Mage

Overview

Mages are people who make their living with the study and use of magic. Magic is a difficult, demanding mistress and achieving great skill with the mystic arts precludes great skill in other demanding disciplines. Student Mages are not encouraged to waste their time with trivia like 'armor' or crudities like 'weapons'. For a mage, magic is weapon, armor, shield, and comfort. Even small branches out into other areas of study frequently relate back to magic. Mages can excel at creating potions and runes without sacrificing a great deal of their magic. Mages tend to analytical minds and this makes them fine engineers, if they can be persuaded to sacrifice a bit more of their raw capability.

Armor Proficiency: Moving under stress in armor is a trained, physical activity and not something Mages are taught. Mages may wear Costume Armor without spending precious resources to learn better.

Weapon Proficiencies: Mages are skilled in the use of magic implements: Daggers, Staves, and Wands.

Mana: Mages may purchase mana without limit, although their efficiency suffers a bit past the efficient limit of 100. This more than anything is what distinguishes a Mage from a dabbler.

Class Features:

Second Breath: A Mage may reset his spell pool without cost, count, or announcement once per reset.

Overcast: A Mage up against the wall may burn one base Body point to immediately generate 10 Mana, to the limit of his base Body points. A Mage that does this cannot use their magic for ten minutes per Body spent. This damage cannot be healed with magic, although they may heal it with chemical or natural remedies. Overcast is a weapon of last resort; Mages loathe being severed from their magic, but when things are bad enough, Overcast provides one last hope.

Mage Skills

Category	Skill Name	Prerequisite Skills	SP Cost	Use Cost
Magic
	Mana (1-100)	-	1/2	-
	Mana (101+)	Mana (100)	1	-
	1st School	-	5	-
	2nd School	1st School	10	-
	1st level spell	1st School	1*	1 Mana
	2nd level spell	1st School, 1st level spell	1*	2 Mana
	3rd level spell	1st School, 2nd level spell	1*	3 Mana
	4th level spell	1st School, 3rd level spell	1*	4 Mana
	5th level spell	1st School, 4th level spell	1*	5 Mana
	6th level spell	1st School, 5th level spell	1*	6 Mana
	7th level spell	1st School, 6th level spell	1*	7 Mana
	8th level spell	1st School, 7th level spell	1*	8 Mana
	9th level spell	1st School, 8th level spell	1*	9 Mana
	Spell Pool I	None	0	-
	Spell Pool II	Spell Pool I	5	-
	Spell Pool III	Spell Pool II	5	-
	Spell Pool IV	Spell Pool 75	10
Metamagic
	Ley Point	1 Mana	2	-
	Hasten Spell	-	2	1 Ley Point
	Natural Spell	-	2	2 Ley Points
	Penetrating Spell	-	3	2 Ley Points
	Arcane Spell	-	4	3 Ley Points
	Revitalize	-	5	See Below
	Elemental Spell	-	3	2 Ley Points
	Mana Shield	-	10	5 Ley Points
	Siphon Mana	-	2	1 Ley Point
	Aura Emulation	-	4	2 Ley Points
Miscellaneous
	Chain Spell	-	4	-
	Diagnose	-	3	-
	First Aid	-	4	-

Mage Skill Descriptions:

Magic Skills:

Mana: Mana is the fuel by which spells are generated. Spells are leveled 1-9 and every spell costs an amount of mana equal to its level to cast. Mages pay 1 SP to get 2 mana until they reach 100; after that, additional mana is available at 1 SP per mana point unto infinity. Collectively, a Mage's available mana is referred to as a pool, despite the confusing overlap with the unrelated "spell pool" used for linear magic delivery. Mages on every world refer to things like the "depth" of their mana pools. It's an odd idiosyncrasy of the cosmos.

Schools: Schools are variously referrred to as Paths or Disciplines or Flavors at various places on various worlds. Whatever the name, a School is just a grouping of spells related to each other in some way. Learning a School allows your mage to acquire and cast spells from that School. Far and away the most common Schools are Evocation and Spirit; these are the first two taught at every accredited magic school and every Mage can learn the workings of those Schools without significant trouble. Other Schools do exist; Shadow is known (and feared) across the worlds. Others tend to be so narrow in purpose that they're not useful outside of their niches, or so carefully guarded that learning them is a massive, epic task. Nature may or may not be a School of magic. Scholars have debated this as far back as anyone can remember; the use of mana and the general similarity in the casting process argues that Nature is a School. The fact that no Mage yet has managed to learn to it argues that's a magic-like philosophy and so different from "normal" mana manipulation that it's not actually a School so much as it is a perspective, one incompatible with Magery.

