Bay 12 Games Forum

Fifteen years ago, the king and queen of a small kingdom shut the gates of their castle, previously open to any citizens who wished to bring something to the attention of the king and queen. Speculation ran rampant about why.
Five years ago, the king and queen of that same kingdom died on a voyage at sea. Their elder daughter unofficially took control, delaying the official coronation ceremony.
Two years ago, the coronation took place...but afterwards, disaster struck. The new queen was discovered to be a sorceress, and covered the summer-struck land with a blanket of frozen winter. Within days, the issue seemed solved...but the damage was done. Crop yields plummeted to nearly zero, chilled and smothered by snow. Poultry and other small livestock were buried or lost by the sudden, unexpected snowfall. Hay yields decreased, hay storage was eaten at. Some people who hadn't prepared sufficient firewood for the unexpected freezing temperatures froze to death. Moreover, in the wake of this tragedy, the queen severed trade with Weselton, one of her largest trading partners, one of the richest cities in the region. Perhaps worst of all, the youngest son of the King of the Southern Isles was mistreated, having an engagement ignored, being beaten, and finally being locked in the brig to be sent back home.
Last year, the effects of the winter were acutely felt as people tried to rebuild. Famine swept the land, the price of wheat soaring high enough that only the wealthy could eat bread and dairy products becoming a major staple. Distrust flared up between the kingdom and its neighbors, what with the apocalypse-bringing sorceress-queen on the throne. Fields were planted with what seed had been stored, people tried to rebuild. The King of the Southern Isles and the Duke of Weselton began planning a war to get justice and vengeance on the sorceress-queen.
This year, the granaries are full, the weapons are sharp, the soldiers are ready. War is coming. War is here.

But one issue may seem to remain: The Queen herself, capable of acts of powerful magic. Moreover, she has learned in these years how to control her power to extents not seen in living memory. She could freeze an army in its tracks, raise an army of giant monsters of snow and ice, coat supply lines with deep snowdrifts. How can one stop such a force?
The King of the Southern Isles proposed a solution. Fight fire with fire, fight sword with sword...fight magic with magic. These two years, the Southern Isles, Weselton, and other allies the two gathered have been searching for other sorcerers and sorceresses to form a task force, intended to deal with tougher targets in the kingdom and eventually the queen herself.

This is the story of those sorcerers.

Magic...one of the most dangerous forces in the world, one of the rarest dangers one could deal with. In the right hands, it is a tool to help build up the masses; in the wrong hands, it is a danger to everyone--including the user.
Source
In general, magic comes from either an inborn "gift" or a curse. All magic works essentially the same, however.
The "gifted" sorcerers tend to develop their magic at a young age. Their magical elements tend to be more natural and simple--ice, stone, stuff like that. They are sometimes called mages or, in less civilized areas, shamans.
"Cursed" sorcerers gained their magic from some outside, typically malevolent source. Their magical elements tend towards the perverse and unnatural. They are sometimes called witches (if female) or wizards (if male). Their magic is stronger than natural magic, but is harder to control.
The Mark
Every magic-user has a feature known as his or her Mark.
In the case of gifted sorcerers, it's nothing unique, or obviously inhuman, or even terribly unusual, just on the outer rim of "normal". It typically relates in some way to the magic-user's element. A water sorcerer might have pure blue eyes, a fire sorceress might have bright red hair, and so on. It doesn't mark one person as definitely magical, but it makes it harder to hide one's identity.
For cursed sorcerers, the mark is more obvious but concealed. It's typically a symbol of some kind relating to the curser and the magic, in some location that relates to how the curse came about. A lucky one will have it somewhere like his shoulder or stomach, where it can easily be concealed; less lucky people will have the mark on their forehead, palm, or somewhere else pretty obvious. It's easier to conceal than gifted mages' marks, but if seen it quite clearly marks one as a magic-user...and people who know what you look like will be able to find it fairly easily, most likely.
Luckily, you guys are on the side of good and shouldn't need to worry about how easy it could be for witch hunters and such to find you.
Magic and Emotions
Each sorcerer has one emotion, the "catalyst emotion," that increases the power of his or her magic, at the cost of an extreme loss of control. This emotion tends to be similar for similar types of sorcerers, but this is not always the case. Regardless, sorcerers tend to learn what this emotion is pretty early on. More obscure is their "inhibitor emotion," the state of mind which reduces the power of the magic but allows greater control or even reversal of the magic. These "emotions" may not be simple emotions like happiness or sadness, and while they will often be opposed in some way they will usually not be exact opposites. For instance, the few fire sorcerers often have passion as the catalyst emotion and concern as the inhibitor emotion.
Aside from catalyst and inhibitor emotions, general state of mind can have a great effect on the ability of one to control his magic. Unsurprisingly, stress reduces control, as do severe distractions.
Magic and the World
Many people fear sorcerers, and with good reason! The typical "life cycle" of a sorcerer is that they discover their abilities as children, hide them for some time, eventually reveal them at some point, and flee before any lynch mobs can form or witch-hunters hear of them. This attempt rarely lasts long; they typically take magical action during their retreat, and given their low level of skill and high level of stress, chances are they caused some major catastrophe on the way out. Those who do typically get caught and executed; those who don't tend to die from starvation or exposure to the elements.
A few, however, manage to survive one way or another after coming out. Maybe they make themselves and their power useful to the community, maybe they make a home for themselves in the deep wilderness, maybe they simply take over whatever area they live in. They will face further oppression all their life--witch hunters, angry priests, sometimes even armies. But if they survive long enough, they can make wonders. Some are still in the world, populating the distant corners or enriching the wilds of the kingdoms.

