Now we will be dealing with magic. Although magic is used and obtained like skills and is a part of the skills system, due to it’s complexity, differences, and overall size, magic was given its own sub-section. Here we will focus only on magic, how magic works with the skills system, and list the many different magic spells available.

The Fundamentals of Magic

Before you can even begin to understand how magic works in Legends of Nor’Ova, you need to forget all that you think you know about magic. Magic in Legends of Nor’Ova is very different from magic found in other games, movies, books, and the like. Therefore you will need to read over this section very carefully and familiarize yourself with how magic works in Legends of Nor’Ova, even if you do not plan on using magic yourself. You never know when your character will have to deal with magic and you will want to have a good understanding of how magic works.

To better understand magic, it is important to understand these key points, Magic is Natural, Magic is a Skill, and Magic is Not a Skill.

• Magic is Natural: In Legends of Nor’Ova, magic is treated as a natural ability in which everyone has access to. Magic is simply the result of manipulating the runic elements of the game world and producing an effect. Since everything that lives and breathes or has lived is tied to a runic element, anyone and any creature can find ways of manipulating their element and producing magic. However you can only manipulate the element that you are connected to. If your character’s runic element is earth, then you can not hope to learn pyromancy (fire magic). You may be able to learn spells from other elements from rune stones however.

• Magic is a Skill: One of the important things about magic in Legends of Nor’Ova that makes it so different from magic found elsewhere is that magic is part of the skills system. You would obtain magic spells just like you would obtain skills, by gaining levels and choosing spells along side your skills. Everyone gets to choose some spells as they level up, but Runic Mages get to obtain more spells. Magic Spells cost Soul and you can only use 1 spell action like you can with skills. There are no spell components to keep track of, unless you go into sorcery, or complicated foreign magic words to remember to use a magic spell. You simply use them like you would any other skill.

• Magic is Not a Skill: In as many ways as magic spells are like skills, they are also different from normal skills. While you can learn and choose from any type of skill as long as you meet the skill’s prerequisites, that is not the case with magic spells. With magic spells you are limited to choosing spells from your runic element. Also spells are most likely to take longer to use than normal skills, and are often more costly. Magic spells are also categorized differently than regular skills. However the largest difference between magic and skills is that along side of magic spells you also have minor elemental manipulations.

What Are Minor Elemental Manipulations?

Minor Elemental Manipulations is quickly manipulating your element to produce a weak magical effect. There may be instances when you do not want to cast a full magic spell, like say you want to light a camp fire or a torch. If your character’s runic element is fire, you would have access to massive fire spells, but all of them would be too costly and too powerful to just light a simple torch or camp fire. You would be more likely to catch yourself or your friends on fire. Instead, this would be a great time to make a minor elemental manipulation. With very small effort your character could pull just enough fire from your element to light the camp fire or torch. The best part of it all is that minor elemental manipulations are so quick and easy to do that they don’t use any of your battle actions. So lighting that torch didn’t slow you down in the least bit. Everyone is born under a runic element and everyone has that natural potential to use magic.

How to Use Minor Elemental Manipulations

There is no definitive listing for all the possible minor elemental manipulations you can preform. There are just so many possibilities that what you can and can’t do is only limited to your imagination and your magical power. You simply only need to describe what you want to try to achieve with your minor elemental manipulation and your GM will check to see if your character has enough power to preform it. Let’s say for example that your character’s runic element is earth. Your character falls off of a steep cliff to his certain death. There is no float magic for geomancy. Instead, you decide to make a minor elemental manipulation and pull upon your earth element just enough that the ground becomes soft so that even though it will still hurt when you land you will at least still be alive. If you hadn’t thought ahead and made such a minor elemental manipulation you would be spending the next few hours creating a new character.

So you may be thinking, what are the limits to minor elemental manipulations, if there are any? There are some restrictions that you will need to keep in mind, and they are all listed below.

