dephoenixetcinere [licensed for non-commercial use only] (2024)

This rule was reverted. The Gift rules are the same. Please help the GM remember them.

The Gift is often easily ignored as a flaw. To enhance its debilitating potency, and encourage the magi to stay safe in their labs, the following rule adds to the normal gift penalty of -3 to social roles.

When in a divine or infernal aura, wizards suffer a negative penalty to all non-spellcasting rolls equal to the strength of the aura. This includes social roles, combat, athletics, everything except magic (which suffers an even harsher penalty!). All gatherings of faithful people have a divine aura of some strength, from 1 in a village to 5 in a city. Churches and other holy sights have divine auras even higher. And on holy days the divine aura is typically 1 to 3 points higher. Gently Gifted characters ignore these penalties, while they are doubled for those with a Blatant Gift.

In general, magi get 5 xp per season. There are a very few virtues and flaws that will change this total, depending on what is being studied. If you are taking such a virtue or flaw work out the details with the GM. As well, risky study can increase the number of XP you get per season. Finally, magical study has a vis cost.

This five xp can be spent to improve your character sheet, or it can be spent to provide time in the lab or scriptorium. Conceptually, when your character is improving his or her character sheet, they are spending time studying, practicing, or being taught new abilities. Spending time in the lab or at the writing desk is another way of saying *not* spending time improving your abilities, but actually spending time in practical labor. So xp spent in the lab is really just an opportunity cost; you are not literally pouring your knowledge into your lab work. By way of example, assume that Urgen has accumulated 60XP over 5 years of downtime. He might spend 12XP to raise his Muto from 11 to 12, then 30XP to raise his Magical Theory from 5 to 6, 5 XP go into a season in the lab crafting a magical item, he uses 5 XP to spend a season in the lab learning a Muto spell, and final he spends 5 XP in service to the covenant. He chooses to save the remaining 3 XP. Urgen has just spent 60XP, so we say that he has spent the last 12 seasons learning new things. First he spent three seasons studying Muto, then six seasons studying Magical Theory, one season serving the covenant, and finally two seasons in the lab. The level of Muto spell that he can learn is based on his updated Muto and Magical Theory scores - he always learns spells and crafts items after learning new abilities. Serving the covenant does not improve Urgen’s character sheet, but it will improve his covenant’s sheet. As well, many covenants require some amount of service every few years.

One additional complication to gaining experience is that a wizard may choose to perform risky study to gain additional XP. For every season of risky study choose your risk level. You gain extra XP as per your risk level, and then you roll botch dice as per the table. Virtues and flaws like Cautious Sorcerer that change the number of botch dice you roll in the laboratory modify the number of botch dice you roll, You gain warping points equal to the number of zeros you roll on a botch die plus 1 (so risky study always gives you at least 1 warping point). If you roll two zeros you might enter twilight, just as if you had double botched a spell (see page 88)

Mundanes may take advantage of risky campaigning using similar rules. They may spend a season participating in the skirmishing that plagues europe to gain 1 or 2 extra XP. If they participate in war they may choose to gain 3 or more XP. The mudane character takes a Medium wound. Every two botch dice increase the level of the wound by one. This may kill the character.

Studying magical arts has a vis cost. You must pay one pawn of vis every time you reach a multiple of 5 of XP invested into a technique or form (ignoring bonuses from stuff like affinity for art or secondary insight). For instance, Maga Exemplia has a spent 21XP in Ignem, causing her to have an Ignem score of 6. As such she has already spent 4 vis in the past. She chooses to study Ignem up to a score of 9, for an additional 24 XP. She pays an additional 5 vis, having reached 25XP, 30XP, 35XP, 40XP, and 45XP, in addition to XP to gain this score of Ignem.

After your apprenticeship, you must spend seasons to learn spells and craft magic items. You may only create one spell or enchant one effect at a time. Spells and enchantment effects may take one or more seasons to complete, based on this table:

So, Maga Exempla has Perdo 6, Imaginem 8, Intelligence 0, Magic Theory 3, and is in an Aura level 2. So her Lab Total is 19. As such, she can learn a level 5 spell in 1 season. It will take her 2 seasons to learn a level 10 spell. And it will take her 4 seasons to learn a level 15 spell. Finding a slightly better aura, of level 3, pushes her Lab Total to 20 and lets her learn a level 10 spell in 1 season!

he enchanting rules are mostly in line with the core rules. You should review those rules in the core book as well as the below.

