Combat: Barrier, Counterspell, Dispel, Evocation, Magic Missile, Magic Resistance, Metamagic, Rewind, Warp Time
Exploration: Alter Time, Cantrips, Detect Magic, Illusion, Invisibility, Place of Power, Ritual, Smartest One in the Room, Teleport, Wizard Eye
Interaction: Apprentice, Familiar, Flawless Logic, Hypnosis, Just an Old Man with a Walking Stick, Mutual Edification, Polyglot
Arcane
Related Themes: Elements, Psionics, Alchemy
Suggested Signature Resources: Mana, Components, Shards
Combat
^ Barrier
[ Arcane, Combat, Defense, Control ]
Spend a good tale to create a wall about 20’ or less that lasts a few hours. Shape it however you want, but don’t imprison anyone.
Backfire: Something is on the wrong side of the wall, the wall is weak, there’s a hole in it, etc.
Related Traits: Elements.Terraform, Shape Element
^ Counterspell
[ Arcane, Combat, Reaction, Defense, Reversal ]
When you or a nearby ally, receive a bad tale related to being attacked by magic, you can immediately declare an objective to intercept it. If you get a good tale, you can spend it to inflict the bad tale on your opponent instead of the original target.
Backfire: You or an ally also suffers a backfire.
Empower: You can spend a good tale at any time to place a lasting counterspell effect on a target and have it fire as soon as they attempt to inflict a bad tale on an ally.
Related Traits: Warfare.Guardian
^ Dispel
[ Arcane, Combat, Dispel ]
You may dispel or suppress magical effects as follows.
Spend a good tale to destroy temporary magical effects.
Spend a good tale and points from your signature resource to suppress ongoing permanent magical effects. Spend 1 point of your signature resource for each hour you’d like to maintain the suppression effect.
You may also initiate a short challenge to completely dispel permanent magical effects. The length of the challenge will depend on the potency of the item/effect, or the capabilities of the creature which created the effect.
Backfire: You dispel more or less than you intended, one of your spells or items is also dispelled, etc.
^ Evocation
[ Arcane, Combat, AoE, Blast, Resource ]
You have the ability to create explosions, centered around yourself.
Spend a point of your signature resource to bolster your audacious action, which allows you to deal damage to up to 3 individuals centered around yourself within close range.
Backfire: Include or exclude something you didn’t intend.
Related Traits: Dragon.Dragon’s Breath, Artifice.Bomb
^ Magic Missile
[ Arcane, Combat, Range ]
You can make magical ranged attacks which turn corners. Your targets will never benefit from cover.
Collaborate: What does your attack look like?
^ Magic Resistance
[Arcane, Combat, Defense ]
Gain a new Defense: Magic Resistance [ ] [ ]. Whenever magic would cause you to lose Health, Endurance or Wits, you can lose Magic Resistance instead. Losing all of your Resistance does not have any effects. Whenever you would restore Health, you can restore the same amount of Resistance instead.
Collaborate: How do you recover your Magic Resistance?
^ Metamagic
[ Arcane, Combat, Buff ]
Before you attempt an action, as a neutral tale, you can spend one point of your signature resource to enhance the action. Choose one option below:
- It’s much subtler or flashier.
- Approximately double the range.
- Approximately double the duration.
Note: This doesn’t affect the difficulty of the action. It can make Damage over Time traits last longer, but it won’t enhance spike damage.
Related Traits: Tracking.Eagle Eye, Arcane.Evocation. Bardic Lore.Inspire
^ Rewind
[ Arcane, Combat, Time, Heal, Powerful, Utility ]
Spend a good tale to rewind someone, returning them to their exact status any time up to 1 minute ago. You can’t use Rewind again during this time. Rewinding someone restores everything about them: their inventory, wounds, location, memories, etc.
Once you complete the rewind process, you obtain a debilitating condition. Rewinding yourself will not remove this condition.
Collaborate: What condition do you receive? What are the consequences of tampering with time? What hunts inside the timestream?
Backfire: One aspect of the target isn’t rewound, it rewinds too far or too little, etc.
Related Traits: Arcane.Warp Time, Alter Time
^ Warp Time
[ Arcane, Combat, Resource, Time, Buff, Debuff ]
As a neutral tale, you can Spend a Signature Resource to accelerate or decelerate someone for a few minutes. Accelerated creatures move about twice as fast as normal. Decelerated creatures move about half as fast as normal.
Backfire: The effect will end unexpectedly, the effect is less potent than expected, etc.
Collaborate: What are the consequences of tampering with time? What happens to them when the effect wears off?
Related Traits: Beast.Cheetah’s Swiftness
Exploration
^ Alter Time
[ Arcane, Exploration, Time Travel, Powerful ]
You can spend a good tale to travel forward or backward in time and bring others with you. Time travel takes its toll. Collaborate on a condition you take whenever you time travel.
When you travel in such a manner, you can spend good tales to add or remove marks directly from NPC Project tracks. When your signature resource is drained, you return to your original timestream.
Collaborate: What are the consequences of tampering with time? What hunts in the timestream?
Backfire: You disrupt the present, you travel too far or not far enough through time, etc.
Related Traits: Arcane, Warp Time, Rewind, Psionics.Precognition
^ Cantrips
[ Arcane, Exploration, Utility ]
You can perform any relatively minor magic trick. Examples include but are not limited to lighting a candle with a flick of your wrist, making a coin vanish, levitating very small objects, inscribing a glowing rune on something, changing an item’s color, etc.
You only need to spend Neutral Tales on Cantrips, the trick will always work.. However, if the intention was to scare, fool, impress, or otherwise manipulate someone, you might still need to roll for their reaction.
