Game Mechanics for Simulating Magic

Magic Spells
Most magic is done with spells, which are treated as Narrow Skills. The dice value of the spell (SD) can be used alone, combined with your Magic dice to make a Second Roll, or combined with both Spirit and Magic to make an Action Roll. Most spells roll Spirit + Magic + SD.

Local Magic Resistance
A Threshold value which all magic Action Rolls must overcome. Special times or places can alter local magic resistance. In Burning Sky the default magic resistance is 3 dice.

Spell Damage
Unless otherwise specified, spells do normal (V-1, 1, 3V) damage to humans, intelligent monsters, undead and spirits, normal damage minus 1 victory to most animals, and no damage to non-living items.

Restrictions on Learning Magic
Cancelled: I don't think we need this any longer. * You cannot have more dice in Magic than you have in Spirit. * You cannot have more dice in Magic than the total of all your spell dice. * You cannot have more dice in any individual spell than you have in Magic.

Sensing Magic
Any character with at least 1 die of Magic may spend a few minutes attempting to sense magic by rolling Spirit + Magic against a Threshold secretly determined by the GM. This Threshold represents the strength and distance of the magic, as well as any arcane protections against detection. Typically, each 10' of distance raises the Threshold by 1 die.

If successful the character senses there is magic either present or absent, perhaps as a tingling through your spine, a barely perceivable hum in the air, or some other fleeting quality that vanishes after only a moment. The sign is different for everyone, and most commoners are unaware of their own cues. Illusion magic normally cannot be detected in this way, as part of its power includes fooling rudimentary detection methods of this kind. A high number of victories may, at the GM's discretion, reveal more.

Boosting Spells
Bob can boost the power of some spells by taking Fatigue Damage. For every point of Fatigue taken, Bob adds dice equal to his Magic dice to his roll. If Bob's spell inflicts Damage on May, boosting increases May's damage by 1 Fatigue/Victory (total, not per Fatigue taken by Bob).

Abbreviations
"V" means the number of Victories; "SD" means the number of dice in the spell; "VSD" means V + SD; “Fat” means Fatigue Damage.

Combat, Travel and Camp Magic
These are rough categories which suggest default values for various spells. V = victories; SD = spell dice (narrow skill dice); VSD = V + SD

Spell Alignments
Local areas may have different background thresholds for different kinds of spells. For this purpose spells are divided into the groups below. (The alignment and alignment group names are not perfect and may need changing.) Note that these alignments do not have any automatic connection with spell types such as "Golden", "Crimson", etc.

Dangers of Magic (in work, ignore for the present)

 * When magic number = __, a random Horror appears
 * Horror has attack and defense dice = casting dice minus threshold dice (<1 = no horror but threshold still lowered).
 * Horror appears near target on successful casting, otherwise near caster.
 * Appearance of Horror temporarily lowers threshold by 3 dice.

??? Creates beacon and big noise Gold spell summons foe of deity Horror-downed character has special system shock roll Very weak horrors may only be pests, may hang around, even be helpful Could horror be sorcerer-type demon? Increase stats, grant powers? Could there be long-term effects? Stalker, Murphy demon, leave trail?

Need list of random horrors!

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Some spell effects are also categorized as Aggressive or Reactive. Usually Action Rolls are Aggressive and Defense Rolls are Reactive, but Perception is always Aggressive and Stealth is always Reactive. Other exceptions exist.