Magic in Ix

Printable cards Spell Cards 119

Magic in Dort is not a single thing. It is one word stretched across several phenomena that share a surface resemblance (they all produce effects beyond ordinary physics) while drawing from different sources, working through different methods, and exacting different costs from those who practice them. A scholar who treats "magic" as one subject will eventually be wrong about something that matters. The distinctions in this chapter are not academic. They decide what a practitioner can do, what it costs them, and who, if anyone, gets to take it away.

This chapter covers two things. The first half explains what magic means in Ix: where power comes from, who can reach it, and what reaching it implies about a person. The second half is the complete casting system; spell blocks, costs, overload, empower, dispel, and the full spell list. Read the world first. The spell list will read like a map of a country you already understand.

The single most important idea in this chapter is also the simplest: how you reach power says as much about you as what you do with it. A flame called from the Ember plane, a flame granted by a god's judgment, and a flame structured out of Arcana-plane technique all look like fire. They are not the same act. The source and the cost are never identical, and the difference becomes visible in the precise moments when magic meets magic directly.

The Three Traditions and Ancient Magic

There are three player-facing magical traditions in Dort: Arcane, Primal, and Divine. These are the traditions player characters can study, pray through, train in, and roll at the table. Above and outside them sits Ancient magic, which is not a player tradition and not a mortal technique.

The traditions are not merely spell lists. They describe how a practitioner reaches power and how that power becomes dice at the table. Arcane casters use trained mortal technique to shape magic through the Arcana plane. Primal casters draw from living natural sources and the elemental planes through orientation, instinct, and pact with the world. Divine casters channel a patron deity's will through faith. Ancient magic is different in kind: the direct capacity of Ancients, not a road mortals can walk.

Ancient Magic

The oldest form of magic, and the only one no mortal can practice.

Ancient magic is the direct application of will to the planes. No gestures. No spoken words. No material components. No staff, wand, or focus. No intermediary of any kind between the practitioner's intent and the result. The practitioner reaches into a planar source and pulls out what they want by wanting it hard enough. The method is exactly as simple as it sounds, and exactly as dangerous as the consequences imply.

It is called Ancient magic because it is how the Ancients use magic: an innate capacity of a specific kind of being, not a school of study or a technique mortals have failed to discover yet, and mortals are not that kind of being. A person who claims to practice Ancient magic is either mistaken about what they are doing or lying about what they are. This matters at the table because the difference between a powerful mortal spellcaster and an Ancient is not a difference of degree. It is a difference of category. No amount of study closes that gap.

Arcane Magic

The magic most people mean when they say the word without qualifying it.

Arcane magic works by using physical technique (gestures, vocal components, material components, and focal devices such as staves, wands, and ritual implements) to draw power from the Arcana plane and structure it into an effect. The technique is the whole point. Power does not flow to mortal practitioners freely the way it does to Ancients. It has to be invited, shaped, and channeled through a specific grammar of physical action that the practitioner has trained for years to perform. Disrupt the gestures, spoil required components, or break a focus the spell specifically requires, and the working fails; losing an ordinary optional focus only removes its casting bonus.

This is both a limitation and a protection. The same structure that makes mortal magic difficult to perform makes it controllable and teachable. Mortal magic can be written down, studied, transmitted between practitioners, and built into institutions. A mortal practitioner is, in the most literal sense, a person who learned a craft.

Most arcane practitioners draw exclusively from the Arcana plane, because it is the source they were taught to reach and the one most responsive to standard technique.

Primal Magic

Power drawn from life, weather, blood, wilderness, and the elemental planes.

Primal magic is mortal practice, but it does not approach power through academy grammar. A primal caster orients themself toward a living source: root, beast, storm, saltwater, flame, stone, breath, instinct, or the elemental planes that give those things their oldest shape. Some traditions teach it as pact. Some as inherited community practice. Some as listening hard enough to hear what the world has been saying all along.

The four established elemental sources are Ember (fire, heat, combustion), Mineral (stone, earth, ore, the endurance of buried things), Tidal (water in all its states, current, pressure), and Zephyr (wind, air, storm). An elementalist does not simply swap one source for another the way a traveler changes roads. Drawing from an elemental plane requires a genuine orientation toward the element, something closer to devotion than to technique.

Because primal casters are still mortals, they have limits. Terrain matters. Source matters. A sealed stone dungeon with no living growth resists them differently from a forest during rain. Technique still exists, but the grammar is older and less institutional than Arcana's.

Divine Magic

Power granted by a god to a mortal who has earned it.

Divine casters do not reach into a plane directly. Divine magic comes through a deity; a specific deity, with a specific portfolio, who has decided that a specific petitioner has shown enough devotion and standing within the faith to be trusted with divine power. Arcana is still the ultimate source of the magical energy, but the god shapes, filters, and grants it through divine will. A mortal cannot study their way to divine magic, cannot develop the technique alone, and cannot find it waiting as an impersonal resource. It can only be given, and it is given conditionally, by beings who have their own agendas and their own standards.

This is why divine magic is, in practice, almost entirely the province of clergy. A novice cleric and a high priest of the same god may both channel divine power, but they do not channel the same amount of it, and the god keeps full discretion over what is permitted. Choosing a divine patron means entering a relationship with a person who has opinions, rivals, and a price. Chapter Ten is the catalog of who those persons are.

Revocation. Divine magic can be withdrawn. A practitioner who falls from the faith, violates their god's core doctrine, or is judged to have misused the power they were lent may find the channel simply closed. This never happens by accident and is never a random mechanical penalty. It is a theological statement made by a divine person, and recovering from it (if recovery is possible at all) demands genuine reckoning with whatever broke the relationship.

The Arcana Plane and the Divine Barrier

Mortal magic is the magic of a craft, but a craft needs raw material, and the raw material of mortal magic is the Arcana plane.

Arcana is the source of all magic; the plane from which magical energy ultimately flows into every other realm in the cosmos. That does not mean every caster touches Arcana directly. Arcane casters do. Primal casters draw that power through living and elemental planes that have already been saturated by it. Divine casters receive it through a deity: the power originates in Arcana, passes through the god's portfolio, will, and judgment, and reaches the cleric as a personal grant rather than a raw planar channel. Arcana is a place made of magic rather than a place that contains it: the substance of the plane itself is the medium, the atmosphere, the ground. Its native inhabitants, the fey, are not creatures who happen to live in a magical place. They are expressions of the plane's magic given biological form, which is why they do not thrive on the Prime and why their relationship to the arcane is a different category of thing than a mortal practitioner's hard-won technique.

The plane is divided, fundamentally, between wild magic and orderly magic; energy that is unstructured and responsive to presence, against energy that follows precise and powerful laws. The fey courts split along the same line and have contested it since before mortal records of Arcana begin.

