Unaligned Mages

Those whose primary function is using unaligned magic.

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Alovit

Type: Bondsmage

Aloviti are called "dragon men" in some communities. They are similar to zduhaci and other esotericists of the area, but they are much more connected to the dragon they bond with. Like zduhaci, they fight off demons, undead, and bad weather, but they do so entirely for their dragon and not the wider community.

Aloviti give up their bodies to the dragon as well as their souls. They are tested like other servants of dragons, but they are required to give up far more. Their bodies are often weakened, their minds warped, and their souls risked. Many end up having seizures due to the damage done to them in their service to the dragon, but the result is greater power.

If they pass the trials their dragon puts them through, they are given special magicks:

• Heightened agility: they gain the ability to increase their agility five times before being recharged by the dragon
• Draconic rage: they may enter a wild rage and become a better fighter five times before being recharged by the dragon
• Strengthening charm: they may give themselves greater physical strength five times before being recharged by the dragon
• Flying axle: they can take a wagon pole and use it as a means of physically flying if it is strapped to their back
• Soulflight: their souls can leave their body to unleash greater magical power

Some abilities may only be used if they soul fly first.

• Blade ward: they can ward their body with a magical blade; it is stronger if someone waves the blade over them
• Venomous bite: they may borrow the venom of nearby snakes in their bite if they meet one while soulflying
• Horse's endurance: they may borrow the endurance of nearby horses if they meet one while soulflying
• Barkskin: they may borrow the toughness of nearby trees if they meet one while soulflying
• Rally forces: they may rally nearby forces serving the dragon while soulflying
• Riverwalking: they may walk upon moving water if they borrow magic from the water while soulflying

Aloviti burn out and die young, usually, as their magic draws from their bodies and lifeforce as much as their soul.

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

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Bloodcaster

Type: Sanguinist

Bloodcasters use their blood or the blood of others to cast spells. They do this by training for many years to learn the rites and rituals of bloodcasting, as well as engaging in special exercises and eating special foods.

Bloodcasting is one of the broadest and most versatile forms of magic, as the kind of blood used can allow for many different effects. But to learn to use it is dangerous and difficult and requires a knowledge of magic and medicine, nutrition and anatomy. Bloodcasters train their bodies so their hearts are strong and their blood vessels are clear. They eat lean meat diets and drink lots of water, and they make sure not to eat anything aligned or magical. They also drink a special wine that is mixed with their own blood.

After years of training, they perform a rite to permanently instill the unaligned magic within their own blood and bodies, a rite that requires that they nearly bleed out to complete it. It is almost impossible to do this without help. If they survive such a rite, they have the power to draw their own blood and cast spells with it via special symbols, sigils, and circles. If they take the blood of another, they can store it in special vessels to use in rituals later. The vessels are made of unaligned glass, pewter, clay, stone, or metal.

While the rites they can perform vary by blood, the ones listed here are generic and based on what they can do with any unaligned blood. Consult the GM for the power of other kinds of blood.

• Circle of power: a circle of blood that can empower those within it and keep out external energies
• Rite of restoration: a rite that restores the blood of others, helping with healing
• Rite of heart's heat: a rite that warms the blood in the body, encouraging healing, keeping a person warm, and protecting them from some magicks
• Rite of bodily control: a rite that gives the caster control of the body of those whose blood they are using
• Rite of quickening: a rite that quickens the pulse and gives bonuses to reaction
• Rite of constriction: a rite that constricts the blood vessels and causes pain in the target
• Rhythmic spell: a rite that controls the heartbeat of the target

The player will gain other spells based on the species they choose.

Bloodcasters are unpopular socially but not criminalized. They make a good living with their work, though they are sometimes run out of town by ignorant folks who think they are vampires.

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

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Red Mage

Type: Positionist

A mage who can neutralize aligned magicks by using positional magic to let the energy flow around them and maintain the status quo.

