Magic, though inherently enigmatic, has a loose structure when utilized by mages. With this structure mages are able to reliably create and cast spells. To mages, all magic is a combination of one or more schools of magic; Arcana. Arcana determine what Knacks (magical specializations) and available spell components (building blocks) a mage can have.

Knacks define a mage’s magic and how they specialize within it. Two mages might have the same level in the same Arcana, and thus know the same spell components, but if the mages have different Knacks than most of their spells will be wildly different. All mages have the Knack of “self”, allowing them to use any components to target themselves. Most Knacks cover a specific subject/noun underneath one of the Arcana, such as “fire” for Forces or “fungus” for Life. A mage can use any spell components to manipulate or affect one of their Knacks. “I can use any of the Arcana’s components on this subject/noun.”

Knackless Components: Some spell components are not restricted by a mage’s Knacks. These “Knackless” components act the same regardless of the mage’s personal specializations. When a mage chooses a Knack, they can instead select a known spell component and make it Knackless, removing specialized restrictions. “I can use this component on any  subjects/noun within the Arcana’s purview.”

The Arcana:

• Forces covers the natural energies and laws found in the universe. Wielders of this arcana can sense energy around them, alter its course, store it within their bodies, insulate targets from an energy, and much more.
  • Example Knacks: light, darkness, heat, cold, fire, electricity, gravity, kinetic energy, radiation, velocity, sound, illusions.
  • Example Knackless Components: Alter Energy, Change Weather
• Life covers all living matter, from tiny, single-cell bacteria to large grizzly bears and beyond. Mages use this arcana to detect other living creatures, manipulate biological instincts, move living mass, apply creatures traits to another, and to fully transform creatures into others. Furthermore, this arcana allows mages to move wounds from one creature to another willing creature, effectively healing the original target.
  • Example Knacks: insects, plants, mushrooms, blood, humans, hunger
  • Example Knackless Components:: Transfer Harm, Alter features
• Matter covers all nonliving matter, including dead organic matter. Practitioners bend materials to their will and act as alchemist to change the traits of raw materials or to transform them into something different.
  • Example Knacks: Water, Dirt, Oxygen, Iron, Oil, Acids, Vapor, Alcohol
  • Example Knackless Components:: Enhance/Diminish Durability, Alter features
• Mind covers consciousness, the thoughts and awareness of a being. The arcana allows mages to read minds and memories, interact with dreams, and control a creatures actions through thought. Furthermore, it can be used to transfer mental wounds to another willing target, allowing mages to literally share one’s burdens.
  • Example Knacks:
    • Types of Mind: Human intelligence, Hive Minds, Prey/Predator, Artificial Intelligence.
    • States of Mind: When a mage’s knack focuses on a state-of-mind instead of a type of mind, their spells filter onto that specific topic. For example, the fear knack can allow a mage to use telepathy to discuss fears, but not favorite foods. They can read memories to see when a target has been afraid in the past, and the can create new minds embodying these dispositions.
      Envy, Rage, Narcissism, Fear, Greed, Studious, Lust
  • Example Knackless Components:: Transfer Stress, Read Minds, Dreams
• Space covers spatial relationships. Practitioners can view distant locations, teleport between locations, and change the spatial axis of locations.
  • Everything is Knackless: The Space Arcana has only one Knack – Space, which practitioners gain at level 1. Alternatively, this also means that all of the arcana’s components are effectively Knackless.
  • Time magic often deals with distant or abstract targets, making sympathetic connections more necessary.
• Spirit covers the ephemeral world and its inhabitants. Mages use the arcana to create items out of ectoplasm and to summon spirits. Spirits can embody an infinite number of concepts, and each spirit has some degree of influence over the concepts it embodies. Spirit mages do not need a Knack to target spirits that they can actively see.
  • Example Knacks: Spirits of Hunger, the Hunt, or Fire. Human spirits or Cat spirits. Ectoplasmic firearms, marionettes, or swords.
  • Example Knackless Components: See Spirits, Binding
• Time covers temporal relationships. Practitioners can divine future and past events, get several tasks done at the same time, rewind time, and summon copies of things from the past.
  • Everything is Knackless: The Time Arcana has only one Knack – Time, which practitioners gain at level 1.  Alternatively, this also means that all of the arcana’s components are effectively Knackless.
  • Time magic often deals with distant or abstract targets, making sympathetic connections more necessary.

Mages focus on learning Spell Components, the “atoms” of magic that act like fleeting memories and knowledge that can be pulled together to create a very real magical effect. These components then focus on a specific subject under the purview of one of the mage’s arcana.

Casting a spell involves 2-4 main tasks:

• Ensure you know spell components and the subject of the spell to create the desired effect. Different components require different numbers of glances and hits to be rolled to use them.
• Roll dice and allocate them to the different components of the spell. Free components can be added to a spell without spending any dice.
• If applicable, spend spell potential to amplify the desired effects of the spell.
• If applicable, targets will roll an ability check to avoid/resist the spell.

Core Casting

Spell Components each have an individual die cost to be used, generally requiring a number of glances (G) or hits (H) to use.  When casting a spell, hits may replace glances and 2 glances may replace 1 hit.

To cast a spell, a player rolls 1 + their Arcana level + their current Mana, maxing out at 7 dice.
The spell component that requires the highest level Arcana determines what Arcana is used for the dice roll.
Any hits or glances gained by spell components do not count against a character’s maximum dice.

Once dice are rolled, the mage then allocates hits and glances to the different spell components to create the spell, or they give up on the spell and the spell fails.

All mages can access all of the components listed in the General Component section.
Every spell must have a Range, Duration, and Area component, in addition to at least one component determining the main spell effect. The spell might require multiple area components to select multiple targets that are not within a single area component together.

