[Shadow of Yesterday] Brother, can you help with magic?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

[list=1][*]What about Illusions?  This seems a little weak in Seemings/Glamour arena; how do I do those?

[*]How do you conceive of doing all the Healing/Repair/'Reverse the Effect'/Disenchantment stuff with this?

[*]What about permanent Dweomers?  How do I give a sword permanent razor-sharp edge?[/list:o]This is sooo close, so bleedin' close; you can do it man!

Fang,

You might be disappointed in the answers to these.

1. Well, Enchantment covers illusions. Unfortunately, these aren't the D&D-esque "Phantasmal Force" type of illusions, but an illusion like this:

Oliphant, a goblin wizard with Enchantment +5, Secret of the Invisible Hand, and Enchantment: Gentle Touch and Enchantment: Alter Senses wants to convince the lord of a region that he is a powerful warrior in his guard coming to warn him of an attack on the south wall. Walking into the lord's bedchamber, he can spent 1 Charm for Enchantment: Gentle Touch and 2 Charm for Enchantment: Alter Senses to make the king think he looks (1 Charm) and sounds (1 Charm) like this warrior. He rolls Enchantment against the lord's Resist.

However, Oliphant doesn't have the Secret of Magical Contagion. If someone else walks into the chamber, he'll see a little goblin, although the king still sees a warrior standing there.

In much the same way, he could make someone think they heard a noise, or that a door is hot, or anything of that nature. With the Secret of Magical Contagion, he could make several people think these things, but the effect is in their mind - there is no illusion.

2. As for counter-spells, I haven't quite decided, but I think I'll let any wizard attempt to counter a spell using the same magical skill. (If Apportation and Transformation could only be opposites... Creation and Destruction already are, and Enchantment and Divination are pretty much opposites as well. Then I'd have a cool magic system. Must think about this.)

There is no "Healing" spell. There are ways to help others heal (that is, gain a bonus die on their next Stay Up check), but not magically remove damage.

3. Lastly, nothing's permanent. You might wonder, what about magic items and such? I'm taking a dodge on those in that the game has a lot to do with reclaiming past history. The economic system is directly based on the age of objects, for example. Magical items might be found in the game, but they're all artifacts of a time when magic was much more powerful. You could create a sword with an incredibly sharp edge that would last for a year, but that's about it.

[Le Joueur]

Hey Clinton,

Fang, you might be disappointed in the answers to these.

Not at all, I just didn't understand the scope of your game.  All these answers are cool.

2. As for counter-spells...but not magically remove damage.

What about using Apportation to clean a room?  Or assembling a bicycle?  Or bending that spar back into place?  Putting the Parthenon together?  Repair takes many forms.

3. Lastly, nothing's permanent....  I'm taking a dodge on those

So if I pick up my bedroom, an hour later it becomes a mess again?  Does it become the same mess?  (Cool, I could clean up an area, search through it and then everything goes right back where it was, like magic!)  Seriously, you're gonna have to reword the 'permanent' thing; if I fly somewhere, am I not permanently there?  Same goes for repairs to architecture and the like.

Probably me missing the scope of the game again.  Perhaps the description will capture the flair I'm missing.

Fang Langford

[Spooky Fanboy]

I would assume that damage/aftereffects are permanent, or at least don't go back to what they were before magic was added to the picture. Of course, that could be a nigh-mandatory Secret to get if that's not the case.

How is this coming, by the way? A game with this cool a backstory bears more discussion.

[John Harper]

The more Clinton explains this game, the more it looks like Talislanta. And that's a good thing in my opinion. The thing Shadows doesn't have is Tal's massive and daunting setting that is very, very hard to get a handle on right away.

I like how Shadows has a very detailed and interesting setting while at the same time leaving lots of room to explore. Which, come to think of it, is something that Talislanta does, too. Hmm. What was my point, again?