The barrier. The gods sealed Arcana from the Prime in an age before the current divine order took shape. Their reasoning was blunt: unfettered access to the source of all arcane energy would produce mortal practitioners more powerful than the gods were prepared to tolerate. The barrier does not prevent crossing. It prevents easy crossing. Opening a portal through it requires powerful, often ancient magic, and the knowledge of how to do so is closely held and inconsistently passed down.

The barrier is why mortal magic is what it is. Prime-side practitioners draw on a filtered, attenuated version of what Arcana actually contains. The most powerful mortal magic is on the far side of a wall the gods built on purpose, and the gods have never revised the arrangement.

For travel through the barrier and the wild rifts that sometimes tear it open without anyone's permission, see the Rifts and Planar Lore skills in Chapter Six and the planar-travel material in the GM Guide.

Magic at the Table

Everything to this point is the world. This section is the bridge from the world to the dice.

Magic in Ix resolves the same way everything else does: with dice, difficulty, and consequence. The full casting system (spell blocks, costs, overload, empower, dispel, and the complete spell list) lives in the second half of this chapter. What follows here is the orientation a player needs to find their place in that system.

Three Player Traditions

All castable magic is organized into three traditions: Arcana, Divine, and Primal. These are casting skills as much as they are worldviews. Arcana studies structure, pattern, and the disciplined architecture of impossible things. Divine moves through faith, covenant, and the will of powers beyond mortal reach. Primal speaks in instinct, blood, weather, and the older language of the living world.

The traditions resolve as follows:

What matters at the table is that every player-castable spell in Ix belongs to Arcana, Divine, or Primal, and every caster trains one of those three skills. Ancient effects can exist in the fiction, but they are GM-facing phenomena, relic consequences, or the direct work of Ancients, not options on a player spell list.

How a Caster Grows

The spell list in this chapter is organized into tiers of increasing demand: Cantrips and Apprentice magic, then Journeyman, then Adept, then Master. A caster begins with the small, reliable workings and earns access to the larger ones through skill and experience. A player choosing a caster at creation should expect to start at the cantrip and apprentice end of their chosen tradition; the impressive end of the spell list is something a character reaches, not something they begin with.

Spell Selection: How Many and Which Ones

Unlike games where characters memorize or prepare a limited number of spells, Exodus NDS works differently: you have access to every spell in your tradition at your current tier or below. There is no selection process and no daily spell limit. What constrains a caster is their skill rank (which determines which tiers they can reach), their strain (the cost of casting), and the inherent difficulty of each working.

The moment you raise Arcana to rank 2, every Journeyman Arcane spell is available to you; you do not choose a subset. The same is true across all three traditions.

Spell tiers unlock by skill rank:

Combined tradition spells (Theomancy, Necromancy, Shamanism) require the corresponding talent in addition to meeting the listed skill prerequisites. High Magic requires the Archmage talent.

What this means in play: A starting caster with Arcana 1 has every Arcane Cantrip and Apprentice spell available on day one. They cast whichever low-tier working fits the moment. When they advance to Arcana 2, every Journeyman Arcane spell becomes available immediately. There is no "spell known" bookkeeping; the spell list is a menu, and your skill rank is what determines how far down the menu you can read.

Combined Traditions and High Magic

The borders between Arcana, Divine, and Primal are useful for teaching and doctrine, but they are borders drawn around the same fire. A caster with enough study, nerve, or arrogance can learn to work at the seam. The spell list in this chapter includes three combined traditions, each unlocked by a ranked talent:

• Theomancy (Arcana and Divine); the discipline of treating the sacred as something that can be measured, named, and reproduced. Blasphemous to priests, sentimental to arcanists, and uncomfortable to be near.
• Necromancy (Arcana and Primal); the structured study of the moment a thing stops being alive and what remains afterward. In Ix, this tradition carries theological weight that it does not carry in a generic setting. See the section on Necromancy below.
• Shamanism (Divine and Primal); Primal magic practiced as relationship, with Divine discipline shaping the pact. A Shaman does not command the living world. They approach it as a community of powers, memories, and obligations that can answer, refuse, or remember.

Above all three sits High Magic, the apex discipline that draws on Arcana, Divine, and Primal at once. It is built from the combined traditions, never learned first. The Theomancer, Necromancer, Shaman, and Archmage talent entries (including full prerequisites, XP costs, and the formula for which skill rank you roll) are in Chapter Seven.

Combined tradition casting: how the pool works. Two values determine the pool for any combined tradition spell.

Skill rank (upgrades): Use the floor of the average of the two prerequisite casting skills. For High Magic (three skills), use the lowest of the three instead of averaging.

Characteristic (dice count): Use the highest of the characteristics paired with the tradition's component skills. On a tie, choose either.

What Casting Feels Like in Play

Every spell is a complete, written working with an explicit cost, a defined difficulty, and clear points where the caster may choose to take on more risk for more power. The caster declares the spell and confirms a legal target, builds a dice pool from the spell's difficulty plus their characteristic and any advantages, optionally chooses to Overload for greater output before rolling, pays Strain, and rolls. Success determines whether the spell works at all. Empower turns extra symbols on the roll into added effect. Fallout (banes and calamity) is the price unstable power charges in return. Many spells include a Mishap entry: this is the specific Calamity outcome for that working, describing exactly what goes wrong when a Calamity occurs during that cast.

Two costs are worth understanding in advance because they shape how casters play. Strain is what the spell costs you: mental and spiritual fatigue, the body's price for overextension. Difficulty is what the spell costs the roll: how much the working asks of the dice. A low-difficulty spell can still be exhausting, and a high-difficulty spell can be efficient but unstable. The full casting procedure and all spell entries follow in the second half of this chapter.

Divine Magic in Ix

Divine magic deserves its own treatment because it is the access method most entangled with the rest of the setting.

The patron requirement. A player whose character casts in the Divine tradition must choose a patron deity at character creation. Most player characters choose from the Core Pantheon described in Chapter Ten, but the GM may approve a non-core patron if that deity has a clear profile, doctrine, clergy, and Forbidden Grant. This is not a flavor note. The choice is visible in the Shattered Domain, your devotion is legible to the divine politics described throughout this book, and it determines whose doctrine your character is bound to, whose rivals regard your character with suspicion, and whose coin your soul will eventually weigh into. A cleric of Themela and a cleric of Oshala are not two flavors of the same class. They have chosen sides in a live theological conflict, and the world treats them accordingly.

