Aclas Wizard!
A Classis, as Vayra coined it.
Wizard is an appellation used by peasants and kings.
They refer to themselves as Practitioners.
The Practitioner
+1 MD per Template (Including Deltas)
Items: Spellbook, Overcoat, Small and Unassuming Weapon (+ Extras from Archetype).
Skills: 1) Machinery 2) Architecture 3) Law 4) Research 5) History 6) Mathematics
A - The Art, Identify, Counterspell
B - Detect Magic
C - Ward
D - Perfected Art
+
Δ - Archmage
Δ - Lichdom
The Art
You start with three spells, not including any an Archetype might give you. These can be any basic or ordinary spell you desire from pretty much any GLOG Wizard Spell List.
You use MD to cast.
You do not gain Spells for levelling up.
You have to find the damn things, in scrolls, the Spellbooks of your peers, the menhirs of the ancient past, the tattoos on that dead war-wizard, or on the cold carved circuitry of a Vis-powered levitator.
Translating a written spell from their wizard bullshit into your wizard bullshit takes 2d6 Days per Spell. You can note down the schematics of a Spell found in the wild, then convert it at any later date.
You have access to your entire Spell List at once.
Mishaps and Backfires
When you roll doubles when casting a Spell, you roll on the following table:
Mishaps of the Practitioner:
Nerve Shock - Agony for [dice] Rounds.
Metaphysical Concussion - MD only return on 1-2 for 24 hrs.
Soul Glare - Blind for [dice] Rounds.
Overchannel - Take [dice]*2 damage and get a fun burn in the shape of a magic circuit.
Thaumic Paralysis - You can’t cast more Spells for [dice] minutes.
Runaway - Immediately add another MD to the spell. This can cause Backfires. If you have no more MD, take [dice] Damage. If you roll another Mishap from Runaway, the new Mishap is always also a Runaway.
Note: Mishaps never prevent you from casting the Spell.
When you roll triples, there is no Doom, but instead a Backfire - effectively, a magical short-circuit, a serious and possibly harmful loss of control.
The effects of a Backfire should be based on the spell - backfiring Sleep knocks you clean out or makes you an insomniac, backfiring Charm Person makes you gullible or emotionless, backfiring Fireball rips a limb clean off, and so on.
The effects of a Backfire, if they’re not instantaneous (such as being put to sleep) or permanent (limb exploding), last 1d6 years.
Identify
By inspecting the circuit of an active spell, you can determine exactly what it does.
Some circuits are only visible with the assistance of Detect Magic.
Counterspell
You can lessen or undo the effects of a spell cast at you, by declaring you would like to Counterspell, then casting a spell with an opposed effect - Wall of Water vs. Fireball, Alarm vs. Sleep, or Incite Anger vs. Charm Person, that sort of thing.
If you have a Spell in your repertoire that is an effective Counterspell, then subtract your [dice]/[sum]from the [dice]/[sum] of the attacking Spell.
Detect Magic
Sometimes jokingly called Wizard Vision.
Practitioners may attune their senses in such a manner that allows them to see the un-light glow of magic.
This allows you to see circuits for spells, see people’s souls (a small flame upon their brow), track the flow of Vis through a machine, that sort of deal. You can also see Invisible creatures most of the time with this ability (unless they’re somehow invisible in a manner that doesn’t involve magic).
Ward
A trained Practitioner can weave this plain but reliable cocoon of magical force, which fits to and binds with their skin, until it is broken.
At any time, you may roll MD and gain a personal magical shield of [sum] HP. It’s visible as a rippling effect when it blocks something. It also makes your skin feel unnaturally cold and makes you tint weirdly in bright light.
It also blocks Detect Magic from seeing any active spells on you, or your soul, or anything like that - all a fellow Practitioner would see is a woven cocoon of magical strands across your skin.
The Ward lasts until the end of the day.
Perfected Art
Choose two of your Spells. Whenever you cast them, you can choose to do so with +1 MD.
You may now also create new Spells, instead of robbing the work of Practitioners past.
Creating a new Spell takes 5d6 Weeks of work, at a cost of 100 Crowns per week.
You can remove a d6 from that if you…
Are making a new spell based on an existing spell.
If it fits, thematically, your Archetype.
Have a large and well equipped laboratory.
Have an apprentice.
The lowest you can get it is 1d6 Weeks.
