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>The Schools of Magic
Within the Esoteric College of Tucson are the Five Schools of Magic
The Fools, also known as Witches, see into the past, future, and destiny of all things. Often caught in their own meta-narrative stories, they can bless a meeting or melee to go their way, or else hex their opposition. Their Icons are the Wheel of Fortune tarot, dice, games of chance, or watches and timepieces.

The Devils, also known as Warlocks, see the magical connections between all things, the sympathies, and mental dispositions of people around them. Other magi are naturally suspicious of rivals that can find your weaknesses and secrets. Their Icons are Temperance tarot, chains, other restraints and even handcuffs.

The Necromancers, also known as Alchemists, see the material composition of the world and the natural decay of everything around them. A grim bunch, they can converse with the dead, pull shadows to do their bidding, and change water into wine… or poison. Their Icons are the World tarot, stone, coins, or other memento mori.

The Thaumaturges, also known as Wizards, see the forces of creation and power all around them. Filled with positively divine purpose, they can conjure fire and electricity from nothing and bring down fortresses with hurricane force winds. Their Icons are the Strength tarot, magical wands, and other symbols of control.

The Shamans, also known as Ecstatics, see the living primal energy pulsing through every living thing. The power of healing, sickness, and beastial control are theirs to grab ahold of. They often live closer to the natural world they keenly understand. They speak to the spirit of things. Their Icons are the Moon tarot, cups, wood, and other placations to nature.

The Others
Not much is known about the other creatures that go bump in the night. Encounters are rare but heavily documented by the Magi that encounter them. Nocturnal Leeches, aka Vampires, appear to be animated corpses that feed on the living. Interviews are short lived and they desire nothing more than to pass through the state towards Nevada or California. The Shapeshifters, aka Werewolves, are also a troubling bunch, obsessed with their claims of people and places, not even allowing the most basic of observations.

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>Character Creation
New players fill out details in their character sheet and post them in their application post. Accepting people as they come. That policy may change according to the number of players.

1) Character Basics.
Name and Concept, simple and easy to understand. You're a mundie that was gifted with magic now enrolled in the Esoteric Collage of Tucson.

2) Favored Attributes.
Choose 2 Attributes that you are naturally more talented in.

3) Knowledges, Skills.
Choose 2 standard Knowledges and 2 standard Skills.

4) School, Icons.
Your school determines what magic styles come easier to you based on the availability of teachers, and background training. School Icons are already determined, however Personal Icons can be anything you desire. At the onset, please choose a primary School, 1 School Icon, and 1 Personal Icon.


Character Sheet
Name:
Concept/Fluff:
Attributes:
Knowledges:
Skills:
School:
Icons:

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>Spellcasting and Magic
Getting anything done with magic is often the most difficult and arduous way of succeeding at a task. However sometimes it's the only way to do the impossible. The ease of any effect that your character wishes to perform is determined by your base Mana, School, relevant Icons, and mundane Knowledges and Skills. There are two methods of spellcasting. The Fire Flinging Evocation. And the ritualistic Thaumaturgy.

Evocation does not require physical Icons however most Mages use them as a tool to focus their will on the universe. The casting time for Evocation only lasts a moment and their effects are usually instant. The limitations for Evocation are that its effects only last for as long as the mage concentrates on it and can only affect targets in line of sight.

Thaumaturgy on the other hand is a slow and meticulous art that heavily relies on Icons. The casting time of these rituals usually lasts at least a few minutes with the more potent spells requiring hours to prepare and cast. On the plus side, their effects are longer lasting and they can incorporate Icons, Knowledges and Skills into the casting roll.

The Schools of magic train their members to observe and manipulate phenomenon of the School's general Craft. A Witch is able to witness small changes of probability within the very near future or very recent past. A Shaman is able to keep their finger on the pulse of a creature's vitals as well as observe the great debate of rain clouds. Whereas a Devil is able to fetter out another person's true emotional aura.

The Target Number of Magical Effects is determined based on the aspect of the Gift being evoked as well as the accompanying modifiers of School, Icon, Skills, and Knowledges. The aspect of Oberservation is the simplest often not requiring a roll unless specific details are queried at a TN of 15. Manipulation is somewhat more tricky requiring a TN of 10. Minor manipulations only require a Minor Success, things such as directing the flow of water or the wind. Major manipulations require a Major Success, things such as knitting flesh back together(or tearing it apart). The apex of most magical effects is Creation which requires a TN of 5 to gain the slimmest of results. The greater the degree of success the more potent and longer lasting the Creation usually is.

