Sorcery: Metal Spells

Sorcery: Metal Spells

The Thaumaturgy of Metal by Ted Brock is featured in Pyramid #3-91 and is one of my favorite articles. Metal spells need some love! Alloy Metal transforms simple metals into alloys. Anvil Strike drops an anvil on the target. Arrow is a basic missile spell. Bloody Iron extracts iron from someone's blood.

Alloy Metal

Keywords: None.

Full Cost: 6 points/level.

Casting Roll: IQ.

Range: Touch.

Duration: 10 seconds or permanent; see text.

This spell allows you to refine simple metals into alloys. It requires the proper amounts of metals commonly required for the intended alloy. Should improper amounts be present, excess raw metal is left over. To create an alloy, touch the metals you wish to transform, take a Concentrate maneuver and roll vs. IQ. Success means you transform the matter successfully. Failure means nothing happens. Critical failure means the transformation happens, but in a way that’s inconvenient or dangerous – the GM should be creative!

Transmutation costs 1 FP per use.

The final product can weigh up to 10 x (level squared) lbs. – 10 lbs. at level 1, 40 lbs. at level 2, 90 lbs. at level 3, and so on. This limits the weight of the matter being transformed.

If the product is worth more than what you started with, it’s unstable and will revert to its original form after 10 seconds unless you stabilize it with your character points – in which case point cost depends on the difference in value. Each point spent stabilizes a quantity worth 10% of the campaign’s average starting wealth. (This is just the tradeoff used for Trading Points for Money, p. B26.) The GM determines the cash value per pound of matter – a ton of iron costs more to stabilize than a ton of stone.

Points spent to stabilize matter come from your “Creation Pool,” a number of points set aside for the purpose. You can’t apply any modifiers to these points. Points used to stabilize matter are unavailable until reclaimed – which causes the matter to vanish. If the matter is crafted into an object, the item is unmade when the matter vanishes. If the matter is mixed with other materials (e.g., alloyed), you must separate it to reclaim your points; this can be a tedious process. If it’s destroyed or transformed (e.g., eaten), you can’t reclaim your points – they’re gone. You can increase your Creation Pool with unspent points at any time.

Statistics: Create (Accessibility, Only simple metal to alloy, -10%; Transmute Metal to Metal, +50%; Transmutation Only, -100%; Magical, -10%) [6/level].

Anvil Strike

Keywords: Missile.

Full Cost: 161 points.

Casting Roll: None. Use Artillery (Bombs) to hit.

Range: 100 yards.

Duration: Instantaneous.

You create an iron anvil 100 yards above the ground and drop it at a single target. Use Artillery (Bombs) to hit, applying normal range penalties. On a critical failure, the caster hits himself! It does 28d crushing damage. Since the anvil falls from above, it bypasses any cover that does not provide overhead protection, and negates attack penalties to hit crouching, kneeling, sitting, or prone targets. This spell has no 1/2D range – it deals full damage at any range. The anvil disappears two minutes after it hits.

Note that the “anvil” does not have to take the shape of an anvil; the mage creates the shape of the “anvil” at casting time. Common forms are round balls, rectangular and pyramidal prisms, and, of course, the obligatory anvil shape.

Statistics: Crushing Attack 28d (Increased 1/2D, 10x, +15%; Nuisance Effect, Critical Failure, -15%; Overhead, +30%; Sorcery, -15%) [161].

  

Arrow

Keywords: Missile, Obvious.

Full Cost: 9 points.

Casting Roll: None. Use Innate Attack (Projectile) to hit.

Range: 100 yards.

Duration: Instantaneous.

You launch an iron arrow at a single target. Use Innate Attack (Projectile) to hit, applying normal range penalties. It does 1d impaling damage or 1d-1(2) piercing damage (for a bodkin point) per level of this spell. The missile can be blocked. The GM must determine what the maximum level available in the campaign is.

Statistics: Impaling Attack 1d (Blockable, -5%; Sorcery, -15%) [7] + Piercing Attack 1d-1 (Armor Divisor, (2), +50%; Blockable, -5%; Sorcery, -15%) [6/5 = 2].

   

Bloody Iron

Keywords: Resisted (HT).

Full Cost: 38 points.

Casting Roll: Will.

Range: Unlimited.

Duration: 5 seconds.

This spell extracts the iron in the subject’s blood from his body. A subject who fails to resist submits to the spell and is overcome with agony (p. B428). Over the 5 seconds, he can resist again each second. Victory here doesn’t end the spell but merely staves off harm; each loss deals 1 point of toxic damage. The metal extracted appears as a fine red mist near the target, but cannot generate more than a few grams of iron from a given person.

Statistics: Toxic Attack 1 point (Accessibility, Only on beings with blood, -10%; Based on HT, +20%; Cyclic, 1 second interval, 4 seconds, Resistible, +200%; Link, +10%; Magical, -10%; Malediction 2, +150%; No Signature, +20%) [5] + Affliction 1 (HT; Accessibility, Only on beings with blood, -10%; Agony, +100%; Fixed Duration, +0%; Link, +10%; Malediction 2, +150%; No Signature, +20%; Reduced Duration, 1/20, -25%; Sorcery, -15%) [33].