Bay 12 Games Forum

Culture: The culture has a general emphasis on warriors and bravery. Yes, it's that vague. We are set in the dark ages, at the time of the chain mail but not of the full plate: the kingdom is semi-barbaric, which means a large part of the population is still hunter and fishermen and not farmers. Apart from that, it's fully up to the clan-leaders to fluff their clans from head to toe.
Note 1: Do remember the background history, all Clans are descendant from the men who came with High Kin.
Note 2: The "chain of command" of the kingdom goes as such: King, Clan-lord, Chief, Bondsmen, the populace

Religion: There are three religions in the Kingdom -
High gods: The gods of the High Kin. Emphasis on honor, bravery, warrior's feats.
Wild gods: The gods of the Old Folk. Emphasis on freedom, wilderness.
Barrows gods: A sect more than a religion, it is the worship of twelve Old Folk sorcerers who sacrificed their souls in order to curse the High Kin (for no immediate effect, although the death of the High Kin is often blamed upon them). An "evil" religion of sorts.

Magic: There are three types of magic in the kingdom. Spells generally require complicated formulas and ingredients, but if all the components are in place they are actually quite difficult to fail. Magic is generally viewed at the minimum with mistrust and at the worst with hatred, depending on the region.
High Magic: the "weakest" magic, once used by the High Kin (at their time, it was the most powerful, but used by men of other races it is weak), it does not affect its user's spirit. A Mage (user of High Magic) calling a Storm would simply cause a normal storm.
Wild Magic: the magic used by the Old Folk. It is more powerful than High Magic, but it increases the Wilderness of the user's soul. Wilderness causes Wild Beasts to be more interested in the user: this can generally lead to absolutely disastrous effects, such as being followed by direwolves or the Wild Hunt itself. Wilderness caused by Wild Magic can be fought back, with time and effort. A Sorcerer (user of Wild Magic) calling a Storm would cause a powerful storm, but not one that could not be normally seen in a terrible weather.
Barrows Magic: a dark, corrupted form of magic. It is formidably powerful, but it raises the Wilderness of the user at a tremendous speed, and that Wilderness is permanent. All users of Barrows Magic, unless they entirely stop using it early, are doomed to become cursed, hunted, soulless creatures doomed to run for their life for all of eternity away from evil spirits - a rather unfortunate fate. A warlock (user of Barrows Magic) calling a storm would cause an unnatural, destructive storm: a single thunderbolt of such an phenomenon would throw down a tower.

 So here are my proposals for magic.  Magic (regardless of High, Wild or Barrow) comes in seven 'forms' (or 'roots' if it's Wild), perhaps giving rise to the use of septagrams.  These roughly correspond to elemental concepts a la Five Classical/Eastern Elements.  All magics focus on both the stirring and stilling of their form.

    Flame - Magic relating to the starting and quenching of fire, light etc.
    Wave - Seas, rivers, ponds, drink and rain.
    Wind - Storms, winds, calms and sound.
    Stone - Dirt, soil, rock, gems, divination through the land.
    Metal - Forged metal.  Iron is the hardest to enspell, silver the easiest.
    Blood - Beasts, fowl, the heartbeats and spirits of men.  Divination through the eyes of a raven, etc.
    Seed - Plants, trees, moulds.  Divination through trees.

A player chooses two forms to begin with, others must be learnt as they go along.  They start with knowledge of the simplest spell of that form, but not the materials (which they must gather).  They must determine stronger and more complex spells as they go along and gather the materials for those also.  Except for very rare materials, once they have acquired some of a material it can be assumed they have enough to cast spells with thereafter (e.g. pyre ash).  My proposals for starting spells, then...

Flame: Start Fire
The simplest fire spell ignites a combustible material such as kindling, dry wood or a lamp wick.  It can do so at a distance of up to thirty paces, so long as the target can be seen.
Reversed: The spell puts out fires of the same intensity as it is able to start (i.e. a candle flame or equivalent with High Magic, a torch fire or equivalent with Wild Magic).

High Magic: The spell will only ignite materials that would catch fire if touched by a candle flame, e.g. candle wicks, tinder and kindling, brandy, hay bales.
High Magic Components:  Ash from a fire upon which the midnight moon and the high noon sun shone.

Wild Magic: The spell will ignite materials that would catch fire if a torch was held against them, e.g. torches, clothing, rope.
Wild Magic Components:  Ash from the burned heartwoods of an oak or an elm or an alder.


Wave: Clear Water
This spell turns muddy, poisoned, stagnant or salt water into crystal clear springwater, safe to drink.  It will technically work on wine or other beverages, but they will become flat and tasteless in the process.
Reversed: The same amount of water or liquid as the spell would clear instead becomes fouled and stagnant.  It tastes foul and is poison to drink.  Heavy drinks such as spiced wine might hide the taste some, making it a viable spell to poison with.

