Nuclear Beasts

Sorcery

The forbidden art of using blood sacrifice to bargain for magical power. You need to know the name of the dark god whose bargain you are accepting and its exact terms... this can be found by using Whisper to speak with it or by finding one of the forbidden texts that describes the procedure. These rites are believed to work for anyone, even those without any magical ability currently, but it's hard to say for sure.

Each sacrifice grants you a permanent +1d6 to your Magic rating OR a permanent +1d6 to a skill of choice (usually a spell skill; since that opens up new spells, it's not unpopular with hermit sorcerers who can't find an tome or instructor). It also always grants you a +1d6 to your Dark Aura. You can only make 5 levels of sacrifice, but that's potentially a +5d6 bonus so it's still pretty darned impressive.

You can also "skip" a level by substituting a higher level one... so occasionally a real psycho will skip straight to Ritual Sacrifice and perform three of them before having to move up.

1. Ritual Scarring: you scratch the holy runes of the dark god (generally nasty looking crosses and curves) into your flesh. If the bargain works, these will leave nasty, hairless scars permanently.

2. Ritual Mutilation: you sever a major body part, usually the tail, although a paw or even both ears could work.

3. Ritual Sacrifice: you ritually murder several strangers or one innocent kinsman.

4. Grand Ritual Sacrifice: you ritually murder people on a monthly basis for a full year, without fail. Other, similarly impressive feats such as creating monsters will often work, too.

5. Vessel of the Unholy: you sacrifice a good portion of your freewill, letting your dark master guide your every action. Generally a sorcerer only goes this far when they've already been happily following their dark lord's commands for some time so they think that this can't really be any worse, right?

Higher levels are detectable by both the Intuition skill and using Scry to examine your magical aura. Your Dark Aura adds to attempts to interact with malign spirits, but also increases the likelihood of them showing up spontaneously in your environment. Each month you roll it and the number of successes is the number of times that something unpleasant crosses over somewhere in your neighborhood.

Spell Effects

Magical Compulsion: influence the behavior of others with your mind.

• Small Magicks: nudge an unsuspecting person towards a particular mental state (like making a drowsy guard fall asleep or an alert guard feel drowsy), aid or penalize social interactions by manipulating an unsuspecting person's mood, make an unsuspecting foe who hasn't initiated combat yet hesitate to attack.
• Large Magicks: make a foe break off combat (this effect ends if they get attacked), paralyze a foe by touch (ends if you do something else), distract a foe with an overwhelming burst of emotion, hold a group of unsuspecting foes (who have not yet initiated combat) at bay, force a target to perform a single very simple action that doesn't directly harm them (such as dropping a weapon or not shouting for the guards), force a material spirit to return to the spirit world.
• High Sorceries: control the actions of a mouse-sized but unintelligent creature (ends if they get hurt or seriously frightened), paralyze a foe at range (still ends if you do anything else other than move slowly while concentrating), attempt to direct the emotions of an unsuspecting target in very specific ways (such as trying to make them fall in love with you temporarily; the effect ends if they ever actually try to shake it off).

Magical Glamour: produce illusions and phantasms with your mind. These vanish if touched and have no true physical force.

• Small Magicks: make yourself unnoticeable (note that this only works against someone who isn't actively searching for you) so long as you do nothing to attract attention, make something look like something else of very similar size and shape (effect vanishes if the item undergoes close examination), make an illusion of a vague sound or motion in a particular area (good as a distraction), make a tiny and obviously fake animated illusion in your paw move and change on command (good for entertaining kids).
• Large Magicks: render yourself unnoticeable even against an active search so long as you do nothing to attract their attention, disguise something in such a way that it might pass close examination, frighten a foe with a brief illusion of an onrushing predator.
• High Sorceries: make a life-sized illusion of something that moves and acts at your direction, assail a foe with a crowd of hallucinatory images or phantom foes.

Magical Scry:

• Small Magicks: negate penalties for blindness or other blocked senses, aid sense tests, render a physical barrier translucent to your eyes by touch, see invisible forces like spells or incorporeal spirits, study an ongoing spell to study its effects, sense the general sort of events associated with an area or object especially if those events are bad (e.g.- a knife might seem full of murder or a location full of fear or pain).
• Large Magicks: search a wide area for something specific (you set the target; it might be a particular person you know, a specific kind of creature, any ongoing spells, etc.), see through an object that you're touching as though it weren't there, divine someone's Doom (with their cooperation).
• High Sorceries: aid combat or tactics checks by sensing everything in your vicinity, enter a prophetic trance where you may make enigmatic pronouncements about future or current events (you sometimes have some little control of what is revealed, depending on how well you roll), divine the name by which a specific spirit or dark god can be communicated with using Whisper, render all objects in your vicinity as transparent to your eyes as you want them to be.

Magical Shaping: slowly reshape physical objects by touch.