Spell 1-9: Broadly speaking, Mages may learn spells in one of two ways. The easiest is simply transcribing a written formula into memory, and Mages prefer this where the option is available. In order to do this, all your Mage needs is a scroll of the relevant spell and enough time to read it and learn it. Spells learned in this way cost no Skill Points, further endearing it to the Mages of the worlds. Where this isn't possible (some worlds have outright banned Evocation magic from the lower classes, for example), it's possible to gut it out and teach yourself the spell. Doing this has no monetary cost, but it does incur a cost in skill points instead.

Spell Pool: Mages can step out of the way of their own spellcasting process and instead elect to just push unshaped mana. Doing this is faster and less stressful than formal spellcasting. One point of spell pool generates 1 point of healing or elemental damage, to a limit of 20 points at a time. This is cast as "I summon X <healing | damage type>" and packet delivered. Every rank of Spell Pool (I, II, III, IV) adds 25 points of usable pool.

Metamagic:

Metamagic, as the name implies, is magic that affects magic. Metamagic effects modify spells in some way, or modify some other aspect of magic in some way spells cannot. Metamagic is fueled by Ley Points, and there are as many arguments about what Ley actually is as there are people making them. Mages purchase Ley Points directly, at 2 SP each, and a Mage cannot buy more than 20 total.

Hasten Spell: A Hastened Spell is delivered without a formal incant; this is called as "Magic <Spell Effect>". Hastened Spells bypass a number of usual spellcasting restrictions; they do not require incants and hence may be delivered while Silenced or otherwise deprived of speech. Hastened Spells may also be cast while confined. Hastening a spell costs 1 Ley Point.

Natural Spell: A Natural Spell is the closest Mages have gotten to Nature magic. Shaping a spell in this way eliminates the incant as Hasten Does, but is called as "Natural <Flavor> Effect>" and thereafter obeys the rules of the Natural delivery vector. Full details are available under Effect Delivery but briefly, Natural effects are stopped by shields, resisted with Resist Natural instead of Resist Magic, and affected by whatever nonsense 'magic' Callers use. Natural effects tend to be easier to stop than Magical effects, but some creatures are painfully resistant to magic and easily victimized by Natural effects. The existence of the Fae alone guaranteed that some Mage was going to develop this.

Penetrating Spell: Penetrating Spell shapes mana such that it punches right through armor; Penetrating Spells are cast as normal but have the call "body" appended to the incant. Unlike most metamagic, Penetrating Spell can be applied to Spell Pool. The cost must be paid separately for every application of Spell Pool and this can get expensive, but against heavily-armored targets with frail physiques it can also be lifesaving. Healing Pool can be delivered this way despite normally being desirable and normally affecting Body to start with; this is the means by which Mages attack undead and other life-hating monsters.

Arcane Spell: An Arcane spell functions much like a Natural spell, delivering an effect without incant or motion. Arcane Spell is called as "Arcane <Flavor> <Effect>", where Flavor can be any usual Elemental Flavor for Evocation effects and Spirit for Spirit Effects. Arcane is comparatively rare in the worlds and defenses to it are much less common than Resist Magic.

Elemental Spell: Elemental Spell is a similar modification to a spell, called as "Elemental <Flavor> <Effect>" . Elemental Attacks are very powerful against opposing-element targets and some creatures that are vulnerable to certain elements.

Revitalize: Revitalize breaks down Ley Points into raw mana, which can then be channeled to cast spells as usual. Revitalize costs one Ley Point to create 5 mana, and can only be used over the course of a given event to replenish a volume of mana equal to your base mana pool. This means, under normal circumstances, that you can generate no more than 100 extra points of mana per event, at the cost of losing your use of Ley Skills for that event.

Mana Shield: Mana Shield wraps your mana around you in a shell, hopefully one that wards off enough damage for someone else to come and save you. This is called as "Mana Shield" and as soon as that call is made, incoming damage is applied to your Mana pool instead of your armor or body. Damage to a Mana shield is considered Body damage for the purposes of carriers and other "must do body" effects. If you have damage reduction in some flavor, it does not apply to a Mana Shield. You may continue to cast spells with an active Mana Shield, if you can track a resource being depleted from two sources, but you might consider talking to a Fighter about the wisdom of burning your protection while someone is trying to kill you.

Siphon Mana: This allows your Mage to drain Mana from a willing donor into your own Mana pool. This costs one Ley Point per transfer and may transfer only enough mana to return your pool to full.

Aura Emulation: As practiced by Mages, this allows for mana to reflexively retaliate against a melee strike. This is called as "20 <Flavor> Aura" in response to being struck. Aura Emulation allows for any of the four usual elemental flavors and Spirit. Other Auras are known to exist but those are not readily available and learning them can be a chore.