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Author Topic: Arcanodex  (Read 6730 times)

dgr11897

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Arcanodex
« on: August 18, 2019, 03:07:24 pm »

Arcanodex
A game of magic, modern day living, and chaos. Oh, and hi-jinks. It's going to get more defined and more interesting over time. Thanks in part to players building out the magic system as they join. The arcanodex is a magical codex with a bestiary attachment somewhat separate from the rest. As it's entries are filled out, more magic enters the world. If you want to join, simply ask and do the following.
For character creation, you will create 2 new arcanodex entries and 1 bestiary entry, or 2 bestiary entries and 1 arcanodex entry. You may save 1 entry to fill out later if you wish. Once in game you can use any type of magic you wish. Each entry has a magic type, which has some effects.
Magic types, and what kinds of entries each can have.
Holy, Artifacts, Spells, rituals
Unholy, Rituals, Potions, Spells
Arcane,  Potions, Spells, Artifacts,
Primal, Soups, Artifacts, Rituals,

Each type of magic has advantage against the one below it, with primal having advantage against holy. Each type of magic also has disadvantage against the one above it
Once in game this will use a 2d6 and some bonuses rolling system, rather than 1d6 system.
You also need to have a name and a rough description of your character.
Arcanodex entry types
Artifacts
Name:
Creation: How it’s made, what goes into it and how are the raw materials turned into the artifact. The more rare and hard to find the materials used, and the more difficult the procedures needed to make it, the more powerful the artifact.
Description: What does it look like, does it have any passive properties.
Usage: How is it used, what effect does it have when used. Artifacts are typically either one use powerful devices, or reusable tools.

Rituals
Name:
Materials/setup: What ritual setup and sacrifices do you need
When: When can you perform this ritual? How long does it take? Does it need to be performed under certain conditions?
Effects: What does it do? Rituals typically have passive effects, powerful long range effects, or summon entities.

Spells
Name:
Materials: What, materials, if any, are needed or used up by this spell, are they consumed? Or do they act as a focus.
Verbal and gesture components: What chants and gestures are used when casting, how long does it take.
Effect: What does the spell do when cast, generally spells are straightforward active effects. Be they utility, defensive, or offensive effects

Soups
Name:
Ingredients: What goes into the soup.
Procedure: How are the ingredients processed to make them into the soup.
Effect: What does it do when applied. Generally soups are buffs or debuffs of some kind. Altering what they are applied to.

Potions
Name:
Ingredients: What goes into the potion.
Procedure: How are the ingredients processed to make them into the potion.
Effect: What does it do when applied. Generally potions are buffs or debuffs of some kind. Altering what they are applied to.

Bestiary entry types
Location
Name:
How to find: Straightforward, how do you find or enter these locations, where are they? Are they common, or do you need to do a specific set of steps to reach one located outside the world.
Description: What do they look like
Effects: What is magical about this location, maybe you can only

Resource
Name
Description: What does it look like, how large is it
How to find: Where is this material located, do you need to do something in order to turn ordinary materials into it?
Properties: What properties, physical or magical does the resource have.

Event
Name:
Description: What does it look like
When: When does it occur, what signs are there
What: What effects does it have? Is it a magical storm? Or a time when magic is stronger?

Creature
Name:
Origin: where does it come from, is it summoned, created, found out in the wild?
Abilities: Straightforward, what abilities does it have, if any.
Behavior: How does it behave, can it be tamed? Is it sentient?
Description: What does it look like

Setting, a modern world, where magic has only just emerged. You are simply tasked with surviving, after being dumped into a city with nothing but the clothes on your back, a small knife, a personal arcanodex and some money (Equal to 1000 US dollars). Others may use magic, but you are the strongest with it. Be wary, for dark things lurk in the shadows of this world, and minor interactions between entries can have large consequences.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2019, 03:55:49 pm by dgr11897 »
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dgr11897

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Re: Arcanodex
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2019, 03:09:44 pm »

Arcanodex entries, and entrees
Arcane Artifact
Name: Arcanodex

Creation: Collect raw leather of any variety, but which finished tanning no less than a day before creation begins. Acquire a selenite crystal 1 inch thick, 6 inches long, and 4 inches wide. Fold the leather around the crystal such that it covers the two flat sides and one of the two long sides, and cut off the excess. It should now adhere to the crystal. Finally, burn the word "Arcanodex" into the leather on the long side.
Description: A book containing all entries of the Arcanodex and bestiary, though potentially described in metaphorical or otherwise-oblique terminology. This information remains up-to-date.
Usage: Can be used to obtain the knowledge necessary to conduct magic. Note: if the information is already known, it is not necessary to have this book.
Unholy Ritual
Name: Hellfire Forge

