Spell personalities

Image by KannyL on DeviantArt.

Players will occasionally try to use magic in a way it wasn't written to function. I think that's great! GMs should definitely reward those players by introducing some uncertainty into the activity.

If we go back to Jack Vance, most magic users use spells written by a few great and brilliant wizards. I like to think the spells form families that way and each has something of the creator's personality about them. Spells can be Gentle, Strict, Playful, Malicious, Eager or Erratic.

Gentle spells only want to be used to help, never harm. That doesn't affect their primary function, a gentle fireball is still a fireball. But maybe if you use that fireball to create an updraft to lift a hot air balloon, it's a bit more controllable, a bit less explodey.

Strict spells only want to be used for the purpose they were created for and may refuse to function for creative uses. You could imagine that a lot of divine spells work this way. Bless might work in combat, but not for archery contests.

Playful spells love to be used in creative and experimental ways. They pack a bit more punch when that's the case, and follow the caster's expectations as much as possible.

Malicious spells want to harm. You, them, everyone. Even the caster. When used in a creative way they perform their function in the worst practical way and may affect the caster as well as the target.

Eager spells want to go big. Using Create Light to blind an opponent with darkvision? It's like a damn spotlight on their face, directed at their eyes.

Erratic spells get confused when used outside their primary function. Some aspect of the spell changes. Using Create Food to summon jelly desserts to make a fake ooze? You might get custard instead.

For example: can I use Create Water to fill someone's lungs with water?

• Gentle: Only if it won't harm them. For example, if they're cursed to breathe only water.
• Strict: No. Lungs are not a suitable container for water.
• Playful: Yes! Awesome lateral thinking, player!
• Malicious: Yes, but there's a chance you fill your own lungs as well.
• Eager: Yes, but there's a chance you fill their lungs with water at the pressure of the sea floor and they rupture in a horrific fashion.
• Erratic: Yes, but it might not be their lungs or it might not be water.

The first time a player gets creative with a spell, the GM should roll a D6 to see what the spell's nature is. This can be done for each individual spells, or it can be assumed that spells which fit together (Create Food/Create Water) were created by the same wizard and share a nature.

If the spell's nature makes it awkward for the player's purpose, the GM should roll D6 again to see if there are consequences. 1-in-6 seems like fair odds.

New spell: Urtell's Appropriated Abode

This spell conjures a house with bedrooms equal to the number of the party divided by two. If the surroundings are cold, a fire is lit and there is a an adequate supply of wood. If it's evening, hot food is set on the table. There's a pair of boots by the door. Coats hanging from the rack... children's toys scattered on the rug...?

Wait, did you steal someone's actual house?

Spells like Secure Shelter and Magnificent Mansion are useful, obviously. A safe haven in the wilderness when you need some downtime? Perfect. But there's so much interdimensional linkage to set up. Ethereal construction. Page upon page of calculations. Ugh. It's so much easier to just reach out across folded space and yank the nearest suitable dwelling to you!

And before it returns to its owners the following morning, you can loot it. 

Urtell's Appropriated Abode

3rd Level Magic-User Spell
Duration: 8 hours
Range: level x 10 miles from abode

The spell will bring a building, but leave anything it recognises as a sentient mind behind. That means the characters will sometimes find themselves responsible for a demented grandparent or a blackout drunk tavern patron overnight.

If there are no buildings in range of the spell, it brings the closest thing it can find. A large animal's lair, an overturned cart, two big rocks leaning against each other. It's a co-operative spell and it does its best.

The abode is not in its own pocket dimension. Lights in the windows are visible from a distance. If the building gets attacked, the characters will need to defend it or escape out the back.

Once the abode begins to show signs of returning to its place, characters have one exploration turn to gather their things and leave. Stay too long, and they risk being transported back to the building's original location (3 in 6). There are probably people there who will ask difficult questions.