All esoteric energies flow. They are generated, then move through available conduits, creating often invisible flows, some of which are massive and spread around the world. A red mage learns to sense the flow of these energies and use their own position and the positions of special objects to neutralize aligned energies, amplify unaligned energies, and create a status quo of energy within a space. With that, within that, they find the neutralizing energy, which they wield to control the space.

All esoteric energies come in five categories: elemental, celestial, fey, infernal, or unaligned. Neutralizing energy is an energy defined by its unalignment. When wielded, it forces the other energies present to repulse if they are aligned, while strengthening any unaligned powers. Red mages use their power to adjust the energies around them, creating places of power.

To be a red mage, one must reject all aligned powers within oneself. As a living thing, a person always has elemental lifeforce, and to completely reject it would mean death. But a red mage finds ways to dampen it when using their powers. Similar situations exist with beings who have other powers inherently. The methods used to reduce or reject aligned powers within oneself vary by species, culture, and time period, but they always involve a meditative practice and having their bodies in specific positions. If they ever use an aligned energy or even use an object with significant amounts of that energy in it, they must go through ritual cleansing of some kind.

There are four formations:

• That which amplifies unaligned powers

• That which neutralizes elemental powers

• That which neutralizes popular powers

• That which neutralizes imperial powers

The four formations may be done via the body (or other living bodies), through the shape of a structure, or through the location of objects. Energies flow toward areas where they aren't, but also to areas where their opposites are if there are conduits for them to travel through. The formations create invisible conduits through space and affect the flow of energies by capturing them in spots where they cannot escape, then letting them fade in these sealed areas.

Positioning bodies, including one's own, requires the most effort to work. Bodies are naturally massive conduits for most types of energies, including many aligned ones, so they can be powerful magnets for those energies. However, because there are so many energies within them or associated with them, they often become poor vessels of neutralizing energy until they have been prepared properly, made devoid of all aligned energies as best as possible. So using the formations, a red mage draws neutralizing energy (which is an oppositional energy to all aligned energies) to themselves by making themselves unaligned and devoid of as many energies as possible. Once they become a vessel of neutralizing energy, they can then place themselves within a space that has other energies in it. Their bodies will draw those other energies (being now opposite them) and thus neutralize them.

If the red mage cannot unalign their own bodies well enough, they can use the shape of a structure and its materials to the same effect, but only by knowing the proper conduits for various energies. While there are many materials that serve as conduits for different, specific energies, a red mage tends to focus on the five broader categories: water for elemental, mirrored glass for celestial essences, gold for infernal essences, feathers for fey energies, and dragonscale for unaligned energies. They need to position the conduits near the energy source, have a method of moving the conduit from one place to another if it is not large enough or shaped properly to connect source to target, and have a target area protected by the right materials to seal the energy once it is captured. The key is, as with all works of the red mage, to have enough neutralizing energy to neutralize or amplify the right energies, all while forming zones where energies can be stopped.

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

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Volkhv

Type: Seer

Volkhvi are part of the Cesti communities. They are wielders of ancient magicks that allow them to predict the future, and that have an important role in the communities in terms of leading ceremonies, festivals, and honoring the gods. They are not necessarily faithful, though many of them are - they just don’t connect this to their magic.

They perform rites of divination by connecting to their own souls. They spend many years studying, learning about themselves, and connecting to their inner power. They train to recognize their own magical essence and wield it, often employing meditative arts, special rituals, and intricate arts from an ancient tome called the Volkhovnik. This book contains many signs and their interpretations, both omens and portents to be observed and powerful inscriptions that help the volkhvi draw their power from.

Volkhvi are not bound to fate, but instead understand and look into the souls of others to know what might be. They do this via their soulsight and the information contained in their magic tomes. They can also find things out by sending their souls from their bodies. While doing this, their souls either fly freely or enter the body of a fly. As long as their body remains undisturbed, they can return to it, but if someone moves it or rotates it (placing feet where head was), they will be unable to return and thus will die.

All volkhvi have other divinatory magicks derived from their souls, but this varies by their backgrounds and species. Consult the GM for specifics.

Volkhvi are common throughout Ranu, but most are from southern Vesturia. Imperials dislike them if they get too involved in politics, but otherwise leave them alone.