Magical Elements
Each sorcerer or sorceress has control of a general substance. Their powers with this substance are vast; they can create it in vast quantities, manipulate it, dispel it (with the right emotional state), and even create living creatures from it (with a bit of luck). There are a few tendencies of them. They tend to be solid, simple, and either serene or...not.
Solid: Shouldn't be tough to understand; ice or stone sorcerers are more likely than water or fire ones. The least solid known sorcery is fire sorcery. Less solid substances lose versatility; sure, a fire sorcerer can burn someone, but creating creatures is unlikely and raising structures is right out. On the other hand, less solid substances often give a versatility of their own.
Simple: Also fairly simple. A basic homogeneous substance like stone is likelier than a more complex substance like crystal or flesh. Less simple substances are harder to control; they prefer to develop on their own. However, with luck or skill, they can be made into more complex forms than what the simpler substances can hope for.
Serenity: This tends to be  major difference between gifted and cursed magic. Gifted magic tends towards beautiful, graceful elements; cursed magic tends towards the dangerous and disturbing. This tendency is weaker than the others, but present. Magic at the "wrong" end of serenity tends to be weaker than typical, but makes it harder to determine what type the sorcerer is.
Magic Rolls
Each use of magic requires two rolls: A Power roll and a Control roll. In case it isn't obvious, the Power roll determines how much mojo is behind your spell, and the Control roll determines if you cast the land into eternal winter again or not. The result of the rolls are as follows:
Power Roll:
0 or less: Ow! Headache. You have a -1 penalty to both Power and Control rolls for a number of turns equal to one minus the roll.
1: Fizzle. Nothing happens.
2: It happens, just...not much.
3: It happens, but a bit weaker than you hoped.
4: It happens.
5: It happens, strongly.
6 or more: Oh, you'd better believe it happens. -1 to Control roll.
Power rolls can be affected by the difficulty of the magic. Easy magic might be +1 or +2, really big stuff might be -2 or -3.
Control Roll:
0 or less: Oops.
1: Not much like what you wanted. Oh, the general result is there, or the general process, but it sure as heck isn't going to do what you really wanted.
2: The general result and process are there, but there's a lot of collateral damage or some other such effect. It's not likely to screw the pooch, unless you're in a fragile scenario, but it's still not good.
3: More or less what you wanted, barring some minor changes and disruptions.
4: Pretty much what you wanted. Maybe a detail here or there off.
5: Exactly what you wanted. Boring, but for the best.
6 or more: Neat, intricate details get added. This might negatively affect the function of the whatever.
Control is affected by one's ability to concentrate and one's emotional state.
Emotion
Emotional state is important in affecting magic. You can try and control your emotions with a Focus roll, but aside from that your emotional state is more or less determined on the GM based on your character, the situation, and the actions you take. It's kinda important. Emotions are arbitrarily defined in "levels," where Level 0 is average and Level 12 being absolutely total immersion in that emotion--crushing despair, absolute terror, truest love. Emotions similar to the catalyst or inhibitor emotion function as such, albeit at a lower level.
Having a low level of your catalyst emotion gives a small bonus to your Power roll (0.1/level to a max of +1), but higher levels (3+) also grant penalties to Control (-0.2 per level from 3-8, -0.3 per level from 9 to 12).
Your inhibitor emotion's effects are simpler; -0.1 to Power rolls and +0.1 to Control rolls at all levels not divisible by three, for a total of up to -1.1 and +1.1.
Stress is also an important consideration, rated on the same scale as emotions and determined in part by them. Stress gives a simple -0.1 to Control rolls per level.
Another fun fact is that high levels of stress or the catalyst emotion can cause your magic to go off accidentally. Add the level of your catalyst emotion to half your stress level. Whenever a "spike" in stress or the catalyst emotion occurs, roll 3d6; if the result is lower than the aforementioned sum, a magical effect goes off. Roll for Power to see how big it is and Control to see how bad it goes.
