Shaping

Becoming a Shaper. Buy the 20 IP Shaping Talent for the Shaping skill, one Form or Technique specialty, two exact cells, and the universal magical actions. Also known as Shaper creation, learn magic, Technique Form cells.

Shapers learn exact cells, not whole Forms or Techniques. Knowing Unmake·Fire grants no other Unmake or Fire cell.

Access

Shaping is the Shaping Talent. It costs 20 IP, requires a supernatural initiation or discovery, and grants:

• Shaping, a Knowledge skill with base INT + POW;
• one specialty: a Form or a Technique;
• two known cells containing that specialty; and
• Sense Magic and Dispel.

Buy it during character creation or later. At creation, declare the Talent and reserve its 20 IP before skill point allocation. Shaping has its normal base of INT + POW, and the character may spend up to 30 Knowledge points on Shaping. This remains a real sacrifice, not a discount: the character must still assemble and spend the full 20 IP, usually by trading other skill points for Improvement Points.

Shaping caps at 100% and improves normally at most once between adventures. Later learning requires suitable experience.

Practice and Tell

Every Shaper defines:

• Practice: an observable, interruptible requirement such as speech, gestures, a focus, prayer, or trance. Preventing it prevents casting.
• Tell: an unavoidable sign around the Shaper and any ranged target or area. It reveals magic, not its purpose.

Anyone watching the Practice notices the Tell. It is also automatically noticeable within 10 × Magnitude metres of the Shaper and target, minimum 3 metres. Cosmetic style is free; concealment requires the Veiled Talent.

Building a Shaping. Choose a known Technique–Form cell and price each clear outcome. The sum of outcome Intensities + Range + Duration + Reach + adjustments equals Magnitude. Also known as Magnitude, magic formula, Shaping dials.

Before rolling, choose a known cell and price each outcome. For immediate Unmake damage, declare its delivery before calculating Magnitude.

Core formula: sum of outcome Intensities + Range + Duration + Reach + adjustments = Magnitude. Intensity sets each effect; Magnitude sets PP, difficulty, active load, and Dispel strength. The casting result sets payment.

Declare it in one sentence:

Using [Technique]·[Form], I cause [outcome] at [Range], affecting [Reach], for [Duration].

The Gamemaster confirms; practical effects require Intensity 1+.

Intensity and expertise

For each outcome, choose the lowest row that covers it.

Shaping expertise limits both maximum Intensity and Safe Magnitude. No individual outcome can exceed maximum Intensity.

Rituals and contributed PP cannot raise maximum Intensity. A calm Magnitude-0 Trick is free and automatic. Under pressure, its failure does nothing and its fumble causes only an inconvenient Tell—no PP loss or Backlash. Other Tricks cast normally.

Range

Range 1–3 needs an unobstructed route. Indirect crosses a barrier when the Form permits.

Duration

Duration sustains state, sense, or observation—not repeated damage/healing, discrete answers, or other one-use outcomes; created hazards differ. Concentration beyond the next turn requires Duration 1+.

Reach

Use the highest rating required by count, area, or subject size.

Areas include allies; excluding arbitrary subjects requires Selective. Reach cannot let low Intensity demolish or transform beyond its benchmark.

Adjustments

Anything beyond Intensity, Range, Duration, and Reach is an adjustment; each adds Magnitude.

An additional outcome needs no training. Price each outcome at its own lowest applicable Intensity, then sum each outcome’s Intensity. Outcomes must be distinct and cell-permitted; one Shaping cannot repeat damage, healing, movement, restraint, control, or another cumulative outcome on one subject. Use higher Intensity for strength.

For example, healing at I3 plus a Resilience bonus at I2, at touch with no other dials, is M5. Alter·Flesh can combine those outcomes, but cannot buy healing twice.

Direct Harm adds +1; Harm delivery gives its defence, protection, route, and Reach.

Learned adjustments state their added Magnitude: Selective, Indirect, Trigger, and Veiled.

Shared Range, Duration, and Reach count once.

Natural consequences remain—a pushed foe may fall—but cannot hide free damage, modifiers, conditions, or resources.

