Latest revision as of 01:17, 6 April 2010

Thaumaturgic Sorcery

This is a page of original spells which emulate or are extensions of effects that can be achieved through thaumaturgy.

Unless stated otherwise, it is not assumed that the sorcerer can pay the mote cost of these spells in the same way as thaumaturgic ritual, unless that method of payment is generally applicable to spells.

Warding

Ward (Terrestrial)

Cost: 10+ motes

The sorcerer creates a ward that functions as per the description of The Art of Warding in the player's handbook, targeted against any group that could be the legal target of a thaumaturgic ward. The largest area that the ward may cover is the amount that could be covered for a resource cost of (caster's Essence - 1). (So, an Exalt with Essence 3 could ward a decent-sized home, but it would take an Exalt with Essence 5 to ward a small town with a single casting.)

The strength of the ward is determined by a Wits+Occult roll (adding any relevant Art levels as dice). Successes on this roll may not be allocated to duration, and the difficulty may not be increased to key or alarm the ward. Instead, see below.

By default, the ward will last for one month before vanishing. There is no gradual decay: right until the second it vanishes the ward will be at full strength, and then it will be gone. For an extra 5 motes paid at the time of casting, this can be raised to a year and a day, and for a further 5 motes the ward will be immune to the ravages of time.

For an extra 5 motes, the Exalt may make the ward "keyed," allowing all who meet a certain condition to pass through the ward unaffected. The Exalt may also spend 5 motes to alarm the ward. If the ward has an alarm, the sorcerer is immediately aware whenever the ward is disturbed.

Empowered with Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, the ward is more resistant to countermagic than a thaumaturgic ward: it must be directly targeted with countermagic in order to be dispelled. Wards created with Terrestrial Circle Sorcery cannot be boosted through thaumaturgy.

As I'm sure you see, the most important difference between a thaumaturgic ward and this version is duration.

If there were a Solar Circle equivalent of this spell, I feel that rather than acting as a ward (with a finite strength), it would absolutely deny passage to any who met (or failed to meet) a certain set of conditions. Needless to say, that would be ridiculously powerful.

Talismans

Bestow Enchantment (Terrestrial)

Cost: 10/20 motes

Using this spell, the sorcerer bestows an item with up to the equivalent of a three dot enchantment: he can create charms against disease of standard strength, good luck charms that can negate the result of two botches per story, and warding charms of up to triple strength. It is also possible for the sorcerer to empower an item to ignore up to a +2 difficulty increase from a certain situational modifier outside of combat, or up to +1 inside combat. This spell may add 1 to any statistic of an item which is of less than Exceptional quality. This costs 20 motes.

For 10 motes, the sorcerer can instantly bestow an object with a trivial enchantment: he can make a chain rustproof or cause a pair of boots never to wear out.

This enchantment is treated as an effect of Terrestrial Circle Sorcery rather than a thaumaturgic effect. This spell may not be cast on artifacts, except in a situation where the bonus from a thaumaturgic effect would not be applicable or would be reduced. If cast on an object already benefiting from this spell, the new version will replace the old one. The enchantments of this spell will not normally fade with time or use (with the exception of talismans with an explicitly limited number of uses); this includes warding talismans.

I'm not happy at all with this spell's effects. Blah.

Further Ideas

• An equivalent of Art of the Thrice-Warded Gateway.
• Certain weather-working effects (although I'm fairly certain that there are already spells which do this -- but I currently lack access to the Bo3C.)
• Perhaps some sort of Banishment effect, although I'm dubious of whether it should even exist. (Maybe, when successful, it would instantly teleport the spirit back to Yu-Shan, its sanctum, Malfeas, or the Underworld, as appropriate. Where would elementals be sent to -- the Elemental Poles?)