# Magic :::section :::intro Magic in Angrea is a powerful force that emanates outward from Emith's Heart, carried along ley lines that feed the whole of the plane. The closer you are to such a ley line, the easier it is to tap into your arcane potential. The Neuranian Isles sit squarely atop three such conduits. Nearly everyone in the Isles can do some form of magic. Though for most, this amounts only to minor cantrips. ::: However, for those with natural talent, mystical community, or arcane tutelage, the true potential of magic can open up before them. Magic in Agate is codified as **Workings**. These are the known patterns for reshaping the plane. When a sorcerer, mage, or witch casts magic, they are performing a Working through one of three **Casting Methods**. ### The Nine Schools Mages study nine Schools of magic — **Archemancy**, **Chronomancy**, **Topomancy**, **Logomancy**, **Eidolomancy**, **Chymancy**, **Filimancy**, **Animancy**, and **Biomancy**. Witches and sorcerers do not view magic in this way, but the rules use them as a useful taxonomy for organizing Workings and their effects. ::: :::section ## Casting Methods * **Sorcery** (Improvised Casting) — cast any Working you meet the prerequisites for, at its listed Difficulty, with nothing in hand and nothing prepared. Maximally flexible, but faces raw Backlash. Books are for dweebs. * **Mages of the Nine Schools** (Inscribed Casting) — prepare Workings in a spellbook ahead of time for a bonus to Effective Rank, and written safeties in place of a percentile Backlash roll. Safer, but everyone knows you're a nerd. * **Witchcraft** (Sympathetic Casting) — Charms (quick, cast with Sympathy in hand) or Rites (prolonged, often paid in a Toll). Holistic, and does not fizzle. More powerful with friends! Join a coven today! ::: :::section ## Spell Components and Foci Magic is everywhere on the Isles, almost everyone can do a little. A wave of the hand, a snap of the fingers, a word under the breath, and reality answers. Strictly speaking, magic can be done with no more than the caster's own will. However, in practice, most people find it easier to have some ritual or object to help them channel their intentions into the desired effect. Using spell components, whether material, somatic, verbal, or some combination, will grant a +1 Boon (Foci) to a casting Skill check. Foci, like a mage's wand or an acolyte's holy symbol, act as material components. A witch's Sympathetic Casting is something altogether different, drawing on the threads that connect all things to channel magic through. If a Working calls for Sympathy, a Witch cannot use Sympathetic Casting to cast it without having the Sympathy in hand. ::: :::section ## Improvised Casting and Metamagic Sorcerers are not constrained to a Working rendered on a page. Their magic is free to warp and expand as they will it. When using the Improvised Casting method, casters may sacrifice a Boon to choose any enhancement from the following list to add to their Working. They can do so multiple times, but cannot reduce their Dice Pool below 1 die. They may also raise the Difficulty of a Working to add two of the enhancements listed. Unless otherwise noted, an enhancement may be added multiple times. * +1 Die to a Damage or Healing Pool * Increase range by one category — Touch → Near, Near → Far, Far → Very Far, Very Far → 1km, 1km → 10km. Magic that reaches beyond 10km needs either Sympathetic Casting, Circle Casting, or Divine Intervention. * Add one additional target within range. If the spell targets everyone or all hostiles within a zone, increase that to two zones. This enhancement may only be taken once. * Turn a Standard Action Working into a Bonus Action Working. This cannot increase the Speed of Prolonged Action Workings, nor turn a Bonus Action Working into a Free Action. Taking it more than once has no effect. * Turn a Focus spell into a Concentration spell. ::: :::section ## Inscribed Casting and Spellbooks The Spellbook isn't just the foundational Feat for The Nine Schools Tradition, it's the heart of the Inscribed Casting method. Without one, a mage cannot prepare spells, cannot copy spells from other tomes. A spellbook is a mage's bread and butter, they never leave home without it, and they guard it with their lives — or if not their life, somebody else's. * **What's inscribed from the start.** Taking up The Nine Schools grants **The Spellbook**, and it comes stocked: every Difficulty 0 Working (a cantrip) is already inscribed, plus your choice of 3 Difficulty 1, 2 Difficulty 2, and 1 Difficulty 3 Workings from anything you qualify for. That's your starting shelf, and it's just the foundation of what's to come. * **Formulary Feats: instant and curated.** Each School's Formulary Feats grant a matching set of Workings inscribed the moment you take them, the fast route past everything below. A Working can sit in your book before you're ready for it: the Feat puts the ink there regardless of whether you currently meet that Working's own prerequisites. Preparing or casting it still requires meeting the prerequisites. * **Copying a Working the slow way.** Anything published can also be learned diegetically; found in the world, taught by someone who knows it, transcribed into your own book given a source, time, and the right Skill. It's slower and riskier than a Formulary Feat, and gated by story rather than Growth. Roll Linguistics against the Working's listed Difficulty. It costs a Period per point of Difficulty (minimum one), and the **Marginalia** Feat cuts that time in half. You must meet the prerequisites of a Working in order to transcribe it into your spellbook in this way. * **What a botched copy costs you.