Fey Mages

Those whose primary function is using fey magic.

---

Kaesean

Type: Masker

The art of mimicry is an ancient one among the fey. To mimic another is a careful and difficult magical practice. It requires careful study, crafting, and power. But mostly, it requires the right materials - fey wood, stone, or metal, special gems, cloths, feathers, leathers or hides. It requires skill in crafting the masks, and it requires skill in understanding what they represent.

Most become a kaesean via a deal with a powerful fey, but those who do not wish to give up so much for the magic will spend decades learning it. It is a magic of both Lore and Tradition, with the materials used often being steeped in the Tradition and the methods of mimicry coming from Lore. Those who study the magic of mimicry often find themselves struggling to remember their own true identities, and many find their Name is weakened in the process. But this is a sacrifice that must be made to become a powerful kaesean.

If they are able to wield the magic, they gain the ability to mimic the skills, abilities, or powers of those they fashion a mask of. To fashion the mask, they must spend a year and a day studying them intensively, then spend another year and a day making the mask. However, after they have done this four times, they are able to make a generic mask that can imprint on someone temporarily, giving them a brief mimicking power.

Most kaeseans end up with a small collection of masks they have made and one generic, which they use sparingly. Every use of the generic one weakens their own identity. Every use of the specific ones runs the risk of having them lose themselves in another person. But each mask allows them to copy the magic of others, giving them a wide variety of magicks. The only exceptions are magicks that are specifically protective, repellant, or rejecting of magic - i.e. nullification, absorbing, repelling, or certain defensive spells designed to block magic - and anti-fey magicks.

It is easier to copy fey magicks than others.

Players would choose four people from their backstory to have a mask of in order to have a generic mask. Each mask would require that they roll PRS to copy the target, then roll the target’s magic as if it were their own. This requires a lot of work on the part of both player and GM, so be ready to commit to some indepth understanding of the system.

PRO -1 ATH -1 STR -1 AWA +3 WIL +2 PRS +4 STH +1 ESS +1

---

Krvacatitel

Type: Sanguinist

Fey blood is commonly used in pacts, deals, and oaths. It is sacrificed for power, given with care, and wielded to perform specific and powerful spells. Krvacatiteli are fey blood mages in Belasar who have learned to use it invoke special protections.

To learn to be a krvacatitel, one must either make a blood oath to the Ancients, make a pact with a powerful fey sealed with blood, or study the Traditions and Lore of blood for decades to master the special spells and rituals involved. They must sacrifice their own blood in rituals to gain power in the first place, and then they must use it to cast their spells. If they make a pact with a powerful fey, the fey also takes some of their blood.

To make their blood powerful, they must also eat a special diet of fey foods, mostly enchanted foods that make their blood and body stronger. These also have the effect of making it so that they are bound to Faerie itself, meaning they must return there every seven years to be subject to the Wild Hunt.

The magicks they gain vary by their species, but some common spells include the following:

• Red binding: a spell of blood that binds a specific target, especially helpful if you have some of their blood
• Sanguine seal: a seal of blood that seals a specific thing or spell into something marked by the blood
• Sigil of bloodfire: a sigil that turns blood nearby into faerefire
• Circle of power: a circle of blood that empowers those within it and blocks external energies
• Marked blood: a mark of blood on something that lets the caster sense what is marked from a distance
• Absorbing spell: a spell that turns the blood in the body into something that can absorb magic
• Transfusion spell: a spell that transfers blood from one body to another for many reasons

This blood magic is focused on protections, seals, and repelling, but it can do other things; they’re just more difficult.

PRO +1 ATH -1 STR +2 AWA +2 WIL +2 PRS -2 STH -1 ESS +1

---

Poppeter

Type: Sympatheticist

Sympathetic magic involves taking a piece of someone (a bit of hair, a tooth, a fingernail, some skin), attaching it to an effigy (usually a doll, or a poppet), then inflicting damage to that effigy to harm the target. To make this work, they must prepare the effigy with a ritual that involves putting a piece of themselves into a magical circle, alongside the effigy and some symbols of power. The ritual must be peformed outside the view of the moons (under a triple new moon or inside where no moonlight spills in). Once the ritual is done, the piece of the caster must be placed on an effigy of the caster and kept somewhere safe. The effigy of the target is infused with magic and ready to be used against someone.

Once the effigy is prepared, the caster must get a piece of their target to apply to it. From there, they can inflict damage or healing to the target at their leisure. The range is generally one mile, but it can be reduced or extended with more potent pieces of the target. Esoteric parts of the target (their feelings, their memories, their soul) are the most potent and hardest to acquire.