High Magic: The spell will clear up to a barrel of water at a time, cast at dawn or dusk.
High Magic Components: A phial of clear water from a forest or mountain lake.

Wild Magic: The spell will clear a dozen barrels of water at a time, cast at high noon or midnight.
Wild Magic Components: A phial of meltwater from a mountain or high hill spring.


Wind: Gust
This spell creates a small gust of wind able to attract the attention of guards, knock over light objects or push sails.  It can also be used to increase the strength of an existing wind slightly.
Reversed: The spell calms wind of the same intensity it can summon, creating stillness or lessening the effect of a gale.
Indoors, stirring wind is half as powerful, while calming wind is twice as effective.

High Magic: The spell will knock over bottles, send loose paperwork flying, muss hair and push the sails of a light one- or two-man boat.
High Magic Components: A piece of rigging from a ship or boat who has survived at least one journey.

Wild Magic: The spell will knock over chairs, throw books off shelves, knock over clumsy children or the drunk and push the sails of a light craft such as a river barge.
Wild Magic Components: A piece of wood or bark from a tree knocked down in a storm.


Stone: Crack
This spell causes worked or natural stone (including baked or dried clay) to crack and fracture, creating an audible cracking sound in line with the size of the crack.  It can split stones and boulders and weaken walls so they can be broken.  It also works on small crystals and gemstones.  In theory it will work on sand and soil, but practically it is easier to just do so by hand.  One must touch the material to be broken for the spell to work.
Reversed: The spell will anneal broken stone together, e.g. joining the pieces of a drystone wall into a solid barrier or mending a broken brick or statue.  If correctly placed stone, crystal or gemstone objects can be resealed with minimal sign of the original break.
The spell can be used indefinitely, although it creates a very great deal of noise from the cracking stone.  The reversed spell also makes noise, as if the stone were snapping back into place.

High Magic: The spell will break or seal bricks or small boulders, or create/seal cracks in larger objects up to a foot long.
High Magic Components: A piece of stone of the same type as the one to be broken, a silver chisel enchanted in a septagram for seven days (the silver chisel is re-usable).

Wild Magic: The spell will break or seal walls or large boulders, or create/seal cracks in larger objects up to five feet long.
Wild Magic Components: A piece of stone of the same type as the one to be broken, and a silver chisel enchanted in a septagram for seven days (the chisel is consumed).


Metal: Strengthen
This spell strengthens worked metal, making blades more able to keep an edge, chains take more strain, armour more resilient and tools last longer.  It is a slow spell that can take many days to cast, though its effects last as long as the metal in the item enchanted retains its shape.
This spell will make a silver weapon or tool work as if it were bronze, a copper or bronze tool as if it were steel and a steel tool as if it were a masterwork tool of its kind.  Already masterworked items are not affected.
Reversed: The spell weakens metal, softening silver as if it were gold, bronze as if silver and steel as if copper.
The spell does not actually transmute the metal into another, it merely changes its properties.

High Magic: Cast at noon, the spell will affect up to twelve square inches of silver, six square inches of copper/bronze or other metal and one square inch of iron or steel.  A whole item of the size of a sword or shield will take a week to change if made of silver, a month if made of other metal and a season to change if made of iron or steel.  Multiply the time taken by four for suits of armour or larger items.
High Magic Components: A piece of metal of the same type as the target, wrought into a septagram and enchanted.  Silver septagrams take seven hours to enchant, copper/bronze seven days and iron or steel seven weeks.

Wild Magic: Wild Magic works as the High Magic spell, but can be cast once at dawn and once at dusk.  Halve the time taken for changing whole items with High Magic.
Wild Magic Components: A beast's heartblood, mixed with metal of the appropriate type and forged into a ring.  Silver requires the heart of a stag, copper/bronze or base metals the heart of a bear and iron or steel the heart of a direwolf.


Blood: Bird Call
This spell summons a bird of the appropriate species to you.  The nearest specimen (or a specific bird, if possible) will set off and fly to your location.  If the journey is long, they will stop to eat and sleep along the way, but they will arrive as soon as they are able.  Once the bird has arrived you can command it to perform simple tasks such as fetching you worms and grubs, standing watch in a tree and calling out if they see a particular type of animal approach ("humans" or "deer" works, "Ivor Bortnik" or "Clan Morrighan men" doesn't) and leading you to sources of water or food.  You can also command them to carry messages to specific locations (if you write the message and tie it to their leg) or to attack foes.  An individual bird will do little more than distract a foe so you can get in an attack or make an escape, but a flock might be more effective.
Reversal: You ward an area, object or person so that birds do not approach.  Useful if you want to stop a friend's corpse getting eaten by crows.  Affects birds affected by this spell, so birds sent to deliver a message will go the edge of the boundary and no further and birds will not willingly attack anyone warded by the spell.  Note that this only affects birds of the type specified when the spell is cast, although if you have multiple feathers you can combine them to enhance the ward.

