Magic

Magic!

Magic in mythic adventures is similar to many other magic systems you may have played, either in other LARPs, tabletop games, or video game RPGs. Mythic works off of a "spell slot" system, where a character has a certain number of casts of a given spell level per day. In terms of tabletop casters, magic in Mythic is a "spontaneous" system. What this means is that a character will have a list of spells that they know, and a list of the number of times they can cast spells of a given level, and they have access to every spell of a given level that is in their spell book whenever they go to cast a spell.

So if Joe Magicman is has the following level 1 spells in their book:

• Light
• Cure Light Wounds
• Fumble

And they have 3 level 1 spell casts per day, each time they cast a level 1 spell they can cast ANY of those 3 spells, however many times they want, as long as they have spell slots remaining.

Casting A Spell

When casting a spell, there are a few different components. You have the Spell Verbal, you have your Spell Component, and then you have the "Area of Effect". Of course, there is the spell "effect", but that's obvious.

Spell Component

When going to cast a spell, first you grab your spell components. In Mythic Adventures, we use small fabric-wrapped bags of grass seed. This provides an item that is cheap and easy to make, is hard enough that someone can recognize being hit, but soft enough to not leave a mark upon contact.

Spell Components are in-game items that other people can see and recognize. In addition, the color of your packet matters. You must use the correct color for the spell you wish to cast. Some spells are available across multiple arts, so you must use the packet that matches the spell slot you are using.

Colors:

• Terrestrial Arts
  • Healing Arts - White
  • Wrath Arts - Red
  • Druid Arts - Green
  • Hearth Arts - Yellow
  • Necromancy Arts - Black
• Ethereal Arts
  • Elemental Arts - Orange
  • Arcanist Arts - Purple
  • Celestial Arts - Blue

Let's say that Joe Magicman has primary Wrath arts and secondary Druid arts. Both druid and wrath have access to the spell "Cure Light Wounds". If Joe goes to use this spell, they must use the packet associated to the spell slot they are expanding. If Joe is using his Wrath spell slot, he must use a Wrath (red) packet.

Spell Verbals

Each spell has a unique verbal associated with it. While many of these spells are similar in structure and formula, they are still unique and aid in others recognizing what spell they may or may not be using. For example, "With Purity I Bless You" is the spell verbal for the "Bless" spell. If Joe Magicman wants to cast that spell, he first grabs his spell component in his hand, and then he states the spell verbal.

Before you can target someone with a spell, you MUST complete your verbal. If you are throwing a spell at someone, you must complete your verbal before the packet leaves your hand. If you throw before you finish the spell, that is considered a "flub" and the spell will fail to be successful.

If you mess up the verbal, for example if you say "With Bless I purity you", the spell is considered "flubbed" and you will lose that spell slot and the spell will not work.

Spell Area of Effect

Each spell will list a "target" in it's spell description. Using the previous spell, "Bless" lists it's target or Area of Effect as "One creature". What this means is that any creature (not an object) as the target. This can be yourself, your friend, or even the enemy 10 feet away. You choose your target, and then you make sure your spell packet hits them. For offensive spells (anything that would bestow a "negative" effect in the target's eyes) must be delivered from a thrown range. Whether this is a one foot toss or a 20 foot throw, you must release the packet and let it travel through the air. You can even "drop" a spell packet onto someone, but it must leave your hand.

For helpful spells, you have the option to "touch" cast it. You hold your spell component in your hand, and then touch the target with it. You can touch your friend, touch yourself, etc.

Some spells, like 2nd level Wrath spell "Blessings of Wrath" has an area of effect as "up to 3 targets". What this means is that you can choose 3 people to hit with spell packets to grant the effect of the spell.

Some spells, like the 3rd level spell Repulse Being has the area of effect listed as "Special". When you see this, you would look to the spell description to see what it affects. For this, it says "This spell causes a Being to have to stay ten feet away from the caster for the duration of the spell, so long as the caster hold shis hand palm upward toward them".

Some spells, like the 3rd level spell Sense Magic, says "Caster Only". This means you can only target yourself with the spell. You still need to have your spell component and to touch yourself.

Some spells, like 4th level spell Ethereal Burst, has the area of effect "10ft Radius from where the Packet strikes". This that wherever you throw the packet, the area it effects is a 10 foot radius around the packet. In this instance, the packet itself isn't delivering the effect, and it doesn't need to touch someone, simply being within the radius is enough.

Spell Effect

So Joe Magicman has decided to cast Bless. He lifts his Druid Arts colored green spell packet, he has stated his verbal, and he has touch his friend Billy Bonkstick to gift him the effect...what happens? Well, some people have an amazing memory, they can recognize a spell verbal and know "Ah, that spell gives me 10 temporary hit points!". But there are a LOT of spells and a LOT of abilities in this game, and we don't expect anyone to memorize all of them, especially if they don't personally have that spell. To aid in this, the caster of the spell must state the "effect" of the spell, typically in a reduced effect.