Forms and Techniques. Choose what the Shaping governs with a Form, then what it does with a Technique; their intersection is the exact cell a Shaper learns. Also known as Conjure Bend Unmake Alter Ward Scry, Fire Water Air Earth Flesh Mind Force Spirit Paths Fate, Shaping cells.

Choose a Form—what magic governs—then a Technique—what it does. Their intersection is a known cell; the building rules limit and price its outcome.

Forms

Techniques

Unmake may damage a manifestation or exploit a genuine natural counter. Only Dispel directly ends an active Shaping.

Reading the grid

Forms grant permission, not free damage, protection bypass, or outcomes. Harm follows its declared delivery; environmental fire and later mundane consequences use core rules. Spirit damage has its own rule.

Bodies, minds, and souls

All Undead are Soulless. Mind affects intelligent, non-Mindless undead; Flesh affects living creatures and corporeal undead. Unmake·Flesh harms the body. Limb loss is narrative with damage or a priced condition or transformation. Spirit cannot affect Soulless creatures.

Bend·Flesh restrains or puppets through Resilience and active control, granting no beliefs, tactics, or loyalty. Alter·Flesh heals living tissue and repairs corporeal undead, granting no soul, identity, or memory.

Force/Motion handles mass—pushing, lifting, pinning. Flesh works limbs, tissue, and actions.

Paths

• Bend·Paths: Intensity 2 moves a willing subject or an unwilling one up to 3 metres; Intensity 3 moves an unwilling subject within Range. Use Intensity 4 if relocation alone removes it from the encounter.
• Conjure·Paths: an Intensity 3+ portal is stationary and one-way; changing either adds an outcome. Crossing costs a Movement Action. Sight, attacks, and objects cross. Attack Range equals entrance plus exit-to-target distance; cover at either aperture applies.
• Range must reach subject or entrance and destination. Reach limits subject size and total creatures or independent objects; worn gear accompanies its bearer. Each passage spends allowance; the portal closes when spent.
• Arrival must be empty, stable, large enough, and safe from unavoidable harm or confinement. An invalid destination moves nobody. Paths grants no free falling, collision, restraint, suffocation, or damage.

Unwilling relocation uses Resilience; a visible moving aperture or area uses Dodge -1P.

Other Paths cells may Bend distance, Unmake a route, Alter a destination, Ward a threshold, or Scry an exit.

Fate

Before uncertainty resolves, declare: When [observable event] occurs before [expiry], [named subject] receives [exact paid effect] on [named test, narrow endeavour, or consequence]. Later events need Trigger and fire once; vows never compel obedience.

Intensity 1 grants a non-numerical omen or coincidence; Intensity 2 grants +1B or -1P, and Intensity 4 grants +2B or -2P. Apply the strongest favourable and hostile magical modifiers, then cancel dice. Fate creates only its paid omen, opportunity, modifier, or condition—not another Form’s effect.

Fate deals no HP damage or retroactive effects. It grants no rerolls, automatic success, extra Actions/Reactions, chosen die results, wider critical ranges, or rolled-damage changes. Scry·Fate reveals possibilities, not certainty. Hostile Fate uses Persistence.

Fate may Conjure a chance or vow, Bend odds, Unmake or Alter a mundane vow, Ward against doom, or Scry omens.

Illusions

Illusions are Mind: Conjure an absent perception or Alter one present. Reach pays for each mind; each resists with Persistence.

A fooled witness may spend a Combat Action to oppose Perception with stored Shaping. Success identifies falsehood but neither Dispels it nor reveals concealed matter; failure needs new evidence to retry. Illusions cause no harm.

All sixty cells

Forms run down the rows; cell names retain Technique·Form order.

Effects. Use fixed benchmarks for damage, healing, protection, information, control, transformation, and summoned beings. Also known as magic damage, magical healing, magic wards, magic summons.

Use the lowest Intensity covering the outcome.

