Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Modernist spell schools of the nine rivers


To construct a school of magic, one requires three elements.

-First, a source of divinity, which is comprised of divine information (which spells are made from, and can be called the "Words of God", though some argue a more accurate metaphor would be "the genetic information contained in the shed skin of God"), and a source of divine energy (in other worlds, mana/MD, the food for spells).
-A resonant base, which is a tendency for things to be a certain way. You can either use the story of a God, as the universe is constructed from their whims, the independent tendencies of the universe you inhabit, or the story of a species and how things have turned out in the past for them. 
-A reliable way to train people to share a mindset and knowledge base that leads to their magic developing in the same way as yours did, and a way to shape their soul to collect mana. 
This one is the easiest in terms of total work needed, as it takes dozens of years instead of thousands to billions, but it is also the hardest, since nobody has gone and done the work for you yet. 

Witchcraft and the traditional form of magic.
Witchcraft, also known as contracted magic relies on receiving the ability to cast magic as a blessing from the divine. Usually this is through a payment of souls or favours, though many strange spirits and demons may choose to give it to you unprompted, unremunerated, and naturally without your consent. 
For the first few centuries of human habitation within the nine rivers, this was the only way to become a mage. 

The details on cultist and noble subcultures are beyond the scope of this post. Hopefully I will get around to making posts on both, since there is little a rpg blog reader desires more than a list of weird noble houses and secret societies. 
 
Monastic traditions. 
As mentioned, the tendencies of divinity are one of the best resonant sources, and often you have access to religious texts on the works of the agents of divinity. The first magical schools therefore came from monasteries, who focused on independently aligning yourself with the works of a god in order to be able to recreate the miracles of their prophet through the use of magic. 
The two schools I have posted in the past, those of Divine commandment and primordial creation stem from this tradition, and their practice is closely associated with the adherents of their associated Gods. 
 
Modernist traditions. 
Modernist magic are artificially created, starting with a use case and working backwards to find the best resonant base to use. Modernist thought has infected nearly every spell school, as many monastic students read the material put out by and implement pragmatist variations into their work. 

The first modernist schools originates in the city of Udin Zaratin, with the precursor to force magic being assembled based on records stolen from the memory bank stolen from the architects. 
Udin Zaratin held a 85 year reign as the capital of the empire before being destroyed during the cataclysm. Despite being caught near directly near the emergence of the 6th sun, it was kept largely intact by the heroic efforts of the mages residing within. 
This is no doubt greatly appreciated by the wyrm host which has since made the city its hive. 
 
Wizard soul anchor morphology.  
Soul anchors, are, by and large, ridiculously convoluted in terms of spiritual morphology.
As artificial anchors, wizard anchors are blessedly simple (at least in their shared elements, once you start bolting more deltas onto them, then its over), being comprised of a series of cavities and channels.
The first is the mana collector, which allows a mage to extend their spiritual surface area such that they absorb as much magic as a creature ten thousand times their size (which is still not all that much). 
The second is a spell hive, which stores spells, and slowly breeds more as you accumulate knowledge from the outside world. These resemble a series of long hexagonal tubes, each storing a single spells. 

If you don't know what a soul anchor is, mechanically its basically a class, and lore wise its an extension of your body into a fourth dimensional pocket dimension (warriors and soul mages literally have additional organs tucked away there). 

Mechanical notes

-These are intended for any GLoG mage class, though I do have my own here
-A spell having a * next to it means it takes two combat rounds to cast it. 
-Free actions can be resolved outside your turn, and interrupt other actions.
-Thaums are the same of magic dice, and are the diegetic unit of measurement. You could say "this will use 3 thaums of mana", and it would be grammatically equivalent to "this will use 3 litres of water". 

Force magic

When force magic was created, it was specifically designed such that it would latter spawn more specialized sub schools. Its adherents are myriad and unconstrained by border or creed, but remain concentrated amongst the academic classes. 
Modernist force mages are stereotyped as irreverent, intelligent, and egotistical. If old they are considered archaic, and if young they are considered bohemian. 
This is amongst other mages of course, for most people, if they even have opinions on modernist mage subcultures, it will be concerning on if you are a cultivator or a civil servant. 

The legacy of this illustrious school is both damned and redeemed by the second largest group of force mages, that being the followers of the burning horizon. Old Emperor Zaratin was a solar monarch and a slave to Horizon after all.  

