Game in the Brain

I’ve talked about Enchantment being on
of the First Set of spells to learn, please add Meta-Spells, Knowledge and Necromancy. There are about 50 spells each of these colleges, almost 200 spells a GM has to be very aware off.  My process is reading all spells, looking for a pattern, then going through each and every spell as to what situations are best to use them in. Note that since the setting is Low Mana and with a Magic as a Secret (a testy truce between the Vatican Inquisition and Islamic Witch-hunters vs the lesser traditions)  in a Modern Setting, context is tricky. I keep in mind some “average stats” and templates for mages.

Note that I have not made a template down for the mages until I fully understand all the key spells and the key concepts that needs to be understood. I did make some progress as making my job a lot easier by limiting spells by their Prerequisite Count and Energy Level for RPM.

Key Concepts

Example: In Haven Gold, $44,000 per kilo is a powerful object for enchantment, particularly its scientific property of being resistant to Tarnishing or degradation. Silver may tarnish over time, despite the luster and shine it may provide, but Gold thousands of years old will not. Its intrinsic eternal qualities make such items able to penetrate damage reduction in the WBH setting.  

Example 2: Silver is about $700 per kilo. Its highly valuable for electronics since its the conductor with the least resistance (i try to get silver wires for my airsoft); in magic it serves as a magical conductor as well, able to channel energies magical energies very well. HSS has bought silver, and the easiest way to deploy them is in 12g shot.  

Example 3: Crystals are also powerful in magic , especially those that have Superconductor qualities. Again I’ll just use google to drum up the cost and logistics of acquisition. 

Magical Countermeasures: Enchantment and Meta Spells

Begin by learning about all the Defensive Counter Measures in magic by studying Enchantment and Meta-Spells. Knowledge, strangely is not as broken as I thought it would be as an Analyst. The ability to gather information via Knowledge Path/College is severely limited by the resources of the mage which is then determined by their mastery of the enchantment college. This makes Enchantment the most important to learn first, since its the ability of a mage to make most efficient use of resources, next is Meta-Spells which allow greater variations of preparations at much greater trade-off inefficiencies.

The
Primary Countermeasure being Effigy at 1000fp (which in Haven is easy to acquire for the rich and powerful; it makes sense to build many effigies of the Patriarchs as a way to protect them). Effigy works by having all the offensive magic redirected from the target to the effigy. This is a prereq. count of 15, and done so often it is complicated by many other countermeasures that maintain the effigy spell endurance.

Once William Tarameikos comes into the picture, (+James Austin’s mage character), the Prince and Knight will have to get their hands on such spells and a way to maintain them. A rising star in Haven needs such magical protection, I’ll allow family portraits to be used for a limited effect just so that some families have “Basic” protection. I don’t want the setting to have tooo many effigies lying around. 

Amulet and Talisman are great defensive
spells but you have to name a particular spell you want to be
protected against… which is limiting IMO, especially when using
Ritual Magic and the mage alters the spell enough. It should be
effective, with related spells at a diminished defensive effect
(possibly limiting the endurance of the spell; note Spell Endurance
is in M10 and not in the index). Still the best is Magic Resistance, if you don’t have the funds get it as a Temporary Magic Item at %15 of the cost or at $3,000-9,000USD. 

Before Going any Further, lets set some Ground Rules. 

With so many Spells, the GM should
decide up to How many “Prerequisite Counts” should he allow in
the setting. Definitely there should be some In-Game Information
asymmetry about what effects and spells can be used. The War Beneath
Heaven, for example will have an Prerequisite Count of 1-5 as common,
6-10 as uncommon, and 11-15 as RARE. So spells like Soul Stone, Simulacrum, Doppelganger, Lich, Wraith etc… are conceptually unknown unless the character pours CP into the ability to know such. 

You can even make the Prerequisite
Count the Thaumaturgical or Hidden Lore Check of Knowledge of
THEORETICAL Effects. Since this is a CONCEPT understanding check
Versatility Advantage should have more weight more than Eidetic Memory.
You can probably grant a +5 for Versatility advantage and a +1/+2
from Eidetic Memory regarding such conceptual problem solving. Magery
if only a Temporary Boost should not influence such a roll, and
College specific magery does not help with concepts outside the
College of Specialty. So that there are no rolls, you can just say characters are familiar with concepts with a prerequisite Count = to their Skill – 5. A character with Fire college of 10 understands spells up to 5 prerequisites. 

Attempts to learn about effects and concepts of a higher prerequisite requires research in a number of hours equal to (the prerequisites + 15 minus their Skill) * 40 hours. 

So a Mage with a Skill of 10 researching a Spell with 6 prerequisites needs to study [ (6+10-15)*40 ] = 40 hours. After the Research the GM just gives him knowledge of One spell or Effect, not All the the spells of that Prerequisite Count.     

Once you have trimmed down the List its much easier to create doctrines, and Spells since you have less complexity since you have less “Cogs” and “moving Parts” to deal with.

Preparation and Sacrifice Rules