>Basic Mechanics
Rolling Mechanics
Actions are resolved using a d20. You want your stats high and your rolls low. Every Action has a Target number that you increase with your own stats such as the Strength Attribute, or Atheltics Skill. Rolling under your Target Number and the amount under determines the relative success of the Action. Rolling your Target Number or 5 less than grants a Minor Success. Rolling 5 to 10 under your Target Number grants a Major Success. While rolling 15 less than your Target Number grants a Great Success.

Failure(rolling over your Target Number) will result in a simple miss. An attempt was made, there is a negligible change, or you might be able to retry again based on the circumstances of the Action at a more difficult TN. Rolling higher by 5 or more may grant penalties and difficulties.

>Anchor Post for Character Applications

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>>5096662

The Magician seems particularly excited about accepting Commons as her volunteer. Commons could infer that she felt extremely confident showcasing her illusions to a strange more than once a day. His own Craft and sight gave some insight into the deception. The divine Truth penetrated all such falsehoods. If that were so, why volunteer? To observe the illusion more closely? To shatter it utterly within his own reality? Maybe it was satisfied smile of the performer or simply to be apart of the spectacle.

Stepping up to the performance stage, Commons had full view of the audience. His eagle eyes could see an empty table, dishes and plates picked clean of steak and cheese. Elsewhere a couple stealing a kiss under the cover of darkness before turning their gaze back to the show. The bored hostess at the front of the restaurant resting her elbows on the reservation stand. He couldn't smell the kitchen, but imagined that the steam pouring out the free handing doors smelled like freshly prepared vegetables.

The Magician grabbed Commons attention by giving out some instructions. She handed Commons the white-tipped wand and told him to wave it before the umbrella she held close to her body at the widest part of her profile. From Commons perspective, he could see that her stance and grip on the umbrella allowed the slimmest of gaps for her sleight of hand to work. From a hidden pocket, she conjured another umbrella behind the first. She repeated the trick several times leaving the stage littered in small rainbow weather protectors. A small wink from the Magician kept Commons silence for the moment.

Commons was kept onstage for one last trick of the night. Before they began that last flame dancing finale, Commons felt the world shift. His vision tilted to a strange angle and his sense of magical energy drew thin wispy threads of light. He felt like he was standing on a leyline that sprang out of thin air. The Magician held her head in distress but was determined to continue the performance. Twirling twin sparklers, she was oblivious to her illusion becoming all too real and starting a bonfire.

>Protect yourself, Protect others, Protect Secrecy?

>>5100421
>>Peter Commons
>>Name: Peter "Pete" Commons
>>Attributes: +2 Intelligence, Wits
>>Knowledges: Academics, +2 Investigation
>>Skills: Firearms, +2 Intimidation
>>School: Wizard
>>Icons: Wooden Wand, +2 Red Hemp Rope
>>Bonus: [With the Dawn], [Frown Upside Down]

If you do not go to magic, the magic will go to you, Peter supposed, as he pondered how to put out the flames before anyone got turned into a living torch.

A measured application of wind, a counter fire, snapping off the sparklers, and similar thoughts rushed through his mind, until he settled on a school specialty: dispelling.

The leyline imbued the flames with magic, so a broad, generalist dispel should keep them to acceptable levels. Anything more specific would run the risk of being affected by the leyline in unforeseen ways. Simple, maybe a bit brutish, but maybe just what was needed here instead of staying on the defensive.

>Defend ? No, attack.
>Cast a "brute force"/"full stop" dispel: forcibly put a sudden stop to any and all magic spells in the area.
>If unavailable, attempt to specifically dispel the flames.

I have also taken the liberty of archiving thread 1 on sup/tg/, qst section. It's standard procedure for quests, as it is a bit more specific than a standard board recorder.

>>5101192
Choose an Icon for Evocation and roll Dispel

>>5095094
Alice froze, The Man Out of Time was right there, floating without a care in the world. What did it mean? Had she accidentally killed an innocent man defending his property against her anachronistic projection into the past due to some timey-wimey bullshit? Was he just a ghost? She was interrupted from her confusion when the fuzzy dice she was twirling slipped off her finger and she was forced into an impromptu juggling act in front of the Stormchaser.