Applications
Now that we've discussed everything that can go wrong, let's discuss the fun stuff.
The simplest use of magic is a simple blast, a burst of raw elemental magic. What this blast does, exactly, is a bit hard to determine ahead of time, but it tends towards symbolic representation of the element. Using this gives a dynamic +1 to both Power and Control rolls, because it's a pretty damn simple spell. (Also, you need to aim it if you're planning to hit something in specific, so it's kinda mean to make you roll that many times.) When you hit a person with it, roll to see what you hit. 1 is a glancing shot that does a little something (it affects the target, but not a ton); 2 is an arm, which causes some gradual form of immobilization and possibly loss of the arm; 3 is the torso; 4 is a leg, which acts much as an arm; 5 is the head, which causes unconsciousness and a potent death curse; and 6 means you hit the target's heart, embedding magic deep within and either causing a potent death curse or (one time in 36) cursing the victim with magic and a normal death curse. On that note, any hit can cause a death curse if the victim fails an opposed roll of his Resistance against your Spirit.
Death curses are Serious Business. They are always lethal if not cured, and the cures are rare or obscure. Each kind of magic has a specific type of cure which works in all cases, which is typically an act related to the inhibitor emotion for gifted sorcerers. Aside from that, some magical methods are available to the wise to end most death curses (although these will not work if the curse originates from the heart). But, why bother? Well...um...if you don't, you'll die. It's in the name. Every 1d6 hours (for a normal death curse) or every hour (for a potent death curse), the victim must make a Resistance check (3+) or lose a point from a random physical attribute, becoming slowly weaker, clumsier, sicker, more tired. When all physical attributes hit 0, the cursed person dies, typically transforming into the element of the curser's magic.
Anyways. Onto other uses of magic.
You can generate large amounts of your magical element. This is generally the most common use of magic, and unless you try making an unusually high or low amount of stuff your rolls will be unmodified. You may have to make an additional roll if you are making it in a detailed form, like a weapon, work of art, or building. Failing this roll can have one of many effects depending on what you make. A critical failure while making a sword might mean you make a stick with a pommel, but a critical failure while making a house will probably lead to it collapsing, likely injuring you. This auxiliary roll will have appropriate skills added to it. Manipulating existing material is also possible, and generally grants a small bonus to the Power roll depending on how much you're doing to it (reshaping a rock to be a trinket would give +1, but using it as the "seed" to generate material for a larger thing would be +0.1, if that).
You can create things with various kinds of magical enchantments or the like, commonly creatures. These are very difficult to make, typically coming with penalties to Control and Power! If you succeed, however, your creation can be wondrous.
Finally, you can banish whatever you normally create. This requires a good level of your inhibitor emotion, and has a modification to the Power roll as if it was the catalyst emotion. Banishing your element can be tricky for new mages, but it's absolutely vital if you want to be able to avoid being lynched.
Advanced Rules
Okay, not so advanced, just some stuff that didn't really fit elsewhere.
Wild Casting: You cast without really thinking much, releasing power without worrying about the fine details of control. In combat and the like, you need to roll at least 3 on a Focus roll to avoid wild casting. This gives you a +1 to Power, but -1.3 to Control. It's a decent last-ditch method, but try to make sure you don't cause an apocalypse.
Careful Casting: The opposite, really; you're carefully controlling the flow of magic. You need a Focus roll to achieve this anywhere that isn't carefully controlled (so, basically anywhere that isn't your own room in a fair-sized house or something to that extent), and you get a +1 to Control but a -1 to Power. Use this for projects you really don't want getting out of hand and can try again if you botch the Power roll.

