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# Spells

Magic in ELDRA is not a single substance owned by one tradition. It is the pressure left behind by creation, divine injury, planar contact, mortal will, abyssal contract, death, memory, and the living world itself. A spell is what happens when a trained mind gives that pressure shape.

This is why spellcasters in ELDRA are not restricted to one social role. A knight may learn spells. A scholar may carry a blade. A priest may cast through faith, a warlock through pact, a witch through inherited practice, a mage through theory, and a druid through the living presence of the land. The rules use one spellcasting system so that the table can play smoothly, but characters in the world may understand their magic in very different ways.

## What a Spell Is

A spell is concentrated intent made repeatable. The caster does not need material, somatic, or verbal components unless a specific spell, ritual, class feature, or tradition says otherwise. Words, gestures, tools, holy symbols, diagrams, blood, and circles may still matter culturally or ritually, but they are not the default engine of spellcasting. The engine is will shaped through training.

Mana represents the amount of magical pressure a caster can safely gather, hold, and release. A character with high Magic does not merely know more tricks; they can survive deeper contact with forces that would burn, distort, exhaust, or hollow out a weaker caster.

Your maximum Mana is calculated as: Max Mana = n x n where n is your Magic skill level.

## Magic After the War

Before the reconstruction age, many people believed magic came from a simple divine hierarchy: gods above, priests beneath them, mortals beneath priests. That belief was useful to the old order, but it was incomplete. Some divine powers were conscious. Some were wounded. Some were absent. Some were nothing more than anchored power without a living will behind it. The magic was real even when the explanation was false.

The war of revelation broke that certainty. In the present age, scholars and clergy generally agree that magic can be real without proving that the caster’s theology is fully correct. A prayer may work because a god answers. It may work because a sacred place still holds power. It may work because the caster’s vow has become strong enough for reality to answer. It may work because a pact was written precisely enough to bind something that does not care about worship at all.

For play, this means magic should feel powerful, personal, and socially meaningful. Casting a spell is never only a technical act. It reveals something about where the caster learned, what they trust, what they risk, and which parts of ELDRA’s broken history they are willing to touch.

## Common Sources of Spell Practice

Most spellcasters learn through one or more of the following traditions.

- Arcane study treats magic as pattern, formula, language, resonance, and repeatable method.

- Religious casting shapes magic through vow, doctrine, sacred presence, prayer, and ritual office.

- Pact magic draws power through agreements with demons, spirits, patrons, ancestors, or other external powers.

- Land magic works through the memory, health, spirits, and living presence of ELDRA itself.

- Blood magic uses inheritance, hunger, sacrifice, bloodline, or bodily transformation as a conduit.

- Abyssal magic relies on contract, appetite, predation, and the strange metaphysics of the Abyss.

- Folk magic survives in households, villages, borderlands, family rites, charms, curses, and seasonal practice.

These categories often overlap. A vampire priest may practice blood magic through religion. A gnome scholar may treat folk charms as recoverable theory. A warlock may be more lawful than a temple official. A witch may preserve a prayer older than the church that now condemns it.

## Schools of Affinity

The spell schools are not only academic labels. They are currents of intent. When a character declares a School of Affinity, they are identifying the kind of magic that answers them most naturally.

- Abjuration is the assertion of limits: protection, refusal, containment, and warding.

- Conjuration is the art of presence: calling, anchoring, summoning, and making distance negotiable.

- Divination is the pursuit of hidden knowledge: memory, possibility, truth, and pattern.

- Elemental is raw force: fire, frost, lightning, pressure, weather, and violent change.

- Illusion is the architecture of perception: image, belief, fear, concealment, and misdirection.

- Necromancy is the boundary of life and death: remains, spirits, endings, hunger, and return.

- Restoration is renewal: healing, cleansing, repair, resilience, and the refusal to let damage have the final word.

- Transmutation is transformation: matter, body, form, motion, and the belief that no state is final.

A School of Affinity is not a school uniform. It is the shape of a caster’s inner gravity. Changing it should require a major story event: conversion, trauma, revelation, oath-breaking, divine contact, abyssal rewriting, or another transformation deep enough to change how the character reaches for power.

## Learning Spells

Characters learn spells through training, recovered texts, teachers, scrolls, inscriptions, artifacts, religious offices, pact terms, or inherited practice. The same spell may look different depending on where it was learned. A healing spell taught by a village midwife, a sun-priest, and a battlefield surgeon may share rules while carrying very different language and moral expectations.

The Game Master should treat spell sources as worldbuilding opportunities. A scroll found in a ruin may reveal who built the ruin. A forbidden spell may expose which institution tried to bury it. A spell taught by a demon may work perfectly and still leave the caster responsible for the agreement that made the lesson possible.

## Magic and Consequence

ELDRA’s magic should not feel clean simply because the rules make it playable. Necromancy may be lawful in one context and horrifying in another. Summoning may be safe if the pact is precise and disastrous if it is vague. Radiant force may heal, reveal, judge, or burn. Abyssal magic may protect a community through strict contracts while still carrying the taste of predation. Restoration may save a life without removing the political consequences of who was saved and who was not.