Roll to see what kind of building the spell brings:

House table 1 (1d6)

1. Peasant cottage
2. Peasant cottage
3. Peasant cottage
4. Artisan's house/shop
5. Artisan's house/shop
6. Special. Roll on table 2
   

House table 2 (1d6)

1. Wealthy home
2. Military barracks
3. Stables
4. Tavern
   
5. Granary
6. Jailhouse
   

Loot tables

Peasant cottage

1. Old but sharp kitchen knife
2. Fresh apple pie
3. 2d6 rushlights (shed light like candle but go out if moved)
   
4. Woollen blanket
5. Corn husk doll (not haunted)
6. Fishing rod
   

Artisan's house/shop

1. Craft tools
2. Leather apron
3. Burlap sack
4. Grease
5. 2d6 planks
6. Coal sack

Wealthy home

1. 2d6 gold coins
2. 2d6 candles
3. Haunch of venison
4. Quality cloak
   
5. Soap
6. Saddle

Barracks

1. Boot polish
2. Poor-quality helmet
3. Horse barding
4. Sack of unwashed tabards
   
5. Bedroll
6. Training dummy

Stables

1. Harness
2. Liniment
3. Hay bale
4. 2d6 horses
5. Rake
6. Colic remedy (triple-distilled alcohol and some kind of herb)

Tavern

1. 1d4 sleeping drunk patrons
2. cask of good ale
3. Cookpot
4. Barman's friend (leather-wrapped oak club)
5. Ladle
6. Set of marked cards
   

Granary

1. Grain
2. Grain
3. Grain
4. Grain
5. Grain
6. Grain

Jailhouse

1. Leg irons
2. 1d4 wanted posters
3. Slops bucket (full)
4. Straw (soiled)
5. Filthy blanket
6. Oil lamp

Cursed items

A list of six cursed items that do exactly what they seem to do.

My concept of cursed items isn't objects that stick you with a negative modifier and can't be put down - although those have their place. It's perfectly serviceable items that perform a valuable function in a way that compromises the character's values.

Admittedly that's not much of a threat to murderhobo characters. But the caveats for these items should at least make non-chaotic players pause and then avoid the GM's eye while mumbling about the end justifying the means!

1. Death Holds No Secrets

A gem-studded collar that can temporarily revive a being dead for less than INT bonus days and no more than user's level+INT bonus HD to answer three questions in full. The being can save vs Magic to resist. After the questions have been answered, the collar returns the being to its rest.

After Death Holds No Secrets has passed out of range, there is a 3-in-6 chance of the being reviving again as a hostile undead with HD up to user's level.

2. Stand-Alone

A sword with faceted obsidian inlaid in the pommel in place of a gem. It allows the user to reduce the closest ally NPC's STR bonus by 1 in order to gain the same bonus until the end of a combat. The borrowed strength does not return to the NPC.

 

(Technically, the effect should apply to PCs as well. Would you want to be in that game? I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to be the same building.)

3. The Uneasy Crown

A simple gold crown, decorated with gold wire and rubies. This item only works if placed on a second person's head by someone who knows the passphrase, 'uneasy is the head'. After that, if the crowned one gives an order anyone with a lower charisma modifier will carry it out automatically, provided it isn't dangerous to them. (Save vs device to resist.) Each time an order is given, the crown tightens slightly. It cannot be removed until the person who crowned the wearer speaks the passphrase. That person is immune to the crown's effects. After being removed it cannot be used again by the same wearer. It will immediately tighten until it's too small to place on their head.

4. The Mirror Gem

The owner of this gem can enter a magical sleep and possess whoever wears the gem. The possessed wearer will look and sound like the owner, and has no will of their own while their actions are being directed. The wearer takes 1d4 HP damage each week they wear the gem. That damage can never be recovered.

5. Man-breaker

This is a lash with a core of hardened clay in the hollow handle. Each time it's used on a person, the victim loses a point from either INT, WIS or CHA and gains one in STR or CON. Over time their skin becomes more and more clay-like until they lose their last point of mental attributes and transform fully into a clay golem, good only for manual labour.

6. Persuasion

 

A narrow chain, with spiked links. If one of the spikes is used to nick a victim, the entire cord will slither inside through the wound and coil around their bones. From that point, if they refuse to follow when ordered to the chain will constrict, causing awful pain. Persuasion leaves a body the way it enters, but causes a lot more damage in the process. Most die.

Fantasy X-Men

In a previous post I mentioned an idea about ordinary characters having minor superpowers because they're polymorphed monsters and don't know it. Each character would have an ability stemming from their monster nature and a taboo that would undo the spell if they transgressed it.

The original idea was for each party member to be the only one who knew about another member's taboo, and have the responsibility for making sure they didn't break it. The monsters would effectively be each other's guards. However, I'm not that fond of games that give you knowledge your character doesn't have. Where's the fun for the player in uncovering the mystery?