Portfolio shapes fiction, not the spell list, with one exception. A patron's portfolio does not restrict which Divine spells a character may learn, save for a single carve-out unique to each god: the Forbidden Grant described in Chapter Ten. That one prohibition aside, a cleric of any god draws on the full Divine tradition. Each deity refuses to empower the category of working that cuts against the deepest nerve of its nature; see each deity's What [God] Will Not Grant entry. The test is purpose, not loophole wording. A working that appears to brush a prohibition but plainly serves the god's deeper aim may still be permitted by the GM; a working that uses pious language to violate that aim does not open the channel. Beyond that line, what the portfolio governs is meaning and consequence. A Nyxollox death-keeper who uses divine power to ease a passing is acting squarely within the covenant. The same death-keeper using divine power in a way that violates the faith's core doctrine is straining the relationship that grants the power in the first place. The portfolio is the lens through which the god reads the cleric's choices.

Forbidden Grants also apply to combined traditions that include Divine. A Theomancy or Shamanism working cannot use its Arcana or Primal component to bypass the patron whose power is part of the spell.

Revocation is the teeth. Because the spell list is not portfolio-locked, the discipline of divine magic lives in the relationship, not in a restriction sheet. A god who concludes that a cleric has betrayed the covenant can make divine casting harder, narrow what the cleric can safely invoke, or finally close the channel. This is never a random failure and never a tax on ordinary casting. It is triggered by genuine, sustained doctrinal violation, judged by the GM from the deity's profile. Restoring a damaged or severed channel requires repentance, and may require a quest or absolution from a cleric who keeps a temple or shrine.

The cleric who carries this possibility plays differently from the mage who fears only running out of strain, and that difference is the entire point of choosing a divine path in Ix.

The GM Guide gives the full four-stage revocation track. In brief, revocation begins by adding Banes to affected divine workings, then narrows access to higher-tier spells, then suspends the affected channel, and can finally sever the relationship until the covenant is repaired in play.

Primal magic is source-limited. In places cut off from living natural sources or elemental relationship, sealed stone vaults, fully artificial interiors, Oshalan administrative districts scrubbed of wild growth, or areas warped by strong Dim proximity, the GM may add a Bane Die to Primal casting checks. This is a judgment call, not an automatic city penalty: a walled city with gardens, rivers, insects, and weather still gives a Primal caster something to answer.

Necromancy and the Death Taboo

This chapter includes Necromancy as a combined tradition, available to any caster who meets its Arcana and Primal prerequisites and buys the gating talent. It is a legitimate, learnable discipline: the careful study of endings, remains, and the stubborn memory of flesh. A village eventually needs someone who can speak to the buried, settle the unquiet, and tell a grieving family what really happened. That work is honorable.

Ix adds a theological charge that a generic setting does not. Death has a god, a priesthood, and a doctrine, and that doctrine is unusually unambiguous: pulling a soul back across the threshold traps it somewhere it was never meant to be, and that is cruelty regardless of intent. Nyxollox's faith treats undeath as a violation of the order of things, and the death-keepers train specifically to recognize and oppose those who traffic in it.

The Necromancy spell list in this chapter spans a wide range of practice, and most of it sits comfortably beside Nyxollox's work. The narrow, specific act of animating the dead or binding a soul against its passage is the line. The spell rules do not forbid crossing it; the cosmology condemns it, a priesthood hunts it, and the soul economy remembers it.

A necromancer in Ix is not automatically a villain, and a party should not assume the tradition is evil because a generic instinct says so. But a necromancer who raises the dead has made an enemy of an entire faith and has taken a position on one of the setting's load-bearing questions. Play that as the serious choice it is.

What Magic Is Not

Some effects in the world do not fit any of the four access methods. There are entities whose presence unravels minds, and creatures shaped by the Void whose mere proximity warps what is real. These are not a fifth kind of magic: no school teaches them, no plane a practitioner has learned to reach yields them, and no technique transmits them between people. What such entities do is a property of what they are, not a discipline anyone can study, practice, or buy with experience.

When a scholar encounters a phenomenon that does not draw from Arcana, does not invoke a deity, does not draw from an elemental plane, and is not the work of an Ancient, the explanation is almost never "a new kind of magic." It is either an entity operating outside mortal categories or something that has not yet been understood.

Magic Quick Reference

Casting Rules

Reading the Spell Block

The colored bar before each spell name marks the tradition of the spell.

• Single-color bars indicate a core tradition: Arcane, Divine, or Primal.
• Vertical gradients indicate a combined tradition: Theomancy, Necromancy, or Shamanism.
• Triple gradients indicate High Magic, drawing from all three traditions.

The pill row beneath the title is read left to right:

• Difficulty — the base difficulty of the casting check. Some spells begin with an upgraded Trial Die (red ), indicating an inherently unstable or dangerous working.
• Strain — how much strain the caster suffers when the spell is cast.
• Range — the maximum legal target distance.
• Duration — how long the effect remains active.
• Dispel — present only on non-instant spells; this is the base difficulty to end the spell early.

If a spell deals damage or behaves like a weapon, a second row appears:

• Damage · Crit · Qualities — resolved exactly as weapon profiles are resolved.

Each spell entry lists an Action type inside the spell block: Attack, Augment, Reveal, Bind, Curse, Conjure, Predict, Ward, Heal, Utility, and similar. All listed action types are Actions (costing your Action for the turn) unless the entry explicitly says otherwise. Spells marked as Maneuvers or Quick Actions will say so directly. If a spell description says "as a Maneuver" or "as a Quick Action," that overrides the default. When in doubt: if casting the spell would change the battlefield in a meaningful way or require concentration, it is an Action.

The Empower / Fallout section lists what extra symbols do. Most entries are positive (spend Boons for benefits). Some spells also list Bane-triggered entries: these describe what happens when Bane symbols appear in the result. They are penalties or complications, not optional spends. Apply them when the Bane symbols are present.

Casting a Spell: The Workflow

Spellcasting in Exodus follows the same sequence every time:

1. Declare the spell. Choose the spell, confirm a legal target, and verify you meet all listed prerequisites.
2. Build the pool. Take the spell's listed Difficulty, then add characteristic dice, Mastery upgrades, and situational modifiers.
3. Choose Overload (optional). Before rolling, you may increase risk to increase output.
4. Pay strain. Suffer the listed strain cost, modified by talents or effects.
5. Roll the check. Resolve Success, Failure, Boon, Bane, Breakthrough, and Calamity.
6. Resolve the base effect. On at least one net success, the spell functions.
7. Spend Empower symbols. Spend matching symbols to trigger listed enhancements.
8. Resolve fallout. Banes and Calamity create cost, complication, or consequence. If the spell has a Mishap entry, that entry describes the specific Calamity outcome for this working.

Every spell follows this order. Once learned, the format does not change.

Range and Duration Abbreviations

Success, Empower, and Fallout

Every spell resolves in three layers.

Success determines whether the spell works.

If the roll produces at least one net success, the spell resolves and its base Effect occurs. If it does not, the spell fails and the base effect does not occur.

Empower determines how much more the spell does.

