Glossary of Spells

Second Sight

Second sight isn’t a spell and doesn’t cost any Stamina, but it’s magic all the same. To use it, roll at the risk of failing to focus your inner eye. If successful, you become briefly able to perceive magical auras, as well as to see invisible creatures and spirits. This perception only lasts for as long as you concentrate, and fades if you’re distracted.

Spells of Binding

Bind things, people, or spirits with the weight of magical authority, arresting their movements or physically bolstering them. Spells of binding can only ever constrain; they cannot compel action. It’s possible to resist a mage’s binding, if your will is strong enough.

Prevent a ghost from departing; arrest an object in motion; bind a tongue from speaking or a door from opening; reinforce a mast to withstand the storm.

Spells of Changing

Work temporary physical transformations upon a living creature. Subtle alterations and manipulations are easiest; the greater the change, the more difficult the working. Total transformation is especially taxing and difficult - even more so if the subject is unwilling.

Grow gills for a time; change your hands into claws; harden your skin like stone; turn your enemy into a frog; become a hawk.

Spells of Exchange

Perform sympathetic magic to heal the hurt of others by taking it upon yourself - or, indeed, the other way around. The greater the difference between two things, the harder it is for them to achieve exchange. Taking a broken leg from another person is easy; offloading your injury to a limbless plant would be much more difficult.

Heal a wound; lift fatigue and weakness; purge a poison; cure an illness; break a curse.

Spells of Finding

Locate or reveal something. Finding is sympathetic magic, and works best when you have something that resonates with the thing you’re trying to find. Without the principle of sympathy, it tends to be limited to your immediate area.

Spells of finding are best for answering questions of where and when, not how and why. They’re of limited use when attempting to identify an item; you’re better off using spells of guidance.

Detect the presence of living creatures; detect the presence of traps or poison; intuit the distance and direction of an object’s owner; know where something came from.

Spells of Flame

Invoke the powers of fire, or keep them at bay. These spells come more easily in hot environments, but are more taxing when it’s very cold.

Protect a creature from fire; summon flame from air; make a fire grow or shrink; turn a fire to billowing smoke; fire a bolt of crackling flame.

Spells of Force

Summon pure force, invisible and abrupt. Though more immediately powerful than spells of wind, the forces produced by these spells are momentary and immediate. As their energy is expended in an instant, they can’t be used to break a fall or make someone float.

Fling a set of keys into your cell; blast open a locked door; shove or pull an enemy telekinetically; fire a bolt of pure force.

Spells of Frost

Invoke the powers of cold, or keep them at bay. These spells come more easily in cold environments, and are more taxing when it’s very warm.

Protect a creature from the cold; turn water into ice; animate the snow; drain the heat from a flame; fire a bolt of freezing fog.

Spells of Grounding

Capture nearby magics (whether ambient or cast with intent), allowing you to nullify or redirect them. The magic you’re grounding must always pass through you, so there is great risk in handling potent dweomers.

Dispel or suppress a magical effect; catch a spell and nullify or redirect it; ease the reverberations of dissonance.

Spells of Guidance

Seek guidance and wisdom from otherworldly beings, such as the spirits of the land or the deity you serve. The kind of information you can glean depends on the source of your guidance; they cannot tell you what they do not know, and will not tell you what they are not willing to disclose.

Ask whether an action will bring weal or woe; receive a warning of imminent danger; learn about the properties of an item.

Spells of Influence

Affect the minds of living creatures, manipulating their perceptions or emotions. True mind control is difficult and very taxing; it’s usually easier and safer to stick to subtle nudges and suggestions.

Become more charming; intensify anger; suppress fear; erase memories; plant a suggestion; soothe a wild beast.

Spells of Lightning

Invoke the powers of electricity, or keep them at bay. These spells come more easily when you can see the sky; they are more taxing underground. Storms amplify the power of lightning magic significantly.

Protect a creature from electricity; provide power to an alchemical contraption; fire a bolt of lightning.

Spells of Remembrance

Manipulate uncertainty, altering the past to narrate a “flashback” that impacts your current situation. Flashbacks can only fill in plausible details that haven’t already been established. You can’t use a flashback to contradict the established fiction, or to undo something that has already happened. The more unlikely and elaborate the flashback, the more taxing the spell will be to cast.

Remember to purchase an extra flask of oil; consult with a scholar about the weaknesses of a monster; convince a servant to lend you a key for the night.

Spells of Seeming

Create figments and illusions that trick the eye and befuddle the senses. These illusions don’t affect the mind and cannot cause harm, though creatures who believe in them will usually react as if they were real. They tend to last for as long as the wizard concentrates.

Create a convincing visible and audible illusion; change your features; blur a creature’s form; create illusory doubles; turn something or someone invisible.

Spells of Warding

Create a circle of forbiddance or ward a portal, denying the presence of the ones you name. The more specific the ward is, the less taxing it will be to cast. It’s easier to cast a ward against arrows than against all projectiles; easier to forbid a specific person than all humans; easier to defy a named spirit that every spirit.

Ward a doorway to forbid otherworldly beings; draw a circle that will forbid arrows from entering; summon a zone that denies insects.

Spells of Water

Invoke the powers of the water. These spells come more easily in the water or under it, and are more taxing when it’s very dry.

Allow a creature to breathe underwater; walk on the surface of water; purify water; produce water from nothing; animate or manipulate the water.

Spells of Wind

Invoke the powers of the wind. These spells come more easily outside, and are more taxing inside or underground. Wind magic can be used to levitate yourself or fly, but it’s very tiring and all but impossible if you’re armoured or overburdened.

Fall like a feather; call a small item to your hand; create a veil of wind to turn aside arrows; summon breathable air; knock a foe down with a gust of wind; levitate or fly briefly.