Magi Magic Spells

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These are spells useful to magicians in protecting possessions, reading magic, attacking other magician's possessions, etc. The spells of Sense Magic, Sense P.P.E.^tm, Mystic Alarm, Negate Magic, Transferal, Wards, and Sanctum can be considered Magi spells.

Attune Object to Owner (ritual)

Level: 6
Range: Touch
Duration: One year per level of experience or until dispelled by the creator.
Casting Time: A thirty minute ceremony.
Saving Throw: None
P.P.E.^tm Cost: 30

Another version of this spell can be found on page 74 of Rifts® England as a Temporal spell - but it doesn't have anything to do with time or space. This spell is actually a powerful enchantment that makes an object's special powers usable only by one person (the caster of the spell or one other person). Thus, a rune weapon could be used as a weapon by anyone but only one person could access the special powers of it. Even Telemechanics or Mechano- link cannot activate the special powers of such an attuned object.

The owner of the affected object will see an aura signature on the object, and on any object enchanted with this spell and bonded to him - the recipient's own unique psychic fingerprint is on the object. If the owner dies, the magical bond will not break until the object comes into the possession of another life form - then there is a 5% chance per month of the spell breaking and allowing anyone to use it as normal.

Cleansing

Level: 1
Range: Touch or 10ft plus 2ft radius per level of experience.
Duration: Instant.
Casting Time: One melee
Saving Throw: Only sentient spells get a save throw, and do so with a +4 bonus.
P.P.E.^tm Cost: 1

Stray magic and psychic energies can be wiped clean from a single object held in the hands, one person, or an entire area. This spell can be used to blank one's psychic scent for countering Object Read and psychic trackers, utilized as a preventive measure by mages who want to prevent stray P.P.E.^tm from interfering with their studies and ceremonies, and also employed to dissapate psychic and supernatural energies (like those that would attract haunting entities). Think of it as making an object or area psychically blank, with no impressions on it at all - useful to a thief type who wants to cover his tracks!

Decipher Magic

Level: 2
Range: Self, line of sight for 12ft.
Duration: Three minutes per level of experience.
Casting Time: One melee
Saving Throw: Standard, but only magical texts get save throws vs deciphering.
P.P.E.^tm Cost: 5

This spell enables the caster to read, even if encrypted, any magic book, scroll, text, rune, etc.) that fails the save against magic. When the spell ends, the mage is just as clueless as before about what the words meant. Three consecutively failed attempts to decipher the text means that the character has no chance of understanding the encrypted text until 25,000 experience points or another experience level is gained (whichever comes first). This spell doesn't interpret other languages nor does it allow the caster to identify or understand magical circles and wards, though he can decipher individual symbols. If the book is magically encrypted, give it a +1 to save for each -10% penalty it imposes on attempted translation. This is obviously a useful spell in magical research.

Column of Protection

Level: 7
Range: A 3-6ft radius circle, with a maximum height of 25ft +5ft per level. It is centered on where the caster was at upon invocation, and cannot be moved.
Duration: Three minutes per level.
Casting Time: Three melee actions.
Damage Capacity: 200 S.D.C.^tm +20 per level, in a Nightbane^tm world add a +50 S.D.C.^tm bonus, and in Rifts® it instead becomes to 90 M.D.C.^tm +10 per level.
P.P.E.^tm Cost: 20

This is a swift and powerful invocation that is favored in summoning and in magical experimentation. All things inside the column are protected - they gain a +2 to save vs magic, psionic attack, and possession in addition to defense against physical attacks. Only those on the inside of the column at the time of its creation can enter and exit at will and they can bring other objects into it at a later time, including people, but those foreign objects still can't penetrate the column on their own (must get help or wait for the duration to end). Magic, weapons, and psionics can be used by occupants of the circle and can be targeted at those outside - the barrier is one-way. The appearance of the column will vary according to the magician - each is as unique as a fingerprint.

Obviously, the protective strength of this doubles at a ley line and triples near a nexus point.

Intellect Essence (ritual)

Level: 13
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Casting Time: A ritual lasting 1d10 hours, plus one hour per spell infused in the book.
Saving Throw: None
P.P.E.^tm Cost: 900 (drawn over the ritual duration from a P.P.E.^tm source), and the permanent sacrifice of 10% of the caster's base P.P.E.^tm or 30 P.P.E.^tm (whichever is more).

With the lengthy and painstaking ritual of Intellect Essence, it is possible for a magician to infuse a book with a fraction of his life force and instill spellcasting powers within a physical extention of himself. The link is similar to that between a rune weapon and it's owner, but more involved since the same life essence runs in the object and in the magician.