Empower entries are optional upgrades attached to the spell's result. If the spell succeeds, the caster may spend listed symbols from the roll to trigger any matching Empower effects. These are additive and stack onto the spell's base effect unless stated otherwise.

Fallout determines what the spell costs.

Banes and Calamity are the price of unstable power. They do not usually prevent the spell from functioning, but they often determine whether casting it was worth the cost. A spell's Mishap entry is its specific Calamity outcome: what happens to this particular working when a Calamity is rolled. Spells without a Mishap entry use the standard GM Calamity spend menu.

Strain & Difficulty

A spell's two primary costs are strain and difficulty.

Strain is the cost paid by the caster. It reflects mental effort, spiritual fatigue, bodily stress, and magical overextension.

• 1 Strain — minor workings, reflexive effects, cantrip-tier magic.
• 2 Strain — standard spellcasting; the default cost for most practical magic.
• 3–5 Strain — powerful, sustained, wide-reaching, or forcefully compressed effects.

Strain measures what the spell costs you.

Difficulty measures what the spell asks of the dice.

Difficulty rises when a spell exceeds what should be free at its tier: more damage, wider targeting, longer duration, stronger control, added utility, or effects that bend action economy or scene logic.

Difficulty measures what the spell costs the roll.

A low-difficulty spell may still be exhausting. A high-difficulty spell may be efficient but unstable. These costs are related, but not interchangeable.

Overload

Overload is how a caster pushes beyond the printed baseline.

Each spell lists one or more Overload options that may be chosen before the roll. Overload modifies the spell at cast-time by increasing difficulty, adding instability, or accepting a drawback in exchange for more output.

Overload is optional. It is not required to cast the spell.

Use Overload when the caster wants more: more damage, more range, more duration, more targets, or more force than the printed version safely provides.

When you choose an Overload option, add its Trial Die to the pool. Overload Trial Dice are added to whatever difficulty the spell already has; they do not replace existing Trial Dice. A Difficulty 2 spell with one Overload option selected becomes Difficulty 3 for that cast.

The spell block tells you what may be pushed. Overload tells you what it costs to push it.

Dispel: Ending an Active Spell

Any spell with a duration longer than Instant may be ended early.

The original caster may end their own active spell as an out-of-turn Quick Action at no cost.

Any caster may attempt to end the spell. The dispelling caster chooses any casting skill they possess (Arcana, Divine, or Primal) and makes a check against the spell's listed Dispel difficulty. Tradition does not restrict this: an Arcana practitioner can Dispel a Divine working and vice versa. The source of the dispel does not need to match the source of the original spell.

The dispelling caster suffers strain as normal for making the attempt.

When the spell was first cast, the original caster's net successes are added to its listed Dispel difficulty. A well-cast spell is harder to unravel than a barely-stable one.

On success, the spell ends immediately.

On failure, the spell remains active and the dispelling caster still pays the cost.

Dispel is external: one caster breaking another caster's work from outside the effect.

Resist: Breaking Free

Some spells may also be broken from within.

When a spell directly binds, compels, curses, or controls a target and remains active beyond the moment of casting, the target may attempt to throw it off.

The target suffers the spell normally through the round it was cast.

Beginning at the end of each of the target's turns thereafter, they may attempt the listed resist check as a Maneuver. Each spell names the resist skill directly; build the pool from that skill and its linked characteristic. The defaults by effect type are Discipline (Willpower) for mental compulsion, fear, domination, soul-adjacent effects, and divine compulsion; Fortitude (Might) for poison, pain, and bodily transformation; and Athletics (Might) or Reflexes (Agility) for physical restraint, depending on whether the target is forcing through or slipping free. When a spell offers no explicit skill, use the closest match to what the spell is actually doing to the target.

The difficulty of that check equals the caster's original net successes, minimum 1 and maximum 5.

On success, the spell ends.

On failure, the spell remains in effect.

Resist is internal: the target forcing the spell out from inside the effect.

A sustained spell may be ended either way: externally by Dispel, or internally by Resist.

Whichever succeeds first ends the effect.

Concentration

Some spells hold an active effect that requires the caster to maintain a mental lock on the working, continuously shaping and sustaining the spell rather than releasing it. These spells carry Concentration as their Duration.

What Concentration requires. While concentrating on a spell, you cannot cast another spell. You can still move, attack, use items, and take other actions, but the moment you cast a second spell, the first ends immediately. Only one Concentration spell may be active at a time.

Suffering Wounds. When you suffer Wounds while concentrating, whether from damage after Resistance or direct Wound loss, you must make a check to hold the working. Build a pool from the linked casting characteristic alone (Intellect for Arcana, Willpower for Divine, Savvy for Primal; for combined traditions, use the same characteristic you used to cast the spell) at a difficulty equal to the Wounds suffered (minimum 1 Trial Die, maximum 5). On success, the spell holds. On failure, it ends immediately.

Example: An arcanist with Intellect 3 suffers 4 Wounds while maintaining a Concentration spell. They roll 3 Ability dice against 4 Trial Dice. If they succeed, the spell continues. If they fail, it collapses.

Calamity ends it. Any Calamity on a roll while you are concentrating, whether the casting check itself or any subsequent roll, ends the Concentration spell immediately. No check is required; the working simply fails.

Breaking concentration by force. An attacker who scores a Breakthrough on an attack against a concentrating caster may spend that Breakthrough to collapse the spell instead of triggering a Critical Injury. This is a deliberate tactical choice: the attacker decides before the Breakthrough resolves whether they want the injury or the disruption.

Voluntarily ending. The original caster may end their own Concentration spell as a Quick Action at any time, at no cost.

Ritual Casting

Some workings can be performed two ways: cast in the moment, or worked slowly as a ritual. A spell that allows this carries a Ritual box, and that box is the rule: it states the extended casting time, any change to the spell's difficulty and Strain, the altered or expanded effect, and any requirements (a focus, a consecrated space, components, assistants, a particular hour).

Ritual casting trades speed for power and safety. The long working is almost never usable in structured play, but it typically lowers the casting difficulty, reduces or spreads the Strain, and reaches effects a snap-cast version cannot. A spell with no Ritual box cannot be ritualized, and the Ritual Tome focus (Chapter Eight) aids only casting checks made as rituals.

Cantrips & Apprentice Magic

The spells on the first page of each tradition's list are divided into Cantrips and Apprentice workings. Both require only Rank 1 in the relevant casting skill to access. The distinction is primarily narrative: cantrips are the quick, low-cost working (Strain 1), reflexive effects a practitioner reaches for without much effort. Apprentice spells are the first genuinely practical workings (Strain 2): real effects with real range and real consequences, but still within reach of a new caster. When you have Rank 1 in a casting skill, you have access to everything in both groups.

