Sorcery: Book Spells III

Sorcery: Book Spells III

And the last book spells! Live Libram makes a book help the reader. Narrative Conveyance transports the reader to the place the book describes. Retro-Reading lets the caster learn who read the book last. Speed Reading increases the pace of reading tenfold (when using the normal Skills-to-Advantages approach, this requires Speed-Reading (A) IQ+80, which costs 320 points; I decided that it's ridiculous and went with the ETS approach). Writer's Block makes all Writing rolls fail.

Live Libram

Keywords: Buff.

Full Cost: 25 points.

Casting Roll: None. Use Innate Attack (Gaze) to aim.

Range: 100 yards.

Duration: Permanent.

Animates a book so that it will automatically turn its pages without its reader having to touch them after he opens it and begins reading. It automatically matches the reader’s pace. It always opens to the place where its owner last stopped reading it, if he is still doing so.

Statistics: Affliction 1 (HT; Accessibility, Only on books, -50%; Advantage, Live Libram, +30%; Extended Duration, Permanent, +150%; Increased 1/2D, 10x, +15%; No Signature, +20%; Sorcery, -15%) [25]. Note: “Live Libram” is Telekinesis 1 (Independent, +40%; Magical, -10%; One Task, Turning pages, -80%) [3].

  

Narrative Conveyance

Keywords: Buff.

Full Cost: 219 points.

Casting Roll: None. Use Innate Attack (Gaze) to aim.

Range: 100 yards.

Duration: Permanent.

This spell enchants a book that vividly describes another world, time, or place, so that a person who reads it enough to read the description (at least several minutes), is bodily transported with his gear up to his Extra-Heavy Encumbrance to that world/time/place, if he fails to resist with Will, as if using the Jumper advantage (p. B97).

Statistics: Affliction 1 (HT; Accessibility, Only on books, -50%; Advantage, Narrative Conveyance, +1,970%; Extended Duration, Permanent, +150%; Fixed Duration, +0%; Increased 1/2D, 10x, +15%; No Signature, +20%; Sorcery, -15%) [219]. Note: “Narrative Conveyance” is Affliction 1 (Will; Advantage, Jumper (World; Extra Carrying Capacity, Extra-Heavy, +50%; Improved, +10%; Limited Access,  20%; Magical, -10%; Reliable +10, +50%), +1,800%; Aura, +80%; Based on Will, +20%; Melee Attack, Reach C, -30%; No Signature, +20%; Vision-Based, Variant, -20%) [197].

  

Retro-Reading

Keywords: Information.

Full Cost: 11 points.

Casting Roll: IQ.

Range: Touch.

Duration: Instantaneous.

This spell lets the caster receive an impression of the last person to read a particular book, or passage in a book, which must be read by the mage during the casting.

To cast Retro-Reading, you must touch the writing, concentrate for one second, and make an IQ roll. This roll is at no penalty for an event that occurred the same day, -1 for one that occurred up to 10 days ago, -2 if up to 100 days ago, -3 if up to 1 year ago, -4 if up to 30 years ago, -5 if up to 300 years ago, and so on.

On a success, you receive the general impression of the last person to read the writing, but this spell does not reveal any names. On a critical success, you experience an actual vision. No matter how well you roll, you cannot detect magic, spirits, etc.

On a failure, you receive no impressions at all, and cannot attempt to read that writing again for 24 hours.

Statistics: Psychometry (Accessibility, Only books, -40%; Active Only, -20%; Sensitive, +30%; Sorcery, -15%) [11].

   

Speed Reading

Keywords: Buff.

Full Cost: 19 points.

Casting Roll: None. Use Innate Attack (Gaze) to aim.

Range: 100 yards.

Duration: 1 hour.

This spell lets the subject read text equal to their words per minute (How Fast Can You Read?, GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses, p. 23) in a single second.

Statistics: Affliction 1 (HT; Advantage, Speed Reading, +10%; Extended Duration, 30x, +60%; Fixed Duration, +0%; Increased 1/2D, 10x, +15%; No Signature, +20%; Sorcery, -15%) [19]. Note: “Speed Reading” is Page at a Glance (Magical, -10%) [1].

Writer’s Block

Keywords: Resisted (Will).

Full Cost: 46 points.

Casting Roll: Will.

Range: Unlimited.

Duration: 1 day.

This spell curses someone so that his Writing skill rolls that succeed become failures, and those fail become critical failures. This cannot be undone via Dispel Magic (GURPS Thaumatology: Sorcery, p. 21); countering it requires Remove Curse (GURPS Thaumatology :Sorcery, p. 21).

Statistics: Affliction 1 (Will; Based on Will, +20%; Cosmic, Immune to Dispel Magic, +50%; Disadvantage, Divine Curse (Can’s write successfully), +15%; Extended Duration, 1,000x, +120%; Fixed Duration, +0%; Malediction 2, +150%; No Signature, +20%; Sorcery, -15%) [46].