Inkwarren Devlog #1: Magick, Incantations, and Creativity
What's the appeal of magic in a fantasy setting? Is it that magic broadens the possibilities of storytelling by removing the limitations of our world? Do the limits on magic provide an interesting question of what is now possible, if the answer isn't anything? Is it just cool? Well, yeah. All of these! At least I think.
Hi all, Matt here, and I'm back to talk about Inkwarren, and how magick works in my game: what it is in the fiction, what it is in the mechanics, and how magick changes when you try to fit it into tactical combat.
Magic in the Woodland
Magick in Inkwarren is strange, dangerous, and poorly understood. It doesn't inhabit the same realm as other heroic fantasy games-- there are no wizard academies or +1 swords being sold in cities. Magick isn't taboo (your Witch isn't going to be run out of town), but it isn't normal or safe. Magick also requires incantations, which is what 'spells' are in Inkwarren-- echoing words of power that shift reality to your will.
It's best to think of magick like you would a tide. There is push, and there is pull. When you speak an incantation, you are using words of power to harness magick and change reality to your will- but magick always wants something in return. Magick requires sacrifice.
Now, sacrifice isn't always as dramatic as it sounds. Magick-users in the Woodland learn to sacrifice things to magick reflexively when they speak an incantation, because if they don't, the magick bites back and feeds on them instead. A lower strength incantation, like one that senses heartbeats, protects your skin from injury, or hides you from sight for a short while only require something small: a minute of your time, an unimportant memory, a bit of your blood, and similar offerings are very common across the incantations you'll see in the book. Bigger things require bigger sacrifices: if you want to implant a new memory you have to give one of your own of equal or greater importance, if you want to bring back a life you must give yours in return, and the enemies of the woodlanders might perform rituals that take many lives in order for them to take many lives in the same fashion.
So, magick takes time. Unless you've got an incantation down pat (more on that later), you likely can't cast it quickly and without fuss. You have to think about it, because if you rush blindly into an incantation, it could have permanent and devastating effects on your woodlander.
The Six Arcana
Despite magick being poorly understood, there are commonly known to be six important power sources for magick to draw from: these are called Arcana. The Arcana are as follows:
Blood magick manipulates the life force and bodies of living creatures, allowing the user to speak to animals, control plants, and shift their shape.
Bone magick enhances a user's physique and battle capabilities; conjuring protective shields, forming weapons out of force, and protecting the skin with sigils of occult magick.
Chaos magick (which differs from the real world tradition of chaos magic) focuses on energy and natural forces of the world-- turning fire into lightning, water into stone, and using these forms of energy and matter to accomplish a woodlander's goals.
Night magick focuses on shadows, silence, and the mind. Incantations that call upon night magick use shadows as a weapon, invade the mind to read thoughts and push a target's will in a certain direction, and steal voices and ideas from others.
Silver magick focuses on the boundaries between realities, allowing woodlanders to move between locations without travelling, divine the future, and call things from other states of existence.
Spirit magick focuses on the soul, emotion, and the spirits of the dead. Spirit incantations can be used to heal spiritual wounds, communicate with spirits of the dead and of the past, and to sense emotional impressions on beings and objects.
Great! We get how magick works (sort of, but that's the point)
Magick in Gameplay
There is a juxtaposition in how exactly magic should function in tactical fantasy games. Tactical combat requires tactics, which implies some level of thought and choice-- but if magick can do anything, what tactic is there in that? What ends up happening is magic is made into abilities-- you can cast fireball and entangle, but if you want to use fire to heat up a doorknob or use vines to create a bridge, you're out of luck. This makes sense- we want gameplay to flow well between states, and having the tactical, ability-like implementation of magic extend to all aspects of gameplay is good and fine.
But it doesn't have to.
Improvising Magick
Several traditions in Inkwarren are capable of improvising magickal effects: these being the folklorist, goetia, rook, warrior-poet, and witch (roughly half of the total 12 traditions). These traditions will also have special flourishes (narrative abilities) representing rote incantations they know by heart and don't have to improvise, but they may wish to improvise at other times. Before we get into how improvising magick works, let's recap our points from above:
Magick requires sacrifice.
Magick takes time and concentration.
Magick is dangerous.
When you wish to improvise an incantation, you will draw a pentacle, and go through each point to choose five different descriptors:
Your Intent. What you want to happen when you create the effect- unlock the door, hide my footsteps, change my face.
Strength. The Strength of the incantation directly correlates with Effect used for challenge rolls: limited, normal, great, and legendary effect. During the Origin phase of play, your woodlander will be more inexperienced with more powerful magick, and will incur more sacrifices and consequences for incantations that aren't limited strength. That isn't to say they can't attempt-- it'll just be much more dangerous for them.
Sacrifice. What you will give. The higher the Strength, the more you sacrifice. Time, blood, memory, sanity-- whatever you want.
Major Arcana. The primary Arcana you draw from when using the effect. Unlocking a door sounds like chaos, as you pull on the metal to change and unlock, and changing your face might be night, as you shift your features to look like someone else.
Minor Arcana. The secondary Arcana you draw from, which can be the same as your Major Arcana. Unlocking the door might be chaos/night as you tug on shadows to bend the door to your will, and changing your face might be night/blood.
After you decide these five descriptors, you will attempt a challenge roll to create your effects, rolling your dice directly onto your pentacle. Prevailing causes your incantation to go off as intended, but Persevering or Faltering could cause things to go slightly different than what you planned or not right at all. Voila! You have improvised a spell!
Magick in Battle
Magick in Battle is a lot simpler because, well, I didn't reinvent the wheel a whole bunch here! Magick exploits are exploits just like any other, with Root, Bloom, and Duo effects that can the woodlander can use at will. In the fiction, woodlanders can call upon this magick so easily because they are rote incantations, similar to magical flourishes-- in the heat of Battle, a woodlander doesn't have time to improvise, pick sacrifices, and focus their intent. They just rely on what they know! They sacrifice small bits of energy, prepared components, and other minor things they are assumed to have prepared because they're the heroes, and they know what they're doing.
TL;DR in battle, you may not have time to improvise magick and get creative, but outside of battle, you have time to get weird and wacky with the incantations you speak-- if you can pay the cost.
If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading! I'll be posting on this blog semi-regularly as I develop this game, and I appreciate your interest and support!