Arcane Cantrips

Arcane Bolt — Arcane

Auralight — Arcane

Conjure Spark — Arcane

Galvanize — Arcane

Helping Hand — Arcane

Mirage — Arcane

Parlor Tricks — Arcane

Pin — Arcane

Stumble — Arcane

Whisper — Arcane

Whisper Veil — Arcane

Divine Cantrips

Bulwark — Divine

Counsel — Divine

Glance — Divine

Holy Spark — Divine

Lesser Heal — Divine

Light of Truth — Divine

Sanctified Light — Divine

Stabilizing Heal — Divine

Wonderworking — Divine

Primal Cantrips

Some Primal spells list a non-casting-skill prerequisite alongside the Primal skill rank (for example, "Adventuring Lore 1"). This is intentional: certain Primal workings require genuine lived attunement to the natural world, not just magical technique. The knowledge skill reflects that the spell draws on something the caster has actually experienced and understood, not merely studied.

Gale — Primal

Kindle — Primal

Mending Root — Primal

Numbing Frost — Primal

Quickstep — Primal

Read the Wind — Primal

Sproutshield — Primal

Thornlash — Primal

Trail Sense — Primal

Wildlore — Primal

Journeyman Spells

Arcane Journeyman

Counterspell, Lesser — Arcane

Force Darts — Arcane

Glimpse — Arcane

Jinx — Arcane

Slowfall — Arcane

Sparkbolt — Arcane

Unraveling — Arcane

Wardlock — Arcane

Watcher's Eye — Arcane

Divine Journeyman

Bone Heal — Divine

Cleanse — Divine

Compel — Divine

Foreseen Wound — Divine

Halo of Resolve — Divine

Lash of Light — Divine

Reactive Heal — Divine

Saint's Voice — Divine

Spirit Whisper — Divine

Steady Hand — Divine

Truthsight — Divine

Primal Journeyman

Bloom Heal — Primal

Bramble Snare — Primal

Earthbind — Primal

Howl — Primal

Stonebark — Primal

Summon Pack-Mate — Primal

Sweep — Primal

Adept Spells

Arcane Adept

Fly — Arcane

Invisibility — Arcane

Mirrored Mind — Arcane

The caster reads the surface thoughts, active intentions, and immediate plans of one engaged target for the duration. The target may attempt to notice the probe with a Discipline check opposed by the caster's net successes; on success, the target becomes aware they are being watched. The target adds on attempts to deceive the caster verbally.

The caster also experiences faint emotional resonance from the target, moods, fears, and lies feel like background noise that won't quite quiet.

• Reach Further (): Range extends to Short.
• Stealthy Probe (): The target does not notice the surveillance even on a successful Discipline check.
• Deep Probe (→): The caster also reads short-term memory; significant events from the past hour.

•   Caster gains on Charm or Deception checks against the target.
•   Caster identifies the target's strongest current desire.
•   Caster identifies one creature the target has interacted with in the past day.
•   Caster suffers 1 strain.

Servitor — Arcane

Slow — Arcane

Veil of Disguise — Arcane

The caster's outline shimmers and resettles as a different humanoid of similar size and build. Voice timbre, gait, and small mannerisms must still be played by the caster; the spell does not provide skill at impersonation, only the visual frame. Observers within Engaged range who have reason to suspect deception may roll Perception opposed to the caster's casting result to see through the veil; observers at Short or further must rely on what they see and hear.

One worn or carried item is also disguised; a battered sword reads as a cane, a holy symbol as a merchant's seal, an obvious wand as a quill. The disguised item still functions normally; only its appearance is changed.

• Voice Match (): The caster's voice also conforms to the disguise; accent, pitch, and timbre. Useful when impersonating someone the listener has met.
• Cross-Frame (): Disguise crosses one size or build category; appearing as a Small humanoid while Average, or as a heavily-built warrior while slight. The frame mismatch imposes to Athletics checks while maintaining an extreme build.
• Quick-Cast (→): Replace one Trial Die with a Crisis Die. On success, the cast becomes a Maneuver instead of an action; useful when caught mid-encounter.

•   The veil persists for the scene rather than the encounter (extending only out-of-combat).
•   The first observer to actively study the caster adds to their Perception check.
•   A specific named individual the caster has seen is matched closely enough to fool casual recognition.
•   The veil flickers under stress; the caster adds to social checks while disguised.

Veil-Walk — Arcane

Divine Adept

Far Voice — Divine

Sanctified Word — Divine

Revive — Divine

Call a recently departed soul back from Sheol's waiting halls. The target must have died within the last 24 hours: their soul has entered Sheol and awaits judgment, but has not yet been processed. When the soul hears the call, it may return.

The caster must have personally met the target. You cannot revive a stranger whose name you do not know; the call requires recognition to reach.

On a successful cast, the target returns at 1 Wound with all strain cleared. They retain any Critical Injuries they had at death; these must still be treated normally. If the target died from a Killed result (141–150), Revive returns them alive but that injury is reduced to Lights Going Out (131–140) and still requires immediate treatment before the start of their next turn. The trauma of crossing back reduces the target's maximum strain by 2 until they complete a full week of rest.

Death in Dort is not instantaneous passage. Sheol, the plane of the dead, runs like a bureaucracy; souls queue, petitioners are logged, and the paperwork of eternity moves at its own pace. A newly dead soul waits in the outer halls of Sheol for up to a day before their case is called before a death-priest and judgment is rendered. In that window, the soul is findable. After judgment, it has moved deeper; processed, filed, and no longer reachable by this working.

• Stronger Call (): A gem worth 250+ gf is used instead. The casting check gains , representing a more substantial offering to the powers of passage.

•   The target returns at 3 wounds instead of 1.
•   The trauma is gentler; maximum strain reduction is only 1 instead of 2.
•   Remove one Critical Injury from the returned character at the moment of revival.
•   The caster suffers 2 strain from the effort of bridging the veil.
•   The soul comes back disoriented; the target is Staggered for the remainder of the encounter and adds to all checks until they complete a full rest.

Divine Strike — Divine

Condemn — Divine

Faith's Shield — Divine

Sanctified Ground — Divine

Primal Adept

Beast Bond — Primal

Roots of the World — Primal

Shapestone — Primal

Stormwall — Primal

Nature's Wrath — Primal

Elemental Burst — Primal

Master Spells

Arcane Master

Fireball — Arcane

Iceshard — Arcane

Arcane Binding — Arcane

Blink — Arcane

Divine Master

Greater Heal — Divine

The caster lays both hands on an engaged ally and draws warmth into them. The target heals wounds equal to twice generated, to a maximum of 10. The target also recovers all strain.

A pulse of warm light radiates outward at the moment of healing; every other ally engaged with the caster recovers 1 strain.

• Communal (): Also heals one additional ally within Short range for half successes (rounded down) and 2 strain.