Inside the book are written and drawn the visions of the magician when he casts his spells. A magician with talents in fire and light magic would create a book filled with images of vast fires, blazing sunsets, and writing remarkably similar to runescript describing key requirements in casting fire and light. Should the book be stolen and translated (-75% penalty to translation!), it can be used to grant a +8% when figuring out existing magic spells or +5% when creating new and variant spells relating to the spells visually described in the book. Double these bonuses if the book's creator was of the 12th level or higher. See this for more info on spell design and learning.

The magician can infuse the book with a maximum of one spell per M.E. point and per level of experience (M.E. + level in spells). No spell of a level equal to or higher than the caster's can be infused (you've got to be second level to put a first level spell in!) The book has a P.P.E.^tm base equal to twice the M.E. of the creator plus the amount of P.P.E.^tm personally sacrificed in the spell. Spell strength is the base 12, and does not increase. By simply holding the book, the caster can direct the book to cast spells. Other magicians cannot understand the writings in the book without Decipher Magic, and even then the book gets a +6 bonus to save vs the deciphering.

Other Notes: This spell makes the book invulnerable to Lostrel's Symbol Smasher and Lostrel's Wordwipe.

Physical Requirement: A book of the highest possible quality - the following conditions must be met:

Pages must be made from wood/ plants aged at least 300 years.
Bound in the hide of a rare or supernatural creature, or some kind of backing made of high quality materials.
Constructed with at least 2000 gold (or 1000 dollars or credits) worth of precious metals or stones (might be a gem pattern on the cover, could have silver runes painted on it, may be woven with gold thread, etc.)
One page is required per 1-4 level spell, two pages per 5-8 level spell, three pages per 9-13 level spell, and four pages per 14-15 level spell. There must be room for the spells to exist.

Interpret Magic Energy

Level: 5
Range: 150ft and line of sight for accurate interpretation, but one mile per level for general detection of large energy sources (ley lines, big TW machines, gods, supernatural intellects, a horde of vampires, etc.)
Duration: Three minutes per level.
Casting Time: One melee
Saving Throw: None, but a Mind Block or magical masking will make one undetectable to this spell (consider this spell a hyped up See Aura).
P.P.E.^tm Cost: 12

With this spell, the mage becomes able to not only see/sense magic energy and magical auras (as per the first level spells of See Aura and Sense P.P.E.^tm) but he can read the energy and see what 'flavor' it is. Vampires and animated dead obviously have a necromantic flavor. TW machinery will have a metallic aspect. A fire warlock will appear to have a burning or brimstone smell. Illusion masters will just seem subtle and mysterious. Non- magic using living creatures have a light and fluffy taste. Ley line storms have a pungent odor, like a field of wildflowers. This spell can also be used to approximate a target magician's magical focus - so an evil Ley Line Walker who dabbles a lot in necromancy will have a flavor much more similar to that of a Necromancer than a Ley Line Walker.

In the line of sight (or when sensing a powerful energy at a distance), interpretation is exact. From a distance it is possible to track and/or interpret magical energies of small targets (such as a particular mage's magical flavor) but this has a limited accuracy of 50% +5% per level. Add +10% if the target is familiar, and subtract 5% per each mile of distance. An interpretation on a lost or previously misinterpreted target can be performed once per ten minutes. Large and/or powerful sources of magic energy can be tracked and interpreted at +1% per 100 P.P.E.^tm points of the source (ley lines run about +15% and nexuses can reach +25%).

Lostrel's Symbol Smasher

Level: 10
Range: 30ft
Duration: Instant
Casting Time: Two minutes
Saving Throw: Standard
P.P.E.^tm Cost: 90

Against runes, wards, glyphs, circles, and other magic texts and symbols this spell is invaluable. Each invocation can affect one glyph, rune word, circle symbol, or ward/alarm series. This spell can be cast as a fifteen minute ritual, as well. If the magic symbol succeeds in the save throw vs spell magic (or ritual magic) then it is not altered or damaged in any way. A failed save roll means the targeted symbol is disrupted and erased - potential disaster in circle magic. If the symbol's save throw is a natural 20 then the spell disrupted the symbol enough to trigger it, cause a magical explosion doing 3d6 damage to everything in a 10ft radius of the symbol, or some similarly annoying magical effect. The creator of a symbol will know when his symbol is gone, but won't quite know what happened.

Lostrel's Wordlock

Level: 8
Range: Touch
Duration: One year per level.
Casting Time: One minute
Saving Throw: None
P.P.E.^tm Cost: 45

This spell is the one of the only defenses against the Wordwipe spell below. It not only renders a text immune to the Wordwipe spell for a pretty good duration, but makes it damageproof. Books become fadeproof and waterproof, scrolls stay resilent and strong, newspapers won't have fading and ink discoloration, and computer data becomes impervious to viruses and random file corruption. One magic scroll or book with magic circles and formulae can be affected per invocation of this spell, or the caster can instead affect 500 pages of normal text and digital information per level per invocation (becomes uncorruptable). Affecting computer information requires a Computer Programming skill of 50% or better.