So instead I think it should be handled by the GM. Players don't even need to know what sort of polymorphed creature they are. They can just be told that they always have advantage on certain skill tests, or that they have a supernatural power that works once per level per day. And supernaturally punished when they break their taboo, which they also don't know about.

I looked through the B/X Essentials monster manual for creatures that were A) living and B) intelligent and found a bigger list than I expected. Some are close enough to be cousin species, but that's an advantage if it gives a player the chance to form a completely wrong theory about what they are.

As of right now, I'm going simple and saying that breaking a taboo causes a psychic shock that does 1d6 HP damage, but it could easily be expanded into another subsystem. Maybe it damages the illusion and once you realise what you really are Wizard X unleashes the hounds of Tindalos to destroy you.

1)Bugbear
Bonus: Advantage on stealth rolls for character and anyone accompanying.
Taboo: Labour for wages.

2) Centaur
Bonus: Movement rate tripled.
Taboo: Carrying a person.

3) Djinn
Bonus: Breath weapon. Any creature of lower hit dice in a 5-space cone ahead of you is knocked prone. Equal hit dice are driven back 1 space.
Taboo: Go underground.

4) Doppelganger
Bonus: Imitate a person's voice and mannerisms perfectly. +2 bonus to disguising yourself as someone specific.
Taboo: Speak your own name.

5) Dragon
Bonus: +1 spell slot which can be cast hit dice x times per day.
Taboo: Give up a prized possession.

6) Dryad
Bonus: Advantage on woodcraft skill tests.
Taboo: Light a fire.

7) Efreet
Bonus: Instinctive understanding of fire - how to start it, how it spreads, how to contain it.
Taboo:Immerse yourself in water.

8) Gargoyle
Bonus: Wakefulness. You're immune to charm person and sleep spells and can stay awake for hit dice x days with no harmful effect.
Taboo: Sleep in a bed.

9) Giant
Bonus: Advantage on strength rolls.
Taboo: Act humble.

10) Gnoll
Bonus: Advantage on tracking rolls
Taboo: Eat before the party leader does.

11) Goblin
Bonus: Advantage on caving skill tests.
Taboo: Pay for something honestly.

12) Harpy
Bonus: Cast Charm Person hit dice x daily.
Taboo: Let a personal offence go unpunished.

13) Hobgoblin
Bonus: Advantage on stealth rolls for character and anyone accompanying.
Taboo: Enter combat without backup.

14) Invisible stalker
Bonus: Automatically surprise on your first attack in any combat.
Taboo: Alert someone to your presence.

15) Kobold
Bonus: +2 AC without armour, advantage on rolls to dodge.
Taboo: Attack an opponent from the front.

16) Lizardman
Bonus: You can slow your metabolism at will, entering a meditation-like state you can dismiss instantly. You need no food or water in this state.
Taboo: Kill a snake.
 
17) Lycanthrope
Bonus: Improved senses, especially smell. You can only be surprised on 1-in-6.
Taboo: Handle silver.

18) Manticore
Bonus: Poison bite. Hit dice x times per day. Victims must save or die.
Taboo: Speak words of comfort.

19) Medusa
Bonus: Cast Sleep on one target hit dice x times per day, by making eye contact.
Taboo: Look into your own reflected eyes.

20) Merman
Bonus: Advantage on swimming tests, hold breath for 2 + hit dice x minutes.
Taboo: Taste brine.

21) Minotaur
Bonus: You can handle weapons as if you were a larger creature - eg. weild a two-handed sword one-handed.
Taboo: Handle ceramics.

22) Nixie
Bonus: Cast Charm on up to hit dice x animals, once per day.
Taboo: Kill an animal.

23) Ogre
Bonus: Advantage on strength rolls.
Taboo: Share food.

24) Orc
Bonus: Advantage on caving skill tests.
Taboo: Enter combat without backup.

25) Pixie
Bonus: A successful save vs petrification nullifies all fall damage, otherwise fall damage is reduced by half.
Taboo: Harm a winged creature.

26) Salamander
Bonus: A successful save vs breath nullifies all heat or cold damage (choose which at character creation), otherwise damage is reduced by half.
Taboo: Use your opposing force as a tool or weapon.

27) Sprite
Bonus: Cast a minor curse up to hit dice x times per day. The curse target will suffer a clumsy accident, have a tool break, or some other distracting inconvenience.
Taboo: Speak a compliment.