• A Minor Elemental Manipulation cannot replicate an existing spell. You cannot use minor elemental manipulations to try to preform a weaker version of an existing spell, however you can use an existing spell to give you and idea. For example, you cannot expect to hover and half the height as with the Float spell, however you can use a similar effect to cause you to fall gracefully feet first or to jump just a bit farther.

• A Minor Elemental Manipulation cannot be used to heal, do damage, affect armor, or any other major effect.There are spells and skills that do those things. However you could, for example, make a minor water elemental manipulation to increase the effects of a potion or healing spell, or to speed the healing of a wound.

Minor Elemental Manipulation Effects Can Be Sustained

One feature that you have with minor elemental manipulation that you do not have with traditional spells is that their effects can be made to last longer than just for an instant. In other words, they can be sustained. All you would need to do to keep up the manipulation’s effects is to continuously pump in Soul points. You will need to pump in half of the points that you used to create the effect for every round or minute you want the effect to last. So if you used 10 Soul to create the effect you will need to spend 5 Soul for every round or minute you keep up the effect.

Lets say your character’s runic element is fire. You walk into a pitch black room and realize that you have no lantern or torch. No worries, with a minor elemental manipulation, you can create a small glowing ember that gives off a small glow lighting up the area around you. But keeping that glow up for a second isn’t going to help you navigate the dark room, so you decide to keep the glowing ember within the palm of your hand, spending a small amount of Soul for each minute that you need the light for.

Now not every effect can be sustained. You will need to ask the GM if the effect you are wanting to keep going can be sustained or not before doing so.

Environmental Effects on Magic

Due to the fact that elemental magic is elemental, the environment can play an effect on the magic you are casting. If the environment has a larger amount of your element present, your magic will be stronger. If the environment has a lesser amount of the element you are casting, your element will be weaker. If the element present in your environment is about average, then there would be no change.

Gaining Magic Spells

You would gain magic spells similar to how you gain skills. When you gain a level you may be able to choose a spell. It will depend upon the level awards for your level. Once you have acquired a spell, you will fill in the bubble on the spell block on your magic type spell progression page, and record the spell information on your spell page of your character sheet.

You do have to make certain that the spell is in your runic element and runic affinity family. For example, you cannot obtain a water spell if you are earth, and you cannot obtain a nature spell if you are stone, at least not without a rune stone.

Runic Element & Runic Affinity

Your runic element is simply the elemental sphere that you are connected to through your runic soul. If you are born under the runic element of fire, then you can access any fire magic spell.

Your runic affinity is which part of the runic element you are stronger connected to. For example, if you have the runic element of fire, you will have an affinity to either flame or light. If your affinity is to flame, then you only have access to flame affinity spells. Likewise if your affinity is light, you only have access to light affinity spells.

Learning A Spell Through Rune Stones

You can of course learn magic through rune stones. There is a unique advantage to doing so, mainly that you can learn a spell from any element and affinity that you are not weak against. So if you are of the fire element you could not learn any water magic, even with a rune stone, however you could learn air magic. You could also learn light affinity spells when you are of the flame affinity through rune stones. These spells are learned the same way, you choose them among your spell choices if you have the rune stone that has them.

Using Magic Spells

In order to use a spell, you must have the spell and declare that you are using it. Meaning that if you want to use the level 1 Visual Distortion spell, you need to have it and say that you are using it. You also need to make its check, much like with a skill. The major difference here is that spells will come with a challenge rating as part of their check. For example, Grounding may have an Easy Arcana Check whereas Crater may have an Impossible Arcana Check. You would then apply the effect and stat cost. For easy reference, the checks are as follows:

• Easy Check: must roll 5 or higher
• Normal Check: must roll 10 or higher
• Hard Check: must roll 15 or higher
• Impossible Check: must roll 20 or higher

When using magic you also have a casting speed. The casting speed tells you in how many rounds a normal person would take to cast that spell. The higher up the spell chain, the higher the casting speed. If you have a casting speed of 3 and the spell you are casting has a casting speed of 4, the spell will not take place until your next turn.

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