• Recall the Recently Dead (): Target may have been dead for up to one round (since the end of their last turn). On a successful cast, they return at 1 Wound. The caster suffers 3 strain in addition to the spell's cost.

• Mother's Touch (→): Replace one Trial Die with a Crisis Die. On success, the caster also removes one Critical Injury of their choice from the target.

•   +1 wound healed.
•   Target adds to their next check this scene.
•   The healing leaves a faint mark; that mark adds to the next Heal cast on this target.
•   Caster suffers 1 strain.
•   The wound transfers; after healing is calculated, the caster suffers 2 Wounds, ignoring Resistance.

Still Person — Divine

Choose one humanoid within Short range. On a successful cast, divine compulsion seizes the target's body; they freeze in their current posture and may take only free Quick Actions (speech, perception). They cannot move, attack, or perform Maneuvers. Resist (Discipline), see the convention at the start of this section: target rides out the casting round, then rolls Discipline at the end of each subsequent turn at difficulty equal to the caster's net successes.

The target locks in exactly the posture they held at the moment of casting; mid-step, drawing a blade, mouth open mid-word. Allies looking on can read what the target was about to do.

• Silence (): Target also cannot speak; no verbal commands, no spellcasting, no Leadership checks while held.
• Extend Range (): Range becomes Medium.
• Multi-Bind (): Up to 2 humanoids within Short range. Each rolls its own resist independently.
• Iron Word (→): Replace one Trial Die with a Crisis Die. On a successful cast the target is also Staggered when the spell ends, until the end of their next turn.

•   Caster recovers 1 strain from the conviction of the binding.
•   When the spell ends, target adds to their first action that turn.
•   The hold visibly humbles witnesses; caster adds to their next Intimidation or Leadership check this encounter.
•   The binding sears caster too; caster suffers 2 strain (in addition to base cost).
•   The compulsion turns inward; the caster is held for one round instead.

Resurrection — Divine

Call a soul back from beyond judgment. The target has been dead for more than 24 hours, has passed through Sheol's courts, and has been judged and processed. Their soul is no longer in the waiting halls; it has been filed, assigned, and is somewhere deeper.

The caster must speak the target's full name and have personally known them. This is not a working that functions on strangers.

On a successful cast, the target returns at 3 wounds. All Critical Injuries persist and must be treated. If the target died from a Killed result (141–150), that injury is reduced to Lights Going Out (131–140) on return and still requires immediate treatment; Resurrection does not erase the cause of death, only reverses it. The target's maximum strain is reduced by 3 until they complete a full week of rest; most of those who return describe the experience as wrong in a way they struggle to articulate.

A failed Resurrection does not mean the target cannot be brought back; it means this casting could not do it. There are two reasons a soul may not answer: it is refusing to return, or something more powerful has claimed it. The GM determines which is true, and may not tell the party immediately. Both can be stories.

A failed Resurrection consumes the gem regardless.

• Richer Offering (automatic with 1,000+ gf gem): A gem of this quality adds to the casting check. This represents literal bribery of the divine bureaucracy, not disrespectful so much as practical, and well understood by most death-adjacent clergy.

•   The target returns at 5 wounds instead of 3.
•   The maximum strain penalty is reduced to 1 instead of 3.
•   Remove one Critical Injury from the returned character. They carry the others.
•   The caster suffers 3 strain and is Staggered until the end of their next turn from the effort.
•   Something came back with the soul, or instead of it. GM's discretion; the gem is consumed and the target is technically present, but something is off.

Primal Master

Skin of the Wild — Primal

The caster's body reshapes into one chosen animal form for the encounter. Worn gear melds into the form (and reappears intact when the form ends). Choose one form at cast time:

• Wolf Form: Might becomes 3 (or +1 if higher), gain Bite (Unarmed, 6 damage, Crit 3, Vicious 1, Engaged); add to all Athletics and Survival checks. Cannot wield held weapons or wear armor.
• Bear Form: Might becomes 4 (or +2 if higher), gain Claws (Unarmed, 8 damage, Crit 4, Knockdown, Engaged); +1 Resistance. Cannot wield held weapons, wear armor, or cast non-Primal spells.
• Hawk Form: Agility becomes 4 (or +1 if higher), gain flight at Short speed; add to Perception checks. Cannot make melee attacks; thrown attacks deal half damage rounded down. Cannot cast non-Primal spells.

The caster may revert to humanoid form at any time as a free Quick Action, ending the spell early.

• Greater Form (): Wolf becomes Dire (+1 Might beyond form, Bite 8 dmg). Bear becomes Cave Bear (+1 Might, +1 Resistance). Hawk becomes Roc-Spawn (Might +1 also, talons 4 dmg melee).
• Tongue of Beasts (): Caster retains the ability to speak normally in the chosen form.
• Two-Form (→): Replace one Trial Die with a Crisis Die. On a successful cast, choose two forms; caster may switch between them once during the duration as an action.

•   The form is unusually marked (silver pelt, white feathers); caster gains to the next Intimidation or Charm check made while in form.
•   First time the caster suffers wounds in the form, ignore 2 of those wounds.
•   A nearby spirit-animal of the same kind appears for one round and acts as a Pack-Mate (see Summon Pack-Mate).
•   The form is restless; caster suffers 1 strain at the start of each turn while in form (in addition to base costs).
•   The form takes too well; at the end of the spell, caster must roll Easy Discipline or remain in form for one additional round.

Stoneform — Primal

The caster's body becomes living stone for the duration. They gain +2 Resistance, +2 Wound Points, immunity to poison and disease, and melee defense of 1. Their movement is reduced one range band, they add to all Agility-based checks, and they cannot benefit from healing magic while transformed.

The caster's voice becomes deep and resonant; they add to Intimidation checks intended to intimidate.

• Fluid Stone (): The movement-reduction penalty is removed.
• Hardened Form (): Resistance bonus increases to +4 instead of +2.
• Granite Soul (→): The caster is also immune to mind-affecting effects for the duration.

•   The caster gains Pierce 1 on their next Unarmed attack from the heavier weight.
•   The caster recovers 2 strain at the start of each of their turns.
•   The caster has Resistance 6 against fire and cold specifically; they are stone, after all.
•   The caster suffers 1 strain.

Stormcall — Primal

A boiling stormcloud condenses overhead, low and crackling. On the casting turn the caster may immediately call one bolt as part of the cast (one ranged attack against any target within Medium range, no extra cost). On each of the caster's subsequent turns, the caster may spend a Maneuver and suffer 1 strain to call another bolt, same range, same combat profile. The strain pacing is what keeps the storm from being a free turret; the cap is the caster's reserves. The spell ends at the end of the encounter, when the caster ends it as a Quick Action, when the caster is incapacitated, or when the caster is moved indoors.

The first bolt each round flashes ahead of its thunder. Allies engaged with a struck target add to their next attack against that target this round.