Materials/setup: Cut open your palm, and with the blood, draw a hammer on the ground in front of you, at least 2 feet long. Then chant "iron, steel, silver, adamant".
When: Must be evening, near people trying to go to sleep. Must be on flat ground.
Effects: Summons up a blacksmith's forge and tools, with a furnace powered by hellfire. The fire is really really bright, and hot enough to harm even a well-prepared smith. The tools let out really, really loud "CLANG"s whenever you use them. Otherwise it's a fairly standard forge. Useful for doing on-the-go crafting and making people hate you for the next couple of days. Lasts 24 hours.
Arcane spell
Name: Waterball

Materials: A seashell, not used up when casting
Verbal and gesture components: Say splishy splash and make a throwing motion with the hand holding the shell.
Effects: Creates a ball of water that travels on an arc then splashes on impact with an object.
Primal soup
Name: Soup of good Health

Ingredients: Tomatoes, sauce, Basically what you put into tomato soup.
Procedure: Make tomato soup, bottle it up when hot, add a drop of blood and a sprig of flowers to the top.
Effect: Mends just about anything, if you take enough of it and gives you a warm tingly feeling inside

Arcane Artifact
Name: Fear Frame

Creation: Collect the blood of at least 20 different kinds of creatures, at least 5 of these have to be magical in nature. Once the blood is collected, it must be molded into a rectangle at the edges, the shorter side must be 1/3 the length of the longer side. When it is exposed to the full moon, it will faintly glow the color of the moon. That is how you know that it Is finished

Description: A rectangular picture frame the color of blood. When it has power, it glows in the moonlight whatever color the moon is. It emits a faint aura of fearfulness, causing creatures around it to be scared for seemingly no reason
Usage: When a creature looks at the inside of the frame, they are exposed to their greatest fears. After 30 uses, it loses its glow and has to be charged via moonlight to be used again, the brighter the glow, the more uses left

Arcane Spell
Name:Confusion Spell

Materials: Parts of the entity you wish to confuse, the more parts you have, the longer the spell lasts, or you can simply cast it near the entity you wish to affect if you can keep them still
Verbal and gesture components: Chant “The confusion will follow you” while pointing at the creature you wish to confuse or its parts. Repeat the chant for every minute * the weight in pounds of your ficus your spell lasts for.

Example: If you want to cast the spell for 20 minutes on a 4 pound dog, you could either chant “the confusion will follow you” 5 times with the whole dog (if it’s still at the time) or if you wanted to do so without having to be near it, you could collect a pound of its fur and chant it 20 times. Both ways achieve the same effect, but if you don’t have a way to keep who you want to confuse still you can use things that have their DNA instead, just more chanting is needed
Effect: The spell puts the target in a general state of confusion, forgetting things easily, doing random behaviors, reacting to things that don’t exist, etc. for however long it lasts

Arcane Ritual
Name: "Going Below"

Materials/setup: A rope, chalk, dirt. Use the chalk the draw a closed figure (Circle, square, triangle, etc) fasten one side of the rope to something outside and put the rest of the rope inside the figure, proceed the spread the dirt on top of the figure covering it completely while chanting "What is below? I don't know. That is why I am going below."
When: This ritual can be realized anywhere anywhen with the only condition that is must be realized in a flat surface.
Effects: A hole will manifest inside the figure with the rope falling trough it into the darkness that light cannot remove, nobody that has gone through the hole has come back, nothing has ever come through one of the holes, the ritual persists until the rope is cut.

Arcane Spell
Name: "Bubble lights"

Materials: None.
Verbal and gesture components: Say "Shiny and bright" then form a "O" with a hand and blow through it.
Effect: Generates a small flurry of bubbles made of light, more of a party trick than an useful spell.

Unholy Ritual
Name: Bind Greater Demon

Materials/setup: One (1) unicorn horn, one (1) virgin, and the name of a demon. Chant "[Name of demon], come forth and serve!" and stab the virgin through the heart using the unicorn horn.
When: In a Heckstone circle, during a blood moon. The larger the circle, the stronger the demon that may be summoned.
Effects: Summons a demon. The demon must obey the summoner's commands to the best of its ability.