Cantrip - Lock: Spatially lock a small object, that object only moves when you cast this spell again. 


Ability - Light: Whenever you cast a spell, you may choose to change the frequency of the waste heat to visible, producing dim light for [dice] hours. 


Spells

 

Push (3m): Apply [sum] knockback or pull worth of force to an object/creature. This can be used to accelerate or slow down projectiles by that much physical damage instead. 


Force shield (3m): Spatially locks air in a 2x1m plane for 1 hour, shield has [sum]*2hp, automatically moves with the target, and (if cast on a mage) can be rotated around them 1/round as a free action. 


Distortion blast (90m): [sum] force, anti material, ignores all damage resistance or reduction. 


Redirect (free action) (3m): Change the direction of all remaining movement of a [dice]*6 medium slot jumping, falling or forcefully moving creature. 


Shatter (6m): Break a [dice] small slot object, dealing [sum] damage and deafening everyone in a [dice]*3m radius.


Conductivity (touch): [sum] cubic meters of solids become electrically and thermally conductive for [sum] rounds. Any damage which hits it is instead applied evenly to every creature touching it. 

This spell can be used in reverse to convert all lightning damage that hits an area into heat, and all heat into kinetic energy. This does not transmit it to others. 


Haste (touch): Double speed, all mental actions can be spent as physical actions, all weapons gain multiattack. 

After [dice]rounds, the spell ends. Can only affect a medium or smaller creature. 


Energy conversion (free action) (3m): Convert [dice]*50 points of physical or elemental damage into another type of physical or elemental damage. 


Flicker (touch): Physical or elemental hits you deal or take must be saved or get negated, once [dice] hits are negated the spell ends.

In addition you may move through solid surfaces up to [dice]m thick as a movement action, but will instantly drop to negative max hp if you try to phase through a wall thicker than your capacity. 


Local down (3m): Choose a flat surface, all objects within [dice]m cube count that surface as their local gravitational down for [sum] rounds. 


Palisade* (3m): Spatially lock a [sum]m square plane of space, the shield breaks after sum^2 physical damage is dealt to it. 


Phantasm*: On the first turn of casting, a [dice]THD, [dice]m diameter hemisphere of force, wide end away from the caster on the first turn is manifested. 

On the second turn, it rushes forward [sum]m, carrying any targets in its path and dealing [sum]*2 physical damage.

 

If a target is pinned against a wall by this spell and is smaller than the diameter of the cage, it slams around them, automatically preventing all physical movement until it is destroyed. 

At the start of the next turn, everyone within the cage takes [sum]bleeding/physical damage, and it dissipates. 


While the first part of the spell can be used as a shield, it only interacts with kinetic energy/physical damage. 


Quantum superposition
(self): You make two copies of yourself, which can move, and perceive the world independently for [dice] rounds. Once one attacks, applies significant force to an object, casts a spell, or takes damage, the other disappears.


War magic

War magic is the prized school of the first legion, a offshoot of force magic, and tool specifically made to remove any and all obstacles or complications an army could face. 
Its first two victims ended up being the adherents of its progenitor. With its inaugural deployment being on six day war and the imperial massacre of its nominally much larger and stronger rival. 
As both concession and form of mockery, Zaratin was made the imperial capital a day before its conquest. 

War mages are stereotyped as career oriented sociopaths, or their often strange children, who are the products of being shoved into a warmind academy at the age of six.
Over the years, a parallel society has formed around these ignoble scions. Spending the first thirty years of your life and making all your formative connections amongst other children of generals certainly has a certain impact.

Benefit: War mages counterspell with twice as much sum.

Drawback: You no longer feel anger, sadness, fear or regret. You have great difficulty determining what other people are thinking. You cannot learn any mind magic or divination spells. 


Cantrip: Reflect projectile (3m): Reflects the next projectile that enters the range and fires it back at the assailant. Can be keyed to only activate on projectiles that fit a certain description (such as damage threshold, direction or damage type). Can only reflect projectiles with [Currently exhausted dice]x10 damage or less. This is based on the kinetic damage components of shells, not their detonations. 


Cantrip: Extract value (touch): A corpse has their equipment removed and sorted by value, laid neatly next to them. Then a medium creature worth of flesh are separated into base components. The humours automatically flow into any nearby containers, the skin unwinds, tans itself and then rolls itself up. The meat cures itself and the undesirables bury themselves. 