28) Treant
Bonus: Up to hit dice x times per day a tree will find a way to help you - drop a branch in the right place, bear fruit out of season, etc.
Taboo: Cut wood.

29) Troglodyte
Bonus: Advantage on climbing tests.
Taboo: Sleep under open sky.

30) Troll
Bonus: When you roll for healing, use the rolled value or your number of hit dice, whichever is better.
Taboo: Handle open flame.

Destiny combat

Image by Pete Linforth

I've been noodling with a concept I call destiny combat, which is how the very wise and powerful get their revenge on each other. The idea is that with a great deal of planning and effort, you can ensure a rival fulfils their destiny in the absolute worst way possible.

The foundational premise is that everyone has a destiny, whether it be large or small. You're fated to live and die in a particular way, and that's unchangeable. But while the outline may be fixed, the details are forever changing. That's why fortune-tellers are unreliable and oracles are mystical and cryptic. They can only see your current future and by the time it arrives it may have changed.

The outline of your destiny is important to the world, but it's the details that are important to you personally. For example, your outline might be that you're destined to inspire generations of the world's great philosophers. That might be through founding one of the great colleges, with a strong tradition of sharing knowledge... or by getting tortured so horribly that a religion forms around it. Obviously you'd prefer one. Your enemies might prefer the other.

The very powerful are capable of reading destiny (theirs and others) but they usually don't. In the process of looking hard at someone's fate, it gets fixed in place. Both the outline and the details. That might mean the good outcome gets selected, but then again it might not. It's a heavy responsibility to bear. And if you fix your own bad outcome in place you'll have good reason to regret being so curious.

Naturally, wizards will ward their own destiny to prevent someone else examining it. Even so, there are ways and means to get partial but accurate glimpses of a future without running into a ward or altering fate. Certain places, times and rituals you can follow. To outsiders, the process seems even more vague and mystical than normal wizardry. Use them properly and you can observe a fate like a bird in your peripheral vision, ready to fly away if you turn your head. You can make guesses about it based on that, and maybe nudge it a little to move in the direction you want.

This is the work of years, or perhaps even lifetimes. Great sages trying to uncover and fix their own good end in place, and infer from unexpected changes who’s working against them and how.

In a world like this, what happens to people who achieve their great destiny and survive? If you believe that the workings of destiny are as perfect and omnipresent as physics, they probably just live quietly until they die unremarkably. In a world where it’s a legitimate threat that a god might drunkenly lose your planet in a game of cards, things might not be so neat. I think a party of former Prophecied Heroes would be perfect agents for a high-powered wizard. Cut loose by destiny, unpredictable and un-divineable. And it makes sense of the way players will stomp all over a GM’s plans for them.

And it makes this scene possible:

“You’re a former chosen one of the prophecy? So am I!”
“And me! I fulfilled a prophecy. What about you?”
“Well, yes. But I don’t like to talk about it. There were spiders.”
“‘Scuse me, I just recently fulfilled quite a big prophecy--“
“Shut up, assassin. We’re still turning you in for the bounty.”

Wizardly Traveller tech chart

I've never played Traveller, but I do own a core rulebook for it that I picked up on spec.  It was on the bring & buy table at a small local wargaming tournament.  I was there because the website said there might be a couple of RPG sessions running, but that side of things didn't work out.

It turned out to be a fun system just to play with on my own, following the lifepath system to generate unexpected characters, designing ships and the like. Of course, me being me, even before playing a session RAW I had to start tinkering with the rules.  I wanted to add magic and generate a galaxy where Alien, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings could all happen at the same time.

This is the  tech  magic chart add-on I came up with.  It's surprisingly hard to find a title for each rung on the magic ladder. English just doesn't have that many words suitable for quantifying the mysterious and ineffable. 

ML 0: (Primitive) 

No magic.  This world has no active gods, no awakened spirits, no natural sources of mana and no afterlife.  It is not possible to reincarnate here, or from here.  Spells cannot be cast.  Any open-ended spells or artefacts that rely on local mana resources will fail to operate. 

ML 1: (Primitive) 

Magic is mostly superstition.  A few meditation techniques are in use to improve concentration and memory.  Gods are unresponsive.  Local conditions prevent spirits from being contacted or summoned.

ML 2: (Primitive) 

Magic is limited to a few adepts or institutions.  There are a few unsophisticated techniques for contacting spirits.  Invoking spirits or elementals is done through rituals requiring large-scale sacrifice or the participation of entire populations.  The number of spells available to learn is severely limited.  Alchemy is not distinct from normal chemistry.  Enchantment is not understood.  Gods can only be contacted after long ritualistic preparation and their communications require interpretation.