** A Setback still inscribes the Working, but corrupts its written safety: until you copy it again, that Working's Backlash rolls percentile on its primary School's table instead of reading off its Preordained line, same as if you'd never inscribed it at all. You may pay 3 Strain and the copy comes out clean instead. A Catastrophe is worse: the page is spoiled, nothing gets inscribed, and the ink turns on you: an immediate Backlash roll at the Working's own Difficulty, same as a botched cast. Paying 5 Strain avoids the backlash, but the spell doesn't get copied on this attempt. The Marginalia Feat sidesteps the corrupted-safety outcome, but cannot itself avert a Catastrophe. * **Inscribing across Schools.** You can only inscribe a Working into your book once you hold Specialty rank 1+ in every School it draws on. * **Prepared vs. merely known.** Having a Working inscribed isn't the same as having it ready to cast at a moment's notice. Your Prepared capacity is 3 × your Logomancy Specialty rank (Logomancy's deeper Rooms extend it further), and you may swap one prepared Working for another out of your book once per Angrean Turn. Twice, with the **Steady Hand** Feat. * **The Preparation Bonus.** A Working cast from preparation gets +1 Effective Rank over casting it cold. Some Workings list an even deeper bonus, or trade it for a rider instead, and certain deep Technique Feats push the bonus further within their School. * **Written safeties.** This is most of what the university actually sells: an inscribed Working carries a Preordained Backlash, so you know in advance exactly what a bad roll looks like. No percentile table, no surprises. ::: :::section ## Sympathetic Casting and Grimoires Witchcraft doesn't touch a Working through a School, it draws on Sympathy, the threads that tie all things together, and pulls magic through whatever connects the witch to the effect they want. Based in millennia of folk practice and community: a witch's casting never simply fizzles. Where a mage's or sorcerer's Setback waste's the time spent casting it, a witch's Setback just twists the Working, the Twist happens instead of nothing happening at all. * **Charms (the quick form).** Cast at the Working's own listed Speed, with its Sympathy in hand. Having that Sympathy in hand grants +1 Effective Rank. * **Rites (the slow form).** Always a Prolonged Action, and often priced in more than time: many demand a Toll, or the assent of whoever or whatever the Rite touches; a spirit, a place, a person. In exchange, Rites reach further than any other Method: richer Sympathy, heavier Tolls, durations measured in seasons rather than rounds, and Range made all but irrelevant by how deep the Sympathy runs. * **Vessels.** A Rite's power doesn't have to be spent the moment it's raised. Seal it into a Vessel instead — a charm, a knot, a stoppered breath — and it waits, ready to be discharged as a Standard Action whenever it's needed. The Rite still cost its full time, Toll, and assent up front; discharging it is just when the knot finally comes untied. A witch can hold vessels totaling 3 × their Arcane Lore rank in Capacity (a Difficulty 0 Rite costs nothing to seal), and never more than fifty vessels regardless of Capacity to spare. Crafting a Vessel for use in a Rite takes one turn (~2 minutes). * **Grimoires.** Not every witch keeps a book, but the ones who do keep something closer to a commonplace book than a spellbook: herbcraft, the names and habits of the spirits they've bound or bargained with, notes on the deeper nature of the world; never a Working itself. A Grimoire in hand does three things for a witch. It stands in for the Sympathy on any Charm or Rite generic enough to allow it; never for Sympathy bound to one particular person, place, or thing; that still has to be the real article. It counts as a Foci, the same +1 Boon as any other spell component. And it holds its own reusable Vessels: up to one Working per point of Arcane Lore, refillable with a fresh Rite whenever one's spent, no new charm or knot required. ::: :::section ## Circle Casting Three to twelve casters — sorcerers, mages, witches, any mix you like — can link a single Working to one shared ritual and push it somewhere none of them could reach alone: further than Metamagic gets a lone sorcerer, further than any solo caster's Effective Rank could carry it. Every circle that's ever tried to run thirteen has come apart before the working landed. Nobody's recorded one holding past twelve. Everyone in a Circle takes one of two jobs. * **The Anchor** (exactly one) casts the Working, at the ritual's close, through their own Casting Method — Improvised, Inscribed, or Sympathetic. Everything that normally applies to a solo cast still applies: their own Effective Rank, their own Boons, a sorcerer Anchor's own Metamagic stacked on top of everything the Circle bought them. * **A Voice** (two to eleven) doesn't cast the Working directly. Each Voice claims one **Facet** of it instead — the same five things Metamagic can buy (a Damage/Healing die, a step of Range, an extra target, a faster Speed, a longer duration) — and carries that one piece through the whole ritual. More than one Voice can claim the same Facet, and their work stacks; enough Voices on Range is how a Circle clears Metamagic's 10km wall. ### Building Cohesion The ritual runs in intervals (see Timing, below), and at every interval, every Voice makes a real casting check: their own Method's normal Skill (Arcane Affinity for Improvised, Arcane Erudition or the Working's primary School Specialty for Inscribed, Arcane Lore for Sympathetic), rolled against the Working's own listed Difficulty, exactly as if casting it solo. It doesn't produce the effect on its own. It feeds it. * **Triumph** banks 