Spells


Distortion blast (90m): [sum] force, anti material, ignores all damage resistance or reduction. 


Force shield (3m): Spatially locks air in a 2x1m plane for 1 hour, shield has [sum]*2hp, automatically moves with the target, and (if cast on a mage) can be rotated around them 1/round as a free action.  


Excavate* (6m): Move [sum] cubic meters of earth by [dice]m each. 


Detonate lungs (Touch): Deals [sum]*2 internal force damage and [dice] exhaustion. The target must have lungs. 


Sonar pulse: [sum]x10m sphere, see the presence of medium objects and creatures, and the general shape of larger objects and creatures. Requires earth or water to transmit, rangex10 in water. 


Smoking mirror (3m): Lasts [sum] hours, [dice] targets become shrouded in cloaks of gray fog. They gain +[sum] dr to spiritual damage, and concealment against ranged attacks. In addition, they become blind (all types of sight including omniception), invisible and immune to divination, memetics and mental strain. 


Mages arsenal (3m): 

Levitate [sum] tiny or [dice] small objects/creatures, you may throw one at a point within 120 meters as an action, up to twice per turn. 

You may draw the ordnance from an extradimensional space or physical storage within 3m for free as a part of the action. 


Heat metal (sight): Heat a piece of metal, dealing [sum] fire damage to anything in contact with it every round for a minute.  


Steal detonation (3m): Transfer a detonation of up to [sum]^2 damage into an extremely heavily time dilated dimension. At any point, you may put it back anywhere within 9m by spending 3ap, and set a delay of up to [dice]turns. 

This has a 1/12 chance of automatically happening prematurely whenever you take spiritual damage or fall to 0hp. 

For practical reasons, this is usually used as a held action. This spell does not give any obvious tells it is being prepared. 


Dark age*: [sum]^2 m cone, all explosives detonate, all gunpower becomes inactive for 1 minute. 


Imbue malice* (3m). Choose an aerosolized toxin or toxic gas. For [sum] minutes, it gains sentience with [dice] times human intelligence. It can move at [sum]m per round and has actions as a human.

In addition, whenever it kills something with significant sentience, the duration doubles.

At 3+ dice, it has [dice] mage hands. 


Shaped charge fireball* (120m): [sum]*2 piercing/force/fire, anti-material, [dice]m line. 


Soul magic

Soul magic is the most vaunted and cherished form of magic. Nearly every civic mage who *can* become one, does. This is due to the unbelievable quantities of money one can make operating as a soul surgeon. 

Soul magic is a splinter school from an ancient and widespread monastic school practiced by the followers of the sublimation. A concerted effort by an international coalition of mages has nearly eradicated all mentions of it from official records, save for one: 
All soul mages swear a soul oath to kill any follower of the older form of magic, and to commit suicide should they encounter one but fail to eradicate them. This oath also forbids them from spreading any information 

The followers of Tajkan - Ur still practice a form of soul magic descended from this original form, though they have taken great pains to subtly alter it so that it is not identical. 
As a result, their transfigurations are altered with seams of black tar like material coating all layers. Repeated use causes their skin to yellow and their hair to split and grow into a thin, patchy coat of off white feathers.
If you are curious of the reason for your oath, it is not forbidden to find out, and they do not suffer from the same restriction you do. 


Ability: Pursuit of inner perfection: Whenever you would gain a spell from synthesis, you may instead choose to learn a skill, and vice versa. 

In addition, only soul mages may practice soul magic unless otherwise stated. 

Ability: 1/round, when you cast a soul mage spell, you may use transfiguration as a free action. 

Ability: Your unarmed attacks have a base damage of 5


Cantrips

-Soulsight: See the location of any souled creature within 12m, if you have seen a technique or spell before, you may know that they have it by looking at their soul. You may also ask your DM for a general description of what their soul looks like. 

-Fleshcraft: Make alterations to the appearance and health of body parts. This is an extremely difficult skill and takes hours to perform. Senior soul mages almost exclusively practice this skill, as well as transfiguration, as even centuries of practice is insufficient to reach complete mastery of flesh craft. 

Can heal most injuries given enough time (1hp every minute). One 1 max hp every 12 hours (requires 500s worth of medication. A minimum of an anaesthetic and soul agent such as silver is required). Can also be used for disguising or cosmetic surgery for the most skilled flesh crafters.  