• Small Magicks: study an object's internal structure by touch, slowly repair minor damage by touch (includes aiding healing checks), slowly sculpt non-metal material as though it were made of clay and you were wearing mittens.
• Large Magicks: attempt to shatter a solid object or wound a living foe by touch, sculpt a non-metal object as though it were made of clay, rapidly repair major damage by touch (both aids a healing check and speeds it up to 15 minutes).
• High Sorceries: sculpt a metal object as though it were clay, make a non-metal object effectively animate itself by constantly reshaping it (works best on water or mud), perform a Small or Large Magick at range, attempt to treat illnesses and other physical problems that aren't truly "injuries".

Magical Spark: produce light, fire or static electricity.

• Small Magicks: light something readily flammable, conjure a ball of light in your paw, distract a foe with a static shock by touch.
• Large Magicks: produce a burst of flame that can burn a cluster of foes, produce a blinding flash of light, zap a nearby foe with a powerful static discharge (something like a miniature lightning bolt).
• High Sorceries: extinguish a fire, make a self-sustaining ball of light that moves at your mental command (it can even change colors or adjust its brightness), place a powerful static charge into a metal object so that the next person to touch it will be shocked.

Magical Tug: exert physical force at range with your mind as though pushing or pulling something with an invisible stick.

• Small Magicks: pull a small (handheld) item towards you or away, guide a rope as though it were a snake, attract someone's attention with a magical tap on the shoulder.
• Large Magicks: hurl a foe away with a rush of force (vs Brawn, large creatures may get free Successes to resist due to size), deflect a flight of arrows with a wave of force, attempt to pin a foe under a blanket of force.
• High Sorceries: make an object levitate in place until disturbed, move something small at range as though you were handling it with your own paws, float yourself slowly through the air (Rat mages require an extra success due to their size).

Magical Whisper: telepathic communication.

• Small Magicks: send a mental whisper to a nearby creature or someone you know well, have a two-way mental conversation by touch (this bypasses language barriers), aid animal handling checks by whispering into the creature's head.
• Large Magicks: send a mental whisper to everyone in a large area, send someone a mental beacon so that they can tell your current location as long as you maintain it, mentally communicate with a spirit or demon, have a two-way mental conversation at range.
• High Sorceries: share someone else's senses so long as you block out your own, establish a permanent mental link with a small insect or similar animal (turning it into a true familiar), whisper to the dark gods (generally used to offer bargains in return for their help), attempt to snatch an unguarded thought from an unsuspecting target's mind.

Misc

1. When you use a Maneuver against someone, you roll a Stat+Knack vs their Stat+Knack... if successful, you penalize their dice in a different Stat than the one you just beat. The penalty lasts until they successfully win a contest using a different Stat than the penalized one (or if they get at least a full turn to just recover without having to roll anything). Penalties are not cumulative; if multiple attempts are made to penalize the same thing, only apply the strongest penalty. You must defend against a Maneuver using the same Stat.

2. A fighting Knack should name the weapon it applies to and whether that weapon uses Athletics or Brawn for its base (in general, Brawn weapons are big and heavy, whereas Athletics weapons are small but sharp).

3. When multiple Knacks apply, you get the highest one at full value... the second one at -1d (minimum zero) and the third at -2d (minimum zero). So the best you can possibly get is +6d6 from having 3 applicable Knacks all at 3d6.

4. Knacks outside their area of specialty may be penalized 1d or 2d. For example, if you take a Swords (Athletics Combat) Knack, and someone hands you a spear, you'd probably drop 2d6.

5. Desperate Maneuvers: when you lose a contest, you can tap a Drive to describe a quick Maneuver that you perform to try and block the attack. It must use a different Stat but can use the same Knack. If successful, the original results are voided and you can apply your Maneuver bonus against them normally. If you fail, you suffer the consequences of the original contest normally.

6. Harm is marked off as Injury, Stress or Magical Stress (mages only). Stress is a catch-all for any sort of contest that you can be defeated in but where the effects are temporary and go away rapidly when the contest is over. ie- fatigue from a race, public scorn from a debate, losing all of your pieces in a game of Honeycomb.

7. Casting spells requires you to have at least 1d6 in the appropriate Knack (unlike most Knacks, spells come pre-defined). There are 3 types. A rating of 1d6 lets you cast Small Magicks, simple, common spells that can never win a direct contest against an alert foe. A rating of 2d6 lets you cast Large Magicks, which are simple but powerful spells that can win direct contests. Large Magicks always incur a point of Magical Harm unless you give up a Success to prevent it. A rating of 3d6 lets you cast High Sorceries, extremely complex spells that incur 2 points of Magical Harm (which can be negated as before by giving up Successes on a 1-for-1 basis). You can also reduce the Magical Harm by 1 point by spending lots of time preparing it.

Spell Ratings

0d6 (Untrained): You can cast Small Magicks, but you incur 1 point of Magical Harm per casting (if you roll extra successes, you can discard one rather than take a point of Magical Harm). You cannot perform High Sorceries at all.

1d6 (Apprentice): You can cast Small Magicks without incurring any Magical Harm. You can cast High Sorceries, but at a cost of 2 points of Magical Harm per casting (as per usual, extra successes can be used to negate this damage on a point-per-point basis).

2d6 (Journeyman): As above, but in non-stressful situations you can now cast High Sorceries at a cost of only 1 point of Magical Harm per spell.