Δ - Archmage
Reach Template D while knowing 16 or more Spells.
You are now generally acclaimed for your talent in the Art. You can found an institution wherein you teach apprentices, accrue wealth, and research new spells.
Δ - Lichdom
Conquer your own mortality.
Lich is more of a category than a thing. It just means “Practitioner Who Will Not Simply Die”.
Now that you have figured out a method to conquer death, make sure you avoid doing anything really stupid.
Archetypes
Orthodox Graduate
The College of Spires is the only conventional “magic university” in the world. It teaches graduates the (fairly outdated) Eight School Paradigm. It’s mostly known for high-society links, brightly coloured robes, and flowery titles.
Starting Items: A brightly-coloured silk robe (see below), 100 crowns in bank-notes, a degree certification, a letter of introduction.
Benefit: You have access to the College Library, where you can find new Spells in the stacks for an exorbitant fee. Furthermore, if a Spell you find conforms to the School you Graduated in, it only takes 1d6 Days of work to learn it.
Drawback: You’re in student debt, to the tune of about 12000 crowns. The debt-collectors are also wizards.
Choose the School you graduated in:
School - Robe Colour - Title After Name
Abjuration - Light Grey - The Silver
Evocation - Scarlet - The Red
Transmutation - Orange - The Amber
Illusion - Saffron - The Gold
Conjuration - Royal Blue - The Blue
Divination - White - The White
True Enchantment - Green - The Green
Theoretical Necromancy - Red-Grey - The Ashen
Hypnotist
One of the two worst kinds of Red Magic, hypnotism is considered the unsettling and morally unacceptable cousin of “true” enchantment. Practitioners are sometimes also called twisters or phoslighters. They’re universally criminals.
Starting Items: Cheap Suit, Sharp Knife, Small Pistol, illegal book of the basics of hypnotism.
Benefit: You start knowing the spell Charm Person.
Drawback: You’re a criminal for merely knowing Charm spells. The sentence for possession of Charm circuits is somewhere in the region of a decade, in most places.
Necromancer
The Red and Terrible Art. A repressed and fragmentary tradition, but, its practitioners allege, the oldest. Necromancers are always taught in clandestine master-apprentice chains.
Starting Items: Needlessly ominous black robe, tacky skull mask, military issue handgun, sturdy boots, shovel.
Benefit: You start with the spell Animate Dead.
Drawback: In most places, Necromancy is, primarily, punishable by death (with a few notable and horrendous exceptions).
Cabal Scion
The frozen City of Ghosts, the unnamed city built upon the ruins of Old Darra (where everything living is born albino) has come under the rule of the Cabal. The Cabal are a collection of old, nasty aristocratic families, who take pride in their magical power, and lord it over the mundane common folk.
Starting Items: Spike wand, elegant horse-pistol, black samite clothing (lined with fur), falconry glove, falcon, shaska, stallion, 4000 crowns in blue silk notes.
Benefit: You’re an itinerant noble - you have 5 exasperated and probably underpaid employees (who likely hate your guts, let’s face it). You can also write home for money if you’re really in a bind.
Drawback: Aside from all the people in the City of Ghosts who want you dead (who are varied and numerous), you’ve also got a reputation for being worth a king’s ransom on your head - expect kidnappers or Vox Populi assassins.
Academe of Kelesh
The Academy of Kelesh is slowly sinking into the earth. Once lying at the highest point of the city of Kelesh, it has been plummeting through the dry and honey-coloured earth, wrapped in thick chains of unexplainable weight. The fact it’s remained intact while doing so mystifies even the sages who reside there. The place is dark, flooded, and half full of sentient, furious fungus - but it churns out learning and mysteries all the same.
Starting Items: Dome shaped hat, practical robes in dark colours, thick belt made of leather cord, 3 doses of myconid spores (clay jar), pistol and 12 bullets.
Benefit: You have an extremely sharp sense of smell, and an even better sense of taste.
Drawback: If exposed to bright light suddenly, save vs. Agony. The noonday sun, unshielded, makes you nauseous and gives you migraines.
Skoloth
A clan, or maybe a cult, of isolationist, anti-authority Practitioners, who live in a scattered string of pastoral villages in northern Dwyn. They’re made up mostly of maglath - goblins, bugbears, and so on. They eternally resist the rule of RHLN, God-King of Dwyn.