Lesser enchanted items:

• Lesser enchanted items must be acomplishable in only one season (so their final level, after the base effect plus uses per day, penetration, and any other modifiers, must be less than or equal to half your lab total).
• Each lesser enchantment must be its own item.
• Lesser enchantments cost 1 vis per 10 levels of the final effect.

Invested items:

• Invested items may contain multiple effects. The device must first be opened, which takes 1 season (5XP) and any number of vis up to your max vis per season (Magic Theory x 2). (This ignores the Material and Size tables).
• Opening the device determines how many effects can be put into it, and once opened you can’t ever add more opening vis. Once opened, effects can be put into your device.
• Each effect takes a number of seasons (and XP) based on the effect level vs. your lab total as per the "Lab Work" table above. Each effect costs 1 vis per 10 levels of the final effect.
• The number of vis you spent to open the device limits the total number of vis that you can invest into effects. So if you opened the device with 8 vis you could put a level 20, level 40, and two level 10 effects into the device before it was full.

Talismans:

• Talismans may also contain multiple effects. The device must be attuned, which takes 1 season (5XP) and any number of vis up to your highest Technique plus your highest Form.
• Unlike opening an invested item, you can always come back later and attune your talisman for more vis. The device’s current attunement vis determines how many effects can be put into it. Once attuned, effects can be put into your device.
• Each effect takes a number of seasons (and XP) based on the effect level vs. your lab total as per the "Lab Work" table above. Each effect costs 1 vis per 10 levels of the final effect.
• The number of vis you spent to attune the device limits the total number of vis that you can invest into effects. So if you attuned your talisman with 8 vis you could put a level 20, level 40, and two level 10 effects into the device before. Later on you could attune another 3 vis into the device and have room for a level 30 effect.
• Talismans DO use the Shape and Materials table to derive their bonus to spellcasting that can be attuned into them. If it matters, the shape and material bonuses that apply are the ones of the natural object, before any magical changes and they only apply while the talisman has that shape.

Charged items:

• Charged items are not permitted.

You may want to use some effect modifications from page 99. Two things are changed.

• Penetration costs 1 effect level for 1 Penetration.
• An effect that expires 1 year after its first use always takes 1 season to enchant, no matter the ratio of the effect level and your lab total. No other effect expiration is allowed.
• CLARIFICATION: The item expiration options are either this effect never expires and it takes however long it takes or this effect expires 1 year after first use and you get to enchant the effect in a single season. For instance, Maga Exempla is enchanting a Pilum of Fire effect into her talisman. It has Penetration 23 and some other bonuses such that it is a level 50 effect, which happens to be exactly her lab total in Creo Ignem. If she enchants this into her talisman normally this will take 4 seasons to complete. But she figures that she’s not going to use this except in an emergency, so she enchants it with 1 year expiration. 5 years later she ends up in a fight with a demon, uses this effect and survives the day. In year 6 the Pilum of Fire effect is no longer functional (though any other effects in her talisman are).

Fiddly Shit

Certain bonuses which are considered too fiddly are not applied to Lab Work. This includes Similar Spells, Shape and Materials Bonuses, and Common Techniques and Forms in Enchantments.

Items of Quality

These items do use the Shape and Materials table, with the bonus limited by your Philosophae just as it is in the book. Only one bonus from an item of quality can apply to any one roll (including stuff that is added onto a roll after its made, like damage and soak totals). If you have multiple items that would contribute to such a roll then you have to choose one of them.

Pyrrhus has the following items of quality: A sword, a shield, a gambeon, and a mail coat

Example the first: Stanislaw casts Pilum of Fire at Pyrrhus. Pilum of fire does 15+stress die damage and Pyrrhus soaks with stamina+armor+mail quality bonus+stress die.

Example the second: Stanislaw hits Pyrrhus with a sword. Pyrrhus can defend himself by adding his shield of quality bonus to his defense roll, but then he can't add his armor of quality bonus to the total later.