Damage, armour, and wounds

Where its Form permits, Unmake deals Intensity D6. Projected Harm follows normal damage rules, including nonmagical AP. Direct Harm ignores nonmagical worn, natural, and object AP. Direct Harm against creatures retains Ward AP and named resistances; unattended objects retain magical protection only. Subsequent hazards, summons, falling objects, and mundane consequences use ordinary armour rules.

Mind deals no HP damage. Unmake·Spirit damage is Direct-only: oppose Persistence and deal Intensity D6 PP to a souled target; only magical Ward AP and named resistances apply. A visible spectral bolt is cosmetic Tell, not a projectile. It causes no HP loss, Major Wound, or Bleeding. At 0 PP, a living target falls unconscious, a Spirit is banished, and possession ends. Soulless targets are invalid. Use selected targets and the Direct Range route.

Healing and death

Healing stops at maximum HP and removes Bleeding and Dying. A living subject restored above 0 HP may act next turn; Wounded remains.

Intensity 3+ healing counts as Surgery, unlocking recovery; after treatment, Wounded ends once HP exceeds MWL.

Curing poison or disease needs Intensity at least Potency divided by 25, and Shaping must win against Potency. After failure, that Shaper needs new treatment, discovery, full rest, or another meaningful change to retry.

Fatigue, deprivation, age, and unrelated conditions need separate outcomes. Returning the dead requires Intensity 5, permanent Duration, a mythic ritual, willing reachable soul, and lasting price. The subject returns at 1 HP and Wounded; restoring a destroyed body is separate.

Corporeal undead

Alter·Flesh repairs corporeal undead at normal healing Intensity, restoring no soul, identity, intelligence, memory, or loyalty. Unmake·Flesh damages living and corporeal undead bodies normally.

Conjure·Flesh may animate remains as a temporary generic Mindless, Soulless Undead summon. Use the table below; remains collapse at 0 HP or Duration’s end, while conjured matter vanishes. Lasting undead require a named profile, profile-based Intensity, Duration 5, mythic price, and vulnerable physical anchor. Intelligence grants no former identity, memories, or loyalty.

Alter·Flesh at Intensity 5 and Duration 5 can make a living subject Undead through mythic ritual and lasting price; its soul departs. Shaping-made or sustained undead are active magic anchored vulnerably to body or remains. Existing undead are not inherently Shapings.

Modifiers and transformation

A modifier names one skill or narrow family; identical magical modifiers do not stack. Shaping never widens critical range or grants extra Combat Actions, Movement Actions, Reactions, Dodges, PP, IP, Hero Points, Talents, skills, or memories.

Temporary characteristic changes affect direct tests and physical thresholds, never prerequisites or derived values: base skills, HP, MWL, PP, DM, Combat Order, or active capacity. Permanent changes recalculate; permanent POW loss lowers maximum PP and active capacity, forcing dismissals until legal.

A transformation changes appearance and form. AP, attacks, movement modes, senses, Size benefits, and other mechanics need additional outcomes guided by an existing profile. Concept grants permission, not capabilities.

Restraint, influence, and control

Intensity 1 may colour emotion or plant a plausible suggestion. Intensity 2 may compel one limited, reasonable action, but cannot spend or deny a combat Action, cause immediate tactical disadvantage, or oppose the subject’s interests. Those need Intensity 3, which may also remove one Combat Action. Intensity 4 permits full control.

A compelled combat act occurs on the subject’s next turn, spending its Action and granting no extra one.

A restrained subject may spend a Combat Action to retry its original defence against the stored result. Full control grants another Persistence defence against the stored Shaping result before serious self-harm, defining betrayal, or a central belief’s violation; winning frees that subject, and certain death always grants one.

Directing active control spends the Shaper’s Combat Action. The subject obeys on its own turn, spends the corresponding Action, and gains none. Without maintenance it regains control; magical movement stops where fiction permits.

Wards and barriers

A Ward grants one benefit: AP or reduction equal to twice Intensity; +1B at Intensity 2 or +2B at Intensity 4 to one defence; or denial priced as restraint, with each crossing opposing the appropriate defence against the stored Shaping result.

Ward AP never adds to worn armour against one damage source: use the higher, or Ward AP alone when worn armour cannot protect. Same-kind magical protection never stacks.

