Magic Techniques

Magic Use has little use by itself, but dedication to the arcane arts can bring powerful results. These are Techniques that expand your magical abilities in new and exciting ways.

In addition to the usual magical tricks that every arcanist learns, you have practiced and perfected a wide range of simple, entertaining invocations. You can make very small objects gently levitate; create small, crude illusionary images; generate little bursts of flashing lights; any trick of such a nature is within your grasp. While this is mostly relevant for entertaining or impressing others, you might be able to find other uses for these tricks. Regardless, they are unlikely in most cases to be enough to replace a tool or meaningfully harm anyone.

You learn a magical Power Word, that you can invoke with Magic Use. Unlike other magic, which might be very flexible and useful, Power Words are very strict - they ONLY do what they say. Skilled practitioners will get creative with their uses of them, of course, but the Power Words are each limited to one specific effect they produce. The Power Words are:

• Harm

• Stop

• Gust

• Desiccate

• Itch

• Splash

• Ferment

• Loquacity

You have learned the grim art of basic necromancy, able to animate corpses. Curiously, the only part that really stays together is the skeleton, but you can do it on all kinds of animals... including humanoids, if you want. They have the strength of an average creature of their kind, but aren't the most sturdy.

At the start of each Chapter, you may find and animate up to 3 skeletons of a humanoid, wolf, cat, or other common creature; these are "free" skeletons you get, in addition to any you may gain access to throughout the Chapter itself. If your action for a round mainly uses the skeletons, rather than them just assisting you as a distraction or something, they use your Magic Use, but have Bad Circumstance to whatever they do. Furthermore, when used for a tough or demanding task such as lifting heavy things, destroying things, or fighting, at the end of the Scene the skeleton is destroyed.

You can use Magic Use to Support anyone who is making a Strength, Agility, Grit, or Martial Arts flip.

You can use Magic Use to create illusionary images and sounds. These might not stand up to a lot of scrutiny, but at least make good distractions or sway someone who won't look too closely.

In addition, you can effortlessly create images and sounds with your magic, regardless of the situation.

You can use Magic Use to command and shape the natural world. Your touch can cause flowers to bloom, vines to wither, animals to cower, and more! While none of these effects are tremendously powerful, you can exert a moderate influence on many natural things.

You can use Magic Use to make magical blasts, weapons, shields, and all kinds of things. This allows you to use the Magic Use for combat and related situations.

When you learn this, detail the kind of war magic you know; does it involve fire or a similar element? This can potentially impact other uses of this Technique, although it will usually be limited to combat situations.

Your Magic Use extends to the peculiar and envied art of gravity manipulation. At its core, this means you can amplify or nullify the force of gravity on something, or something kind of in-between. Nullifying gravity means something will gently float when force is applied to it, and amplifying gravity will usually slow down creatures or cause objects to sink into soft surfaces. You can't make gravity flow in a different direction, though, and can only increase or decrease existing gravity in its normal direction.

You have begun on one of the true magic paths - that which governs all spatial relationships, and indeed the bonds that connect all matter. Forming or destroying bonds, such as is required to destroy or create matter from nothing, requires a great deal of effort. Instead, by simply transposing space and matter, you can perform acts of teleportation reliably and consistently. This, of course, functions off of your Magic Use Skill.

This magic allows you to do one singular thing: swap matter from two places with each other. The obvious use is to switch yourself or another person with some empty air somewhere else, allowing for comfortable short-range teleportation. However, the possibilities for this are near-endless thanks to its flexibility and universal application. There are some limitations to the magic:

• You must switch two things - if you aren't teleporting something into empty air (and thus swapping it with the air), then whatever you're teleporting it into will be swapped in space

• You must affect an entire object, not just part of it; when affecting a collection of things, like sand, water, or coins, you will affect whatever amount of complete objects that best matches the other target(s) of the spell

• You must know where each thing you're swapping is, and if you can't see them or don't have a very good idea of exactly where they are then it's harder

• The spell is more difficult the farther away they are; anything outside your immediate surroundings usually incurs a Bad Circumstance, and much beyond that is near impossible