Magic System

Purpose: Magic is the physical act of shaping geometric structures in your soul and forcing raw atmospheric mana through them. This act is called Shaping. Read this chapter as the teaching order for the table: loop → Mana Track → Glyphs → schools → support crafts.

This document defines the live casting grammar, risk engine, and progression framework for Technique Glyph play.

Core Loop & Resolution

Magic runs through the standard PbtA flow: fiction -> move trigger -> fiction.

When you cast structured magic in danger, you trigger Shape the Matrix by declaring:

  • Intent
  • School
  • Technique Glyph
  • Scale (Effect, Range, Area, Duration)
  • Tags

You then roll:

Support School Boundary (Alchemy and Artifice)

Domain Limits by School (Constraint First)

Each core school is defined by limits as much as capability:

  • Projection: Generates force and elemental output.
  • Alteration: Transforms existing matter/states; can't create mass from nothing.
  • Dimensionalism: Rules movement and spatial relations.
  • Divination: Reads patterns, traces, and signals.
  • Illusionism: Shapes perception and deception.
  • Animation: Grants autonomy and behavioral routines.
  • Abjuration: Excels at defense, denial, and containment.
  • Soul Magic: Excels at invasive, identity-level effects.

If an intent violates school constraints, reject it in fiction or require explicit cross-school support and added cost/risk.

Mana Track (Fueling the Matrix)

Your Mana Track is: 4 + highest of (Calculation, Finesse, Willpower)

Typical costs:

  • Trivial: 0 ticks
  • Standard: 1 tick
  • Complex/Hard: 2 ticks
  • Miracle: 4+ ticks (GM sets exact cost by scope/stakes)

If your track is full and you are forced to mark further ticks, each additional mark inflicts 1-Wound.

Technique Glyph Framework

Casting Grammar

All live structured casting uses: Intent -> School -> Glyph -> Scale -> Tags

Technique Glyph Catalog (by role)

Anchor Glyphs — how the spell is delivered or held:

  • Stoss (Burst): impulse release, immediate force, tempo pressure
  • Faden (Thread): continuity, linkage, selective targeting — home schools: Illusionism, Divination
  • Puls (Pulse): rhythmic scans, disruption, pressure waves
  • Hall (Echo): delayed replay, cadence chaining, repeat signatures
  • Gitter (Lattice): linked nodes, distributed structure, networked effects
  • Anker (Anchor): persistence, delayed triggers, tethered effects

Form Glyphs — how the effect manifests:

  • Wacht (Ward): boundary denial, interception, protection
  • Kreis (Ritual): bounded domains, layered sequence, stable scene shaping
  • Siegel (Seal): lock states, closure, anti-tamper containment
  • Spiegel (Mirror): inversion, redirection, reactive counters
  • Fluss (Flow): transfer and conversion of energy/pressure
  • Schleier (Veil): concealment, filtering, signature masking
  • Band (Bind): relational tethering, restraint, synchronized states
  • Hohl (Hollow): suppression pockets, subtractive zones, dampening
  • Schmiede (Forge): durable construction and reinforced magical architecture

Spellcraft Grammar

Players craft spells by arranging the glyphs they have learned — the declaration's Glyph slot holds the glyphs that do the work:

Intent -> School -> [Anchor] + [Form] -> Scale -> Tags

  • Name only the glyphs that do work in the spell. A single glyph is the default; stacks are the exception.
  • Anchor glyphs deliver or hold the effect (burst, thread, pulse, echo, lattice, anchor).
  • Form glyphs shape how the effect manifests (ward, circle, seal, mirror, flow, veil, bind, hollow, forge).
  • You may cast with any combination of glyphs you have access to — an Anchor, a Form, or several of both — the GM uses each glyph's function and risk signature to shape what happens and what goes wrong.
  • No glyph is mandatory. Faden appears in a declaration only when you actually use its threading and continuity.

Worked stacks:

Glyph Stacks

You may shape with more than one technique glyph in a single declaration:

Intent -> School -> [Glyph + Glyph] -> Scale -> Tags

  • Each glyph beyond the first costs +1 Mana Track tick.
  • If your total stacked glyphs exceed your Calculation, you are Pushing the Matrix (the GM may include one overreach consequence in the offered 7-9 pair).
  • You may only stack glyphs you have access to in that school — or via explicit cross-school support, with the usual added cost/risk.
  • Stacked glyphs should make sense together in fiction — the GM applies each glyph's function and risk signature to the result.