2 Cohesion to that Voice's Facet — 3, if their Skill Rank already meets or beats the Working's Difficulty. Erase 3 Strain and gain a point of Renown, same as any Triumph. * **Success** banks 1 Cohesion (2, under that same mastery). Costs the usual 1 Strain. * **Setback** banks nothing. Pay 3 Strain to wrest a Partial Success — still nothing banked, but the ritual takes no further harm — or eat the Setback outright, and the whole Circle takes a Hindrance at the next interval. One caster's bad roll becomes everyone's problem. That's rather the point of a Circle. * **Catastrophe** banks nothing, and unless that Voice pays 5 Strain to avert it, Backlashes the entire Circle at once — rolled on the Anchor's Method as normal, at whatever Difficulty the ritual has climbed to (see below). ### Spending it Every 3 Cohesion a Facet banks buys one tier, and each tier can be spent one of two ways. Spent as that Facet's Metamagic enhancement, it's free — no Boon sacrificed, no Difficulty paid by the Anchor for it — but it adds +1 to the ritual's Difficulty for the one roll that actually matters, the Anchor's final cast, and the Backlash roll if it goes wrong. Stack enough tiers this way and a Circle blows straight past what Metamagic alone allows, but a Circle that's banked and spent a great deal of Cohesion this way is, mechanically, attempting something of real magnitude: harder to land clean, and considerably worse to botch. Spent as **+1 Effective Rank on the Anchor's final cast** instead. Cohesion spent this way doesn't add to a Workings difficulty, but produces no additional effect. The choice is made per tier, at the end of the ritual, and nothing stops a Circle from mixing both. ### The final cast After the last interval, the Anchor casts as normal: at the Working's Difficulty, plus every tier spent on a Facet enhancement (tiers spent on Effective Rank don't count here). Their Effective Rank is their Skill Rank against that raised Difficulty, plus any Effective Rank bought at conversion, exactly as it would work solo; their Dice Pool is the usual two dice, plus whatever Boons (and, for a sorcerer Anchor, Metamagic) they'd normally bring to the cast. A Catastrophe here rolls Backlash, or reads off the written safety, if Inscribed, at that same raised Difficulty. ### Timing Circle Casting is always a Prolonged Action, run in intervals of one period (about fifty-five minutes) each. There's no fixed length — after every interval, the Circle decides whether to push for another (more Cohesion banked, but Catastrophe risked all over again) or stop and let the Anchor cast. It runs exactly as long as the Circle is willing to keep pushing it. If anyone drops out before that final interval, whether hurt, pulled away, whatever the story inflicts, the whole ritual fails on the spot: every banked Cohesion is lost, one Backlash check lands at whatever Difficulty the Circle had reached, and nothing is cast. ::: :::section ## Reading a Working Every published Working follows the same shape. Once you can read one, you can read them all. * **School(s)** — which of the Nine Schools the Working draws on, with one marked *primary*. Most Workings are mixed; the primary School is the one whose Backlash table you roll on if it goes wrong. * **Prerequisites** — what you need before you can even attempt the Working: a Skill or Specialty rank, an Attribute, another Feat, or a Narrative condition the Weaver adjudicates. Listed as "—" only when there's genuinely nothing required. * **Difficulty** — 0 to 15, how hard the Working is to pull off. It sets the Dice Value on your casting roll, and for Workings with a Damage or Healing Table, roughly how many dice you're rolling and how forgiving the thresholds are. * **Speed** — Prolonged, Standard, Bonus, or Free. How much of your turn it costs. * **Range** — Touch, Near, Far, or Very Far: how far the effect reaches. Range is reserved for how far something travels, including how far a self-targeting Working like a teleport can throw you. * **Extent** — who or what the Working actually touches: one target, everyone in a Zone, self, and so on. * **Duration** — how long the effect lasts. If it needs to be sustained, this also names which slot it occupies: Concentration (a Spell Check whenever you take damage) or Focus (a Spell Check every round). * **Effect** — the plain rules text. What actually happens when it works. * **Damage Table / Healing Table** — for Workings that deal harm or restore it. Roll the listed pool of d6; each die that meets the Hit (or Heal) threshold counts, and one that also meets the Explode threshold grants another die rolled and added to the pool. A Hit is always worth 1 HP, whether heal or harm. * **Twist** — when other caster's spells fizzle out, a witch's twists. When a PC using Sympathetic Casting rolls a Setback casting this Working, this is what happens instead of a simple failure. * **Backlash** — what happens on a Catastrophe. An inscribed casting's Backlash is a written safety: the mage knows exactly what their failure looks like before they ever cast it. Every other Method — Sorcery, Charms, Rites — rolls percentile on the primary School's Backlash table instead and takes its chances. * **Prepared / Charmed / Rite** — how each Casting Method changes everything above: the mage's inscribed version, the witch's quick Charm, and (where it applies) the witch's slower, deeper Rite. A missing line is information too; a Working with no Charmed line is simply one witches don't do. A Charmed or Rite line also notes whether its Sympathy is Grimoire-eligible — see Grimoires, above. ### Browse them all See every published Working, searchable and filterable, in the **[Workings reference](/angrea/agate/working)**. :::