Astromancy

[Super Squirrel]

I present, for discussion, the most complicated magical system ever.

 

For the past few months, I've been working on the background and origin story of my world that most of my writing takes place in. After a discussion of how to get myself out of a gaming rut, it was recommended I run a one shot game of something totally different than I normally run. I had the idea of running an extremely simple game set place in The Age of Steam.

 

In my world during the Age of Steam, on a purely conceptual level, the world has three unique "occupations" if you will. Each of the three occupations is an embodiment of two of the three elements that make up how the world operates.

 

Magic + Physical Application = Alchemy

Magic + Energy Application = Astronmancy

Physical + Energy Application = Steamology

 

Now, Alchemy is pretty simple to run in a one-shot game. And while I plan on making the Astromancy fairly simple to run. By this point in time you must be wondering what it is that makes Astromancy so difficult.

 

In the creation mythos, the creator created an entity to govern magic of the land, an entity to govern the magic of the sea, and an entity to govern the magic of the sky. In the case of the magic of the sky, it has been locked into the stars. Each constellation group represents its own unique purpose but, at the same time, is a combination of Magical Elements.

 

For Example:

The Chained Flame is a constellation consisting of 4 stars. 3 of the stars are of the element of fire and the last star is a spirit element.

 

Getting a bit into the game mechanics aspect of it, on a character sheet, I'd use a separate section of paper for the magic system. I'd write down the constellations the character has learned like this:

 

The Chained Flame (3 Fire, 1 Spirit)

 

When using a constellation to cast a spell, you have to look at the requirements of the spell you are casting. You need to have at least as much elemental access as the spell requires to cast the spell. For example, I might consider a spell that creates a glowing orb of light that follows you around to be a 2 Fire, 1 Spirit spell. The fire aspects create the light itself, the spirit binds it to you so that it follows you around.

 

So we have a player who can access The Chained Flame (3 Fire, 1 Spirit) and he decides to cast Orb of Light (2 Fire, 1 Spirit). However, access a constellation accesses all elements of that constellation. The Astromancer has 1 extra Fire element he is tapped into. Expert Astromancers should be able to handle the uncontrolled, tapped magic, but a novice isn't going to have as easy of a time.

 

For a spell the difficulty is:

Astromancy Skill - # of Stars Used + (# of Stars Unused * (Number of Constellations + 1))

 

In the above example, a caster with a 14- in Astromancy would have a 9- Roll to make to cast an Orb of Light Spell.

 

The magical system becomes increasingly difficult the more constellations you involve. Lets say you want to use a Fireball type spell. Lets say, that it is a 6 Fire, 2 Wind spell. Obviously The Chained Flame isn't enough juice to pull it off. So the caster also taps into The Phoenix (5 Fire, 3 Wind, 1 Spirit). Here's what we have:

 

The Chained Flame (3 Fire, 1 Spirit)

The Phoenix (5 Fire, 3 Wind, 1 Spirit)

Total: 8 Fire, 3 Wind, 1 Spirit

Used Elements: 6 Fire, 2 Wind

Unused Elements: 2 Fire, 1 Wind, 1 Spirit

 

The first, immediate danger is that you end up getting more unused elements when you add a second constellation in. The second problem is the formula for calculating the activation roll:

 

Astromancy Skill Roll - 8 used - (4 unused * 3 2 constellations + 1)

Astromancy Skill Roll - 20

 

Okay... so that's a really difficult spell to pull off unless you are really good at Astromancy. Fortunately, there will eventually be designs for 90 to 110 constellations so you will have lots of combinations available.

 

Failing a skill roll, however, will be problematic. I'm thinking the more unused stars the greater the negative outcome. 1 or 2 unused stars might be a fizzle or a bit of stun. 5 unused stars could result in an explosion or something related to the elements of the unused stars. This is an area I haven't quite worked out just yet.

 

Overall the cost of the system works like this:

Knowledge of a particular constellation: 1 point per Star.

Knowledge of a particular spell formula: 1 point per Element Required

Astromancy: 3 points for an INT Based Skill, 2 points per +1

 

Discussions?

[Cancer]

Re: Astromancy

 

If you want to complicate it even more, limit the casters to being able to use only those constellations that are up at the time & place of the casting. That makes more GM work, though that could be front-loaded & automated.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Astromancy

 

If you want to complicate it even more' date=' limit the casters to being able to use only those constellations that are up at the time & place of the casting. That makes more GM work, though that could be front-loaded & automated.[/quote']

What are you, reading my notes?

 

Actually, for the purposes of the one shot game, I wasn't going to bother with that element but here are couple of other flukes related to Astromancy:

Your Ecliptic Birth Constellation Doesn't Consider any stars Unused for purposes of penalties to the roll.

The Current Ecliptic Constellation doesn't count in the multiplier for # of Constellations accessed.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Astromancy

 

And additionally, six of the twelve ecliptic constellations are completely composed of stars of all the same element.

[Cancer]

Re: Astromancy

 

Another question: how many Elements are you going to have? I see 3 (Fire, Wind, Spirit) listed. Are all the Elements known? If one (or more) Elements exist but are unknown to the astromancers of the world, then they are juggling unknown and hidden Elements when they do their thing ... which increases the hazard, perhaps drastically. That could be "lost lore" to be quested for.

 

FWIW, you could do a mock-up using the real sky (88 constellations) and impose, say, a cut-off of a certain apparent brightness for determining the number of capital-S stars in each. (That seems likely to give you lots of constellations with zero Stars, though.) Then you could assign the Elements to the stars via an arbitrary thing like spectral type. Given that you can get the basic data file for doing that mock-up easily, it depends on how hot you are for the programming task.

 

Then throw in jokers like variable stars (which sometimes contribute, sometimes don't), eclipsing binaries (where one Star has two Elements, except during an eclipse when one is blocked out), novae (rare, one-shot Stars with perhaps exotic or multiple elements), ....

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Astromancy

 

Six Elements: Fire, Water, Air, Spirit, Earth, Nature

 

And the stars designed so far (Minus The Phoenix and a handful of others):

http://community.livejournal.com/roseandthecrown/tag/stars

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Astromancy

 

Six Elements: Fire, Water, Air, Spirit, Earth, Nature

 

And the stars designed so far (Minus The Phoenix and a handful of others):

http://community.livejournal.com/roseandthecrown/tag/stars

[tancred]

Re: Astromancy

 

I was going to say this sounded expensive (in terms of points the caster has to spend) but then I re-read what you said and it sounds quite reasonable. Looks like the actual cost of things will wind up similar to the Turakian Age system. We're playing TA now, and so far it works well.

 

Squirrel, have you seen the 4th Edition College of Celestial Magic?

I can't remember if it was actually published in one of the Fantasy Hero Companions or if I just found it floating around the web, but it has some good spells that I think would fit your Astromancy.

I have the whole thing typed up in a Word doc; let me know if you want it.

 

I can't wait to see what you do with this; it sounds very interesting.

[The Monster]

Re: Astromancy

 

do planets enter into this at all?

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Astromancy

 

I'm not sure there are any other planets. Its a question I have never asked myself. There are, however, two moons. One has an extremely slow rotation and another that is exactly 30 days.