Levitate
Range: Touch
Duration: [Succ] rounds
Resist: Willpower
Effect: This spell nullifies gravity for the creature it is cast upon. Either the caster (or if a willing target, the recipient) may cause the recipient to rise up or sink down at will (roll Wits of the controlling person), or simply hover without concentrating. If the victim is unwilling, they may make a Willpower roll to resist having this spell cast upon them.

Mirror Image
Range: Caster only
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None Effect: Upon casting this spell, [Succ] extra images of the caster, indistinguishable from the caster are created, either side of the caster, in a row. The mage may determine where the images appear - all to his right, half and half, etc. .

Phantasmal Force
Range: 60'
Duration: [Succ] days / until broken.
Resist: None
Effect: This spell allows the caster to create illusions of any type, including sight, sound and touch. However, these images are not solid, and can be broken by passing through them. The images will fool anyone with less or equal perception than the caster gets successes on the Spellcasting roll. Anyone with greater perception than successes can make a Perception + Awareness roll to cancel successes.

Web
Range: [Succ] * 10
Duration: 1 day
Resist: Dex + Dodge
Effect: This spell creates a sticky web, which is flung out from the caster to either its target or to the maximum range. The web has an effective Strength pool equal to the number of successes the caster rolls, and trapped creatures require that many success to escape from its hold, or double that to break through the Web.

3rd Level Spells

Clairvoyance
Range: [Succ] * 30
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: Willpower
Effect: Upon casting this spell, the caster can view through any other being's eyes, if that being is within the range. Those with an Awareness of 3 or greater can make a Willpower roll to resist being used in such a way.

Dispel Magic
Range: 100'
Duration: Instant.
Resist: None
Effect: This spell cancels [Succ] worth of other peoples spells. Any spell affected by the Dispel Magic has the successes removed permanently canceled. Thus any spell reduced to zero successes is permanently destroyed, while other spells may be reduced below a critical number of successes, depending on the effect in question.

Fireball
Range: [Succ] * 40
Duration: Instant.
Resist: Stamina
Effect: Upon casting this spell, a compressed ball of flame and heat leaps out from the caster towards the target selected, and then explodes for [Succ] * 3 health levels to all within a 30' radius.

Fly
Range: Touch
Duration: [Succ] hours of flight
Resist: None
Effect: The recipient of this spell can fly at their equivalent Wits speed while concentrating, or simply float without concentration.

Haste
Range: 240
Duration: 1 scene / 1 hour.
Effect: This spell allows the caster to designate up to [Succ] * 2 creatures as the recipients. These creatures are accelerated such that they move at double speed for the duration of the spell.

Infravision
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 day
Resist: None
Effect: The recipient of this spell gains the ability to sense heat and cold in the form of infra vision. Their effective perception whilst using this ability is equivalent to number of successes the caster achieved on the Spellcasting roll.

Invisibility 10' radius
Range: [Succ] * 10
Duration: Permanent until broken
Resist: None
Effect: This spell has the same effect as the invisibility spell, but can affect any creature the caster desires within 10' of the targeted area (often the caster themself). Any creature that moves more than 10' from the target of the spell is no longer invisible, and moving back into the area of the spell does not restore the spell effect. Alternatively, this spell may be cast on one entire object, rendering it invisible.

Lightning Bolt
Range: [Succ] * 30'
Duration: Instant.
Resist: Stamina
Effect: A bolt of lightning leaps out from the caster to the targeted location, as long as it is within the spell range, doing [Succ] * 3 health levels of damage to any creature within the effect.

Protection from Evil 10'
Range: Caster only
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: This spell works in much the same manner as Protection from Evil, but it may affect any friendly creature the caster designates that is within 10' of the caster when the spell is cast. Moving more than 10' from the caster nullifies the effect, and it is not restored by once again moving closer to the caster.

Protection from Normal Missiles
Range: 30'
Duration: 1 scene
Resist: None
Effect: The recipient of this spell has their difficulty to be hit by normal missiles increased by [Succ]. eg: If Tom had was out in the open, he normally would be hit by arrows on a difficulty of 6. After casting this spell and achieving 3 successes, that difficulty is raised to 9.

Water Breathing
Range: 30
Duration: 1 day
Resist: None
Effect: Upon casting this spell upon its recipients, they are able to breathe water as if it was water. This spell works equally well for salt and fresh water, and has been known to work for brackish swamp water. Up to [Succ] creatures may be affected by each spell.

Length of ceremony	Reduction in Difficulty
1 minute	1
10 minutes	2
1 hour	3
1 day	4