ML 3: (Dabbling)  

Cantrips are available to the educated.  A few low-quality alchemical materials are available.

ML 4: (Connected)  

Low-powered spells are available to the educated.  Gods offer minor blessings in exchange for a suitable sacrifice.

ML 5: (Involved)   

Low-powered elementals and spirits can be bound.  Divination is possible, but unreliable.  Cantrips are available to the average citizen.  Spells are understood  among the educated.  Medium-powered spells are available.  Reasonable alchemical materials are available, but resource-intensive to produce.

ML 6: (Practising)   

Divination is common, but inaccurate.  Small, isolated industrial use of magic.

ML 7: (Arcane)   

Godly activity is often erratic, with poor understanding of the gods' motivations and reasoning.  Small-scale blessings and curses are available without godly involvement.  Moderately powerful elementals and spirits can be bound.  Bound low-powered elementals and spirits are common.  Enchanted items are available to the wealthy or politically-connected.

ML 8: (Far-sighted)   

Gods manifest signs and portents.  Divination is trustworthy.

ML 9: (Adept)  

Gods send visions.  Visions can be accurately interpreted.  Bound moderately-powerful elementals and spirits are common.

ML 10: (Learned) 

A well-defined pantheon of gods with clearly-marked domains.  Gods may be spoken to in their temples.  Magic is widely available, with golems in use for dangerous work and access to informed spirits through government and private institutions.  Many citizens use health charms for minor beneficial effects.  Physical immortality is available to the wealthy or politically connected.  Divination can be verified with a high degree of accuracy.  High-powered elementals and spirits can be bound.

ML 11: (Wise) 

Elementals and minor spirits are bound to power and operate common machinery or mystical engines.  Blessings and curses can be performed at interstellar distances.  High-order artefacts can be created (eg. "The Sword of the Prophecy").

ML 13: (Masterful)  

Widespread use of tutelary spirits in education.  Frequent consultation of ancestral spirits.  5 - 10% of citizens are physically immortal.  Gods may be invested to manage specific small domains.  Average citizens have the use of bound elementals.  Divination is well-understood and probably highly-regulated.  Bound high-powered elementals and spirits are common.

ML 14: (Transcendent) 

10 - 15% of citizens are physically immortal.  Reincarnation is a controlled process and may be used as a criminal punishment or to schedule the re-emergence of great heroes.

ML 15: (Celestial) 

Most or all natives are born immortal and have innate spell-like abilities. Elementals and spirits are invoked and bound for trivial purposes.  Godly activity can be regulated.  Destinies can be altered.

1d6 magic coins

Abelard the Unreliable was a wizard of significant power, but considerably less wisdom.  People suspected he came by his talent through some unconventional parentage -- he was certainly never spotted reading a book or scroll.  He was lazy, dishonest, self-aggrandising and lacked any kind of foresight.  And he was often drunk.  His magical exploits revolved primarily around the enchanting of coins.

1. The Widow's Pension
   A low-denomination coin that, when placed in a purse with other coins, will transform them overnight into coins of the same denomination.  A blessing to someone poor, a curse to someone rich.  Abelard was easily moved to pity by the plight of the needy, but he hated bankers.  (Too many refusals to grant him credit.)
2. Innkeep's bane
   If this coin is used in payment, some time after it's placed in a purse with other coins, it will leap out and roll back to whoever spent it, taking all the other coins with it.  Abelard loved drinking in inns and pubs, but hated innkeepers bothering him for payment.  Why did they have to spoil his evening with their crass demands for sordid specie?  It didn't occur to him until the first time he used it that those rolling coins would function like a big arrow pointing straight at him.  And that there would be a panting innkeeper running after them carrying his barman's friend (a stout club).
3. Beggar's lament
   If given to a beggar or donated in an act of charity, the giver will shortly have a ridiculous encounter that ends with a significant piece of good luck (1d6):
   
   1. Two farmers and their cronies arguing over whose geese are fatter.  They will ask the character who donated the coin to be an impartial judge.  When the selection is made, the loser will stomp off in a bad mood and the winner will insist that the character accept his goose as a reward for letting everyone know Farmer Murphy's fowls are the best.  It's an ordinary, potentially delicious, goose.
   
