CoD Magic

What is magic? The traditional answer is that magic is connection. A mage is a person who has an attunement to one particular aspect of the world around them: they perceive that aspect more clearly and directly than other people and over time they can learn to control it. The aspect can be something elemental like air or heat, something connected to living beings like life or thought, or an abstract concept such as chance or time.

The type of magic a mage is connected to is based on their inner nature – their personality, character, and soul. You could say that someone’s magic is an expression of their inner self, but it’s just as true to say that someone’s magic  is  their inner self – certainly mages can’t survive without their magic and in the rare cases where it’s separated from them they don’t live long. The mage’s nature determines the kind of magic they can use, not vice versa – there’s no way to use fire magic without having the personality of a fire mage. This doesn’t mean that mages of a certain type are all the same, but the type of magic that someone can use always reflects a profound truth about the kind of person they are.

General
Potency: Every mage has a measure of how powerful they are, what kind of magic they can do and how proficient they are with it. All of this boils down to one statistic, namely Potency. A mages level of potency determines what kind of spells he can cast and how powerful they are. Potency goes from 1 to 10. A mage's Potency is always considered 3 higher when the mage uses his spells to affect Normals or Sensitives.

Casting a spell: Casting a spell is a simple process, to cast a spell the mage rolls his Potency + a skill or attribute assigned by the Storyteller for each individual spell.

Extended spell casting: A mage can chose to cast a spell as an instant action or an extended action, while certain spells are extended only. When doing so a mage can do several rolls towards powering a spell, with the storyteller dictating how much time passes between each roll. For instance, if a mage were to create a really large fireball, casting it as an extended action would allow the mage to charge up a number of successes over time, though he'd perhaps only get to roll once per minute.

Mastering a Spell: a Mage can spend one experience to Master a spell, this increases his capacity to work the spell by a great deal. A mastered spell applies a single skill to the roll, chosen by the storyteller and player together. In the case of ordinary attack-like spells, Brawl, Weaponry or Firearms are usually chosen.

Duration: Spells have can have different durations, the types of durations are instantaneous, concentration, maintenance and lastly extended.

Instantaneous: Most spells are of the instantaneous variety, they happen and then the after effects are left up to the natural laws of physics. A fireball explodes, though it's heat might've caused a fire to break out, while not technically a part of the spell itself it is a result.

Concentration: These spells requires a users concentration to keep going, meaning he must sacrifice a move action or an instant action to keep it active lest he loses control. Taking damage while concentrating, requires the mage to roll a successful Resolve roll to keep the spell going.

Maintenance: A maintenance spell is a spell that's relatively easy for a mage to keep going, a mage can keep one maintenance spell active per dot in Composure.

Extended: Finally there are extended spells, these spells have independent durations based on their activation roll or spell descriptor. It could be all from 1 round per success to a more exact number like 5 minutes.

Resisting magic: Magic isn't all powerful and certain beings can dodge ranged magical attacks or resist the effects thrown upon them. Only Mages, adepts or magical creatures are capable of this. To react to a ranged magic attack, is like reacting to a gun shot, save mages have so much advanced warning that they can apply half their ordinary defense against ranged attacks(Rounded down). As for resisting spells with other effects, the named categories above are the only kind of beings that are allowed to resist as it is described in a spell.

Multi-type spells
Gates: All mages of the Elemental family, including Death mages of the living family and space mages of the universal family are capable of creating gates. Gates are spells that allows a mage to create a similarity between two points, connecting them and creating a portal through which someone could step and be instantly transported. A Gate takes six minutes to conjure, minus one for each success on the Potency roll made to cast it. After this, the gate remains open for as long as the mage concentrates on it. A mage can gate to ANY one are with which they're familiar as long as they can manage a mental image of the place. A mage can gate as soon as they have 2 points of Potency, a mage that suffers from any kind of mental interference or mental exhaustion cannot open a gate, as they're unable to muster up the concentration to do so.