When magic appears in a campaign, ask what it changes. Who trusts it? Who fears it? Who regulates it? Who remembers what similar magic did in the old age? These questions make spells part of ELDRA rather than tools floating above the setting.

## Casting Rules

Spellcasting Rules

- All spells in ELDRA are divided into five levels of power, from Level 1 (basic spells) to Level 5 (formidable and rare magic).

- Each spell has an associated Mana Cost equal to its spell level. For example, a Level 3 spell costs 3 mana to cast.

- A spellcaster’s total mana pool is determined by their Magic skill level using the formula: Mana Pool = n x n where n is the caster’s current Magic skill level.

- Spells may also have optional Stunts or Enhancements, which may be activated by paying additional mana as described in the spell entry.

- Spell effects can vary in range, duration, and target depending on the spell’s level and classification.

- Unless stated otherwise, conditions inflicted by spells are only applied when the target takes a Mental Consequence as a result of that spell’s mental damage. If the target’s Mental Stress Pool has not been reduced to 0 and the mental damage does not overflow into a Consequence, the damage is absorbed as stress only and no condition is applied. Spells or abilities that explicitly bypass this requirement will state so in their description.

Declaring a School of Affinity

When a character first gains the Magic skill, they declare one of the eight schools described above — Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Elemental, Illusion, Necromancy, Restoration, or Transmutation — as their School of Affinity. This declaration is permanent. A School of Affinity is not a curriculum; it is a reflection of the self. It cannot be untrained or swapped out. If the character’s story demands a shift so profound that their inner nature has genuinely changed, this is a matter for the Game Master to adjudicate as a significant narrative milestone, not a mechanical transaction.

### Affinity Benefits

A character with a declared School of Affinity gains the following three benefits, which apply exclusively to spells belonging to their chosen school:

- Reduced Mana Cost. Spells from your School of Affinity cost 1 less Mana to cast (minimum 0) and cannot be stacked with other mana reduction abilities. Your intent within this current of magic flows without resistance; the same effect costs you less of yourself to produce.

- Bonus Spell Stunts. For each spell you know whose listed schools include your School of Affinity, choose one free stunt from that spell’s own listed Spell Stunts. A multi-school spell qualifies if any listed school matches. This affinity-granted stunt is linked to that spell and does not use a general stunt slot.

- Affinity Mana Pool. You gain a separate Mana Pool equal to half your Magic skill (rounded up, minimum 2), usable only on spells from your School of Affinity. This pool refills on a short rest.

### Interaction with Spells of Multiple Schools

Some spells list more than one school (e.g., Illusory Dragon: Conjuration, Illusion). If a spell lists your School of Affinity among its schools, it qualifies for all three Affinity benefits in full.

### Example

Serath is a caster with a Magic skill of +3 (Mana Pool: 9) and a School of Affinity in Necromancy. She also has a separate Affinity Mana Pool of 2, usable only on Necromancy spells.

She casts Finger of Death (Level 5, Mana Cost 5). Because it is a Necromancy spell, it costs her only 4 Mana from her standard pool. She could also draw from her Affinity Pool to cover part of that cost, spending 2 Affinity Mana and 2 standard Mana instead — preserving her standard reserves.

Later, the encounter ends and the party takes a short rest. Serath’s standard Mana pool does not recover, but her Affinity Mana Pool of 2 fully refills — ready to support the next casting of a Necromancy spell.

Spell Knowledge Limits

Characters in ELDRA learn spells following a Tiered Progression based on their Magic skill level. The number of known spells is limited, with higher-level spells being rarer. At each spell level, a character knows one fewer spell than at the level below. For example, a character with a Magic skill level of 3 knows: 1 spell from Level 3, 2 spells from Level 2, 3 spells from Level 1.

Learning Additional Spells: In addition to their base known spells, characters may learn additional spells by:

- Paying a number of Experience Points equal to the spell’s level.

- A character can only learn a number of additional spells this way equal to their Focus skill level.

Training Requirements:

- To learn a new spell (regardless of how it is acquired), a character must first find a magical scroll, inscription, or artifact containing the spell.

- The spell must then be studied and practiced for a number of weeks equal to its level (e.g., a Level 3 spell requires 3 weeks).

Spell Keywords Some spells include one or more keywords that further define how they function:

- Flexible — When you cast a Flexible spell, you may choose to spend additional mana beyond its base cost. The total mana you can spend cannot exceed your Magic skill level. The potency of the spell increases as you spend more mana. Exact scaling is defined in the spell’s entry.

- Concentration — You can only concentrate on one spell at a time. While concentrating, if you take damage, you must make a Focus skill check against half the damage taken (rounded down) to maintain your concentration. Losing consciousness or dying causes concentration to end immediately.

- Ritual — You may cast a spell with the Ritual keyword by spending additional time, usually 10 minutes or more, instead of mana. Ritual casting may offer additional benefits or increased potency, depending on the spell description.

- Elemental — When you cast an Elemental spell, choose one of the following elemental types from the Elemental Damage section.

Spell Format Each spell includes the following:

- Name and Level

- Mana Cost

- Range

- Duration

- Keywords (if any)

- Effect Description

- Optional Upgrades or Stunts

Note: All spellcasters follow the same core casting rules unless their class, stunts, or abilities modify them.