Magic Traditions

Version 0.12 · not yet playtested

Jon Mayo. PUBLIC DOMAIN (CC0-1.0)

Magic Traditions

The base rules already run magic: hold a source, mark 1 stress, roll Will, read the three bands, and on a Failure it turns on the caster (see Magic in the SRD). That is a complete, colorless engine for the supernatural. A tradition is what gives one setting’s magic its own face: where the power comes from, what it costs beyond that marked stress, and the particular way it goes wrong.

This rung is the framework for building a tradition and five ready ones to drop in or reskin. It adds no new dice, and, importantly, no new tracks: each tradition’s distinctive cost is carried by machinery the engine already has, stress, the condition track, a clock, a lasting mark, a downtime project.

1 What a Tradition Sets

Extending the SRD’s “Authoring a Tradition,” a tradition names five things:

The source, and the cost of holding it (a grimoire in a slot, an implant that fills a slot for good, a pact, a reagent lab).

The casting attribute (Will by default; a lore-magic might cast on Wits).

The cost of a casting beyond the base stress (below).

The flavor of “wrong”, the signature the Failure line wears.

A sample spell list, each spell three band-lines (Magic).

2 The Cost Levers

Pick one distinctive cost per tradition, on top of or in place of the base stress. That one cost is the tradition’s identity; do not stack them.

Stress (the base): renewable, capped at five, wounds you when full. The default, and the whole cost of the plainest magic.

A wound (the condition track): power bought with the body, a step of harm to cast. Grim and immediate.

A clock: a debt that fills and comes due (a pact, a creeping corruption). Cheap now, dear later.

A lasting mark (like a lasting hurt): a scar of mind or body that fills a pack slot and bites until it is dealt with. The price of dabbling in the wrong things.

A downtime project (see Downtime): magic prepared ahead, not conjured in the moment. Slow, deliberate, and portable once made.

3 Five Traditions

3.1 Arcane (the renewable baseline)

Source: a grimoire (a slot). Attribute: Will. Cost: the base 1 stress.

Wrong: backlash, the Failure turns the spell on the caster or the room.

Spells: the worked list in the SRD’s Magic chapter (Mend, Bolt, Grasp, Veil, Ward) is arcane as written. This is the tradition to hand a table that just wants a wizard.

3.2 Eldritch (dread)

Forbidden lore that answers, and looks back.

Source: a black book or a remembered word (a slot). Attribute: Wits or Will.

Cost: 1 stress, and a Failure marks you with a dread (a lasting mark): you roll a die worse near the uncanny until you face down what you saw. Dread heals like a lasting hurt, slowly, in downtime.

Wrong: the thing you reached for reaches back.

Spells:

Whisper of the Void — Success: a true, useful secret. Partial: you learn it and it lodges (a stress). Failure: it answers with your name (a dread).

Unmaking Word — Success: a step of harm through any armor. Partial: the step lands and the air curdles, everyone near gains a stress. Failure: it unmakes something of yours instead.

Ward of Names — Success: the uncanny cannot cross for a scene. Partial: it holds, barely (a stress). Failure: the ward invites what it should bar.

3.3 Alchemy (brews)

Magic made ahead in a lab, carried in a vial, spent later.

Source: a reagent kit and a lab (the lab is a haven facility or a downtime need). Attribute: Wits. Cost: a downtime project to brew a batch; using a dose in play is automatic.

Wrong: the three bands are read on the brewing, not the drinking. Success: a clean batch of several doses. Partial: a batch with a flaw (fewer doses, or a side effect). Failure: a bad batch that sets a taint in the brewer, a lasting mark that mutates.

Spells (elixirs):

Vigor Draught — drunk, mend a step.

Corrosive — eats a lock, a hinge, a suit of armor, or deals a step.

Grey Smoke — a vial conceals a scene, unseen and unheard for a minute.

3.4 Pact (the patron)

Power lent by a bound thing that always, always collects.

Source: a true name and a bargain (no slot; the debt is the cost). Attribute: Will. Cost: casting is cheap (0 or 1 stress, the patron pays the rest), but each casting ticks the pact clock. When it fills, the patron collects: a task set, a boon owed, a mark taken, and until it is paid, no more power.

Wrong: the patron grants exactly what you asked, twisted to its own ends.

Spells: the patron can grant nearly anything within its nature; write three effects it favors and read them on the bands, with a Partial ticking the pact clock twice and a Failure letting the patron choose the outcome.

3.5 Blood (vitality)

No book, no bargain, only what you are willing to spend of yourself.

Source: your own life; anyone can work it, which is why it is feared. Attribute: any that fits the working. Cost: a wound (a step of harm) per casting, in place of stress. Overcharge: spend extra steps for a proportionally greater effect.

Wrong: a Failure takes more than you offered, another step, or it spills onto an ally.

Spells:

Blood Bolt — a step spent for two steps of harm at range.

Blood Mend — a step of your own to heal an ally two steps.

Crimson Surge — overcharge: each step spent buys a die on a physical feat this turn (a real bargain, and a short road to Dying).

4 For Authors

Choose the one cost that says what your magic is, write the Failure line so it bites in that tradition’s voice, and give three or four spells as three-band lines. Reach for a new track only if none of stress, a wound, a clock, a mark, or a project can carry the price, and it almost always can. A setting may run one tradition or several side by side; each caster works the one their source and training grant.