• Thunderhead (): +2 damage on every bolt called by this casting.
• Forked Strike (): Each bolt may strike a second target within Short range of the first at half base damage (rounded down).
• Storm-Driven (): Range becomes Long.
• Wild Sky (→): Replace one Trial Die with a Crisis Die. On a successful cast, every bolt called gains Stun 2 and Pierce 1; but the caster cannot suppress the storm; it lasts the full encounter regardless of the caster's wishes.

•   +1 damage on this bolt only.
•   This bolt inflicts Prone on the target.
•   The thunder rattles bystanders; all enemies within Short of the struck target add to their next check.
•   Backlash; caster suffers 2 strain.
•   The bolt finds the caster too; caster suffers Wounds equal to half base damage (ignoring Resistance).

Combined Tradition Magic

Theomancy

Anointed Edge — Theomancy

Banner of Hosts — Theomancy

Mark of Wrath — Theomancy

Sacred Ground — Theomancy

Sanctified Sigil — Theomancy

Sundering Blade — Theomancy

Vital Heal — Theomancy

Word of Sundering — Theomancy

Necromancy

Animating Whisper — Necromancy

Bone Wall — Necromancy

Deny Will — Necromancy

On a successful cast, the caster's mind overlays the target humanoid's. On each of the target's turns, the caster declares one action, up to two Maneuvers, and any free Quick Actions. The target's body executes them. The target retains awareness; they see and feel what they are doing, but cannot disobey.

The target uses their own skills, characteristics, and equipment; the caster cannot make the target use abilities or talents the target does not possess. The target cannot be compelled to directly suicide or to attack themselves; at the moment of such an action, the target collapses unconscious and the spell ends.

Resist (Discipline), see the convention at the start of this section. The target rides out the casting round, then rolls Discipline at the end of each subsequent turn at difficulty equal to the caster's net successes.

The target's eyes briefly mirror the caster's at the moment the binding takes; a tell that witnesses with relevant Lore or Medicine training (or who have seen Necromancy before) may recognize.

• Through Their Eyes (): The caster also perceives what the target perceives, in real time. The caster may end this perception as a Quick Action.
• Subtle (): The target perceives all dominated actions as their own free choice. They do not realize they were under duress until the spell ends. This is the version most often used for assassinations and forced confessions; it is widely banned.
• Multi-Bind (): Up to 2 humanoid targets, each rolling resist independently. The caster splits action-declarations between them on each of their turns.
• Iron Will (→): Replace one Trial Die with a Crisis Die. On a successful cast, the target also cannot speak (no shouting for help, no spellcasting requiring verbal components) for the duration.

•   Caster recovers 1 strain from the rush of dominance.
•   The first time the target rolls resist, they add to that check.
•   The target retains no memory of the dominated period after the spell ends; useful for cover, dangerous for narrative trust.
•   The binding sears in both directions; caster suffers 2 strain (in addition to base cost).
•   The target's resist rolls add for the duration (the binding never quite settles).

Drain Vigor — Necromancy

Soul Echo — Necromancy

Soul Scar — Necromancy

Soulbleed — Necromancy

Wither Bones — Necromancy

The target's bones briefly ache and grow brittle. For the duration, the target's Wound Points are reduced by 4 (minimum 1). If their current Wounds exceed the reduced maximum, lower current Wounds to the reduced maximum immediately. If this reduction drops the target to 0 current Wounds, it triggers incapacitation but does not itself cause a Critical Injury. When the spell ends, the target's Wound Points return to normal; current Wounds do not increase automatically. They also suffer on all Athletics, Unarmed, and Reflexes checks.

The target moves stiffly, like an old soul in a young body; a visible sign of the curse for any observer who has seen necromancy at work.

• Deepen Curse (): Wound Points reduction increases to 6.
• Extend Range (): Short → Medium.
• Bone Rot (→): Target also takes 2 unholy damage at the start of each of its turns for the duration.

•   Target adds to its next Might-based check.
•   One ally engaged with the target adds to attacks against it.
•   The curse persists for 1 hour after the encounter ends.
•   Caster suffers 1 strain.

Wraithskin — Necromancy

Shamanism

Ancestor's Counsel — Shamanism

Augur of the Three — Shamanism

Channel Spirit — Shamanism

Scout Spirit — Shamanism

Spirit Drum — Shamanism

Stormcaller — Shamanism

The caster calls a sudden storm to a point within Long range. Lightning, hail, and wind erupt. Blast 4 activates automatically as part of this spell: all creatures Engaged with the point take 8 lightning damage. Resistance applies to each target normally. Minion-tier targets also fall Prone.

For one round after the strike, the affected area counts as difficult terrain; rain-soaked footing and buffeting wind hamper movement and balance.

• Intensify Strike (): Damage increases by +3.
• Hailshatter (): The attack also gains Knockdown.
• Sustained Storm (→): The storm persists at the strike location for one additional round, dealing 4 lightning damage to creatures still in the area at the start of the round.

•   One target loses an out-of-turn Quick Action this round.
•   The attack also gains Disorient 1.
•   Allies in the area gain +1 Ranged Defense from the cover of rain until end of round.
•   Caster suffers 1 strain.

Tide Heal — Shamanism

Wild Tongue — Shamanism

High Magic

Echoes of Power — Mastery

Genesis Surge — Mastery

You call the three great currents of magic into violent alignment and release them as a single catastrophic convergence at a point within Long range. Blast 8 activates automatically, dealing 12 force damage to all creatures Engaged with the point. Choose two effects from the following list when the spell is cast; each applies immediately and, where noted, alters the battlefield for the duration:

• Searing Firestorm: The area ignites. All creatures Engaged with the point also suffer Burn 4 and the terrain in the blast zone counts as difficult terrain (fire and ash) for the duration.
• Sanctified Shockwave: A pulse of divine force radiates outward. Undead and infernal beings Engaged with the point are Staggered until the end of their next turn. Allies in the blast zone are unharmed by this effect.
• Grasping Wild Growth: Primal roots erupt. All creatures Engaged with the point are Ensnared 2 until they break free (Hard Athletics or Reflexes). The terrain remains entangled difficult terrain for the duration.
• Radiant Restoration: A burst of healing light follows the devastation. One ally within Long range per two net successes recovers 4 Wounds. This effect does not damage enemies.
• Arcane Collapse: The fabric of local magic tears. Any spell or magical effect with a Dispel pool of 3 or lower within the blast zone ends immediately. Casters in the zone add to any spell cast until the end of their next turn.

Genesis Surge is not a spell of destruction alone, but of imposed change. The caster tears open reality and forces the world to reconcile all three magical truths at once: law, will, and life. Enemies caught within the surge are broken, allies may be restored, and the terrain itself becomes hostile, sanctified, or remade according to the caster’s will.