-Filial: At the start of your turn, as a free action you may switch any item made of human souls you are touching into any form they can be made of the same type. For example you could have a soul sword become a soul spear, but not become an extradimensional storage. 


Spells


Transfiguration (Self): Transform yourself to add one of these features, untransform after a rest or at will. You may layer multiple uses of this spell, but not multiple of the same feature. 

-Strength: +[dice] strength 

-Mass expansion: +[dice] strength, step up size, become immobile, gain [sum]+[sum] temp hp. 

-Spines: Any enemies within [dice]m take [sum] piercing with Impale.

On further rounds, if a target ends their turn in close combat with you, they take [sum] piercing damage, and they are unable to separate themselves from you so long as the spines stay embedded.  

-Natural weapon: Gain a [dice] small slot basic melee weapon with soul damage as a free slot integrated weapon.  

-Expand lungs: Gain [sum]x lung capacity, good for swimming, yelling and blowing gusts of wind.  

-Bone armor: Gain defense as plate and [sum] temporary HP.

-Additional sensory organ: You double an existing natural sense, or gain a new one. 

-Additional mobile organ: +6m of one type of speed, or 6 in a new one. 


Soulsmithing

Allows the manufacturing of soul items. This uses: 

-1 human soul

-3 thaums. 

-1 downtime action

-5000s of silver thread 


Wave of mutilation: [sum] slashing in a [sum]m cone. 

Medium or smaller targets save vs [dice] dismemberment.

Take [dice] damage as high pressure nails and teeth emerge from your fingertips.


Outflow (touch): Heal [sum]*3. Target must save or take [dice] soul damage. 


Parasitism (touch): Inflict [sum] necrotic damage or [dice] soul damage and heal a target within 3m by that much. 


Transmute blood (touch): Convert [sum]L of blood (must be outside the patient) to acid, gasoline, water or sugar. A bleeding target with their blood transmuted to acid will take damage equal to the necrotic damage they have already taken. 


Tracker (touch): Implant a tracker in a soul. You constantly see the tracker as a small dot in your vision which stays the same size regardless of distance. 

The tracker stores a record of the experiences the host experienced while parasitized, which can be recovered by spending a few minutes extracting it from the soul in a surgical operation. Can be done in d3 turns at the cost of dealing d3 soul and 2d6 necrotic damage. 

Specific analysis from a very high level spellcaster will reveal the presence of the tracker, it is otherwise undetectable. 

If it is detected, even elementary soul magic can remove it. 


Demonsmithing: 

Similar to soulsmithing but much more difficult. It requires: 

-[Item small slots] human souls. 

-1 trapped demon,or one or more kilograms of divine flesh. 

-1 downtime action

-2000s per magnitude of the demon, and 5000s per slot the item occupies in small slots. 


A demonic item counts as a unfused host for the demon, and must follow rules for suitable hosts.

In addition, a mundane human may only wield or carry in any way 1 demonic item. A lich or savant (with member of the court) may wield 2. 


Divine or demonic items:

Choose one of the following forms.


1: A divine organ 

2: A magic weapon/armor/item of the rank [magnitude/2]. For example a magnitude 3 or 4 demon would make a +2 item. Usually these items should be custom. You may replace magnitude with [kg of divine flesh used]. You cannot make a weapon greater than +5, but you can make a +5 upscaled weapon with twice the raw materials. 

3: A soul item with one number doubled. 


Spiritual cavity (Touch): Choose one mind slot inside a souled creature, that mind slot can now contain organs (as in body slots). 

As a free action at the start of your turn, you can swap an organ stored within the mind slot with one stored in a body slot, and vice versa (you can also select empty slots). 

Only soul mages or homunculi can benefit from the effects of these organs while they are stored within the mind slot. 

Only physiological and neurological organs provide benefits and drawbacks in this way. Structural or sensory organs such as bones, muscles, armor, eyes and the such do not. 


Withdrawal (3 MD) (free action): Your body pulls into the fourth dimension. When you cast this spell, decide when you will reappear.

Until then, you effectively do not exist within the third dimension. If you touch an empty soulslot while casting this spell you can occupy it and lend them any organs within your spiritual cavity. In this case, you emerge from their location when the duration ends,

In normal cases, you emerge back at the same point where you came from. You may also choose to emerge at a random unoccupied point within [duration in minutes]miles. Odds are this will be inside the sky.