If a spell is successfully cast and the target wishes to avoid it, they roll an appropriate Ability Check to try avoiding the effect of the spell. A Hit avoids the effect entirely, while a Glance reduces the effect (either by lowering the damage or reducing the duration or range component of the spell by 1).

Need a Hand
Casting a spell requires physical gestures with at least one free hand. This hand is needed when casting a spell, maintaining concentration on the spell, or manipulating an existing enchantment However, when casting a spell, a mage can gain a little bit more control over the spell if they have an additional hand, gaining a free +1 Glance to use when creating the spell.

If a mage has the Micro-Movements merit, the number of hands they need to cast or manipulate a spell is reduced by 1. (meaning the mage does not need any free hands to cast a spell regularly, and can get a +1 Glance by using one hand, however, they cannot get a +2 by using two hands)

Be warned, while players can always free up a hand by dropping something, doing so provides an easy opening for the GM to act on that dropped item or otherwise use the “lost resource” consequence.

Concentration Spells
Some spells last for as long as the caster concentrates on them. Normally a mage may concentrate on only one spell at a time. Mages can even create spells which activate with an instant duration once concentration on the spell ends. Every hour, or when physically disrupted, a concentrating mage must make an Intelligence Ability Check to see if they can maintain the spell. Partial successes maintain concentration but invoke a -1 penalty on future concentration checks for the same spell.

Casting in Groups
Mages can combine their efforts to create spells. By doing this, mages can create spells that need multiple arcana as long as at least one of the mages in the group has the necessary knowledge.
To cast a group spell, 1 mage acts as the lead, rolling for the spell as per normal. Each other mage may roll dice equal to the highest level of the arcana they are adding to the spell.
Mages cannot use the dice of other mages for their own part of the spell.
*Metaspell components count for the entire group. If the spell is cast over an hour, each member works on the casting for that hour. If the spell backlashes each mage contributing to the spell is affected.

Recasting Failed Spells
Rolls for spell casting represent the mage’s current capability and understanding to cast the spell. Outside of an action scene, a single roll may represent multiple attempts to cast the same spell. In order to recast a recently failed spell, a player must be able to explain what mental change occurred in their character’s head, whether it be the simple passage of time (a few hours), a flash of inspiration from a related event, or because of a recent traumatic action that has thrown off their previous thought process.

Reusing Existing Spells
A mage can continue influencing any spell they cast which still has an ongoing duration. When making an attack with an existing spell a mage must choose to make an attack roll using the Combat skill.
A mage may use an action to change the Spell Potential of a continuing spell (again, only to options which make sense for the spell). For example, a stone mage might shift the spell potential of stone armor into damage as the stone shifts off of them into a stone sword.

Permanent and Concentration Spells targeting outside of their Range
For lasting effects, sometimes a spell’s target will leave the range of the spell’s source. When this happens all effects disappear until the target is back within the spell range.

Since existing objects don’t disappear outside of a spell’s range, a mage can use a skill to throw objects outside of the control spell’s range to hit farther targets. For example, with a good combat roll a Stone mage can cast a spell to throw a Nearby rock at a Far Away target, even though the spell loses effect once the rock leaves the spell’s Nearby range component.

Spell Motes
In rare cases, a mage may gain magical knowledge in the manner of Spell Motes, spells that are already formed for a specific effect. These can only be found in-game, essentially as loot.
If Spell Component’s are “atoms” then Spell Motes are “compounds” that can no longer be separated into their individual pieces. Through practice and study, a mage can learn spell components and might be able to recreate the effect of a Spell Mote, but motes themselves can only be found, their origins varying and often unknown.

Spell Motes are fairly self defined and always use a mage’s Mana to determine the number of dice rolled to cast the spell.

Spell Splicing

Magic, while fantastic, is inherently volatile. Poor control of a spell can sometimes cause the magical energies to overwhelm the caster; splicing with their body and marking them for life. Mechanically, this happens when a character rolls a critical trouble when casting a spell. A splice is not purely negative though, and since they are practically unavoidable in the long run many mages have adopted a sense of pride from their splices.

The effect and appearance of a splice is dependent on each Arcana and the situation of the spell casting. Each Arcana has splices described in further detail on their own pages. However, spell splices share some common qualities:

• Splices have 4 tiers of severity. When a mage splices in an Arcana they already have a splice for, they can choose to either acquire a new one or to upgrade the severity of a current one.
• In general, the effects of each tier of severity is cumulative upon the effects of lower tiers, unless directly mentioned otherwise. A tier 4 splice will have all of the effects of when it was a tier 2 splice, but some of these effects may now be stronger.
• A mage can only ever have 5 different splices. Once a mage reaches this limit, any newly acquired splice must upgrade a current one on the mage or, if the mage does not have any splices of the same Arcana to be upgraded, the new splice replaces the lowest severity one on the mage.
• A splice is always present, but they only become truly active when a mage is under duress. Whenever a character passes a stress marker in health that character’s lowest inactive splice awakens, though a GM may allow another one to activate for narrative purposes. When a mage’s Mana reaches 0 all splices go dormant.
• Although the strictly mechanical penalties of a splice are provided, how a splice manifests should be determined, described, and recorded by the player; such as a thin sheet of flame coating one arm, a shrill voice in the back of one’s mind, or as an ungainly skin growth.

Randomizing a Splice : Some splices manifest themselves physically on a caster’s body. If the player wants, they can roll a 1d6 to determine the location the splice.

Roll	1	2	3	4	5	6
Body Part	Arm	Leg	Torso	Back	Head	Eye

Spell Casting Diagram