In addition to rolling dice to perform attacks and gambits, a PC may also roll dice to use rune magic associated with their cult’s runes. They may also roll dice to use spirit magic associated with any spirits that favor them.
Rune and spirit magic always succeeds.
The caster may use their cult’s runes as sparks for the spell’s effects.
The caster rolls and spends dice to determine the potency, range, and magnitude of the spell. Dice may also be added together in any combination. The resulting total(s) may be spent to modify the range, potency, and/or magnitude.
A spell has the following tags by default.
Each total assigned to a spell’s range, potency, and magnitude may modify the tag according to the following thresholds.
The caster may choose how many dice they roll from their cult rank. Lay ranks start at d4. Initiate ranks start at d8. Heroic and priestly ranks start at d12.
If the caster’s spell shares a rune affinity with another character’s cult, that character may help the caster with one dice from their cult rank. This dice may modify the caster’s range, potency, and magnitude.
The caster may also spend a d4, d8, or d12 of SPI to further modify the spell by the amount spent. At 0 SPI, the caster becomes exhausted from the drain on their inner power and connection to their god.
After casting a spell, if any tag reached a threshold of 8 or more, a character must pass a SPI save to continue using magic, otherwise they must attend a holy day, make an offering, or do some other act in service of the cult.
Example 1
Arfur has been sailing aimlessly on a giant silver lake in the mist for days. Suddenly, a great serpent rears its head out of the water just off the prow of the ship. Arfur calls upon the iron hand-hammered runes of water and light that hang from a leather cord around his neck. Arfur serves the Twilight Seer cult, associated with the runes of water and light. He moves to the front of the ship to whip up something to banish this scaled monstrosity.
Mila, who is playing Arfur, picks up a d4 for the cult rank with the Twilight Seer, since Arfur is only a brand new member of the cult. Mila then decides, fuck it, this could be the end of Arfur and it’s better to potentially exhaust Arfur rather than die. Maybe someone will come along in the aftermath to help. So Mila picks up a d12 to spend SPI for a potential effect at the price of Arfur’s own equivalent SPI loss. Sadly, Arfur is alone on the boat so there is no one to lend their power to him, so Mila only rolls two dice.
Mila rolls her d4 and d12. She rolls a 4 and a 9. She decides to assign her 4 to the Range of the spell, bumping it up from Here to There. She then assigns her 9 to Potency, bumping it up from No Effect to Heroic Effect, with a potential d8 of Damage to the serpent or its virtues.
The ref asks Mila for a description of what she conjures and what she wants Arfur to achieve. She tells the table how Arfur, staring down the jaws of defeat, conjures a swirling mirror vortex just off the prow of the boat. Its surface is a nearly perfect reflective surface and for the first time, the serpent sees its own reflection. Mila wants the serpent to flee in terror. The ref rules that this’ll inflict the spell’s Heroic Effect level of d8 in Virtue Loss to the serpent’s SPI. The ref also indicates it’s likely the serpent will flee, and rolls an open SPI save in front of Mila. Mila quickly picks up her d8 and rolls a staggering 8! The serpent’s SPI of 13 withers to a SPI of 5. The SPI save comes in at a pathetic 19, well over the Serpent’s new SPI of 5.
The ref describes how the serpent shrieks and veers just to the port side of the ship, raking the side planks with its razor scales. Its tail spasms back and forth as it flees from its own reflection in the mist. The ref reminds Mila to take 9 Virtue Loss from SPI for the d12 she chose to roll when casting the spell. Arfur plummets to SPI 0 and collapses onto the soaked deck of the ship. The ref and Mila agree that Arfur sleeps for a time, eventually waking to a strange spectral apparition of the Twilight Seer sitting on the rails of the ship, smirking ever so gently at Arfur. . .