Game Mechanics for Simulating Magic

Magic Spells
Most magic is done with spells, which are treated as Narrow Skills. Spell are categorized into various colors which represent shared game mechanics, and do not necessarily align with "schools" or "traditions" of magic in the game world. The Basic Die Pool for most spells is Spirit dice + Magic dice + Spell (Narrow Skill) dice.

Local Magic Resistance
A spell's Action Roll must overcome a Threshold value representing background resistance to magic. Special times or places can alter local magic resistance.

In the world of Stonehold, each spell cast will at least slightly lower magic resistance for that time and place. That, however, thins the veil which prevents malevolent entities from crossing into the physical plane. Magic resistance can be raised (in the local area) by enough people firmly disbelieving in magic, and magic spawned monsters.

Boosting Spells
Bob can boost the power of many spells by taking Fatigue Damage. For every point of Fatigue taken:
 * Bob adds dice equal to his Magic dice to his roll.
 * Spell damage increases by 1 Fatigue, if the spell does damage.
 * SD increases by 1.

Sensing Magic
Any character with at least 1 die of Magic may spend a turn 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.

[''KEEP THIS? Roll until Ready: Some spells can use a slower, but more careful method of spell casting. Initial casting takes 10 minutes. Your initial roll must exceed the threshold. If you then don’t like your roll, you can re-roll 1 die for each additional 10 minutes spent in the attempt. When you achieve a roll you like, Defense is rolled to determine the result. LATER: This only works if additional attempts have a reasonable cost. 10 minutes will either be impossibly long (combat) or trivially short.'']

Spell Chart Abbreviations: “Fat” means Fatigue Damage; “V” means the number of Victories; “SD” means the number of (Narrow Skill) dice in the spell; "VSD" is the total of V + SD.

Default Values for Spells
Combat, Travel and Camp Magic are rough categories which suggest default values for various spells.

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.

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)
Never a bad result when 1 victory is rolled.

-- Even numbers only?

-- Different Result for Victory or Loss? Losses draw monsters while victories create special effects?


 * 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!