Arcane Spell
Name: Shield

Materials: 1 vial of quicksilver, not consumed
Verbal/Gesture Components: uncap the vial and hold your arm fully outstretched in the direction you want the shield to face
Effect: The quicksilver flows from the vial to just in front of the caster's hand, where it expands into a shape defined by the caster. While the caster keeps their arms outstretched, it forms a solid barrier that blocks anything within 90 degrees of the point of origin (caster's hand). The shield moves with the caster's hand. If the caster willingly ends the spell, the quicksilver flows back into the vial, otherwise it falls to the floor. The caster may have up to 2 shields active at once.
Less Fancy Effect: Each vial forms half of a bubble shield

Bestiary
Arcane event
Name: Stellar night

Description: A sky full of to many stars to count
When: Occurs every new moon, when the moon is absent, new stars come out to play.
What: Increases the strength of primal or arcane things made under the starlight.
Holy resource:
Name: Holy water

Description: Water with many many small holes in it.
How to find: Drawn from the deepest wells under the most sacred churches... Or refined with a still, an utter absence of sunlight, and a lot of time.
Properties: Deals insane damage to unholy entities, burning through them. Also restores wounds and breaks apart curses.
Primal Creature
Name: Rakara

Origin: Created whenever someone stacks stones (no larger than a human head) in a humanoid form
Abilities: They can lift up to their weight. That's pretty much it, besides being mobile.
Behavior: Mischievous, rakara will go around and be annoying to anything nearby. They act a lot like magpies, taking shiny-looking things, though they may just make a mess. They do not obey any master but themselves, but may work with other rakara to make larger problems.
Description: Basically a pebble golem. No taller than a foot. The "head" rock gains a face that looks like it was smudged on with mud; it does not emote, and cannot emote. If the face is washed off or otherwise removed, they deanimate and fall apart.
Unholy location
Name: Heck stones

How to find: Located at nexuses of unholy energy, places where hatred and malice taint the very ground. They also emit beams of bright light into the sky on clear nights
Description: A set of nondescript stones arranged into a circle, stood up on their ends. At night it glows with unholy light.
Effects: Augments the power of unholy summoning rituals, will occasionally pop out a demon or two if left unchecked. Will also grow in size if left unchecked, and can potentially lead to new Heck stones popping up nearby.

Holy Creature
Name:Demon Parasite

Origin: They can be found on or near demons and other unholy creatures. It is unclear how they originated, but they can divide from existing members, similar to bacteria
Abilities: The more of them that are on a demon, the weaker the demon becomes, as these creatures drain the demon’s power and life for themselves. When they get big enough, they can divide into smaller versions if themselves, and spread to other demons
Behavior: It stays on a demon until draining it completely, then moves on to the next nearest demon
Description: They each look like a blue worm with a proboscis, which they use to drain demons. They also have antennae surrounding their bodies, which they use to ensure they are near and on a demon.

Holy Creature
Name: Unicorn

Origin: Unicorns are only found in forests during a full moon. There is usually only one per forest, although exceptions do occur, usually during a blue moon.
Abilities: They do not age, and are immune to all non-magical diseases and poisons. They can use magic, typically healing, and always holy. Anyone who kills a unicorn is cursed, causing all creatures (other than unholy or magical constructs) to shy away or even attack them.
Behavior: Possibly sentient, unicorns are able to comprehend language, but there have been no occurrences of them communicating with humans. They are largely indifferent to humans, avoiding only if threatened and helping only if asked. They reproduce very infrequently; only one unicorn calf has ever been observed.
Description: A white horse with an ivory colored horn growing from its forehead. The horn cannot be removed without killing the unicorn and is used in many powerful rituals and potions.

Primal Location
Name: Cloud Cities

How to find: Fly through a cloud, difficult because they look the same to normal clouds
Description: Like a normal cloud from the outside, the inside of the clouds is a identical copy of random city of the world without living beings.
Effects: Used mainly to hide due to the difficulty to find and reach them in first place, trying to take objects from the city will result in these objects turning into mist and water.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2019, 08:32:02 pm by dgr11897 »
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Glass

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Re: Arcanodex
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2019, 03:52:49 pm »

Reserving a spot now. Will add entries/entrees (and any character sheet or whatever) later.
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Smoke Mirrors

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Re: Arcanodex
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2019, 04:13:51 pm »

Reserving
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Don't worry too much about the one mistake, Smoke Mirrors. Your character was memorable for all the demonology and story writing.

I’m running a game/mechanics test called Fate/Mechanics Test. Feel free to check it out.