A solid barrier blocks movement and line of effect until destroyed and cannot appear through occupied space. Trapping an unwilling subject is hostile restraint: the defender chooses Dodge or Resilience. Forms unable to make solid structures cannot use barrier statistics.

Scry

Scry gives evidence, not omniscience or knowledge absent from accessible minds, places, spirits, traces, or patterns. Possible futures change when acted upon. Live observation, communication, or thought-reading needs concentration; static senses and facts do not.

Summons and named beings

Only one combat-capable summon or actively controlled subject; Reach cannot bypass this.

A generic combat summon acts immediately after its Shaper. It moves, communicates, and defends uncommanded; consequential acts cost the Shaper’s Combat Action and the summon’s corresponding Action. It has Movement 15, one Movement Action, and one base Reaction.

Listed defence covers Dodge, Resilience, Persistence, and possible physical Parry; damage adds no DM. Summons ignore Major Wounds and vanish at 0 HP. Capabilities beyond the profile—including flight, incorporeality, spellcasting, invisibility, extra natural armour, or special senses—raise minimum Intensity or add an outcome.

Range sets generic arrival. Calling a named being must also reach its location or realm; use the higher Range.

A named being uses its profile; set Intensity by threat, reserving 5 for legendary beings. An unwilling being resists calling with Persistence. Calling grants no control: it remembers treatment and may demand terms. Binding or command is another Persistence-resisted outcome. Duration and active limits apply until Shaping ends; afterward it may stay willingly, without magical command, guaranteed service, protection, or dismissal.

Created, summoned, transformed, or compelled beings cannot summon, contribute PP, create magical resources, or pay ritual prices.

Casting and Defence. Spend one Combat Action, test Shaping, resolve Counter and one opposed defence, pay PP, and apply the effect. Also known as cast magic, resist magic, magic Backlash, magical shields.

Safe Magnitude and overreach

Normal casting reaches at most Safe Magnitude + 2.

Bonus dice cancelling the Penalty do not remove overreach. Shaping expertise also caps every outcome’s Intensity.

Cast

1. Declare the cell and outcomes; set each outcome’s Intensity, then shared Range, Duration, Reach, and adjustments.
2. The Gamemaster confirms Magnitude, modifiers, defence, armour, and consequences.
3. Confirm PP or ritual pledges cover Magnitude. For an indefinite ritual, the leader needs that much current and available maximum PP. Confirm the active limit.
4. Spend one Combat Action and test Shaping; retain the Movement Action and eligible Reactions.
5. Resolve Counter and defence, pay PP, then apply the effect.

Casting requires Practice, Tell, a valid target, and line of effect unless Scry, Indirect, or ritual Range says otherwise; prevented Practice prevents casting.

A successful casting that a defence stops still pays its full cost. Resolve any Hero Point reroll before applying PP loss or Backlash. A casting that drops the Shaper to 0 PP resolves its effect before unconsciousness; any concentration then ends.

Harm delivery

Declare delivery before Magnitude: Projected Harm and Direct Harm are mutually exclusive, whatever their description.

Projected crosses space; Direct arises within its target. A successful resistance that wins the opposed test negates the entire Direct outcome; it does not reduce damage. Direct Harm permits selected-target Reach, never a radius. Each Direct target needs a valid Range route; a complete barrier requires Indirect. Other hostile outcomes use the Defence table without the Direct adjustment.

Defence

Each hostile outcome receives exactly one defence against the original Shaping result.

When Dodge, shield Active Guard, Resilience, or Persistence resists a Shaping, compare that defence roll with the Shaper’s original Shaping result as an opposed test. The original Shaping result is the attacker’s skill roll. The Shaper must succeed and win against Dodge, Resilience, or Persistence for that subject to be affected. If shield Active Guard wins, apply Parry Size; if Shaping wins, the guard has no effect.

Dodge and shield guard take -1P; Dodge spends only the base Reaction and remains once per round. Resilience and Persistence spend no Reaction. Shared defences share one roll; different defences resolve separately. A magical Critical keeps its grade for the opposed test; if Shaping wins, use normal effect dice and armour, not weapon-critical benefits.