Shields: All elemental mages and some living mages are capable of conjuring a shield, this ability requires Potency 2. A mage can conjure a shield an amount of times equal to half his Potency score, rounded down, during one encounter. Shields are extra health levels that are subtracted first, a shield adds 2 levels of health per Potency score. Should a shield take double it's health levels in bashing damage or lethal damage equal to it's health levels it collapses and any left over damage is applied to the mage. Aggravated damage is down graded to lethal against shields. Some shields provide no kinetic defense, and therefor offers no protection against mundane attacks like bullets, punches or swords(But punching a Fire shield is severely discouraged). By spending a point of willpower a mage can throw up a shield reflexively. Additionally some shields damage melee attackers upon connection, this goes primarily for fire and lightning shield, dealing 1 lethal damage every time a melee attack connects with them. Death shields, while kinetic, deal 1 bashing damage every time someone connects physically with the shield.

Lights: Every mage of the Elemental family, as well as Death mages and Light magic type users can generate a little ball of light. This ball is always colored similar to the magic type used to generate it. It sheds light in a 50ft radius, illuminating the area like a torch. Some lights have additional small effects, like a fire mages light radiating slight amounts of heat, a water mages light might feel cool and condense moisture in the air around it and so on. It requires one success to activate a light and it's considered a maintained spell.

Perception: Some types of magic allows a user to enhance their natural perceptions, making them capable of observing the world in alternating ways. This can be said for all mages, as their mages sight allows them to do just that, however a few types can take it one step further. Below is a few examples of magically altered perception.

Thermal vision: Fire and heat mages are capable of observing heat signatures in the world around them, basically this allows them a kind of thermal vision that permits them to detect human body heat through other solid objects, up to three inches of solid matter, and in complete darkness. This Thermal vision is limited to sight.

Breath detection: Air mages are sensitive to the currents of air around them and thus capable of perceiving flows that contradict the natural movement of air currents, like breathing. If an air mage concentrates and rolls a perception roll, he's capable of detecting a nearby target merely by their breathing. This is far from being as accurate as Thermal sight or tremorsense but it's something.

Tremorsense: Earth mages are known for this ability, tremorsense allows an earth mage to pinpoint the position of anyone, without any other sensory input, within a 30ft radius as long as they are somehow connected to the ground the mage is stood on. This includes if they touch the roof, connected to the wall, connected to the floor the mage is stood on. Through concentration and a successful perception roll, the Earth mage is capable of extending this distance by 10ft per success. She can apply this to other rooms as well, by putting her hand on a wall facing the room.

Life sight: Life sight is a truly impressive ability, it allows a life mage or Shapeshifter, to detect the presence of living beings within a range of 50ft. But not only can they detect these beings, they're also capable of determining their exact state of health and what they seem to be doing, physically like sleeping, relaxing or being active, with a successful Intelligence + medicine roll. Should they succeed at such a roll, they also gain their successes to their next Empathy roll to determine a targets mood or whether or not they're lying, simply by looking at the bodies responses. An active perception roll can extend the range by 10ft per success.

Death sight: Death sight is often viewed as the retarded younger cousin of Life sight, it's great at detecting the position of living beings by see where there's the least amount of negative energy. However beyond this, it's only able to determine how close a living being is to death, not what ails them or if they're dying from their lung cancer or the infection in their leg. This ability has a range of 20ft and the range can be extended by 10ft per success on an active perception roll.

Mind map: This is a simple ability shared by Mind and charm mages alike, it allows them to detect the presence of thinking and feeling individuals. This ability is not blocked by objects and has a range of 20ft. A mind mage is capable of detecting the immediate surface thoughts of anyone they focus on, with a perception roll, though the information they gleam is fractured and simple. Charm mages can perceive the targets dominating emotional state with a simple roll.

Echolocation: A simple trick developed by sound mages, it allows them to act as if they had sight should it ever be obstructed. A sound mage can constantly map out his immediate surroundings through the use of sound, even the sound others make. His senses are still blocked by solid objects however, so he can't exactly see through walls. But more than one eager fire mage, has thought he had the advantage in the dark, only to find that opposed to his Thermal sight, Echolocation also maps out the presence of objects.

General magic
General magic is a collection of spells and abilities common to all mages, any mage with enough know-how can make use of General magic. Mages sight is part of general magic, as it is open to every mage.

