Magic

(See also About Magic > The Five Schools)

At character creation, you must select one of the five schools of magic for your character to be proficient in. These five schools are:

• Apocrymancy: the ancient and purest of schools controlling the arcane forces. The community of Apocrymancers is centred around Bedivere College, Oxford.
• Aeromancy: the magic of controlling the wind and the weather. The community of Aeromancers almost all belong to The Magic Sphere.
• Geomancy: the magic of controlling the earth and nature. The community of Geomancers almost all belong to The Heritage Trust.
• Hydromancy: the magic of controlling water, ice and steam. The community of Hydromancers are known collectively as The Islanders.
• Pyromancy: the magic of controlling fire and heat. The community of Pyromancers are known as The Pyros.

Generally speaking, your school also denotes your faction in magical society, but this is not necessarily the case (see Wytch Society).

(See also About Magic > The Five Schools)

Having selected your school, you have 5 points to invest in each of the five subfields of each magic skill as well as 2 points to spend in either magical or non-magical skills. These subfields are the same for each but depending on the school have different effects. There are four levels of power to each (a fourth available by actions in the game), and each level allows you access to more powerful spells, making the lower levels more trivially castable. Broadly speaking, these subfields are dedicated as follows:

• Alteration: changing the physical nature of the world around you to a different form.
• Enchantment: summoning spirits from another world to either embody items and bestow their power; to embody things of their element and use them as temporary bodies; or to put them into potions and pass on the power to the potion (see also About Magic > Spirits and Enchantment).
• Evocation: channeling magic to cause harm or do battle.
• Illusion: using magic to trick the eye and deceive the mind without actually altering anything.
• Protection: enchantments to prevent harm, defend and heal.

For each subskill, there are four levels (three available at game start):

Information on the different effects of each subskill in each school, along with example spells, can be found on the following pages:

• Aeromancy
• Apocrymancy
• Geomancy
• Hydromancy
• Pyromancy

Note that the example spells given are simply examples - you can use your magic in any way you can think of so long as it fits the type of magic you have skill points in.

(See also About Magic > Implements

The final choice you must make about your character's magic is the style they choose to wield to channel their magic and their favoured implement (if they have one). While all Wytches can channel their magic through most implements, each learns to use one in particular, making their magic stronger and more reliable when they use it. The three styles are:

• Freeform: favoured by those who want instant reaction with their magic, this implementless magic is difficult to control but can be cast at almost a moment's thought. (Quick cast - instant to a few seconds - least control). No implement is used.
• Reactive: favoured by those who want a medium between control and speed, wands allow the user to control their magic more than having no implement while having quicker reflexes than those using rituals. (Medium cast - a few seconds, to twenty seconds - medium control).
• Ritualistic: favoured by those who take time and care to cast their magic, rituals command the greatest power and control of magic but require dedication and time to cast. (Longest cast - half a minute, to minutes, to hours - most control).

An implement can be pretty much anything that your character has taken and used. You will be attuned to your own implement, although could use someone else's, in the same way that you know best how to drive your own car but in time can use someone else's.

Example implements include:

• Wands
• Staffs
• Swords
• Knives
• Metal rods
• Orbs
• Books
• Hairbrushes

(See also About Magic > Using Magic, and Sample Turnsheet)

When you are writing actions for turnsheets, you should detail how exactly you intend to have your magic work if you wish to use it in a specific way. For instance, if Jeff the Custardmancer has Custardmancy Evocation Level 3 he might turnsheet to have his custard magic form a great tornado of Custard to smite his arch nemesis Steve the Semolinamage in one instance, but in the next to use a large bolt of Custard instead.

Specifying how you wish to use your magic is no guarantee it will work that way - Jeff, for instance, could become distracted while casting his Custard Tornado and end up having to resort to the far more crude method of “flooding the place with custard” - but it is useful for the GMs to know how you intended for the spell to go in the first place.

Casting magic of your level is an exhaustive exercise - you can feasibly expect to be able to cast five or six spells in a row before tiring of your level, ten to fifteen of the level below, but over thirty of two levels below.