Lostrel's Wordwipe

Level: 4
Range: 30ft
Duration: Instant
Casting Time: One melee action
Saving Throw: Special
P.P.E.^tm Cost: 10

This interesting bit of magic was developed in the Rifts® city of Lazlo. This is a seemingly useless spell, which is what local guildmembers and private wizards in the city thought when that laughed at the developer, Lostrel Zhane. Then they found their magic scrolls blank. They also found their magical libraries ruined. Entire passages, accounts, laboratory reports, and chapters of the costly books were partially deleted (some even totally wiped out). Even a one of a kind text on developing magical servants was damaged beyond repair, when the first six chapters on the necessary preparation for the ceremonies were erased in a way that made you wonder if there was ever any writing there. Even Techno- wizards^tm who thought their magical information was safe on the encrypted hard drives of their personal computers found their text files garbled beyond recognition. The neophyte who created the spell was grudgingly accepted into one of the most renowed guilds of Lazlo, and also made a lot of enemies when he agreed to teach a course on the creation and usage of this spell. Those same enemies were placated (on the surface, at least) when he offered to sell a validated counter- spell for Wordwipe.

When targeted at a scroll, book, or any sort of object with writing upon it this spell magically erases some of the writing! Even if it is encrypted or in a foreign language, the text is erased. If the caster also has the Computer Operations skill (70% skill level or better) he can attack one specific data format or program on a computer (image files, text files, virus protection software, viruses, the W|nd0w$ 95 operating system, etc.)

The scroll, book, or computer gets a save vs spell magic. Success means that no words are erased. Failure means that some (5d10 +25%) of the words are erased. A save throw roll of 3-5 means that 80 +1d20% of the text gets erased, a 2 means that all text in the book (or whatever) is erased, and a 1 means that the entire literary object is erased clean of all pigmentation (all text, artwork, images, even inkstains and paper discoloration is gone!)

Normal literary works save normally, with no bonus. This includes all books that are about magic. Things that have magic written in or on them, such as circle making manuals and magic scrolls are +3 to save. Books that are magic probably have their own bonus to save listed. Anything on a computer gets an additional +1 save throw bonus. One magic scroll or book with magic circles and formulae can be affected per invocation of this spell. The caster can also affect about 200 pages of normal text and digital information per level per invocation. The effect is instant - so this spell could be used to counter the reading of a scroll, which would probably have some bad effects for the scroll reader.

Runes, wards, glyphs, and all magical writing and objects are not affected by this spell.

MystiCrypt (ritual)

Level: 7
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Casting Time: One hour
Saving Throw: None
P.P.E.^tm Cost: 20

The use of this enchantment spell lets a caster magically encode all the words in a finished book (or scroll) so that only he can understand them. This spell imposes a -5% penalty per level of the caster on translation and scroll conversion attempts. Each -10% gives the encrypted text a +1 to save vs the Decipher Magic spell.

A Mind to Magic (ritual)

Level: 15
Range: Special - one spell, rune, glyph, circle, etc.
Duration: Permanent
Casting Time: One hour per level of the target magic (several hours of work if the target is a rune or circle).
Saving Throw: Standard (roll for the target magic).
P.P.E.^tm Cost: 1000

Page 33 of Through the Glass Darkly describes living magic - the evolution of a spell's magical energy into a sentient form. This powerful ritual allows the caster to cause this to happen to a spell. The save throw that the spell gets doesn't actually prevent anything from happening - the target spell is always affected.

If it fails the save throw it is totally shaped into sentience by the caster and is bound to him as a servant. It will respond to the caster and grow in sentience similar to a child. If it is treated badly it will learn to hate its creator (or even itself). Treated well, it will probably respond in kind. The caster is also able to terminate the magic by expending the same amount of P.P.E.^tm needed to cast it in the first place (no save throw). Cruel magicians have been rumored to develop methods of torturing sentient magics, but the exact mechanics of this are still not known.

If the target magic succeeds in the save throw, it becomes sentient but has free will. It is not under any kind of control or influence from the magician who triggered the evolution to sentience. The character will probably need to reason with the spell if he wants it to do what he intended.

Note: The personality of the spell will be based on what it was. Healing spells become manifestations with healing skills, abilities, and personalities. An Eyes of the Wolf spell would come into existence with the nature of a hunter or tracker. A Transformation spell might become some kind of possessing entity that alters it's host. The more powerful the magic, the more powerful the being that is created. Consider sentient magic beings creatures of magic whose attacks can affect supernatural creatures (for obvious reasons).