The defender chooses one eligible Reaction: Counter, Dodge, or Active Guard. Counter precedes target defence and opposes the Shaping. A character who Counters cannot then Dodge, Active Guard, or oppose with Resilience or Persistence. Another character’s Counter does not consume the target’s defence.

A hostile Touch Shaping first needs a no-damage Unarmed Combat delivery attack—the sole defence exception. No Talent or off-hand attack applies. The target may React; contact succeeds unless the combat matrix stops the hit, and partial Parry does not. Failure spends the Combat Action without Shaping roll or PP loss. Contact then proceeds to casting and resistance; its Critical adds nothing.

Areas share one Shaping roll; unwilling subjects defend separately. An aware subject may Dodge a projected area at -1P, gaining no movement or prone. Attended objects use their bearer’s defence. In ongoing areas, defend when first affected and store the outcome: leaving suspends it; re-entry grants no new defence.

Cover and shields

Terrain interrupting a Projected Shaping gives partial cover -1P, substantial cover -2P, or prevents casting at complete cover without another route or Indirect. Selected targets use their greatest cover penalty for the one roll. Areas test cover to the chosen point; occupants’ shields do not alter the area’s shared roll.

Shield Cover affects every individually targeted Projected Shaping, regardless of Form or whether solid or non-solid. Apply it before Active Guard and use only the better Shield Cover or terrain penalty.

Any such projection may be Active Guarded at -1P with a ready shield; weapons cannot Active Guard magical projections. Areas cannot be Active Guarded. Direct Harm and Spirit Harm cannot be Active Guarded. Missile Guard removes the penalty.

Each Projected outcome uses its own Intensity to determine Impact Size. When several outcomes share one winning shield guard roll, apply Parry Size to each outcome separately.

After a winning shield guard, apply Parry Size to each outcome. The same Size or larger blocks that outcome’s damage and attached effects; if it deals no damage, it blocks the outcome. One Size smaller blocks half that outcome’s damage; a separately paid non-damage outcome remains unless its own Size comparison blocks it. Two or more Sizes smaller reduce no damage. A Critical shield Parry that wins blocks everything regardless of Size. If Shaping wins the opposed test, the guard has no effect; even a Critical Shaping rolls normal magical damage, then armour. Shields suffer no item damage merely for guarding.

A separate mundane object attack uses ordinary weapon Size; one resolved as Shaping uses Impact Size.

Backlash

For Backlash, use the attempted Shaping’s highest outcome Intensity. If several outcomes tie, the Gamemaster chooses the one that best fits its Form and situation.

Roll 1D4 or let the Gamemaster choose:

Backlash follows the attempted Form and situation, not a rewritten concept. Counter or Dispel spills use the target’s Form and highest outcome Intensity, reduced by one; Intensity 0 is cosmetic trouble.

Ongoing Shapings and Magical Actions. Active Magnitude cannot exceed POW; Sense Magic and Dispel require no known cell. Also known as active magic, Sense Magic, Dispel magic.

Ongoing Shapings

Active Magnitude cannot exceed permanent, unmodified POW. Count concentration, modifiers, Wards, barriers, summons, control, Triggers, and tied anchors, except enchantments moved into Enchantment Capacity; ignore instant effects and completed permanent transformations. Dismiss on the Shaper’s turn without an Action.

Check Range and route when set Duration begins, then only during control. Concentration and active control cost the Combat Action each round; maintain only one. The subject stays within Range and a valid route unless Range 4+, Indirect, or the Form creates another link. Summon commands instead work within 15 metres and line of effect. Damage or serious distraction to the Shaper forces a Persistence test; failure ends maintenance. Record Magnitude and casting result.

Use only the strongest same-kind magical modifier, armour, or protection. Mundane circumstances combine under the +3B/-3P cap.

Temporary matter vanishes at Duration’s end. It leaves no value, permanent crafting supply, PP, IP, Hero Points, Talents, components, anchors, or prices. Complex objects still require relevant Craft, Engineering, or Lore.