Once they have the effigy prepared, they can cause harm by puncturing with pins, lighting it on fire, dropping it in oil, or ripping it asunder. Every harm applied to it must be rolled against the WIL of the target. If they fail, a pin causes a wound, fire causes burning under the flesh, oil causes suffocation, and ripping causes dismemberment. It can be filled with different substances which will have other effects: filled with seeds, it poisons them; filled with leaves, it causes disease; filled with sand, it causes weariness; filled with dirt, it causes personality changes; filled with insects (living or dead), it causes madness.

Fire, oil, and ripping render the effigy useless after one attack. Fillings last for as long as the filling is present and no other effects inflicted; once emptied, the effigy loses power. Pins can be used as often as the poppeter pleases so long as the effigy remains intact.

If anyone finds the effigy of the caster, they will have the same power over the caster.

PRO -1 ATH -1 ATH -1 AWA +2 WIL +3 PRS +1 STH / ESS +2

---

Seer

Type: Seer

Viewers of fate who have special needle and thread that allows them to understand what is to come.

Fate, as an esoteric, fey energy, is woven in the form of invisible threads that flow throughout all of reality. They are often disrupted by other energies, but those with special skill and tools can feel them, touch them, and view them.

The threads of fate combine to form the tapestry of what is to come. It is a complex tapestry where colors, forms, and measurements have meanings only a few understand. The interpretation of the tapestry tells what fate there may be. When viewed, it appears to be a vast conglomeration of threads that, when taken as a whole or from a distant view, appear to be a woven tapestry the size of the sky, depicting scenes of cosmic birth, death, and rebirth. If viewed closely, the trillions of individual lives that thread together to form the story of reality are visible. A seer can trace the threads within the tapestry and see what lies ahead for individuals.

To view the tapestry, a seer must learn how to see without their eyes. They do this first by training with a blindfold or other device that blocks their eyes. If they cannot see already, they must train themselves to sense the threads in a similar fashion. Sight beyond sight is required, but also the ability to touch the invisible threads of the tapestry. This is done by first working with actual threads to know the feeling, then working up to more esoteric threads. Training to see without one's eyes requires years of meditation, working with actual thread, and the use of special drugs found in the deep deserts of Mahad or elsewhere. Due to the mental strength required to do this, seers go through extreme periods of deprivation of the body and heart, often going out into the deep desert or other harsh environments to live on their own for years. The average seer takes decades to learn to see the threads. Once they do, their next task is to learn how to do so safely, for being all-seeing has its risks.

Once one can see the threads, one needs to learn which threads to look at and which not to. There are some threads that are dangerous to follow. It is considered wise not to interpret one's own death, for instance, but other threads are dangerous because they can trap a seer. Beings who have fate resonating within them may draw others into their thread if viewed too closely, and some beings are powerful enough to know when they are being viewed - and to retaliate. These threads are, of course, rarely interwoven with the average person's threads, but one must know the risks all the same. Other forbidden threads include certain places where fate becomes knotted due to interference, and places where the tapestry is disrupted by other powers. It can be deeply traumatic to view a place disrupted by chaos, for example. Finally, one must never, ever attempt to view the whole tapestry at once. This will break the mind of even the most powerful seer.

The best way to view the threads is by having someone ask questions. This will draw the seer's attention toward certain threads that are relevant to the questions at hand. The more specific, the better, though the answers will always be draped in interpretive language due to the nature of the tapestry.

A seer can sense the threads and therefore affect them. Even viewing them can affect them. Seers must train to be careful when viewing so as not to affect too much, and they must be very careful if they choose to touch a thread. They often do this to better follow it, but they must be very gentle. Any damage to the thread or major shifts will alter fate.

A seer who looks at a broader view of the tapestry (not the whole, but a broader view than following an individual thread) may interpret what they see to speak a prophecy. Prophecies are usually cryptic due to the nature of the tapestry, but they are often less susceptible to fluctuation and disruption due to how vast they are. Thus, they are more often accurate.

Predictions come to seers in many forms:

• Precognition: they simply know what will happen before it happens. A priori knowledge of an event with a deep certainty.
• Insight: something happens that gives them an insight into the future wherein they know something they could not have even from advanced pattern recognition.
• Omen: they see something happen and know it is a good or bad omen, though not what it relates to nor why.
• Portent: an omen that has a clear meaning to them.
• Vision: they see something, either symbolically or literally, that will happen in the future.
• Prophecy: unbidden by anything, they begin speaking cryptic prophecy, saying what will be, with no control over what comes out of their mouths. Often accompanied by an uncontrolled vision.