   2. A richly-dressed man trotting on a fine horse will appear.  When he draws level with the character he will suddenly pause, shout that he is sick and tired of this damned excellent cloak! and throw it at the character's feet before trotting away.  The cloak is of quality cloth, waterproof and warm.
   
   3. An old man in battered armour hails the character.  His daughter married a wealthy merchant and now she's insisting that he move in with them so she can look after him in his sunset years.  He supposes he ought to go, his sight isn't so reliable these days.  But a good sword should never retire!  He offers the character a high-quality and well-maintained blade.
   
   4. A fat, cheerful, drunk man is sitting at the roadside next to a cart with a broken axle.  He can't push it to the cartwright's workshop for repair while it's weighed down by its load of good ale, but wouldn't it be a shame to pour it all out?  He gives the character a full tun of quality ale.  It can be easily rolled.
   
   5. A matronly woman waves the character down.  She's been baking pork pies all morning for her husband's birthday, but now he's sick and can't get out of bed.  It would be an insult to the pig if any of those good pies go to waste.  She gives the character a large, freshly baked pie.  It smells mouth-watering.
   
   6. An attractive young man or woman is travelling to their home town to enter a contest of skill at the village festival.  They're nervous and want to kiss a stranger for good luck (a common superstition in their area).  The character is the one to catch their eye.
   
   The beggar who receives the coin will find it sticks itself to their forehead until they perform a charitable act of their own.  Abelard respected generosity, but he was easily annoyed by beggars.
4. The Price of Silence
   If used in payment for a crime, this coin will sink into the criminal's skin and hide inside their body.  If they ever try to talk about the crime, it will leap into their throat and try to choke them.  Abelard used it to pay a peasant for releasing a greased pig inside a church.  Since that time it's been used in payment for murders, thefts, beatings and frauds.  Abelard would feel bad about that, but probably not for long.
5. The Sure Thing
   If flipped, the symbol on this coin will change to whatever is spoken aloud while it's in the air.  Abelard liked to settle his debts by suggesting a double-or-nothing bet on the flip of a coin.  People were often reluctant to let him flip, but happy enough to let him supply the coin.
6. The Sour Joke
   Abelard created this coin to amuse children with the what's-that-coin-doing-behind-your-ear trick.  If placed behind a child's ear while concealed from view it turns into two coins, of a value to buy a child's treat.  If repeated, four coins, then eight.  Unfortunately, this spell wasn't quite ready.  Each time someone attempts to use it, there's a 1-in-6 chance it will actually get stuck in the child's ear, where it was cause considerable discomfort and require very careful extraction.  Tears are unavoidable.

Magic on Earth-at-the-End

I've been thinking a lot about Magic on Earth-at-the-End, specifically in the form of Lighthouse Cults.  The cults and their devotion to the mysterious orbital installation which is so large it can be seen from every part of the world's only continent and in daylight.

I hadn't intended Earth-at-the-End to be a B/X setting, but I've been using Necrotic Gnome's B/X Essentials books for inspiration and templates for monster stats.  The Essentials books are my gold standard for reference because they're laid out so well.  The cleric and magic user spell lists work well for my setting, because they lend themselves to reskinning as technological effects instead of supernatural ones.

My basic premise is that magic is ancient technology in a convenient, portable form.  (Cure Light Wounds?  It's a ray that reverses entropy in a limited area.  Originally intended to keep meat fresh for consumption.)  Handed down from parent to child or from master to apprentice.  It's not something you learn, it's something you inherit.  Magic-users are machine operators who understand their devices well enough to aim and trigger them, but not the underlying principles.  Spells can occasionally be created anew by salvaging a piece of technology and making it portable -- maybe the Last Academy has a few painstakingly-copied manuals that describe those devices well enough to identify them and a few reliable techniques for swapping out power sources and control plates.  Perhaps there's a crazy Godmind out in the desert with a cult of dedicated followers worshipping in a machine workshop.

Following on from that, anyone can use these devices but only magic-users have the training to use them correctly and in a crisis.  And devices aren't restricted by level, but the knowledge to use them properly might be.  I think it would be a useful rule to have the user roll 1d6 and if the result is equal or less than the difference in levels between device/spell and user, the attempt is a mishap on the following table.  Non-magic-users take an additional -2 penalty.

