Your Magick User, and You!
So, you've made a character, and it's pretty sweet. You've decided that along
with your street samurai warrior's trained abilities, he should also possess a
form of ancient magic. One handed down from generations of samurai to only the
most honorable and carefully selected students. But…how do you define this
magic? Stop right there, player-san. This guide to magic will help cure your
woes.
Now. We have already discussed racial attributes that lend to magic use. Someone
that has become a changeling sort already has this ability. However there are
limitations in what that person can do. Magic, like other things, can be
untrained, but nothing comes without practice. An elf may have woken up one
morning with the ability to sneeze and burn her house down, and her powers are
very potent. However, someone that is just learning to control their ability is
naturally going to SUCK at it. It takes practice and training to get it right.
Otherwise, what would be the point of spell failure percentage? This is where we
enter the nitty gritty. We will cover some basic magicks, and how they work.
The Elementalists
The Elementalists are those magick users that are able to control the different
elements that are found on our home planet. (Earth…) They are including, but not
necessarily limited to:
- Water
- Fire
- Earth
- Ice
- Wind
- Lightning
- Ozone
- Metal
- Lunar
- Spirit
I can almost feel the confusion in that there are more than four elements. I
will explain that the basic four are most utilized by the fae. However, fae too
can lapse into their related fields of magick. Metal with earth fae for example,
because metal is found in the earth, the reach of the fae can extend to use
metal as well. Not many fae realize this though, unless they have been around
for a while, and have gotten angry enough to discover it. Now, onto the elements
and their uses. I should mention that these abilities stack, and once advanced
to another level, the character will not lose the ability of the previous level.
These rules do not apply to fae.
Another interesting fact about elementalists is that the personalities of
some mages actually start to change to reflect their element after they have
been studying for awhile. For example, wind mages tend to get very flighty, and
its extremely difficult to keep them on one topic in conversation (a real pain
in the rear if you're trying to get a straight answer out of them). Fire mages
grow rather bad tempers, etc.
There are also other types of magick
that are not element based. These are:
- Drains
- Shapeshifting
- Diviner
- Illusionist
- Necromancy
Symbolism
Anyone with eyes will notice
a symbol that is associated with each magick. This symbol is something that the magick user knows
intuitively. Many times the symbol will appear on the skin of the caster in
advances stages. Casters have a tendency to tattoo the symbol on them, or gear
their clothing toward their element or given type of magick. After five years of magic use, the symbol
will appear when fingerprinted, along with the actual fingerprint of that
person.
Trade offs
Magic is not without trade offs however. The more a
mage, uses his/her powers, the more the energy they themselves exert. Though a
drain may be able to take energy from others to keep him/her self going, it will
inevitably find its effect on the mage. Once the effects wear off, the mage will
be exhausted in proportion to the amount of energy they exerted to use the
magic. Its not uncommon for a mage to sleep for almost days at a time after
extensive use of their magic. More advanced level mages, however, can make their
bodies used to the high energy usage and are thus not as effected by heavy magic
use.