Mages sight Mages sight is one of the few things that sets a mage, adepts and sensitives apart from normal human society, it is the gift that allows a mage, or adept or sensitive, the ability to locate and discern magic. Every mage, adept or sensitive begins with a single dot in this Discipline and advance it as per normal. Unlike other disciplines, Mages sight is not rolled with Potency, rather it's rolled a long with Wits. Mages sight can be used both actively and reflexively, Mages sight has a range of 5 meters per dot. Mages sight is blocked by physical objects, direct line of sight is needed to identify magic. Mages sight can be bought like an individual skill, with the same cost. It is considered a mental skill.

1st: The mage is capable of perceiving magic and type of magic if he's familiar with a given type. It will take a mage a few encounters with a certain type of magic, before he can reliably recognize it. A Mage can also see spells woven permanently.

2nd: The mage is now capable of identifying wards, with a successful roll, though only the most immediate wards. Should they be layered he's only able to identify the first ward. A mage can now also identify a type of spell by sensing it, thus knowing a fire ball is brewing somewhere within range.

3rd: The mage is now able to not only sense spells, types of magic and wards, but can now also recognize a person by the signature of their spells. They're now also capable of picking up on the residue left by extremely powerful magic, though doing such is incredibly hard.

4th: A mage can now use his mages sight alone and a bit of channeled magic, to figure out what a focus does without having to actively activate it. Simpler items like one-shots he can identify with a glance and a successful check.

5th: The mage can now pierce layered wards, being able to trace how the spells have been woven and mixed. No magic signature goes past him, nor could any two similar spells fool him. A mage at this level of his Mages sight, is an incredible magical sleuth.

Wards: Wards are not a single spell, rather a ward is the framework for reactive spells. Wards are often used in a defensive manner, allowing a mage to prepare spells a head of time to defend his residence. Wards are always cast as extended actions. There are three kind of wards, Single use, extended or Permanent. A single use ward takes effect one time, once activated the spell dissipates. A Permanent ward is always in effect or at the very least has a duration long enough to be considered permanent, though may fade over time. By it self ward has no effect, as explained it is a framework, rather it can hold a payload effect that can trigger once certain parameters have taken effect. Though wards aren't just traps, certain wards have permanent effects like protecting against scrying or preventing gating, these wards are almost always permanent and always in effect, unless powered down.

Any mage with a Potency of 2 or above can create a ward.

Creating a ward: To create a ward a caster must put down the parameters of the framework. This includes deciding on the size of the desired area of effect, whether it's a permanent effect or a triggered one. For permanent effects no trigger condition needs being set, for instance a ward protecting against house fires are usually always in effect unless it's one triggered to douse your house in water once fire has been detected.

Should the caster decide on a trigger-ward, he must decide upon a condition that needs to be met to trigger the ward. This could be as simple as "Anyone who gates in here without an attuned key" to "Anyone brandishing a law enforcement insignia". These kinds of wards are usually Single use, though they can be made permanent with effort.

The next step is to imbue the ward with a payload, it's all good an dandy that you have a ward that affects a 30ft spherical area, but without any spell to affect this area it does practically nothing. So a spell inside a ward, is called the payload. A payload could be nearly anything, from permanent walls of force to triggered fireballs once someone enters a certain area.

Once Framework and Payload are decided upon it's time to begin crafting the ward,to do this a character must achieve a number of successes on an extended roll as dictated by the requirements below.

The base cost for any ward is 5 successes. Each 10ft square you want to affect adds an additional 1 success required. Then you add one extra success for every level of potency the spell inside will have, a payload can only have a potency equal to the max potency of the caster. Should you want the ward to be of extended duration rather than a single use, you add 3 extra successes per day you want the ward to last. For permanent you take the final number of successes required and triple it, additionally you must pay 1 point of willpower per 10 successes required. A Single use ward lasts for half a day.

It takes 5 minutes per roll, to set up a ward.

Example: Ben would like to create a ward that upon his command, would blast a given area with death magic enervating their bodies and attempting to knock them out. Ben decides upon a framework: Triggered, 30ft radius, Single use. Ben needs 5 successes as a base for the framework, adding 3 additional successes on account of the area. Ben's potency is 5, so another 5 is added as he wants his spell to be as powerful as possible. This adds up to him having to roll 13 successes all in all. Should he want to add a duration of longer than half a day, he'd be required to make it an extended, adding 3 successes to this total per day added. If he would want it to be permanent he'd need to triple the number for a total of 39 successes required.