The Blue Sheet is a document which provides common knowledge characters within the setting would be privy of. It is often printed on blue paper to distinguish it from character sheets and other documents, but a Blue Sheet does not need to literally be blue.
While the Blue Sheet details in-character common knowledge and setting information, it has a corollary Green Sheet which details out-of-character information for players to know about how a game may be run for a particular game.
The below details set an example Blue Sheet which can be edited for witchgate games.
High Setting
Setting Details: Witchgates
Fantastical rumors have always existed, but with an increase in activity and the technology to catch it live, the world was finally forced to accept the existence of magic. In the year 2020, governments finally started to take open action to adapt to a fantastic world, and the term “witchgates” was termed to refer boundary of areas transformed by magic – now colloquially used to refer to the entire magical area itself.
By 2035, most people see magic to some small degree in their daily lives, but the world is still adapting to ongoing changes. Witches, those altered and shaped by magic the most, stand at the forefront of exploring those changes.
Plot Setting
Use this section to include common knowledge about the local situation, events, and setup to the story. Feature any important and well known factions; including any rules, goals, or operations they publicize.
Magical Basics
Common knowledge about various types of magic and witch legacies, including thresholds, the spiritual realms, and other common knowledge..
Thresholds
Thresholds are magical barriers confined by a physical location, such as a house or ritual circle. They only naturally exist in places with a strong sense of ownership and emotional attachment – such as generational houses and closed off places of worship. The more heavily trafficked a place is, the less likely it will have a threshold. The mobile nature of caravans normally prevents a threshold from forming, though exceptions do occur in some vehicles.
These barriers completely prevent magic from crossing; a magical creature cannot intrude or exit while a partially magic creature can not use their magic while intruding. Only major effects have a chance of breaking through a threshold without the owner’s will. The owner of a threshold can invite magic or magical creatures through the barrier. Natural thresholds occur at locations that have a strong emotional resonance with them; consider an old family home, well attended church, or a cemetery. Unnatural thresholds, those created for the specific intent of making a threshold, require an unbroken barrier; if a nonmagical force breaks the barrier, then the threshold itself weakens or disappears. (For gameplay purposes, most thresholds have a track of a single box).
Thresholds using circles create a spherical barrier, while thresholds used on an entrance to a location cover the entire location, including other and open entrances.
Characters will find it nearly impossible to use their magic through or within a barrier that they have not been invited into. Fully magical creatures, such as Fae, Fetch, Werebeasts, and Vampires cannot cross a threshold without invitation.
- Jumpers cannot teleport into thresholds uninvited and cannot teleport out of a threshold they are trespassing in.
- Magi can enter uninvited but cannot cast spells while trespassing.
- Necromancers can enter a threshold uninvited, but their undead cannot
- Vigil can enter a threshold uninvited but cannot use their merits while trespassing.
Any character with magical knowledge can feel the presence of a threshold and knows if they are allowed inside by the owner or not.
Ephemeral Realm
The realm most people interact and discuss is known my spiritualists as our material realm. Put simply, the material realm is the default perspective for spiritualists and player characters – it is where most things exist and happen. When discussing spirits, there is a second realm that overlaps with out own. The ephemeral realm is a murky, delayed reflection of the material realm. Everything in the ephemeral realm exists as the conceptional imprint of how they have resonated with living creatures in the material realm. Spirits mostly live in this parallel realm as untouchable observers, but some can manifest into material bodies for direct intervention on our realm..
The perception of space can be different in the ephemeral realm. A boring subway may span miles further than its material counterpart, while twin landmarks may appear much closer than in reality. For spiritualist able to become ephemeral, knowing the spiritual landscape can help them travel vast distances in short amounts of time.
Sympathy Magic and how to Avoid it
Some magic does not care about physical distance, and can instead utilize the emotional distance an object or place has to an target. This connection is called a sympathetic connection. Spells that utilize a sympathetic distance create a two-way connection that supernatural targets will always notice.
There are three degrees of sympathetic range. The lower the degree the stronger the connection is.
- 1st) Part of the Whole: The connection utilizes something which used to be part of the original target. (blood, hair, wall clippings, etc)
- 2nd) Intimate: The connection utilizes something core to the identity of the target, even though it wasn’t part of the actual target itself: blood relative, heirlooms.
- 3rd) Facsimile: The connection utilizes something made to represent the target, such as a voodoo doll or miniature scale copy.
Some creatures can use the two-way nature of a newly created sympathetic connection to cast their own spell onto the other end of the line. For those without that option, a simple change in appearance may disrupt a facsimile connection, but more elaborate plans are needed to disrupt stronger connections. It’s always useful to know a magi who can trace and potentially remove the link for you.
Laws of Hospitality
Though not always magically binding, the laws of hospitality help maintain order in a magically chaotic world. Most creatures in supernatural societies expect others to maintain these laws.
- Host
Provide food, protection, living arrangements, and safe passage to guests - Guest
To not act against the host or other guest without the host’s permission. To avoid being a burden where possible.
Some Fae and all Demons are bound by the Laws of Hospitality, unable to break them for any reason.
The Letter of the Law
Supernatural contracts are generally followed by the letter of an agreement, not by the spirit of an agreement.
Furthermore, a contract is always verbally agreed and signed by participating parties. Any contract that has an alternative agreement process is not binding – you can not incidentally agree to a contract. These two details are especially important to keep in mind for Fae contracts.
For example, the phrase “if you enter this house you agree to take off your shoes” may not be binding unless a person vocally confirms their agreement. In contrast, a phrase “By signing this, you agree to take off your shoes when entering this house.” can be binding if both parties sign to affirm or vocally affirm.
Supernatural Wariness
What do those in the supernatural community know of each other?
- A person doesn’t need supernatural powers to be a threat – people have always had the capacity to be scary, alone or in numbers.
- Demonologists are threshold experts and are the best contacts to securing an area from outside threats, but they tend to have trouble following them.
- The Fae can misdirect, but cannot overtly lie without harming themselves. Breaking a Fae’s contract is extremely dangerous.
- The Fetch are shapeshifters who can disguise themselves as others. They tend to take on the goals of their visage’s originator.
- Jumpers can teleport to places they can see, but only if they can carry what’s on them.
- A Magus can create a large variety of spells, but its easier for them if they have time to prepare. Their appearance often gives clues to what subjects of magic they study. They are the main users of sympathetic magic.
- A Moirai’s ability to read the future allows them to know impossible information. Furthermore, many Moirai can twist fate against their enemies and curse their possessions.
- A Necromancer’s undead may sometimes seem benign, but that illusion is only true while the undead’s busy.
- Psychic’s can manipulate a person’s thoughts, memories, and emotions at minor cost to themselves. They can also communicate to others across large distances.
- Spiritualists communicate with spirits – creatures of concept in the ephemeral realm. Just because you don’t see the creatures in the ephemeral realm doesn’t mean they don’t see you. If a Spiritualist appears to be talking to themselves, they likely aren’t.
- Vampires can’t stand in direct sunlight, but enjoy shade just fine. They do partake in the blood of others. They also have a wide variety of quarks and curses, and aren’t particular to letting others know about them.
- The Vigil have protective magic, first in class against mundane harm and 2nd against magic only to that provided by a threshold. They tend to be very protective of 1 specific person.
- Werebeasts can become physical powerhouses and remarkable scouts, but dislike industry and manmade plastics and metals. They can quickly enter a rage that blinds their original intention with the need to eliminate threats.