Stack examples:

Tiered School Glyph Access

Technique glyph access is school-specific and cumulative. Every core school unlocks Kreis at Tier 2.

Tier 0 grants your school-native starter glyph — where school identity begins. Faden is a normal glyph: it is a Tier 0 starter only in Illusionism and Divination (its home schools); everywhere else it is learned through the normal paths (Decode the Pattern, leads, mentors). No glyph is mandatory in a declaration.

Locked design decision: Abjuration identity pair = Wacht (boundary) + Anker (persistence).

Casting Procedure

Step 1: Declare Intent + School + Glyph

State what you want in fiction, which school you are invoking, and which unlocked technique glyph — or Magic System — you are shaping.

Step 2: Declare Scale

Declare Effect, Range, Area, Duration before rolling. GM sets Mana Track cost.

Step 3: Add Tags and Check Stability

Declare tags that matter in fiction (forceful, restraining, lingering, etc.).

Scale vs Tags: Scale (declared in Step 2) is how much effect — the cost dial (Effect, Range, Area, Duration). Tags are what the spell does beyond its core — augments like forceful, lingering, piercing. Tags are permission-gated by fiction and can push the matrix.

You are Pushing the Matrix when:

  • your tags exceed Calculation,
  • you stack more glyphs than your Calculation,
  • you shape a non-ready glyph in a tense scene,
  • or you exceed tier-safe scope.

On mixed results while pushing, expect hard choices (drop potency, absorb strain, accept instability).

Step 4: Roll Shape the Matrix

Resolve using Shape the Matrix.

Step 5: Between-Scene Stabilization

Use Research Matrix and progression moves to convert unstable field techniques into reliable spell formulas.

Matrix Collapse and Failure

7-9 Consequences (Hybrid Choice)

On a mixed success, the GM offers two fitting consequences (from collapse patterns and current glyph context); the player chooses one.

Baseline collapse menu:

  • Channel Strain: take 1-Wound (2 for catastrophic scale).
  • Structural Bleed: collateral environment harm.
  • Resonant Echo: dangerous attention drawn.
  • Bleeding Signature: persistent hazard tied to current school/glyph.
  • Geometric Blindness: lock out the declared technique glyph for the scene.
  • Monkey's Paw: intent manifests in a literal but harmful interpretation.

6- Hard Moves

On a miss, the GM makes a hard move that follows from:

  • declared school,
  • declared technique glyph,
  • declared scale,
  • and immediate fiction.

In-Fiction Glyph Learning

Technique glyphs are learned through play, not only level-up:

  • mentorship,
  • recovered notes/artifacts,
  • risky self-experimentation,
  • leverage and bargains.

Use the progression framework in Progression for:

Out-of-tier provisional shaping adds exactly one extra pressure source (never multiple from that rule): +1 tick cost, mandatory mixed complication, or temporary instability.

Appendix: Quick Casting Card

Build Declaration

Intent -> School -> Glyph -> Scale -> Tags

Check Fiction + Cost

  • confirm fictional permission and school limits
  • set Mana Track cost from declared scale
  • apply overreach warning if pushing

Roll

Shape the Matrix (+Finesse or +Willpower)

Resolve

  • 10+: clean success and one benefit
  • 7-9: GM offers two fitting consequences; player picks one
  • 6-: hard move from school/glyph/scale fiction

Stabilize Later

Between scenes, codify recurring techniques via Research Matrix and progression moves.

Mastery, Recall, and Advanced Architecture

These rules sit with the Magic System teaching order (not the Magic Moves roster). Live casting still uses Shape the Matrix; clocks and research use Spell Clock and Research Matrix.

Mastered Spells

A Mastered Spell is cast as if always Ready:

  • no non-ready pressure — it never counts as "known but not in your ready set"
  • -1 Mana Track tick (minimum 1)
  • silent, and usable as a combat reaction when the fiction allows (e.g. Deflect Magic)
  • its 7-9 complications come from its written risk signature — predictable and flavorful, not GM roulette
  • no declaration needed — name the spell and roll

Active Recall

You can hold a number of Mastered spells in active recall equal to your Memory. The rest stay in your Grimoire; swapping one in requires a safe, calm moment (library, quiet camp, study session — fiction-gated).