Created hazards

A created hazard deals fixed Intensity damage each round. It cannot appear overlapping an unwilling subject; drowning, suffocation, restraint, and immediate damage are separate outcomes. Resulting mundane hazards use core rules.

Indefinite Shapings

An indefinite Shaping commits full Magnitude from current and available maximum PP, even on a Critical; reduced maximum governs recovery. Leave at least 1 available maximum PP unless helplessness until external Dispel is a declared mythic price. Ending restores maximum; current PP recover normally. Others cannot pay.

Universal magical actions

These use the Shaper’s Practice and Tell but require no cell.

Sense Magic

Spend a Combat Action and 1 PP; test Shaping for active magic within 15 metres. Success reveals location and Form; Critical adds Technique, Magnitude, and concentrated, triggered, or anchored state. Failure reveals nothing. A fumble gives a false impression and conspicuous Tell, not Backlash. Veiled magic opposes with its original result.

Dispel

Spend a Combat Action. Dispel Magnitude equals full target Magnitude plus Range; Reach is 0 for one Shaping regardless of area. Test and pay normally. On Success or Critical, oppose that result with the original Shaper’s current unmodified Shaping; if unknown, use 10 × original Magnitude, maximum 100%. The dispeller must succeed and win.

Completed permanent transformations cannot be Dispelled; active anchored enchantments can.

Rituals and Examples. Rituals extend Magnitude through time, preparation, PP contributors, and lasting mythic prices. Also known as magic rituals, mythic Shaping, Shaping examples.

Rituals

Rituals are required above Safe + 2 and for any outcome at Intensity 5, Range 4+, Reach 3+, or Duration 3+. Each takes one hour per Magnitude, needs a prepared place, full Practice, and fitting focus or offering, grants +1B, and permits Safe Magnitude + 2 or 2 × Safe Magnitude, whichever is greater. Beyond that requires a unique campaign event, exceptional preparation, Gamemaster approval, and a serious lasting price.

Then apply ritual +1B, normal Assistance, circumstances, and the dice cap. Failure above Safe is overreach.

Willing participants who stay and join the Practice may pledge PP. Pledges cover full Magnitude; the leader pledges at least 1 PP. Draw the first PP from the leader, then follow declared order; a Critical leaves unused pledges unspent. One capable Shaper may Assist; only the leader rolls and suffers Backlash. On a fumble, every contributor advances one Fatigue step (normal → Fatigued → Exhausted); an Exhausted contributor falls unconscious for 3D6 minutes and awakens Fatigued.

For an indefinite ritual, the leader personally commits full Magnitude; nobody contributes PP.

Permanent and Mythic Shapings

Permanent mundane creation requires equivalent material. It and completed permanent transformations become real and inactive; reversal needs a new Shaping. Supernatural properties remain active enchantments, each with a vulnerable physical or spiritual anchor through which it is Dispellable. Without Enchanter, a lasting price may remove one from the creator’s active total, but not its anchor or Dispel vulnerability. With Enchanter, its full Magnitude counts against Enchantment Capacity, not the active total, whether it uses Duration 4 or Duration 5. See Enchanted Items.

Any dial at 5 makes a ritual Mythic and requires a declared lasting price: permanent POW, unique treasure, binding oath, supernatural debt, permanent change, or consequential quest. Consume materials when it begins; permanent POW, oaths, debts, quests, and other changes attach after success resolves. A fumble exacts them only if announced beforehand. PP alone cannot restore the dead or rewrite the setting; rituals cannot create their own costs.

Examples

Builds abbreviate Intensity as I, Range as R, and Duration as D.

At Shaping 50%, Safe Magnitude and maximum Intensity are 2. Magnitude 3 is one-step overreach at -1P; Magnitude 4 is two-step overreach at -2P. Greater Magnitude exceeds the Apprentice ritual maximum of 4 and requires a unique campaign event.

Quick procedure

Follow the five-step Cast procedure and record ongoing effects. Price outcomes, not descriptions: magic may rival specialists through PP and risk, not erase skills, equipment, or preparation.