Basic RtD effects, mostly.

Roll modifiers are a bit different. Specifically, they can be fractional! Whenever fractional roll modifiers are involved, a second die is rolled. If the number is equal to or less than the fractional component of the total bonus or penalty, then another point is added or subtracted. Yay! Fractional bonuses and penalties are noted by a decimal point, with the numeral on the right corresponding to the number of sixths, not the number of tenths. Pretend it's base 6 for a sec.
Example:
Alice punches Bob. She has a +1.1 bonus to hit, but Bob has an aura of some kind which gives enemies -0.2 to hit. Her total bonus is +0.5; she gets a +1 bonus if the second die is not a six.

Attributes are inherent to all characters and such. There are three types: Physical, Mental, and Magical. Physical attributes are Endurance, Quickness, and Strength. Mental attributes are Focus, Knowledge, and Wisdom. Magical attributes are Resistance, Spirit, and Training. The average value for normal people is 3, except for Spirit and Training (most people aren't magical or magically trained).
Endurance modifies damage resistance rolls, rolls to avoid exertion, and not getting sick. Quickness modifies reactions, running, and acrobatics. Strength modifies damage with weapons, lifting, and breaking things.
Focus modifies aim, study, and meditation. Knowledge modifies...what it sounds like. Wisdom modifies common sense, intuition, and other things so rare in Bay12 characters.
Resistance modifies how much magic can affect you. Spirit affects how much power your magic has. Training affects how much control you have over your power.
Attributes, obviously, have numbers. The human average is around 9. A 0 is -2, each additional point to 6 is +0.2, each point after that to 12 is +0.1, and each odd point after that is also +0.1. (Note that Attributes of 5-6 are all but superhuman, and past that is mostly restricted to nonhumans like powerful beasts and magical constructs.

Skills also exist, and go from 0 (I don't really know what I'm doing) to 11 (I am a world master of this art). Unlike Attributes, they're fairly easy to increase (rather than being nigh impossible). Every time you perform a given task, you get some Experience (XP). You learn from your failures, but only so much; you learn much more from when you do well. You learn best of all from doing both! Your EX gain can be determined by the following table:

Current Level

1

2

3

4

5

6

(-)-1

5

3

1

2

4

6

2-4

3

2

1

3

5

7

5-11

2

1

0

4

7

7

...Or, perhaps, by what this table would look like if I knew how to make a table work.
Um.
Anyways.
It typically takes a number of XP equal to the square of the level you wish to reach, times 20, to level up. Reaching level 0 in complex skills which people do not start at level 0 in (surgery, tinkering, etc) requires 10 XP. Combat skills generally have lowered XP gains, since "training" them involves nothing more than a single maneuver; basic combat skills are halved, intricate or difficult techniques are thirded. Other difficult skills have decreased XP requirements as determined by the GM.
Skills at Level (-) are done at -1.3; each additional level to 2 gives +0.3; each additional level to 5 gives +0.2; and each additional level to 11 gives +0.1. Yeah...once you reach a certain point, getting better only helps so much.