See also: Research Matrix (the downtime shortcut and design-from-scratch path), Shape the Matrix, Ready Glyphs, Grimoire.

Tune a Mastered Spell

When you spend protected study time to make a Mastered spell your own, name the formula and the tune, then spend 1-2 SP (fiction-gated: notes, a mentor, or a lab):

  • shave 1 Mana Track tick off its cost (minimum 1),
  • add or swap one tag permission (e.g. replace Loud with Lingering),
  • rewrite its risk signature toward a complication you prefer to live with,
  • erase one flaw left over from a Provisional Thesis.

Each tune is a preference, not a ladder. The player decides what "better" means for their character. Record each tuned version as a line in the formula's Grimoire note.

See also: Spell Clock, Shape the Matrix, Progression, Study Points and Insights, Ready Glyphs.

Nested Matrix

A Magic Move. Requires Level 5 in any Core Magic School and 1 IP expenditure to unlock.

A Nested Matrix is a compound magical structure in which one complete formula is inscribed within the spatial envelope of another. When the outer formula resolves, that resolution doubles as the geometric trigger that completes the inner formula, and both effects fire in a fixed sequence.

Appearance

To the trained eye, a Nested Matrix is immediately recognizable: the outer ring of a standard formula, and within it, a second complete glyph sequence drawn with perfect proportion to the available interior space. The inner formula's own ring is always slightly thinner, its lines slightly finer — it is contained, not dominant.

To an untrained observer, it simply looks dense. Cluttered. Wrong, in some indefinable way.

Known Examples

  • The Warden Lanterns of the East Hall: Ancient abjuration constructs mounted on the Academy's oldest corridor. The outer formula projects a sustained light field; the inner, triggered by the detection of hostile aura, instantly inverts to a blinding pulse. No modern artificer has successfully reproduced them.
  • The Silthrax Core: Recovered from the soul-matrix of a Class-IV magical beast in the Shattered Reaches. The outer formula suppressed pain; the inner, triggered by the suppression's completion, began autonomic regeneration. A deeply unsettling example of biological Nested architecture.
  • The Archivist's Lock (Academy Vault Seven): A lock that, when triggered open, simultaneously activates an interior illusion to present a false vault. The content of the real vault is unknown to all current faculty.

Architectural Schools

Formal study of Nested Matrix construction once comprised its own discipline at the Academy — Architectonics. The last recorded Architectonics lecturer retired three decades ago. No official curriculum exists. The knowledge lives, scattered, in private grimoires, forbidden annexes, and the minds of mages who do not teach.

This move is not available at character creation and cannot be purchased with SP alone.

To unlock it, a character must: (a) hold Level 5 in at least one Core School, (b) spend 1 IP representing a genuine architectural breakthrough — most often triggered by successfully deciphering a Nested Matrix artifact in the world, and (c) complete a dedicated downtime study session under a willing master-tier mage or equivalent source.

When you dedicate an extended downtime session to inscribing a formula inside another formula, declare:

  • The Outer Matrix (the container that defines scope, trigger condition, and duration)
  • The Inner Matrix (the payload, the secondary effect that fires once the outer is complete)

Both formulas must be ones you have individual mastery of. The Inner Matrix must logically fit within the space that the Outer Matrix defines.

Roll +Calculation:

  • 10+: The geometry locks perfectly. The compound matrix is stable and will hold indefinitely until triggered. The inner activates the moment the outer achieves completion — no additional casting roll required at trigger time.
  • 7-9: The inscription is viable but structurally tense. Choose one flaw:
  • The inner matrix consumes an additional 2 Mana Ticks upon activation (total of compounded cost).
  • The inner matrix fires with one forced Tag chosen by the GM (e.g., Imprecise, Lingering Hazard).
  • The outer matrix is single-use: resetting it requires a full downtime session.
  • 6-: The two formulas violently reject each other during inscription. The materials are destroyed, you take 1-Wound from channel strain, and something in the compound matrix resonates dangerously — the GM makes a Hard Move.

Mana Cost: Activating a Nested Matrix uses the Mana cost of both formulas simultaneously. Plan accordingly.

Scope Note: A Nested Matrix cannot itself contain another Nested Matrix. You have reached the architectural ceiling of what student-tier minds can hold.

See Progression for IP and mastery costs.