^ Detect Magic
[ Arcane, Exploration, Perception, Passive ]
You can experience magic with your normal senses. Describe what that feels like. You can also spend a good tale to ask the GM for information about the details about the magical effect.
Related Traits: Artifice.Identify
^ Illusion
[ Arcane, Exploration, Deception ]
Spend a good tale to create a convincing illusion that lasts for several hours.
Collaborate: What are your limits?
Backfire: The illusion has a revealing flaw, the illusion flickers, it will end unexpectedly, etc.
Describe: Using conventional mirrors, lighting, and thread to create “magic”. Harnessing mana to generate flickering images.
^ Invisibility
[ Arcane, Exploration, Stealth ]
Spend a point of your signature resource to turn an inanimate object invisible for several hours.
Spend a point of your signature resource, then a good tale to turn a creature invisible for several hours.
Invisible characters will bolster their rolls to escape detection.
Backfire: The object is only partially invisible, the effect will end unexpectedly, the object is not just invisible – it’s gone, etc.
Related Traits: Transformation.Chameleon, Thievery.Cloaked In Shadows
^ Place of Power
[ Arcane, Exploration, Temp Trait, Energy Builder ]
While you first arrive in a location of powerful energy, choose 1 trait that represents that place of power; you have that trait as a temporary trait until you leave.
While in your place of power, spend a good tale to restore two points of your signature resource.
Collaborate: Where are your places of power: magic leylines, consecrated holy land, or cursed crypts, etc.?
Related Traits: Faith.Sanctuary
^ Ritual
[ Arcane, Exploration, Narrative Authority ]
You can perform a ritual, which is a lengthy action that requires at least 15 full minutes of concentration, possibly more. Rituals can achieve any effect imaginable, but more powerful effects have higher requirements.
Collaborate: determine the requirements to complete that ritual: performing it in a place of power, sacrificing valuable reagents, getting help, completing a challenge to find a rare item, etc.
Backfire: The ritual drains more from you than you expected, the ritual has unexpected results, etc.
^ Smartest one in the Room
[ Arcane, Exploration, Gather Intel, Narrative Authority ]
As a neutral tale, you may spend a point of your signature resource and ask the GM any question for which a ridiculously smart character, like yourself, should already know the answer. The GM will answer honestly.
If the GM doesn’t have the answers you seek, they may give you narrative authority to come up with the answers yourself.
Describe: connecting the dots, making astute observations, knowing esoteric knowledge, being insufferably smart
Collaborate: What type of things are reasonable to ask? What are your particular domains of expertise?
^ Teleport
[ Arcane, Exploration, Mobility ]
As a neutral tale, spend a point of your signature resource to prepare your teleport. You can teleport a near distance with another neutral tale, or you can spend a good tale to teleport up to a far distance.
Backfire: You leave something behind, your destination isn’t quite where you intended, etc.
^ Wizard Eye
[ Arcane, Exploration, Scrye ]
Spend a point of your signature resource to create an eye-sized item.
Then Choose one:
- it’s immobile but lasts up to a year
- it flies wherever you want but becomes useless after a few hours.
Spend a good tale to see and hear through the item, no matter how far away it is.
Interaction
^ Apprentice – Passive
[ Arcane, Interaction, Minion, TempTrait ]
You can designate 1 and only 1 of your minions as your apprentice. You can spend 1 hour training your apprentice to give them 1 of your traits, or to replace 1 of its traits with 1 of your traits. Your apprentice can have no more than 3 of your traits at a time through this means.
Your apprentice is bound to you by the contract “I will serve _____ in exchange for tutelage and a chance to prove myself.”
Related Traits:Warfare.Iron Sharpens Iron
^ Familiar – Melee
[ Arcane, Interaction, Minion ]
When you acquire this trait, create a tiny minion, such as a frog, cat, or snake. It has ½ your XP and a +2/0/0/-1 attribute array (allocate those attributes as you see fit). This minion can’t attack others. If your minion dies, you can perform a 1 hour ritual to restore it to life. This minion will never abandon you.
^ Flawless Logic
[ Arcane, Interaction, Defense ]
You may use reasoning and logic to refute emotional pleas and particular lines of reasoning.
Give yourself the defense: Logical Fallacy [ ][ ]. You may choose to mark it instead of other options when you suffer a bad tale from an emotional plea or irrational argument.
^ Hypnosis
[ Arcane, Interaction, Sleep ]
Spend a good tale to make someone gradually drift off to sleep. This effect is slow but especially subtle; it is not obvious to the target or others that this is happening.
Backfire: It’s more obvious than normal, it takes longer to work, it makes you sleepy too, etc.
^ Just an Old Man with a Walking Stick
[ Arcane, Interaction, Deception ]
As a neutral tale, spend a point of your signature resource to have someone grossly underestimate you until they see proof to the contrary.
If they’ve already seen evidence of your capabilities, spend a good tale to help them forget.
Collaborate: What’s the mechanical effect of having them underestimate you? Bolster? Shortcut? Something else?
^ Mutual Edification
[ Arcane, Interaction, Gather Intel, Study ]
You may spend a point of your signature resource or a good tale after you’ve honestly shared an esoteric theory or hypothesis with an NPC. In return, they will share equally important academic or esoteric information, to the best of their ability.
^ Polyglot
[ Arcane, Interaction, Linguistics, Passive ]
You know additional languages. You’re a linguistics expert. You understand the universal grammar underpinning all languages.
Bolster any attempts to communicate with someone even if you don’t speak their specific language.
Collaborate: Which additional languages do you know?
Smooth RPG 