After her embarrassing comedy act ended with Alice performing a dramatic hop to catch the dice she'd knocked into the air at an oblique angle - just narrowly avoiding knocking over an end table - she gave an the old Fool an embarrassed smile and asked, "Last question for now, I promise. Do you know anything about this man?" Leaning in close again she showed him the photo the Lawyer had sent her.

~*~

Having received her answer, Alice left to go pay a visit to the Library of Providence. She had thought about going home to complete her ritual, after all if the Man Out of Time was related to this somehow then it stood to reason that divining the knowledge regarding the guns she'd recovered from the would-be time capsule the time-travelling cowboy was guarding would turn up something useful regarding this mystery. The Lawyer had said that they'd required a Witch's divinations specifically, not another book-reader. Or the ritual could sidetrack her completely as she delayed this Phantom Bells mystery to pursue the red thread of fate through the sweltering heat, bustling streets, and the possibly literal mists of time. No, she could do that afterwards if her research proved not to be fruitful.

The thought had occurred to her to simply visit the church, but she had the feeling that paying a visit might put a timer on her, both to solve the mystery and on her life. Plus, what would she do there? See if the bells were back? Shoot the Man Out of Time again for old time's sake? No, that would be a last resort for if she couldn't figure out what to do. For now, it was time to read some books, Alice could only hope the elderly Wizard that managed this collection of esoteric knowledge wasn't anything like the Lawyer. She'd only just got done killing a ghost, she'd hate to have to assist another old soul off this plane of existence.

>Ask the Stormchaser if he knows anything about the Man Out of Time.

>Head to the Library of Providence.

Name: Alice Mason
Attributes: Dexterity, +2 Charisma
Knowledges: Academics, +2 Larceny
Skills: +2 Firearms, Persuasion
School: Witch
Icons: +2 Dice, Sage
Boons: [Dramatic Reveal]. A Truth has been occulted, but will reveal itself in time. Remove this condition to succeed the Seeing ritual on the looted guns

>>5101810
Roll: Reading the Books
TN 16 = 15(Easy) +1(Academics)

Rolled 13 (1d20)

>>5101770
>Icon: Wand
>Rolling Dispel

Rolled 17 (1d20)

>>5101916

>>5102580
Now that is embarrassing...

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>>5101810

The Stormchaser takes a moment before answering. He turns off the projector and rubs the bridge of his nose in a worrisome gesture. "Him," the word came out of a very tired voice, "He is something of doppelganger that has lost its fetter. The Bells record people, places, things and echoes them over time. It isn't content with reruns forever. This man was Jessie Jones who died in a gunfight back in 1882. His corpse rests in graveyard of the Fort. He's a phantom that tends to wander. Bad thing is the more he wanders the further he spreads the Bells' curse. I talk like the Bells or this doppelganger are people. They aren't, but sometimes its easier to rest if you personify the mystery just abit."

The Library of Providence was held in the private estate of an elder Wizard. Wizard business always being a formal affair, she was lectured at length about sticking to the library itself and not wandering the building. Crossing the threshold from the corridor into the library proper, Mason was somewhat taken aback by the spectacle. Within this chamber bookshelves covered the walls and raised high into the second story without interruption. Two long tables occupied the central study area. They must have measured ten meters each. Resting on each one were dozens of books, tomes, journals, haphazardly arranged and yet purposeful in its inclusion. According to Mason's Witchy senses, everything she would need to start had already been pulled from the shelves. However if she decided to ride on the sliding hook ladders and served the upper shelves, its not like anyone was around to scold her. The room seemed to be soundproof because she failed to hear a thing after the doors closed behind her.

As the day wore on and she read dozens and dozens of pages, Mason was able to confirm much of what she already knew. Digging deeper into the mystery proved more opaque than she realized. Minutes and even hours past without much progress beyond confirming what she already knew. The Phantom Bells have been ringing from the Santa Cruz Church since 1918. The periods of activity are usually bound by a few months and then periods of silence usually a decade length. They herald a person's death by their doppelganger's appearance. One particular manifestation of the future dead included the whole circle of Cactus Wren.

Flipping through some pages, Mason found an old photo of a younger Stormchaser surrounded by a dozen faces in a group. Many of these people were marked out in thick black lines, an accompanying note marked them dead. It seems as if they came together to Silence the Bells. However bad blood between members erupted into deadly violence. They never silenced the bells but believed that mages past had done so. They were certain that it required the Thaumaturgy of a Witch but were unsure of the material components. One hastily written message in the margin read, "Divination within Divination."

