Scrivening

Scrivening is the way true magic works in The Realm. While denizens of The Realm may have their own mystical powers and abilities, none of them can perform true Scrivening. Only Ikons chosen by The Book can work this magic.

Scrivening is the act of temporarily changing the environment or events of The Book to produce a new narrative. It is most commonly done by inscribing words and symbols of power in Author’s Ink onto scrolls and parchments of Paper of Creation. Some believe these symbols are the Author’s true language that The Book was originally written in. In any case, the effect is a change in The Story that manifests as a magical effect, a change in reality itself.

All Scrivening begins with a particular word or symbol that represents a fundamental element, action, or participant in The Book. Inscribing these words onto the Paper of Creation allows the caster to draw out the Spirit within themselves to change The Book. These are the most basic spells and they are completely subject to the desires of the caster. To create a particular desired effect you simply describe exactly what they wish the spell to accomplish and the Narrator works with that description to narrate the ultimate result of the spell.

All spells start small and simple. The scrivener needs to expand this base spell to create larger and more elaborate effects. There are limited ways in which spells can be modified and these can generally only be done by adding more Mana into the spell.

Mana

The power to create spells comes partly from the words themselves and partly from the caster. Every spell will have a Mana cost associated with it, listed in its description. That is how much Mana you will spend to generate the most basic form of the spell.

Adding modifiers increases the Mana cost. In most cases you will simply spend more of your Ikon’s Mana when casting stronger spells. In the case where you don’t have enough Mana to create the spell effect you want, you can inscribe a larger series of runes, called a circle, and draw from the power of the surrounding environment. You can recover lost Mana by spending a round resting and focusing on recovering Mana. Roll your Magic die and add your Will bonus to determine how much Mana you recover. You cannot recover more than your normal maximum Mana in this fashion.

Spell Limits

Spells are limited in two ways. The rank of the modifiers used and the total amount a Spirit that can be put in a single spell. You cannot cast a spell with any parameters changed to a ranking higher than your Magic Skill rank. So if you have Remarkable rank Magic, then you can only increase the parameters to Remarkable rank. You are also limited to using the amount of Mana equal to your Magic Rank + Intellect Rank. This can be increased by your Scrivening Bonus and Intellect Bonus, or through the use of potions and artifacts.

Sigils

Sigils are used by some spells to focus its effects. Every caster has their own unique Sigil, composed of magical markings that speak directly to the caster’s soul. Objects can only hold 1 sigil at a time, attempting to add another initiates a contest between the Scrivening skills of the two sigil owners. The losing sigil is erased from the object.

Scrolls

By spending the Mana normally needed to cast a spell, it can be written in Author's Ink directly onto a scroll made from the Paper of Creation using the Scrivening skill. The difficulty of the check is equal to the highest rank element of the spell using the spell creation rules below. If done successfully in this manner, the spell is "trapped" in the scroll and can be cast at any time by reading from the scroll and spending only 1 Mana. If this is attempted by anyone other than the original creator of the scroll, to cast the spell successfully they must make a Scrivening check of the same difficulty as creating the scroll. Once used the scroll will go blank and the paper can be used again to create a new scroll.

Note that if the scrivener fails their Scrivening check to create the scroll, the Mana, Author's Ink, and the scroll paper are all lost.

Circles

If you don’t have enough Mana to cast the spell you need, you can spend the time and effort building a power circle. This entails drawing many copies of the words and runes in a geometric pattern around a large circular rune. There are five circle sizes, corresponding to the five rankings, that will contribute extra power to the spell. Each rank has a required minimum size of the circle, in radius, and the time it takes to inscribe all the intricate interconnected copies of the original spell.

*Note this is additional time beyond the normal casting time of the spell.

Spell Types

Magical spells in Inkforged are categorized into 3 types, each with their own rules to be aware of. These are Attack spells, Resist spells, and Effect spells.

Attack Spells

If you are casting a spell with the intent to inflict damage to an enemy through physical or elemental means, it will be considered an attack spell. When casting an attack spell, you make an attack roll (just like an archer making a ranged attack), but use the Agility trait and your Scrivening skill to determine dice. Some spells when used to attack may have secondary effects for the Narrator to consider, such as a Light attack may blind rather than damage opponents. All elemental attack spells ignore the Damage Reduction from Armor unless the defense is magical in nature. Attack spells cannot normally have their Duration increased. Once an attack is made the spell ends.

Resist Spells

Other spells will not be direct attacks, but will target an enemy to inflict harm, a change, or penalty. For example a Transform spell. In this case the target makes a Resist check using their Will virtue. The difficulty of the check is your Magic Rank, and the results of the roll are checked against the table below to see what happens.

If the target of a Resist spell is willing or prevented from resisting the magic, there is no roll necessary. The spell affects the target in full automatically.