Starting Items: Homespun brown robes, voluminous hood, hunting rifle, walking stick, secret seal of your order.
Benefit: You may create a Ritual Area by performing a one hour ritual at six locations, each a mile apart. While within the area demarcated by the rituals, you have +1 MD.
Drawback: Something about your magic incenses the spirits of the land - subtract your level from Reaction Rolls with spirits.
Weather-Worker
The most prominent clique among the networks of Court Mages, which dominate the political sphere of Ubvir. Their leader, Mana Salahit, has the ear of the Prince and the run of the capital - and you are one of her allies.
Starting Items: Blue silk headwrap, metal mask etched with cloud pattern, rich silk robes in blue and orange, elegantly filigreed handgun, 12 bullets.
Benefit: You start with one of the following spells: Rain, Cold Snap, Heat-Wave or Storm. You’re also in on the political workings of Ubvir.
Drawback: You have a political rival from back home who wants you dead. They’re also a Wizard.
Enlightened Physician
In Ikaros, they’ve rejected the gods in favour of empiricism and magic. Their most famous tradition is the borderline necromantic practice of their Physicians, who use magic to control the flow of blood and knit the flesh.
Starting Items: White robes with black triangular pattern, book of anatomy, surgeon’s tools, reliable mule, sledge for carrying the sick, small cap declaring you a trained Physician.
Benefit: You can diagnose illnesses and injuries. You’re a trained and competent doctor. You start with the spell Cure Wounds.
Drawback: Outside of Ikaros, you’re considered to be verging on criminal magic. You also swore an oath to do no harm, which your fellow Physicians will expect you to uphold (what they don’t know won’t hurt them, though.)
Surugal
Once the bodyguards of the Iskorian Imperial Family, an error in judgement led to their exile. Now residing in the catacombs of the war-torn city of Ilavask, the Surugal are, in essence, an imperial cult, a secret spy ring - a secret police force, gone totally rogue.
Starting Items: Polished plate-mail, carbine, 20 bullets, mirrored harpe, silver deathmask of an Iskorian Emperor attached to your helm, phoslamp (the light of which is visible only to you).
Benefit: You have a spy network in and around Iskoria. You have the Expertise ability of the Ultimate Fighter.
Drawback: If you ever step foot in the Iskorian capital of Thane, you die instantly, no save. This is very old, and very strong magic.
(Note: playing as an active member of the Surugal isn’t good adventuring fodder, but a rogue one, sure.)
Editor of Shere
The Library of Shere is the greatest repository of knowledge on the face of Aclas. A thousand-thousand books and scrolls saved from the advance of the wilds. It’s hidden, as you might expect, buried below an isolated mountain.
Starting Items: Full-body white robes, cloth face-mask with a unique pattern, book bag (x2), sturdy red cane, amulet of passage into the Library (ibis).
Benefit: You know the spell Legend Lore, which works by referencing the Library’s archives. You can also lay your spellbook onto any other form of text, and the weird self-perpetuating scribe ghosts back at the Library will copy and translate it to the best of their ability, for later perusal via Legend Lore.
Drawback: If you witness the destruction of a book or other form of written text, take 1d6 Damage.
Black Tooth
Zarumaan assassins based out of the Rotten Borough, a district of the city of Osoivo that suffered a magical mishap and got spatially folded down into a single alley. The mishap scattered the Borough somehow - an open wound in reality, now a part of every city.
Starting Items: Fatigues, high boots, magazine-fed pistol (technically illegal by the terms of the Treaty of Kelos), black gauze hood and mask of the same.
Benefit: When you run down an alley, you can expend MD to take yourself into the Rotten Borough for [dice] minutes. You can restock, get information, pick up ammunition, etc. then you return to the alley you left from.
Drawback: If you’re more than a day’s travel from a major city, you lose 1 MD.
Tin Leg School
Lightning-obsessed galvanists who originate from the high-mountain town of Vicante. Founded by Perigo du Mezol, a man who had been struck by lightning no less than five times by the time he took up the Art.
Starting Items: A metal leg covering which allows you to reduce damage from electricity by 1d6, a big coat, a pair of goggles, rubber shoes, can of water (for extinguishing flaming hair).
Benefit: You start knowing the spell Lightning Bolt.
Drawback: Whenever anyone in the scene would be struck by lightning or electrocuted, you are instead. This drawback doesn't affect electricity originating from you - thankfully.