Dynamic bonuses are in play. Dynamic bonuses are nicer than the typical kind, because while they typically increase your roll, dynamic bonuses will helpfully reduce your roll if it would be an overshot! So basically, they try to make your roll equal to five.
Dynamic penalties are typically due to malevolent magical crap that's screwing with you, and they're as bad as dynamic bonuses are good. On one hand, they're nice enough to penalize you and try to give you a critical failure if they can. If they can't, they'll see if they can make you overshot...and if that fails, they'll settle for being a nice normal penalty. The good news? Most of the time you'll just have normal penalties!
Dynamic bonuses and penalties are added separately from normal ones until after the rest of the roll calculation is done.

Name: Um...If you don't understand this I don't think I can help you.
Gender: If your character is transgender or homosexual, please note so here. P.S. The world is much like the real-world Middle Ages but with magic, so expect that people will be taking Leviticus seriously.
Appearance: What does your character look like? Detailed anatomical descriptions not required.
Mark: I think I'll leave this without an explanation to help make sure you at least skimmed the info.
Personality: What does your character think like? Please keep psychoses, delusions, psychological trauma, and the like to a minimum.
Catalyst Emotion: This makes your magic stronger and less predictable.
Background: Where your character grew up, what he did, and overall his life before either...
Trigger: ...the event that caused the world (or at least your hometown) to learn that you were a sorcerer.
OR
Curse: ...he got cursed. Somehow.
Neither Trigger nor Curse needs to be described in great detail unless you want to.
Retreat: What you did after your magic came out or was given, up to the point that you were recruited into this lovely little squad.
Element: What are you summoning, manipulating, and so forth?
Attributes: See above. You get 30 points to spend, and no (starting) attribute may be above 6.
Skills: See above. You get seven skills: One at level 5, two at level 2, and four at level 1. Unusually rare or difficult skills may have reductions. For simplicity, all
Traits: You start with a positive trait. You may add a positive trait and a negative trait. They shouldn't be huge things, but they should affect things--especially the negative traits. GM will rule if they are acceptable and, while the player may suggest game effects, the GM will in the end arbiter the mechanics. A side note: Be creative! You might know your inhibitor emotion, or have retained a minor noble title, or have a little companion...or you might be a small child, or have an unusual Mark, or not have an important body part.
Other: ...Anything you want to note that doesn't fit into the above categories.

Feel free to take the above things as suggestions, but remember...spots are limited and waitlisting unlikely.
On that note, the more effort and creativity you show with this, the likelier you are to get in. Why? Because this isn't FCFS. (So you don't need to reserve.)

Easy Format:
[spoiler=Name]
[b]Vital Information[/b]
[u]Gender:[/u]
[u]Appearance:[/u]
[u]Mark:[/u]
[u]Personality:[/u]
[u]Catalyst Emotion:[/u]

[b]History[/b]
[u]Background:[/u]
[u]Trigger[/u] (if gifted)/[u]Curse[/u] (if...cursed):
[u]Retreat:[/u]

[b]Important Game Data:[/b]
[u]Element:[/u]
[u]Attributes:[/u]
Endurance:
Focus:
Knowledge:
Quickness:
Resistance:
Spirit:
Strength:
Training:
Wisdom:
[u]Skills:[/u]
(Skills go here.)
[u]Traits:[/u]

[u]Other:[/u]
(/spoiler]


I've had a lot of games that collapsed under their own weight. I've considered why, and I've located a few characteristics that these great-sounding, popular games shared that, to some extent or another, caused their demise: They were often large, sandbox games with a lot of effort put into worldbuilding but not much thought put into plot.
So I'm doing the opposite here. I'm making a small game, with a clearly-defined goal. The military is about as far from a sandbox as you can get, Desert Storm and the like nonwithstanding, and I've largely lifted this from an existing universe.
Here's hoping this does better.