The longevity rules will be tweaked so that longevity potions can push a character's life out to about 150 years. As such I expect the PCs will be in their later years when the game ends, and death by old age should be as much of a threat as final twilight. Longevity potions that you make yourself give you full benefit (1 point for every magnitude of the CrCo lab total rounded up) while longevity potions you make for others or they make for you give 1/2 benefit. PCs can probably achieve a -6 on their own without going into CrCo too hard. Longevity rituals must be consumed every year. Each longevity ritual takes two pawns of vis to create. A number of years worth of potions can be completed in a season, but each longevity ritual only has a "shelf life" of a little more than a decade. So typically magi will spend a season and 20 pawns of vis and create 10 years worth of longevity rituals. When creating a batch of potions you may spend extra vis to increase your lab total as per page 101 of the core rules. Vis spent improves the entire batch. Longevity rituals must be recorded in your items on your character sheet. List the magnitude of the effect and the year it was created. Also recall that a longevity ritual is a constant magical effect and you will take 1 warping for each year you spend under its effects.

Someone suffering from aging may choose to take flaws instead of taking aging points. The aging points still count towards decrepitude, this is just a way of making aging a bit more flavorful and specific. One minor flaw can replace three aging points in relevant characteristics. One major flaw can replace nine aging points in relevant characteristics. For instance, if you have 3 aging points in Quickness you could take palsied hands and return your quickness score to its usual level. The following flaws can be used in this way:

Similarly, the XP system encourages you to take warping points during downtime, which should make final twilight a real risk even if not many spells get cast in the course of play.

Rules of Twilight are not 100% clear in the book. Explaining them here is just an exercise in the mysteries of math, but here goes:

Entering Twilight

To avoid Twilight, you do a comparison

If Roll Against rolls a 0, then it just counts as a 0 added to the rest of the total.

If your Roll to Avoid is ZERO, roll to check for botch. Number of dice to roll = 1 + # warping points gained to trigger Twilight

If you roll any zeros on your botch roll, you Enter Twilight and Fail to Comprehend. (This is the equivalent of Failing to comprehend twilight in the next section, NOT botching the twilight comprehension roll) Check out the section for Twilight Time.

If your Roll to Avoid is GREATER THAN OR EQUAL TO your Roll Against, you have successfully avoided Twilight!

If your Roll to Avoid is LESS THAN your Roll Against (or you roll zero but don't botch), you have failed your twilight avoidance, and It's Twilight FunTimes! Check out the next sections for Comprehension and Twilight Time.

Comprehending Twilight

When you're in Twilight, you may roll to comprehend and get extra goodies. This roll is also a comparison

If Roll for Hellish Nightmarescape rolls a ZERO, that side gets to check for botch.Number of dice to roll =1 + # warping points gained to trigger Twilight

If it botches, the Roll for Hellish Nightmarescape total = 0. Otherwise, it's just your warping score (because Warping Score + 0 = Warping Score).

If your Roll to Comprehend is ZERO, roll to check for botch.Number of dice to roll =1 + # warping points gained to trigger Twilight

If you roll any zeros on your botch roll, you Fail to Comprehend Twilight. ADDITIONALLY, for every zero on the botch dice, your time in twilight moves up the table (referenced on page 88 of the core book)

If your Roll to Comprehend is GREATER THAN the Roll for Hellish Nightmarescape (or you roll zero but don't botch), you have failed your twilight comprehension! You spend your base time in twilight (see the book)

If your Roll to Comprehend is LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO the Roll for Hellish Nightmarescape, you have successfully comprehended twilight!

ADDITIONALLY, your time in twilight is reduced by the difference between your Roll to Comprehend and the Roll for Hellish Nightmarescape. (see the table in the book)

Twilight Time

Twilight Time is a pain in the tuchus! But we can get through this. Together.

1. COME UP WITH YOUR NUMBER:

If you failed your "Entering Twilight" comparison roll, or you failed your Twilight Comprehension without botching, your base time in twilight is equal to your Warping Score (or 1, if you have a 0 warping score)

If you botched your Twilight Comprehension, your base time in twilight is equal to your Warping Score + the # of 0s you got on your botch roll

If you Succeeded your Twilight Comprehension, your base time in twilight is equal to your Warping Score - (how much you succeeded the vs roll by). If this is less than or equal to zero, you are in Twilight for what feels like mere moments! Congrats! You don't even need to reference the table anymore!

2. REFERENCE THE TABLE ON p. 88

3. BURN EVERYTHING TO THE GROUND

AAAAND we're done! Wasn't that easy?