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

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Zduhac

Type: Bondsmage

Zduhaci are those who protect villages from terrible storms. They gain these powers from connecting to a local dragon, who grants them this magic to protect the dragon's territory.

Zduhaci must prove themselves connected to the territory - usually by having a standing in the local community - and willing to serve the dragon, passing five trials of the dragon's choosing that represent disciplined will, physical power, territorial commitment, majestic leadership, and shrewd accumulation of resources.

As zduhaci are major players in their communities, access to becoming one is often kept to certain families. This has led to the belief that it is an inborn power, similar to certain other magic users in the region, and there is some evidence the magic can be passed on from parent to child. Those who wish their child to be a zduhaci will claim their child was born special, often sewing a caul into a special garment worn hidden on the child's person (such as a pouch hidden in the armpit). Others will show proof via a birthmark such as a tuft of hair on the shoulder or upper arm. Or they will claim the child was born at a special day or time or conceived before feast days - or that they gestated for three years. Which of these will convince the dragon varies. Another custom is a person spending forty days in service to the dragon, creasing to wash their face, then performing a special ceremony on level ground, sitting in the center of a drawn circle until the dragon comes.

Those who are chosen are transformed by the dragon, bonding to the dragon and being given scales, tails, hair, or other unexpected physical alterations that show they are marked by the dragon.

Due to the magic used by zduhaci, they are often deep sleepers. They are encourged to be thoughtful and solemn in their service to their dragon, and they are taught to be wise, shrewd dealers, resourceful, and skilled in trading.

Their main purpose is to protect the dragon's territory, including the crops and livelihoods of the people living there (who pay tribute to the dragon). For this, they are granted certain magical abilities:

• Speak to spirits: the ability to let any spirit, whether tangible or not, hear and understand you, and to hear and understand them
• Scapulimantic divination: divination by casting or breaking shoulder blades (not while in a body)
• Speak to domestic animals: the ability to speak to domesticated animals of any kind
• Long-distance hearing: the ability to hear things far away very clearly
• Long jump: the ability to jump five to ten times that of a normal person
• Giant bird form: the ability to take the form of a giant bird of any local species
• Soulflight: the ability to send the soul out of the body to observe or cast magic
• Stormdriving: the ability to drive storms away while soulflying
• Wind control: the ability to control the wind while soulflying

While driving off dangerous weather and demons is their main purpose, they also engage in competition and combat with other zduhaci serving other dragons. When they do this, they carry a milk bucket and a peck measure. If they other zduhaci takes their milk bucket, they owe the milk harvest to the other community. If they take the peck measure, they owe the crop yield to the other community. While fighting, they use spindles, beech buds, sharp splinters, leaves, stalks of straw, fluff, flakes, sand, long twigs, cornel sones, pine cones, eggshells, and other small objects in the winds they control. The strongest uproot gigantic firs and oaks.

If a zduhac is hit by a luč, a resinous fatwood charred on both ends, it will kill them instantly. They sometimes wield this when fighting other zduhaci, but it is a great risk.

While soulflying, they must protect both body and soul separately. If their soul is too harshly injured, there is no way to heal the body enough to save the soul unless special rituals are undertaken. Another servant of the dragon must go by night to a valley where horses, oxen rams, billy goats, men, and women dwell (a place kept by the dragon). There they must pass through in total silence until they see a black ox. They must strike the ox with a wooden bar until the animal roars. When they return home, they should find the zduhac healthy.

If the zduhac is not healed by this, the zduhac may burn beech buds in a milk bucket, bring the smoke to himself and bathe in it using a spindle, then go out and admit to being a zduhac. This will end their career, but prevent their death.

Because they send their souls from their bodies, they become more susceptible to becoming undead when they die. Thus, they must die with a clear conscience and be buried in a special ceremony with hawthorn spines under their nails, their tendons cut beneath their knees with a knife from a black sheath. Their body will burn with green flame, showing they are safe from undeath.

They live mostly in southern Ranu, serving draconic nobles with small territories.

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