While the spell description of Bless is very long and specific, it can be summarized for someone else as "10 temporary HP" or "10 temporary body". This lets the target of the spell know what they are receiving. If the person you are casting the spell on isn't familiar with the spell or effect, you can go into more in depth: "10 temporary body, expires at dawn". If they are unfamiliar with temporary HP, they can seek further clarification as well, but it's on the caster to tell the target what is happening.

So if Joe Magicman casts the spell Cause Light Wounds against an enemy, they would grab their Druid colored green spell component, they would state their verbal "With the corruption of Malice I cause Light Wounds upon you", and then they would throw the packet. As they throw the packet, they would state "2 corruption!" to let anyone who is hit by the packet know what effect they are taking.

Purchasing Spell Slots

There are a few prerequisites before purchasing your first spell slot. First you must have a Spell Art. And i order to purchase one of those you need to know how to Read & Write.

But you are prepared, you are ready to purchase your first spell slot. That's easy! You purchase Primary Level 1 Spell. And your'e done!

But that's not exciting, you want more! Well, what are your options? In mythic, for the most part, you only ever have 1 option. There is a set order to purchase spells at, and that is driven by your "Column Format.

Our go-to example column format is 4, so let's walk through that.

This grid displays the order in which you purchase spells. First you purchase a Level 1 Spell Slot. Then, you'd purchase a second Level 1 Spell Slot.

At this point, you are able to purchase a Level 2 Spell Slot. Note: You cannot purchase a 3rd Level 1 Spell Slot until you purchase your first Level 2 Spell Slot.

The general rule of thumb is: you cannot buy a spell slot in the NEXT level, until you have 1 more spell of the CURRENT level than you would have with the next purchase.

So if you have 3 level 2 spell slots and you wish to purchase a level 3 spell, you must first look and see how many level 3 spells you have.

If you have 0, then congratulations, you can purchase your first!

If you already have 1 level 3 spell, you must purchase another level 2 spell. To do this, we must look at our level 1 spells. If we have 4 level 1 spells, we are free to purchase our level 2 spell! Otherwise, we'll need to purchase a level 1 spell slot!

You are essentially purchasing "pyramids" where the lower level spells are always "wider" then any spells "higher up" are.

The only time this isn't true is if you have reached your column format's max. So in our above example, we have a 4 column format. That means, we can learn up to 4 spell slots of any given level. Once we reach that maximum, we no longer need to purchase additional spell slotss to unlock a spell of the next level.

So in our 4 column example, let's ay we have 4 level 1 spells, 3 level 2 spells, 2 level 1 spells, and 1 level 4 spell. We want to gain another spell cast of the 4th level, so we know we need to buy a 3, and in order to buy another 3 we need another 2. Normally, we would also need to buy another 1, but we have reached our Column Format of 4, so we have satisfied that condition, and are free to purchase a 2nd level, even though we'd have 4 of each.

So. We would start off like this:
1: 1, 2, 3, 4
2: 1, 2, 3
3: 1, 2
4: 1

And we would end up like this:
1: 1, 2, 3, 4
2: 1, 2, 3, 4
3: 1, 2, 3
4: 1, 2

Gaining New Spell

So how do you get spells into your spell book? Let's look at it from two stages: character creation and as you level as a character.

Character Creation

When using skill points as part of character creation to purchase spell slots, you'll also get a number of spells automatically added to your book to go along with those slots. The formula for each spell level is "half the number of spell slots, rounded up".

So if you come in with 3 level 1 spell slots, 2 level 2 spell slots, and 1 level 3 spell slots, you'll be able to start with 2 level 1 spells in your book, and 1 level 2 and 1 level 3 spells.

You'll always have at least 1, so essentially you get 1 spell for each "odd" spell slot you have. This is true all the way to level 9.

As You Level

One you start game, fear not, you can still gain new spells to add to your spell book!

Scribing

For this you need the services of a Scribe, which is a production skill set within the game. A scribe has the ability to transfer spells from a spell scroll into your spell book. In addition, the scribe can create spell scrolls out of their own book, or someone else's book, to either be used as single-use scrolls, or then as a base to transfer the spell into a different book. One bonus that scribes have is that if they are transferring a spell from their own book into another book, they can "skip" the scroll creation, which helps save on the required cost needed to do the scribing.

Spell scribing can be very expensive, so it is often recommended that a magic focused character should start with as much magic as they feel comfortable with at the start, to save on later costs. However, paying your scribes helps stimulate the economy, and you never know what new spells can be researched later.

Research Tokens

If you are able to gain a research token, you can "cash in" that token to get a spell added to your book. There are 2 different types of magic-based research tokens, one for terrestrial magics and one for ethereal magics.

• One Token can be turned in for a level 1 - 3 spell.
• Two Tokens can be turned in for a level 4 - 6 spell.
• Three Tokens can be turned in for a level 7 - 9 spell.