>Search the Shelves, Theorycraft, Wander the Estate, GTFO?

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>>5101192

Reaching into his coat pocket, Commons tossed the white tipped prop in favor of his personalized wand. On stage the Magician began to glow in the mind's eye, the true sight of magic behind retina. She shone with a light brighter than an angel's halo or a supernova star. In a flash, Commons was blinded and yet saw through all illusions. The patterns and free flowing energies around Commons was his to control, was his to command, by both rights divine and inherent. In hand, Commons pointed his wand at the nexus of energies that threaten to burn. As the energies churned like a wild river, Commons was a stoic rock in the stream, making wakes all around himself. He spoke the words of power, which only the Magi themselves can understand or even hear with their ears.

All this happened in an instant, less than the blink of an eye. And in the next blink, the wild energies Commons dispelled fired away harmlessly into the atmosphere. However a core of the magical evocation retained enough cohesion to manifest. It burned less fiercely, but it burned all the same. From the ends of the Magician's twin sparklers arched a gout of flame. The top hat of her costume caught aflame as well as the shoulder of the arm holding the hat. She screamed in alarm tossing the the hat to the ground and slapping at the flames covering her arms in ineffectual panic. From backstage, a large man with a round gut rushed the performer with a thick blanket, throwing it around her shoulders and forcing her to the ground. All the while the audience were alternatively bringing out their cameras or calling for help. Commons for his part, smartly stepped away backstage as to keep his recorded presence to a minimum.

Over the next few minutes first responders arrived at the scene and most of the restaurant goers elected to leave. Commons could imagine the kind of carnage such wild magic could have caused without his intervention. In his imagination he saw the roof collapsing from structural impact and raging fires. The human cost he compartmentalized, so grim an idea that was. The Magician was rolled out onto a stretcher about to disappear to hospital. Commons caught her eyes. She was slipping into a fugue state. She focused on things she choose to focus on. She was aware of elements only the magi sense. She had discovered real magic. And Commons had witnessed it firsthand. Surely this was another case in the influx of magi that was the impetus for forming the College. Commons only had a few moments before she was carted off to receive treatment. He could possibly speak a few words.

>Advise, Console, Report Back, GTFO?

>>5103256

Peter's brain was afire with theories. Being a firsthand witness to the awakening of magic was... just about the last thing he had expected out of tonight. To be able to observe the phenomenon from an experienced and out side point of view had given him much food for thought.

Already he was concocting theories, rewinding those brief moments of instinctual movement that had just prevented a disaster, destroyed a woman's world and opened her eyes to the next.

He longed to go back to the library and report on this, put his thoughts and as many of his memories of the event to paper before they vanished into the night. But first, there was one thing he had to do.

He took out a pen and a piece of paper, writing down his name, the addresses of the College's most public places, where one could waltz in even if they were not a recognized mage. Above that, he simply wrote: "If you seek answers, go there and tell them I sent you. They will call for me."

A process he was familiar with, for having been on the other end once before.

After some hesitation, he also wrote "Get well soon." on the bottom of the paper. Childish, maybe, but he did feel somewhat responsible for her getting the short end of the magic stick.

He went up to her and spoke briefly as he put the paper in her good hand: "I'm sorry. This isn't your fault. Things will be very different from now on. Hold onto this paper until you heal if you want answers."

This done, he disappeared into the night. College first, then home. He figured more than a few people would be interested in looking the stage over as soon as possible, in hopes of gleaning more answers. He couldn't blame them.

He would also tell the College's reception and security to watch out for the Magician when she would inevitably come in. But that could be done in the morning.


>Exchange a few words and a piece of paper
>Report back to the College
>Write down details about the event to preserve them

>>5103447
>>Write down details about the event to preserve them

>>5103447
>>Exchange a few words and a piece of paper

>>5103513
>>5106114
Guys, this isn't a normal quest where you choose prompts, this is a roleplay. See the first thread. You have to sign up to participate.

>>5103513
>>5106114

hit the anchor post for character apps

Post Example:

Character Sheet

Body of Post

>Action Summary

>>5100406
Is this dead?

A shame. A good quest with an interesting system.
Was it the drop off in players that caused you to drop it, QM ?
I'll archive this in a few days like I did the first thread. If you want to start it back up in a while, I'll most likely be there.
Good luck out there and have fun, QM !

>>5126347
Thanks for archiving it Pete. See you on the other side.

>>5129798
Personally, I blame Alice