Casting Spells

Spells are very much living things. A sigil is a constraint on spells, a kind of cage and for it. They wriggle, they struggle, they seek to have their way and be free – magic is aware and has desire and sentience. As they are abstract, they dwell in the mind of a person, wriggling, struggle, poking, prodding, pestering to distraction. And once you are distracted, it is free.

This means that they are exceedingly difficult to form on the fly, at will, if they are more complex than a cantrip, and that there is a limit to the number of spells that any given person can hold within them each day. It also means that when rendered unconscious, you lose all the spells you have been holding in your head.

Components

Casting a spell is called Invoking, requires five components: a Verbal Component, a Somatic Component, a Mana component, a Focus component, and a Time component.

Verbal Components

This involves speaking aloud the incantation that is part of the spell. The incantation must be spoken with force, with emotion, with intent and meaning. They cannot be rushed and cannot be interrupted. Here are two examples of Incantations:

Somatic Components

This involves movement. That movement may involve intricate hand and finger gestures, posture and posing, complex movements of limbs or body. The ungifted often call it “wriggling”, lacking an understanding of the nuanced and discrete movements performed at speed after many hundreds of hours of training and practice.

The combination of verbal and somatic components can be of varying length and complexity. Some spells can take a great amount of time to chant, some take a great deal of time to perform the necessary movements, and some can take both a long time to chant and gesture. Combined with the release and channeling of Mana, it can take a lot out of the spellcaster.

Using, casting, or releasing a spell does not mean the spell is not still memorized after casting – one can cast a memorized spell as many times as one has energy for it in that day.

Spell Locus

All Mages require a Locus. A Locus is the essential tool that all Mages need for their magic to be shaped through. For Wizards it is often a wand or a staff, for Clerics it is a Holy Symbol, for others it might be a tattoo or a pen. Many will use an ornate rod or a staff, some will merely use a stone that is engraved with complex markings.

A Mage without a Locus cannot cast a spell. The nature and shape of that Locus will be up to the Mage themselves, and they can come in all manner of shapes, forms, and ways of being. However, they are always tangible, always expensive, and very much customized to the mage. The simplest Locus for a Mage costs a minimum of 10 gp, a Quid or Eagle – 100 shillings – and can take seven days to craft from scratch.

All Foci are carefully constructed, carved, and many will improve them over time as the amount of power that flows through them can stress them, breaking them or shattering them if it is too much. In general, a Locus should cost 100 shillings per degree of complexity of a spell being cast.

The two most common forms of Foci are Wands and Staves. Wands are typically made out of a wood like Oak or Yew or Blackthorn. Staves are fashioned out of Ash, Oak, and Yarrow. It is among the first things that formal training teaches, and much of the challenge for those who lack formal training is that they went by feel and Locus and failed to develop a proper Locus.

Spending Mana

The Spell Point Cost table summarizes the cost in mana of spells from 1st to 9th level. Spells of 6th level and higher are particularly taxing to cast. This cost is regardless of the spell list, the Axiom, or the Affinity of the caster. Skill, knowledge, and efficiency in control are all what determine the ability of someone to manipulate the energy around them. There are things and ways to influence this.

Spell Point Cost & Actions Table

Spell Fatigue

When casting a spell, one has to channel the stored mana they have built up in them through themselves, through their focus, and into the spell itself. This has a physical effect on the caster, and if one uses a great deal of mana, one can become fatigued. Successive uses of large amounts of mana can weaken further, and potentially even cause a collapse.

Anytime you use a number of points of mana equal to your Level of Mastery plus five points in casting a single spell (CL+5), either through the base cost or through additional mana you use to enhance the spell, you are struck by a point of Fatigue. You can make a Vitality Check (DC 15) to resist this, but each further fatigue check increases the DC by 1 regardless of success or failure. The Base DC for this is 15.

On reaching six points of fatigue by any means, every 10 points of mana used adds another points of fatigue, at 8 Points, the mage cannot defend themselves, cannot move, and cannot recover until they have completed at least a one-hour rest (see Fatigue).

On reaching zero spell points, you collapse unconscious, as there is a physical toll to running out of Mana. You will awaken once you have recovered at least 10 mana points.

Empowerment

On Wyrlde, Mages can Empower many spells by spending additional Mana and pushing it into the spell during the casting phase to alter it to achieve a desired effect.

Empowering a spell allows you to increase the area of effect, number of targets, move the damage die up and down the die scale, change the number of dice, or duration of the spell, all depending on the spell.

Spells which are going to be empowered must be declared as such prior to starting – you can’t add the empowering after it is cast.

The base empowerment cost is increased by the thing being empowered:

You cannot empower a spell to change Attack, Save, Casting Time, School, Ritual Requirements, Effect, Spell Level, or similar qualities.