Because of their previous failure in the threads, seers are experiencing these constantly, leading to an unstable life and difficulties with everyone around them. Even when their predictions are correct, it often causes trouble.

At the start of the session, anyone playing a seers will make 20-40 single-die rolls. These are their precognitions. They will note these numbers down and share with the GM. Throughout the session, these will be their rolls. They will pick which one they will use for a roll before the opposed roll is made. The opposed roll will still be a three-die roll.

If they want, they can give a roll to someone else before or after an opposed roll is made, even another player (if the player consents).

If they run out of rolls, they may spend tokens, and if they have none, they simply fail all rolls for the rest of the session (note: we’ve never run with this before, so adjustments may be made if there aren’t enough rolls). If they have rolls left, they can still choose to forgo a roll and accept a failure.

Insights will occur twice per session. The player may invoke one either by willingly forgoing a roll or by spending a token, or the GM can provide one at their discretion. Omens and portents occur on AWA or read people rolls if the player forgoes the roll and chooses to experience an omen or portent instead, or they can occur at the GM’s discretion or if the player spends a token.

Visions are invoked after six failures in a row, if the player spends a token, if the player willingly forgoes six rolls in a row, or at the GM’s discretion.

Prophecies only occur at the GM’s discretion.

PRO -1 ATH -1 STR -1 AWA +3 Sight 0 WIL +2 PRS +1 Prophecy -3 STH +1 ESS +3

---

Vidogoja

Type: Seer

Vidogoji are folk mages who draw power from the Tradition. They come from long community cultural practices that are passed down generation to generation in fey regions.

To become a vidgoja, one must be taught the Traditions from a young age, and they must devote their whole life to it. If they take up any other occupation, they will lose their magic. They are able to know things from the past and future innately, making them important sources of wisdom in their communities. They also have healing magicks, spiritual guidance, and powers to harm.

At their coming of age ceremony, they devote themselves via an ancient ritual that only their mentor(s) will know. Once this is complete, they gain access to the ancient stores of knowledge kept by their mentor(s). They then spend a year and a day in study before taking up their role in the community and starting to use their magicks:

• Prescient vision: an attempt to see into future, very brief and hard to control
• Ancient wisdom: the magic to know things from past, very brief and hard to control
• Healing charm: a simple chant or rhyme to heal others
• Prayer to the old tales: a prayer to ancient powers that draws them forth, bringing legendary energy into an area
• Sign of warding: a gesture of protection that repels other magical energies
• Inflict disease: a rhyme and word that inflict disease on someone
• Hexing eye: the evil eye, a glare that can place a negative effect on someone

Vidogoji learn new parts of the Tradition and can draw from it as they study and work on it. They rarely make pacts with the fey for magic, as they know the consequences.

PRO -1 ATH -1 STR -1 AWA +3 WIL +3 PRS -2 STH -1 ESS +2

---

Vjedogonja

Type: Bondsmage

A vjedogonja is a mage who is bonded to a master or mentor or sometimes a powerful fey. This bond is formed when they are young, usually, with another vjedogonja in the village or community. They are chosen from children who were born with a caul or otherwise marked as special in the eyes of the community. If they take on the mantle of the vjedogonja when they come of age, they grow hair over their bodies and a tail. Their tail is a mark of their bond.

To become a vjedogonja, they are trained from an early age, taught the Lore and Tradition of the region, and given special wards and charms to wield. When they come of age, they are tasked with protecting the community from demons, undead, and bad weather. The magic they gain from their bond to their mentor grows stronger as the mentor weakens, eventually retiring and giving up the bond fully to their mentee.

The wards and charms they are given include the following:

• Frenzied vision: an intense vision brought on during a moment of legendary ecstasy, allowing the caster to sense things beyond the realm of reality
• Strength of two: drawing the full physical strength of one's mentor or student into one's body temporariluy
• Ward against infernal: a protective spell against all infernal magic or beings
• Ward against undead: a protective spell against all undead magic or beings
• Soulsight: the ability to see the magical essence of someone
• Soulflight: the ability to let one's soul fly from the body to observe or cast magic
• Stormdriving: a spell used while soulflying to drive away bad weather

Like zduhaci, they are susceptible to undeath due to the fact they leave their bodies. They must protect their bodies while soulflying, usually with powerful wards and charms, but there is always risk. When they die, they must have hawthorn spines placed under their nails, their tendons cut beneath the knees with a knife from a black sheath, before they are buried upside down to prevent undeath.

They are distrusted in their communities, but vital to protecting them.

PRO -1 ATH -1 STR -1 AWA +2 WIL +2 PRS -1 STH -1 ESS +3