May only be taken with GM permission. I encourage you to get that permission, but there must be a clear story and character.

Vis does not have an association with a form or technique. Any pawn of vis can be used for any study, spell, device creation, etc.

Please check with the GM before taking such a virtue. This is almost certainly fine, but I will want to confirm how the XP gain works given our changed XP rules.

Secondary Insight & Elemental Mastery

These work as expected. For every season (5XP) you gain in an art you also get the 1XP bonus in other arts.

If you are taking them togeather things are much more complicated. See this example: So assume you have a 0 in every art. Then you spend 25XP on Creo. You then have a Creo score of 6 (25XP). You get 5 bonus XP from Secondary Insight which you decide to put into Terram 2 (5 Bonus XP) , Imaginem 2 (5 Bonus) , Vim 2 (5 Bonus XP) , and Corpus 2 (5 Bonus XP) . Even though you gained 5XP in Terram, your Elemental Mastery does not trigger. Next you spend a season learning Terram. So your Terram score is 4 (5XP + 5 Bonus XP) and your other elemental scores are Auram 2 (5 Bonus XP), Ignem 2 (5 Bonus XP), Aquam 2 (5 Bonus XP). Your Secondary Insight triggers and you choose to increase your Creo to 6 (26 XP) and your Muto to 1 (1XP).

Because of changes to XP rules, the following flaws don't work as written. Here's an attempt to re-write them. Check with the GM before taking these.

Unimaginative Learner - After a certain point study in the arts begins to require creativity from the magus rather than rote learning. When learning an art at level 16 or higher you only get the benefit of 4XP for every season (5XP) you spend studying.

Weak Scholar - Hermetic spells are generally learned from studying other magi's notes, but you have trouble integrating the work of others into your own lab. You have a -6 to your lab total whenever you learn a spell.

Poor Student - You are bad at learning new things. It costs 5XP for you to gain 1 in an Art and 20XP for you to gain 1 in an Ability. After that you spend XP normally.

Apparently you can take one affinity and have it affect all language abilities

The black death is a disease that happens in the game. This may be inflicted in one of two ways:

* A demon may inflict the disease. This attack typically has a penetration of the demon's Infernal Might + stress die. If this attack penetrates then there is no additional roll to avoid the disease.

* The disease may be contracted by mundane means. Diseases in Mythic Europe are spread by smell and touch. You must roll Stamina the following ease factors to avoid catching the disease. Having momentary contact with a plague vector gives an ease factor of 6+. Hanging out in a plague infested village for a while gives an ease factor of 9+. Visiting a plague infested city for several hours gives an ease factor of 12+. This ease factor is adjusted by aura - an Infernal Aura increases the difficulty while a Divine one decreases it.

Once caught the disease is latent for 24 hours, after which it inflicts a Heavy Wound. 24 hours after that a second Heavy Wound is inflicted. If you botch your roll to catch the disease you have contracted the pneumonic plague. This gives two Heavy Wounds immediately and no further wounds.

Rolls to recover from the wounds happen ever 24 hours, just before sunset. As per the core book on page 179 the victim's Stamina + treating physician's Medicine + Magical Aid + Stress Die is rolled. You need 9+ to remain stable and 15+ to improve. Each wound is rolled separately. Unlike a normal woundthis ease factor is adjusted by aura - an Infernal Aura increases the difficulty while a Divine one decreases it.

Once the patient has only Medium Wounds or better than the roll frequency drops to the normal frequency of once a month for a medium wound. The patient is considered stable. If the wound ends up reverting to Heavy then the roll becomes every 24 hours again.

A potential botch on a recovery roll when recoverying from the black plague has three + infernal aura botch dice. Each botch rolled increases the wound level by one.

Magical dueling requires a fiddly choice every round - which art to allocate to attack vs. defense. This makes it hard to run certamen quickly with minimal PC input. As such the certamen rules are changed as follows:

Attack Total = Presence + (Technique + Form + Tremere Focus Bonus) / 2 + Stress Die

Defense Total = Perception + (Technique + Form + Tremere Focus Bonus) / 2 + Stress Die

Unless the player gives instructions otherwise, his or her character will surrender If they have just one fatigue level left before OR if they have just taken 3 fatigue levels in one go.