• Enhance Surge (→): Increase damage by +3, or add one additional chosen effect.
• Extend Range (→): Increase range to Extreme.
• Widen Cataclysm (→): Increase Blast by +4.
• Sustain (→): Maintain the altered battlefield as a Maneuver each turn for the duration.

•   One ally in the area recovers 3 wounds or 3 strain.
•   One chosen effect intensifies for one round (GM-approved escalation).
•   Add one additional chosen effect immediately.
•   Caster suffers 2 strain (in addition to base cost).

Reweave — Mastery

Choose one significant action that occurred within the last round; an attack, a death, a fall, a Critical Injury, a movement. The action and its immediate consequences are erased from the timeline. This includes Wounds suffered, conditions gained, and resources spent by the direct target of that action. Resources, actions, and reactions spent by others in response to the erased action are not restored. If a creature died as a direct result of the erased action, they return at 1 Wound. The caster and all witnesses retain a hazy memory of the original event, like a dream that won't quite settle. Physical evidence follows the new timeline.

Witnesses (allies and enemies who saw the original event) suffer on their next check from the dragging deja vu.

• Reach Further (): The undone action may have occurred up to two rounds ago.
• Twin Threads (): The Reweave affects up to two related actions in the same round.
• Erase Cleanly (→): Witnesses retain no memory of the original event. The world simply changes.

•   One ally affected by the original action recovers 1 strain.
•   One foe affected by the original action loses an out-of-turn Quick Action this round.
•   The caster's next casting check this scene adds .
•   The caster suffers 1 wound as the rewriting tears at their body.

Severance — Mastery

One creature within Short range is severed from this plane and cast into the Veil. Significant unwilling targets may attempt Resist (Discipline) opposed by the caster's net successes; on success, the casting fails and strain is still spent. On a failed resist or against minion-tier targets, the target cannot return to this plane while the spell persists. While severed, the target cannot be perceived, targeted, or contacted by anyone on this plane; the caster included. The target experiences time normally and may attempt to dispel from the Veil side using their own Arcana, Divine, or Primal skill at Severe difficulty; this requires a full Action and may be attempted once per hour.

The target's possessions on this plane remain; only the creature itself is severed. Allies of the target see them simply vanish.

• Sever Possessions (): The target's possessions are also severed, leaving no trace on this plane.
• Bind in the Veil (): While severed, the target's veiled form is also bound; they cannot move, cast spells, or attempt to dispel. This option costs two Trial Dice given it removes all target-side counterplay.
• Eternal Severance (→): If the target dies in the Veil while severed, they cannot be revived by any means short of another High Magic casting.

•   One ally engaged with the caster recovers 2 strain.
•   The caster adds on their next casting check this scene.
•   The severance leaves a temporal echo; witnesses add on their next Discipline check.
•   The caster suffers 1 strain.

Twin Strike — Mastery

World Knell — Mastery

Toll a knell that strikes one creature within Short range. Extraplanar creatures (fiends, celestials, elementals, fey, summoned beings) are immediately returned to their plane of origin and cannot voluntarily return to this plane for 24 hours. Native creatures may resist with a Discipline check opposed by the casting; on a fail, they take 12 unholy damage with Pierce 4 from the dissonance.

Every creature within Short range hears the knell as a single clear bell-tone, regardless of distance, barrier, or magical concealment.

• Reach Further (): Short → Medium.
• Toll Twice (): Affect a second extraplanar creature within range.
• Eternal Toll (→): Banishment is permanent; the creature cannot return to this plane by any means short of another Mastery casting.

•   Allied creatures who heard the toll add to their next Discipline check.
•   One ally recovers 2 strain.
•   The banished creature drops one bound item or possession in this plane.
•   Caster suffers 1 strain.

Spell Index

Every player-castable spell in this chapter. Difficulty is the number of Trial Dice in the spell's base pool; Overload adds more. Range and Duration use the abbreviation key in Casting Rules.

Modifying Your Spells

Every spell in this chapter is fully playable as written. The base Effect, Range, Duration, Strain, Difficulty, and Overload options define the complete legal version of that spell. This section describes what you can do beyond the baseline, how to push, shape, and personalize your spells using the Exodus NDS magic system's built-in flexibility.

Overload: Pushing the Baseline

Every spell lists one or more Overload options. These are the canonical way to modify a spell's output above its printed baseline. Overload is chosen before the roll.

An Overload option adds instability to the check, typically an additional Trial die (red, unstable) to the pool, in exchange for a specific enhancement. The enhancement is defined in the spell block.

How to read an Overload: "Overload (Trial die): Increase damage by +2, or extend range to Medium." You choose one option from the list, add the Trial die, and roll. The enhancement applies if the spell succeeds; the instability is always present.

Key rules:

• You can only use one Overload option per cast unless the spell specifies otherwise.
• Adding a Trial die means adding an unstable die to the pool. More potential symbols, including more potential Calamity and Bane results.
• Overload is the primary player-facing modification tool. Use it first before reaching for the custom modification rules below.

Signature Spells

Once a caster has used the same spell ten or more times in play, they may declare it their Signature Spell: a working they know so well the casting has become instinctive.

A caster may have one Signature Spell per tradition they hold (one Arcana, one Divine, one Primal, etc.).

Mechanical effect: Once per session, when casting your Signature Spell, you may add 1 Boon die to the casting pool before rolling. This represents muscle memory, deep familiarity, and the particular efficiency that comes from doing something repeatedly under real conditions.

Declaring a Signature Spell: Tell the GM which spell. The declaration is permanent unless you spend one session without casting the spell at all (it fades back to ordinary familiarity). You can rededicate to a new Signature Spell after two sessions of not casting the old one.

Adjusting a Known Spell's Parameters

Outside Overload, a caster may adjust one parameter of a known spell at cast-time by accepting an additional Trial die. This is a deliberate variation: a known working pushed slightly outside its normal shape.

The constraint: You may adjust only one parameter per cast. Stack two adjustments and you are building a custom working, which requires GM approval and the creation rules in the Ix GM Guide.

The cost: This is not free improvisation. The extra Trial dice represent a working being done in a way the caster has not fully drilled, less reliable, more dangerous. Use Overload first. Reach for parameter adjustment when Overload does not offer the specific change you need.

Combining Empower Spends

The Empower section of each spell lists optional enhancements you may trigger after a successful cast by spending matching symbols from the roll. Most casters spend one Empower option per cast.

You may spend multiple Empower options in one cast if the roll produced enough of the required symbols. Each Empower option lists its own symbol cost; they are resolved simultaneously. There is no additional difficulty penalty for spending multiple: the cost is already built into the symbol requirement.

The practical limit: Empower options that conflict in effect (two that alter the same aspect of the spell) cannot both apply. Options that stack (bonus damage + extended duration, for example) are fully compatible.