Naturegirl1999

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Re: Arcanodex
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2019, 07:52:32 pm »

Arcane Artifact
Name: Fear Frame
Creation: Collect the blood of at least 20 different kinds of creatures, at least 5 of these have to be magical in nature. Once the blood is collected, it must be molded into a rectangle at the edges, the shorter side must be 1/3 the length of the longer side. When it is exposed to the full moon, it will faintly glow the color of the moon. That is how you know that it Is finished

Description: A rectangular picture frame the color of blood. When it has power, it glows in the moonlight whatever color the moon is. It emits a faint aura of fearfulness, causing creatures around it to be scared for seemingly no reason
Usage: When a creature looks at the inside of the frame, they are exposed to their greatest fears. After 30 uses, it loses its glow and has to be charged via moonlight to be used again, the brighter the glow, the more uses left

Spells
Name:Confusion Spell
Materials: Parts of the entity you wish to confuse, the more parts you have, the longer the spell lasts, or you can simply cast it near the entity you wish to affect if you can keep them still
Verbal and gesture components: Chant “The confusion will follow you” while pointing at the creature you wish to confuse or its parts. Repeat the chant for every minute * the weight in pounds of your ficus your spell lasts for.

Example: If you want to cast the spell for 20 minutes on a 4 pound dog, you could either chant “the confusion will follow you” 5 times with the whole dog (if it’s still at the time) or if you wanted to do so without having to be near it, you could collect a pound of its fur and chant it 20 times. Both ways achieve the same effect, but if you don’t have a way to keep who you want to confuse still you can use things that have their DNA instead, just more chanting is needed
Effect: The spell puts the target in a general state of confusion, forgetting things easily, doing random behaviors, reacting to things that don’t exist, etc. for however long it lasts

Holy Creature
Name:Demon Parasite
Origin: They can be found on or near demons and other unholy creatures. It is unclear how they originated, but they can divide from existing members, similar to bacteria
Abilities: The more of them that are on a demon, the weaker the demon becomes, as these creatures drain the demon’s power and life for themselves. When they get big enough, they can divide into smaller versions if themselves, and spread to other demons
Behavior: It stays on a demon until draining it completely, then moves on to the next nearest demon
Description: They each look like a blue worm with a proboscis, which they use to drain demons. They also have antennae surrounding their bodies, which they use to ensure they are near and on a demon.
(Looked at beginning post and realized I needed a bestiary entry so I added one. Is this good?
« Last Edit: August 24, 2019, 06:55:54 pm by Naturegirl1999 »
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ziizo

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Re: Arcanodex
« Reply #5 on: August 19, 2019, 03:30:36 pm »

Are these fine?

Arcane Ritual
Name: "Going Below"
Materials/setup: A rope, chalk, dirt. Use the chalk the draw a closed figure (Circle, square, triangle, etc) fasten one side of the rope to something outside and put the rest of the rope inside the figure, proceed the spread the dirt on top of the figure covering it completely while chanting "What is below? I don't know. That is why I am going below."
When: This ritual can be realized anywhere anywhen with the only condition that is must be realized in a flat surface.
Effects: A hole will manifest inside the figure with the rope falling trough it into the darkness that light cannot remove, nobody that has gone through the hole has come back, nothing has ever come through one of the holes, the ritual persists until the rope is cut.

Arcane Spell
Name: "Bubble lights"
Materials: None.
Verbal and gesture components: Say "Shiny and bright" then form a "O" with a hand and blow through it.
Effect: Generates a small flurry of bubbles made of light, more of a party trick than an useful spell.

Primal Location

Name: Cloud Cities
How to find: Fly through a cloud, difficult because they look the same to normal clouds
Description: Like a normal cloud from the outside, the inside of the clouds is a identical copy of random city of the world without living beings.
Effects: Used mainly to hide due to the difficulty to find and reach them in first place, trying to take objects from the city will result in these objects turning into mist and water.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2019, 07:59:17 pm by ziizo »
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GG, Ziizo. May my spirit live on in your boobs.