Direct Effect Spells

All spells that don’t fall into the categories of Attack or Resist are considered Direct Effect spells. These spells generate an effect of some sort that exists or occurs without requiring an attack roll or overcoming the resistance of a target. For example a healing spell. There are times when a spell that is normally Direct Effect will be treated as a Resist spell. Maybe the target of a healing spell is an unwilling target and doesn't want the spell cast on them. Or perhaps an Open spells is being cast on a magical lock that can resists such magic. It is up to the Narrator to make this call and figure out the chances of resisting the spell.

Counter Magic

Magic is wild and varied in The Story. As such, defending against it can be tricky, even for another spell caster. But just like every sword swing can be parried, every spell can be countered. Here are some of the more effective ways of countering spells aimed at you.

Attack the Attack: Send an equal powered spell directly into the path of the first one. Counter a d8 Firebolt spell with a d8 Water Jet spell. You may not always know how powerful an incoming spell is, so your counter may be too weak. If that happens the incoming spell and yours enter a Contest using both casters’ Scrivening skills. If the incoming spell wins, it blasts through the counterspell and makes its attack.
Blocking the Attack: Block an incoming attack spell with a barrier spell. Put up a wall of Ice to counter a spike of stone heading your way. While this doesn’t cancel the incoming spell, it will provide Cover or increased Defense.
Countering the Effect: Casting a spell that creates an opposite effect targeting the same location as the attacking spell can be an effective counter. A light spell cast on the same location as a darkness spell, or an ice armor spell to defend against a heat spell.
Unmaking the Spell: If you have learned the same spell that is being used against you, then you can directly nullify the spell by manipulating the spell energies directly to hijack the spell and unmake it. There is no contest of power with this method, the counter-spell automatically works if you spend an equal amount or more Mana.

Creating Spells

All spells start at Trivial rank (0) in power across all aspects of the spell with a Mana cost defined per spell. In order to make a stronger version of a spell that does more you need to edit the spell, usually by increasing the Mana spent on one (or more) of its parameters. The following chart shows you how most spells can be edited and the increase in cost by rank. Some edits are unique to certain spells and can be found in the spell’s description.

Duration

Spells all start basically lasting as long as 1 round. If you want a spell to have a lasting effect then you have to extend the duration of the spell. By spending extra Mana you can cause the spell to continue working beyond 1 round. Note that certain spell types may have modified duration:

Attack spells cannot extend their duration. They are normally the length of a single attack action.
Spells that summon, or create elements and objects do not normally require an added duration. Created elements are simply there, melting, evaporating, or washing away at a normal rate once created.
Moved or summoned objects are permanently in their new locations.
Locally summoned creatures however will wander off or return to their original location once control of them has worn off.

Force

The most straightforward way to scale a spell is to increase its raw power. This will increase the size of the die used, such as damage dice.

Intensity

You can also increase the intensity of a spell to give it a bonus on any associated rolls, such as damage or to-hit rolls. This can be adding in more than once if you want to add the bonus to multiple dice rolls.

Range

All spells start requiring you to touch the target to affect it. This can be increased in range in order to affect targets further away or increase the range of a movement or summon spell.

Scale

All spells start strong enough to affect a small animal or object about the size of a cat. As you increase the scale of the spell you can affect a larger target or a larger number of human sized targets. This is used instead of plotting the radius size of AOE spells. This is based on the assumption that targets will be evenly spaced out, with about a meter distance between each one. A Narrator could rule that more targets are affected if they are tightly packed together or smaller in size. Conversely, a lower number of larger or more spaced out targets could be affected.

If it is an Attack spell you have to make a separate attack roll for each target (although for large groups you could use the Large Scale Attack rules). If it is a Resist spell, then each target makes its own check to resist the spell effect.

Targets

Instead of mapping out square meters or circle sizes in the play area, each increase simply changes the spell to encompass a larger number of targets. This can be due to a widening of the effect, like an explosion or mist, or by having the spell send out individual attacks on separate targets.

If the spell affects an area then it is big enough to affect as many targets as defined by the rank. This is based on the assumption that targets will be evenly spaced out with around a meter distance between each one. A Narrator could rule that more targets are affected if they are tightly packed together within the area of effect. If it is an Attack spell you have to make a separate attack roll for each target. If it is a Resist spell, then each target makes its own check to resist the spell effect.

Editing Spells

Spells can also be edited to change them in ways that are not just increases to existing parameters.

Concentration

Another method of making a spell last longer is to change it into a concentration spell. So long as you spend 2 extra Mana during casting, you can concentrate to maintain the magical effects of the spell instead of spending more Mana to increase its duration. Losing concentration ends the spell.

Flipping

This modifier lets you cast a spell, but change the nature of the spell to an equal yet opposite effect. With this modifier an opening spell can become a locking spell, or a healing spell could turn into a poison spell. This doesn’t allow you to change one element into another though. While a heating spell could become a cooling spell, a fire blast cannot be turned into an ice blast. Flipping a spell costs 1 additional Mana.

Recasting

Once a spell has been cast, you can hold on to the magical energies and basically just pump more Mana into them to recast the spell again quickly. Recasting the same spell that was cast the prior round reduces the Mana cost of casting by 2 and gives you a +1 to your Initiative.