A damaging Perdo Corpus spell deals less damage to large targets. Specifically, a Size +2 target takes one less wound level than the Perdo Corpus spell dictates (e.g. heavy becomes medium). A Size +5 target takes two fewer wound levels, a Size +8 target takes 3 fewer wound levels, and so on. Creo Corpus spells are not affected by this. Small characters do not take extra wounds from Perdo Corpus spells. The same guidelines apply to targets that are Animal. PeCo spells that specifically cripple you are not limited. A target is still blinded by the level 30 blind a person spell.

Multicasted spells can only ever affect multiple targets. You can't send 5 Pilums of Fire downrange to an unsuspecting apprentice. (But you can murder 5 different apprentices!)

Demon's Eternal Oblivion and similar spells for other realms can be used to utterly destroy simple demons, faeries, and magical creatures. Such creatures can also be slain by the mundane means of shoving a sword into it, or burning it with fire. More powerful creatures of these types may not be permanently destroyed by spells or attacks. Upon being reduced to 0 might by a spell a powerful non-mundane creature is unable to use any special abilities it has that costs Might. When a powerful non-mundane creature takes a deadly wound is is returned to its home plane. It may return to earth after months, years, or decades. Understanding the method for destroying such a creature permanently requires some knowledge of the appropriate Lore and some research into its true nature.

The Area Lore ability covers broad regions of Europe - tribunals by default. So 99% of Area Lore abilities should be like "Area Lore (Thebes)" A good example of a non-tribunal level Area Lore is "Area Lore (Global Trade)" If you want a broad knowledge of magi across the order you can take Order of Hermes Lore.

Firearms are starting to be a thing in Mythic Europe by 1350. They use the ability Guns. The following weapons stats represent them in 1350.

Hoplite is a formal position. As per True Lineages Hoplites are provided with a letter of authority. This letter can be from a simple Quaesitor or from a Primus and it can outline a set time, a set investigation, or for life. There is no legal requirement that a magus does what a Hoplite says, but its generally understood that if you don't the Quaesitors will take is personally. The primary stat governing being a Hoplite is reputation "Hoplite".

Verditius magi who have been initiated into one of the Inner Mysteries gain the flaw Hubris. Your score in Hubris is raised like abilities, but instead of spending earned XP to raise it, you simply gain 1 XP in Hubris every year after you're first initiated, representing a certain background noise of bein' a Verditius. That gets you to a 6 by old age, which feels right given the description of level 6 Hubris.

(The book has a whole separate bookkeeping system for tracking how Hubris points are gained, and, while interesting... fuck that noise)

Intellego spells that tell the caster some fact can either convey that information directly to the caster's mind OR they may convey that information publicly with some signal. For instance, you could have a spell that tells if someone is lying that communicates this information mentally or you can have a spell like Frosty Breath of the Spoken Lie that communicates this information by an outward sign. Generally the quaesitors prefer the later because it allows a scrying spell to let multiple people see what information is given. Both kinds of spells can be circumvented by magic, but its often easier to circumvent the public information spell.

Magic resistance protects held items the size of a gauntlet or smaller. Objects like a sword or shield are not protected. It also protects any spells that are enchanting the target and no other targets (it does not protect a group spell). At the moment a Touch range or greater spell is cast it is outside any magic resistance but after that it may be inside. Magic resistance does not project any living beings that are held by the caster.

Magi refer to their sodales using the season metaphor. This is informal, but useful to understand. Some common signifiers of this status are listed below. This is a social construct, someone with a warping score of 9 and a decrepitude score of 5 who is 30 years old will still be considered a Spring maga.

Confidence points can be spent during downtime and in session. Confidence adds +3 to your roll and can be spent after you make the roll. Most characters (not Aeliana!) can spend one confidence point per roll and have three total confidence points. Confidence refreshes at the very start of downtime.

For example, Maga Exemplia starts her downtime in 1220. During downtime she goes to Tribunal and needs to spend confidence to add to a Charm roll when dealing with a Quaesitor. Later in downtime she has a solo adventure visiting the court of the Khan and needs to spend confidence to add to a Single Weapon roll to best a Mongol in single combat. Finally there is a session and she needs to spend her last confidence point to boost a penetration roll against a nasty Flambeau. The next downtime starts and her confidence points refresh.