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Magic in the form presented here was discovered by more-or-less accident at the University of Linköping, in the year 2010 CE, by an aspiring young student of Computer Science. He occasionally found himself falling asleep in the computing labs and waking up in front of the snack food machines or standing outside a toilet. After having made sure he was either very very good at avoiding obstacles (including locked doors) or somehow getting from place to place he started experimenting. What he found was that by concentrating really hard and visualising himself elsewhere, he could be there. However, the practical limtations were that he had to know the place where he wanted to be quite well and also know exactly where it was in relation to his current position. The few times where he played loose with the latter conditions, he found that he tended to end up where he thought the place he wanted to end up was.
Later on, this line of study was taken up by some of his friends and they found that they could cause other effects, like heating or moving things at a distance. They did find that it was surprisingly hard work and decided to stop playing around when one of the group managed to end up quite dead, after having chilled her brain down to a temperature somewhat below freezing.
Magic is effectively energy manipulation at a distance. It requires
good concentration and visualization skills. There's no ``free
energy'' involved, so to lift an object weighing 1 kg, enough energy
to counteract the local gravity (9.8 Nm/s2
Likewise, the maximum amount of energy that can be channeled varies
from magician to magician.
This means that depending on the effect wanted, more than two rolls
may be necessary. Take the traditional way of making a ``fire
ball''. First, latch on to a power source, then exert inwards pressure
on a spherical volume of air. After that, heat that sphere up and
finish off by making it move.
The maximum power that a magician can channel varies as the cube of
WIL. This is the power that gets through after loss. Loss is measured
as a percentage of total energy used (there's a multiplier in the
Power Loss table (p.
Estimate that half of the power lost ends up dissipating inside the
magigican as waste heat. If we apply normal rules-of-thumb, she will
have a brain weighing ca 1.5 kg and for each second of dissipating 4.5
kW11.1, her brain will increase its temperature by
1o
Depending on exactly what magic effect the magician is looking for, we
have to apply slightly different rules-of-thumb. Heating and cooling
is a ``simple'' matter of adding or removing energy (thus, heating is
easier, since that doesn't require latching on to whatever is being
cooled as an energy source).
Teleportation is accomplished by (effectively) convincing the
teleported object (and the world) that it is elsewhere. It is widely
believed that the upper range for teleportation is in the range of 2
km, seeing as how no one has successfully survived a teleportation of
a longer distance. By an interesting quirk, it's easier to teleport
concious, coöperating beings rather than inanimate objects. Why this
is, isn't know. For game-specficic ranges, see table 11.3 on p.
Cooling, on the other hand, is done by latching on to the ``target'' as
a power source and simply channel energy from it. This requires more
concentration and the need of having somewhere to dump the extracted energy.
One needs to pump in as much energy to heat something up as one needs
to take away to cool it down. Note that freezing and thawing
(``solidifying'' and ``melting'') have slightly different
requirements. For specific numbers, consult a physics or chemistry
handbook.
This is the skill for latching on to power sources. A successful roll
must be made to operate at normal efficiency. A missed roll means
losing power as if INT was 2 lower (so someone with INT 20 and a
normal loss of 9% would suddenly operate at a loss of 26%). A missed
roll for someone with an INT of 3 or lower is a plain failure.
Once latched on to a power source, the magician stays latched until
she either willingly disconnects or until WIL/2 minutes of not drawing
any power has passed.
This skill can also be used to scan for power sources and power
flow. A magician not taking pains to be unobstrusive tends to stand
out fairly well to other magicians nearby.
This is the skill for teleporting oneself, others and inanimate
objects. For teleporting of self, the maximum range is 100*PER metres,
for teleporting other willing, concious subjects, the maximum range is
50*PER metres and for teleporting inanimate objects the maximum range
is 10*PER metres.
This is the skill for moving objects at a distance. This covers both
``move the whole object'' and ``impart momentum to parts of the
object'' (like, say, magically punching someone in the nose).
This is the skill that governs increasing the temperature of an object
(for cooling an object down, refer to
This skill is handled as per 11.4.5. Basically, this
skill bundles one or more rolls of all magic skills except
Magic power manipulation (p.
The intention is that this skill is used for things the character is
doing often or has done often (either in play or in the character
back-story). Remember that these skills are at the GM's discretion.
As a general rule, there's (at least) two dice rolls to make for all
magic effects. One to see if the required power source has been
latched on to and one to see if the desired effect has succeeded.
Game mechanics
![[*]](/icons/crossref.png){kind=icon}
), that can be applied to
the power needed for the spell, to see the total power drained).
INT Loss Multiplier 2 99.1% 110.2
3 98.0% 49.0
4 96.4% 27.6
5 94.3% 17.6
6 91.8% 12.3
7 88.9% 9.0
8 85.5% 6.9
9 81.6% 5.4
10 77.3% 4.4
11 72.6% 3.6
12 67.3% 3.1
13 61.7% 2.6
14 55.6% 2.2
15 49.0% 2.0
16 42.0% 1.7
17 34.5% 1.5
18 26.5% 1.4
19 18.1% 1.2
20 9.3% 1.1
Teleportation
.
Self range is
PER Self Willing, Unwilling Inanimate concious unconcious 3 69 23 5 10
4 117 39 9 17
5 196 65 15 28 6 318 106 24 45
7 495 165 38 71
8 729 243 56 104 9 1000 333 77 143
10 1271 424 98 182
11 1505 502 116 215 12 1682 561 129 240
13 1804 601 139 258
14 1883 628 145 269 15 1931 644 149 276
16 1960 653 151 280
17 1977 659 152 282 18 1987 662 153 284
19 1992 664 153 285
20 1996 665 154 285
Telekinesis is making things move and fly by manipulating the forces
operating on them. This is used for quite a few magic effects.
Telekinesis and levitation
Heating is done by pouring energy into the ``target'', this is limited
to what the magician can channel. It takes 4.7 KW for one second to
heat 1 kg of water 1deg
Heating and cooling
Magic Skills
Attr: INT Base: 0 Cost: 5
Magic power manipulation
Attr: PER Base: 0 Cost: 5
Magic teleportation
Attr: INT Base: 0 Cost: 5
Magic telekinesis
Attr: WIL Base: 0 Cost: 5
Magic energy manipulation
.
At the GM's and player's discretion, a spell-effect the character is
using ``a lot'' can be specified as a specific skill (latching on to a
power source is still done as normal, but specific rolls of TK, energy
manipulation and teleportation are bundled into the over-all
``specific spell'' skill). All these special-purpose skills have a
skill point cost of 4.
Rules for specific ``spells''
Attr: Varies Base: 0 Cost: 4
Specific spell effect
11.4.1) into a single roll.
Examples
Footnotes
Ingvar
2007-07-07