High Magic: You can call up to half a dozen birds at once or ward up to a six foot radius or up to three people or objects against birds.  The small flock fights as a 1hp +1 attack NPC guardsman.
High Magic Component: A feather of the type of bird you wish to call or ward against, twelve drops of blood from the user.

Wild Magic: You can call up to three dozen birds at once, ward up to a thirty foot radius or up to a dozen people or objects against birds.  The larger flock fights as three 1hp +1 attack NPC guardsmen.
Wild Magic Component: A feather of the type of bird you wish to call or ward against, thirty six drops of blood from the user (causes a larger than usual increase in Wilderness).


Seed: Tree-seeing
You can use trees or carven wood to see things at a distance.  Enchanted trees and items serve as an extra pair of eyes that you can look through (instead of your own), allowing your vision to range far and wide.  You must visit each tree or personally prepare each carving you enchant in order to see through them.  If you find a tree or carving made by another, you can attune yourself to see through it as well (this does not prevent the original enchanter or any other attuned from seeing through it at the same time).

It takes a day to prepare a carven object or a tree, during which time you must carve or enchant an already carved face or eye.  Thereafter you will be able to see through it unless the face is destroyed or the eyes carved out or (if Wild Magic) the tree dies.

In order to see through the enchanted eyes, the caster must enter a trace that takes half an hour to prepare.  Thereafter he may flip freely between any eyes he is linked to, but may only see through one eye or pair of eyes at a time.  While trancing he is unable to see through his own eyes, though he may still speak and (if he dare) walk and interact as normal.  He has no power to interact with the places he is seeing, the spell only allows him to see.

Reversal: You carve a blinded face into an object or tree and it obscures anything within range from sight by divination.  Ordinary sight will observe it just fine, but tree-sight and divination pools will only see ordinary terrain and no hint of objects or people within.  This version of the spell still takes a day to prepare.

High Magic: You cannot carve faces into trees and must instead enchant items of carved wood with faces or eyes on them.  These items may be moved around as needed and lose their enchantment if destroyed or the eyes broken.  You can see through the eyes with ordinary human vision and can only see what is directly in their field of view.  If someone covers the eyes, they are blind.
High Magic Components: A gemstone for each eye used (costing 1d per twenty such stones).  (Cost waived if attuning to an existing totem.)

Wild Magic: You carve eyes and faces into living trees.  Trees cannot be moved unless someone should rip the ground up with them; at which point the eyes will be blind until they are replanted.  If the trees die or the eyes are defaced, they are rendered blind.  When seeing through tree eyes, you observe the entire area around them as if you were a bird or figure sat in the branches of the tree.  Covering the eyes will not blind you, and you can view the scene from any perspective that you would be able to if you were climbing the tree, including from the base of the trunk if you wish.
Wild Magic Components: Heartwood of the tree type you wish to carve, from a tree over a century old.

 Basic infantry: costs 1d.
Heavy I: 1d, +1 strength
Heavy II: 1d, +1 strength, requires access to Iron
Heavy III: 1d, +1 strength, requires access to Steel
Cavalry: 2d, +2 strength, +1 strength on plains and when defending hills, -1 strength on forests and when attacking hills
Pike: 2d, +1 strength, +2 strength when defending
Archer: 1d, no base strength upgrade, +1 strength when defending, +2 strength when defending high grounds (does not stack)
Archer 2: 1d, +2 strength when defending, +2 strength when defending high grounds (does not stack)
Berserker: 1d, doubles the strength and the damage taken by the unit. Berserker units must take damage first in any battle they participate in.
Brave: 2d, +1 strength, +2 strength when outnumbered (stacks)
Ambusher: 1d, can create an ambush.

Ships: 1d/ship, can carry one regiment (no sea battles at the era)

Catapults: cost 1d/catapult, catapults will destroy a wall in (1 month x levels / number of catapults). So if three catapults are bombarding a level two wall, it will take (1 month x 2 / 3) about two thirds of a month for them to make a large breach.
Siege towers: cost 1d/siege tower, negate the walls bonus at the rate of three siege towers / wall level.

Walls: +50% strength / level, cost 5d / level, three levels tops

Ambushing: An army constituted only of ambushers can set up a trap based on a d6 roll (difficulty determined by GM fiat. Hint: hiding in deep woods is easier than in the middle of a plain).
If the trap is successful, the army has double strength on the first three rounds.
If the trap is not successful, the army has a strength divided by two for the first round.
The player is not told whether or not the trap is successful before the battle (*evil laugh*) but he is warned of the roll's difficulty before hand, in case he desires to change his mind.