Glass

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Re: Arcanodex
« Reply #6 on: August 19, 2019, 03:44:22 pm »

You need to give them a magic alignment, but other than that, yeah, they seem good.
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dgr11897

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Re: Arcanodex
« Reply #7 on: August 19, 2019, 03:44:50 pm »

What glass said.
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ziizo

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Re: Arcanodex
« Reply #8 on: August 19, 2019, 04:46:27 pm »

Edited to add the alignments.
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dgr11897

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Re: Arcanodex
« Reply #9 on: August 19, 2019, 06:05:05 pm »

Edited to add the alignments.
Please follow the same format I used. With the magic type in the same area as the entry type.
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Naturegirl1999

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Re: Arcanodex
« Reply #10 on: August 19, 2019, 06:35:02 pm »

I edited my post as well. Let me know if it works
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dgr11897

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Re: Arcanodex
« Reply #11 on: August 19, 2019, 11:35:32 pm »

Spells
Name:Confusion Spell
Materials: Parts of the entity you wish to confuse, the more parts you have, the longer the spell lasts, or you can simply cast it near the entity you wish to affect if you can keep them still
Verbal and gesture components: Chant “The confusion will follow you” while pointing at the creature you wish to confuse or its parts. Repeat the chant for every minute * the weight in pounds of your ficus your spell lasts for.

Example: If you want to cast the spell for 20 minutes on a 4 pound dog, you could either chant “the confusion will follow you” 5 times with the whole dog (if it’s still at the time) or if you wanted to do so without having to be near it, you could collect a pound of its fur and chant it 20 times. Both ways achieve the same effect, but if you don’t have a way to keep who you want to confuse still you can use things that have their DNA instead, just more chanting is needed
Effect: The spell puts the target in a general state of confusion, forgetting things easily, doing random behaviors, reacting to things that don’t exist, etc. for however long it lasts

(If something is confusing please tell me)
This spell is a bit too complicated and mildly confusing. It should be OK with some tweaks, but right now it's too complex for me to really understand very well.
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Weaponizing Jesus isn't something you do turn 4
Quote from: Alice on a different discord, to iridium, kind of.
hold on, let me keep blowing kisses at him until he stops
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Naturegirl1999

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Re: Arcanodex
« Reply #12 on: August 20, 2019, 07:43:23 am »

Spells
Name:Confusion Spell
Materials: Parts of the entity you wish to confuse, the more parts you have, the longer the spell lasts, or you can simply cast it near the entity you wish to affect if you can keep them still
Verbal and gesture components: Chant “The confusion will follow you” while pointing at the creature you wish to confuse or its parts. Repeat the chant for every minute * the weight in pounds of your ficus your spell lasts for.

Example: If you want to cast the spell for 20 minutes on a 4 pound dog, you could either chant “the confusion will follow you” 5 times with the whole dog (if it’s still at the time) or if you wanted to do so without having to be near it, you could collect a pound of its fur and chant it 20 times. Both ways achieve the same effect, but if you don’t have a way to keep who you want to confuse still you can use things that have their DNA instead, just more chanting is needed
Effect: The spell puts the target in a general state of confusion, forgetting things easily, doing random behaviors, reacting to things that don’t exist, etc. for however long it lasts

(If something is confusing please tell me)
This spell is a bit too complicated and mildly confusing. It should be OK with some tweaks, but right now it's too complex for me to really understand very well.
The larger the target, the longer the spell lasts for, if you have, for example, some blood/hair from the target you wish to confuse, you don’t have to be near the target for the spell to work, but since you have less of the target, it takes longer to cast, since the amount of time is determined by the amount of chants tthat mes the weight of your focus. So the smaller the amount, the longer you would have to chant to achieve the same length of confusion on your target than if you were using the target themselves as a focus. Did my example make things more confusing? I can give another

Example 2
You wish to confuse a person. You have recently attacked them and you collected the blood from the attack. The blood is 5 pounds worth. If you chant “the confusion will follow you” once with the 5 pounds of blood as the focus, the person you got the blood from will be affected for 5 minutes. If you chant 2 times, 10 minutes

Does this make things less confusing?
(I find it a bit amusing that I am trying to make the explanation of a confusion spell less confusing, it sounds ironic)
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Failbird105

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Re: Arcanodex
« Reply #13 on: August 20, 2019, 11:54:29 am »

Hmm, I have one idea for a creature, but it kind of either requires me to make fairies to go with it, or just assumes that fairies are a thing.
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Naturegirl1999

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Re: Arcanodex
« Reply #14 on: August 20, 2019, 12:01:46 pm »

Hmm, I have one idea for a creature, but it kind of either requires me to make fairies to go with it, or just assumes that fairies are a thing.
The Arcanidex entry uses a crystal within creation that others haven’t put an entry for, so maybe you could do something similar with the fairies? I am not the GM. I’m guessing
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