Magic

Magic in the Dying Sun Campaign (Fate)

Fundamentals & Aethereal Forces

The Realm of the Cult of the Dying Sun campaign is a magical one, coming from the power harnessed within the fundamental energies that together comprise the natural world: water, earth, wind and fire/light. Characters in The Realm interact with the fundamentals with their senses, each sense accessing a particular Fundamental: touch: earth, taste/smell: water, hearing: wind, and sight: fire/light.

Alongside these fundamental energies or fundamentals, are the opposing primordial aethereal forces of law and chaos, which in balance hold the universe together. Law seeks to hold all things in order, keeping them predictable and in place. Chaos seeks the reverse, ‘delighting’ in randomness and unpredictability. Characters within The Realm can interact with manifestations of the aethers, expressed as deities or spiritual beings.

Fundamental Stunts

How can characters call upon these fundamental energies?

Some characters show a natural affinity to particular fundamentals, and have the ability to manipulate them in basic ways. In game terms, this is expressed through Stunts connected to particular fundamental, enabling them to interact with that fundamental in a prescribed, limited ways.

Examples:

Move Object (Wind Fundamental)

Using this stunt a character can move a small item by telekinesis. The object needs to be within view and the character undistracted.

Healing Hands (Water Fundamental)

Can 'feel' physical injuries in others and knit them back together.

A successful Overcome action using Empathy (against Consequence level), reduces Consequence one level if slot free. A Success with Style reduces it two levels.

Multiple stunts can be creatively used in interaction with each other, requiring a turn for each to be ‘cast’. For example, a character might call upon a number of different fundamental Stunts to create a glamour that affects different senses.

As with all stunts, their scope is agreed in negotiation with the GM.

Aethereal Beings & Prayer

For greater magical effect, a character can interact with aethereal beings if they have an appropriate Aspect, using the following steps:

The character summons and intercedes with the aethereal being and the nature of the assistance sought from them is described. The effectiveness of the character’s intercession is indicated by a Prayer Skill roll against a mediocre target (+0) in a create advantage action; the advantage created being the power granted by the being. In their subsequent turn, the character channels the power received (ie. casts their spell). This is done using an appropriate Skill roll, modified by the success of the create advantage in the previous step (+2 for a Success, +4 for a Success with Benefits, and a further +2 if a Fate Point spent invoking their aether related Aspect). The outcome is determined by the success of this roll, and is limited by fundamentals the character is attuned to, or the nature of the being interceded with.

Example:

Speaks with the Wind, has the Aspect ‘Elven Shaman with Eagle Spirit Guide’ and the stunt: Wind: Whisper over Distances, allowing him to whisper to others in sight up to ten metres away.

In conflict with Kobold raiders, Speaks with the Wind wishes to call down lightning from the sky upon them. This would appear to be both in line with the fundamental he is attuned to (Wind) and the nature of his aetherial patron, and so the GM agrees.

This is clearly beyond Speaks with the Wind’s stunt’s scope, and so he enters a trance state to communicate with his Spirit Guide, making a Prayer skill roll against 0. He rolls 4dF and gets a total of 3. This is three or more shifts above the target and so is a success with style, so he is able to create an advantage with a +4 (+2 for the success and +2 bonus for succeeding with style).

Having succeeded in persuading his Guide to grant him the power to call down lightning, in his subsequent turn he calls upon the lightning upon his foe. This is clearly an Attack action, but which Skill should he use to make the attack? The obvious one is Shoot. He has Shoot at +3, which combined with his +4 bonus from the previous step makes it +7. Just to make sure, he slides a Fate Point across the table and invokes his ‘Elven Shaman with Eagle Spirit Guide’ Aspect for a further +2, just to make sure, creating a total Attack roll of +9. That is some total!

His Kobold target feels the gathering static in the air and attempts to dive out of the way using its Athletics +2. It rolls 4dF with totalling +1, which with the Athletics +2 becomes +3. Subtracting this +3 from Speaks with the Wind’s +9 reveals that the Kobold takes +6 shifts of damage. What a hit, the Kobold is struck and seriously frazzled by that bolt…

Sometimes a player might want to act more quickly than the two rounds it takes to seek the power and release it. This can be done, but at a cost. To cast the spell in one action rather than two, the character needs to invoke their ‘magic’ Aspect for a Fate Point, but without gaining the +2 bonus for the second roll.

Using magic has its risks. If the character cannot control the power they have been gifted, it can backfire, causing them harm. If the Prayer roll is less than Average (+1), the character takes mental stress equal to the difference between the roll and 0.

Despite knowing this risk, a desperate player might want to nevertheless push themself beyond their limits. To do so they can opt to pre-emptively take a consequence as part of the Prayer roll. In this case, the consequence box is checked, and the spell casting roll gains a bonus equal to the amount of stress the consequence would usually prevent.

Aethereal Beings and Complications

Some aethereal beings are simple manifestations with a limited range of power on offer. Such power can be accessed in a straightforward way by characters. Others, however, are more complex, manifesting as complex beings. The power available through them is of a greater range and depth, but is not so readily available, and is offered with expectations attached to it. This may range from ongoing devotion to difficult demands. Depending on the nature of the being, this can be expressed as a roleplayed negotiation, modifications to rolls involved (eg. increasing the Prayer skill target number), to the GM using the ‘magic’ Aspect as a Compel.

Example:

Aethelric the Sorceror calls upon his patron, Gnarll, a capricious being of Chaos, requesting that his liege turns his blade into a flaming weapon that will cut through the foe that threaten to overwhelm him. The GM slides a Fate Point across the table announcing that Gnarll smiles menacingly, ‘It will be a pleasure Aethelric, but it comes with a condition, sacrifice to me some of your own life force… A negotiation ensues between player and GM as to what this might mean.