Mage

Whether a mastery of magic has given them a healthy respect for its power or a deep seated fear that others could master it too, Mages follow strict laws with regards to Spiritual Powers and enforce those laws whenever and wherever possible. One of the most basic tenants of those laws is that a Mage may only ever focus their efforts on mastering a single form of magic, also known as a School of Spiritual Powers. While this law is considered restrictive by some, most Mages—and in fact even other practitioners of the Spiritual Arts—tend to obey the law. To fail to do so would incur the attention of powerful forces best left unmentioned. Yet some choose to live outside of these laws. Known as Renegades, these mages have access to powers that are seldom seen working in concert. Some rumors say they could grow to become more powerful than any single School of Spirit Powers could ever dream. Choosing that path has its cost; few Renegade mages live long enough to challenge the laws and prove the rumors correct.

Class Overview

Typical Roles: Support/Utility, Ranged Damage
Damage Types: Spirit (Arcane, Elemental, Natural)
Class Mechanic: Spirit

Default Stats: During Character Creation you may choose to use the default stat line shown below, before racial modifiers. This can be instead of rolling for stats, or if after rolling ten sets of stats you don’t like the results.

During Character Creation you may choose to use the Default Stat Line, before racial modifiers, instead of rolling for stats, or if after rolling ten sets of stats you don’t like the results

Proficiencies

Natural Armor Proficiency: Cloth
Trainable Armor Proficiency: None
Natural Weapon Proficiency: Knives, Staves, Wands
Trainable Weapon Proficiency: Whips

See Equipment section for details. When using a weapon that your class is not proficient with, see Combat Penalties. There is no level or title prerequisite to train in a new proficiency, however you must receive the appropriate Training.

Class Skills

Class Passive Skill: Arcane, Elemental, or Natural Mastery (choose one Domain), PLUS Dedicated Caster
Class Secondary Skill: Loremaster, Enchanter, or Teacher

Primary Skills

Spirit

Dedicated School of Magic

While every Mage possesses some innate or natural skill in magic, their skills are learned and developed though intensive training and formalized schooling. As such all Mages begin their schooling in Common Arcane magic, learning and wielding this School of Magic exclusively for the duration of Tier 1 powers.

Upon advancing to Tier 2 and beyond, Mages must dedicate themselves to a particular School of Magic for the remainder of their lifetime, or risk breaking the Laws of Magic and being labelled a Renegade.  Though this system can be seen as restrictive, it also has its benefits. Unlike other practitioners of the spiritual arts, Mages are permitted to retain all Tier 1 Common powers throughout their career, regardless of which School they belong to, while simultaneously being granted access to Tier 1 powers of their chosen School as well.

Academic Approach

The academic approach to learning new powers is utilized by Mages, Battlemages, and Wizards. In order to use the Academic method the Mage must have access to the appropriate Tier and School of the power, through their Mage College or choose the path of an outlaw (renegade or sorcerer). Either way, the Mage must then proceed though the following procedure:

• First the caster must find, purchase, or be given a scroll or text for that selected power. Scrolls are often awarded to students of the spiritual arts by their masters, in exchange for the completion of tasks or errands. Colleges also retain extensive libraries of source material that can be utilized, with permission of course.
• Then the caster must attempt to cast the power by consuming the scroll AND expending the Spirit cost.
• Next the caster must pass an Intellect test at -1 Disadvantage per Tier of the power they are attempting to learn.
  • If failing: The scroll is destroyed and any damage and/or negative effects are inflicted on the caster or on a nearby (unintended) target.
  • If succeeding: The power works as intended and is now available in the memory of the caster, and can now be used at will while it remains in the caster’s memory.

Alternately, if the power is taught by a Mage of the appropriate Title/rank (aka Spirit Teacher), no scroll is required and any failure is contained by the teacher.

Personal Spell Book

Personal Spell Books are used by Mages, Battlemages, and Wizards. While they may vary greatly in size and complexity, they remain the personal property of the Spirit user and typically cannot be read by anyone other than their owner, sometimes even driving an unauthorized reader mad. These casters use their Spirit Books as a means of simplifying the process of re-learning and over-writing powers currently in their memory. So long as a power is recorded in the caster’s Spirit Book, the Tier 0 power ‘Memorize Power’ can be used to successfully return a power to memory from the Spell Book without having to go through the process of learning the power (as outlined in the previous section). All rolls and requirements are waived. See the description of ‘Memorize Power’ in the Spirit Powers section for details on the frequency at which it can be cast.

Essentially this allows Mages, Battlemages, and Wizards to learn as many powers as they desire for the task at hand while using a Spell Book to store excess powers without having to re-learn them. Spell Books can store as many powers as there are pages available, where the number of pages required for a given power is equal to the tier of the power. To transcribe a power to a Spell Book the caster must have at least Rank1 Scholar (secondary skill). Transcribing takes a half rest and takes one known power from memory and permanently records it in the Spirit Book. Under no circumstances can Spell Books be used to directly cast powers. With the exception of Tier 0 powers, only powers stored in memory may be cast.

Incantation: Mage Tongue

In order to actually cast any of their powers, a Mage, Battlemage, or Wizard must speak out a memorized incantation while picturing the substance and form of the spell in their mind. This must be paired with a casting gesture of some kind to set the spell into motion (see Methods of Casting).

For mages, this incantation is usually a long form spoken aloud in fanciful, ancient, or otherwise obscure dialects. This is sometimes referred to as the Mage tongue, and though unnecessarily elaborate, mages pride themselves on the elegance of their craft. Equally elaborate are the casting gestures that accompany the incantations as a required component, typically made with delicate and precise movements of the fingers one or both hands. For more powerful spells, these gestures may also include movements of the mages arms or entire upper body, to further demonstrate  how skilled they must be to cast a particular power.

Level Ups

Mages use the following chart for leveling up:

HP Dice (Frail): Small Race (1d6), Medium Race (1d6), Large Race (1d8)