1. Reduced effect.
   The device functions as intended but the most important factor (potential, range, area of effect, number affected, save difficulty) is reduced by half.
2. Increased effect.
   The effect goes off as planned, but too much.  A medical device might treat the target's mouth as a wound to be healed over.  A single-target weapon might gain an area of effect.  A charmed person may become obsessively protective of the user.
3. Reversed effect.
   A healing device harms, a transport device roots the target to the spot, charm becomes grudge, etc.
4. Random target.
   Roll 1d8 and whoever is nearest in that direction from the intended target (and within range) becomes the device's new target.

Example: Barret the technician(1) attempts to help an ally who has been exposed to an ancient virus by using a Cure Disease device.  It's a 3rd-level device, so the difference between his level and the device's is 2.  He rolls 1d6 for mastery and unfortunately the result is 2, a mishap.  He rolls 1d4 and gets 2 again: Barret's device kills the virus in the ally's body, but also a great deal of his normal intestinal bacteria.  The ally's next meal will make him vomit.

I'm giving some thought to combining the cleric and magic-user spell lists.  Earth-at-the-end is a tired and cynical place, and the only faith you'll find is the lighthouse cults' hysterical need to believe something can save them when the world ends.  Organised religion is a thing of the deep past.

Magic variant for Knave

The star of the show.

It's starting to seem like the end is in sight for my group's current campaign.  We've just achieved one of the big goals and know exactly where the other one is and who we have to go through to get it.  It may all be settled at brunch with our enemies, provided we can make bail in time for it.  Our success has been thanks in no small part to a highly effective NPC.  That's him on the right.  The most capable member of the party doesn't even have opposable thumbs.  However, it's starting to look like he sold us out to the cops so I'm not ready to give him MVP status just yet.  I have questions, Johann.  Serious questions.  Your communication is limited to sarcastic eye-rolling but you're not eye-rolling your way out of this, rabbit.

This has all been in a house-ruled version of the Nemesis system, on the  planet of Harmony where the discovery of alien artifacts has triggered a gold rush and no-one is paying nearly enough attention to the local wildlife.  The next campaign is likely to be Shadowrun with James II as GM if we can find enough D6s.

After that, I've raised the idea of a short campaign to test out a fantasy module I'm writing: Elysium Bath House.  5e is the obvious choice of system, but we've talked about it before and there are elements of D&D that people find less appealing - classes, levels and dungeon-crawling.  I created Elysium with this group in mind, so it's not a traditional dungeon.  I think Ben Milton's Knave satisfies the other two points.  In place of classes, it uses an encumbrance system.  Want to be a fighter?  Fill your slots with weapons and armour.  Magic user?  Fill them with spellbooks.  Mix and match as you please.  It's level-based, but rather than adding feats, gaining a level just means adding a hit die and spending some points on improving stats.  Spells are level-less but increase in effectiveness and duration as a character levels.  That satisfies the group's objections.

The magic system doesn't quiiiiite match up with the game I want to run, though.  Spells can be found in spellbooks - one spellbook per slot, one spell per book.  Spellbooks cannot be created or copied.  Spells are cast by reading them from the book and work once per day.  I can see why Ben wrote it this way: he likes to encourage player creativity and thinks it can be best served by preventing spells from being overused or overshared.  Want more magic?  Get out there and quest for some.

I can see why, but it still seems a little contrived that spells by their nature can't be read more than once per 24 hours.  I'm looking to run a game where magic is more available.  I think my preferred solution is to say that spellbooks function exactly like the RAW, but it's also possible to learn spells and cast them at will.  Learning a spell is a normal Knave INT saving throw, with an added bonus equal to the learner's level and a penalty equal to the number of spells already known.  Failure means rolling on a magical mishap table like this one by the Hecatohedral Monk.  Check out some of those magical disasters - "Caster can no longer perceive sunlight."  "Caster is henceforth prone to being summoned by summon monster spells cast from other Material Planes."  Some of the entries are ready-packaged adventures waiting to happen.

Casting a learned spell consumes a slot of magical components.  Components themselves aren't hard to come by.  They can be as simple as a blade of grass twisted into a mystical sigil or a hair from the caster's own head tied in an associative knot around a stone from the last river he forded.  The point is to be something that has to be prepared, and then carried and protected in a slot of its own.

I have no doubt that characters with learned spells will venture forth every day with every spare inventory slot stuffed full of magic components, but that seems fine to me.  When you only have a hammer you might be inclined to look at every problem as a nail, but that's a space for creativity to occur in as well.