3d6 (Master): As above, but in non-stressful situations you can now cast High Sorceries without incurring any Magical Harm. During stressful situations you can cast them at a cost of 1 point of Magical Harm.

Eh, maybe I should just go back to the basics...
0d6: Untrained, can't cast spells of this type.
1d6: Can perform Small Magicks.
2d6: Can perform High Sorceries at a cost of 1 point of Magical Harm per spell (2 if rushed, as in during combat).
3d6: Master. High Sorceries no longer cause Magical Harm in non-stressful situations and only incur 1 point if rushed.

Weapons

As an alternative...

Barehands is +0d6 to fighting

Crappy weapons are +1d6.

Metal weapons are +2d6 (requires status 3d6).

Superior metal weapons are +3d6 (requires status 5d6).

Hm...

No tools: -2d6
Poor tools (like claws instead of a real weapon): -1d6
Average tools: +0d6
Good tools: +1d6
Superior tools: +2d6
Amazing tools: +3d6

Metal weapons are +1d6.
Superior metal weapons are +2d6.
Metal armor is +2d6.

The Races

Unless otherwise stated, all stats run from 0d6 to 5d6. Player Characters receive 13d6 to distribute between Athletics, Brawn, Cleverness, Determination and Magic. Your Status stat is determined by your chosen race.

Royal Mice: the hereditary rulers of the Fallows, the Royals are small, inbred albinos with great magical potential... which is often squandered. Most consider themselves above any sort of "work" or serious study.

Maximum Brawn: 3d6
Minimum Magic: 2d6
Maximum Magic: 6d6
Starting Status: 5d6
Skill Points: 11

Special: as albinos, Royal Mice suffer a -1d6 penalty to all Endurance rolls and a similar penalty to Perception in bright sunlight (they also suffer a -1d6 penalty to all attempts to resist blinding flashes of light). Excessive exposure to bright light can actually lead to health problems and even blindness, but this can generally be prevented with heavy clothing and silken veils.

White Mice: the hereditary upper-class of the Fallows, mice with pure white fur are regarded as being of noble stock. A few possess small patches of other light colors, which they keep concealed by applying white dyes. The leaders and most important businessmen of most townships are White Mice.

Maximum Brawn: 4d6
Starting Status: 3d6
Skill Points: 12

Common Mice: ordinary mice of brown or black are regarded as commoners in the Fallows. Those with white patches are regarded as a bit of an oddity; thought superior by other Common Mice due to having some White Mouse blood, but regarded as an embarrassment by any actual White Mouse relatives. Common Mice are the most common race in the Fallows, far outnumbering all of the others.

Maximum Magic: 4d6
Starting Status: 2d6
Skill Points: 13

Jumping Mice: not truly related to the other breeds of mice, Jumping Mice are a separate race supposedly granted sentience by the White Lords in ancient times. They possess an extraordinary ability to jump long distances and are often employed as messengers.

Maximum Magic: 3d6
Starting Status: 2d6
Skill Points: 11

Special: when a Jumping Mouse attempts a leap, their distance is normally measured in feet, not inches. Any jump which another race would have to roll for they can pass automatically; any jump which a Jumping Mouse would have to roll for is impossible for any other race.

White Rats: Royal Mice are commonly attended by Rat servants. Some of these servant families are so inbred themselves that they have white fur as well. Such servants are considered extraordinarily valuable and carry a great deal of social status themselves, due to their family influence with the Royal houses. A White Mouse may be wealthy and important in their community, but a White Rat is probably on a first-name basis with royalty.

Maximum Magic: 3d6
Starting Status: 4d6
Skill Points: 11

Special: due to their size, White Rats receive a +1d6 bonus to the Feats of Strength skill and a -1d6 penalty to the Acrobatics skill. They must eat twice as much food to survive.

Common Rats: ordinary Rats are large and strong but generally of milder dispositions than mice, although there is a lot of variation. They are often found alongside Common Mice, performing unskilled labor that requires more strength than dexterity.

Minimum Brawn: 1d6
Maximum Magic: 2d6
Starting Status: 2d6
Skill Points: 12

Special: due to their size, Common Rats receive a +1d6 bonus to both the Feats of Strength skill and the Endurance skill. They suffer a -1d6 penalty to the Acrobatics skill. They must eat twice as much food to survive.

Wild Rats: once in a great while, a rat will be born who bears closer kinship to the huge feral rats that beyond the edge of the Fallows than their more civilized kin. Wild Rats are huge and powerful and tend to be short-tempered and violent. They are regarded with great suspicion by the other races and are generally only found on the outskirts of the Fallows or in the Barbarian Hills.

Minimum Brawn: 2d6
Maximum Cleverness: 3d6
Maximum Magic: 1d6
Starting Status: 1d6
Skill Points: 12

Special: due to their size and fierce natures, Wild Rats receive a +1d6 bonus to the Feats of Strength skill, the Endurance skill and the Fighting skill. They suffer a -1d6 penalty to the Acrobatics skill. They must eat twice as much food to survive.

Status

• 5d6+: Royalty. Able to own land. Could conceivably one day rule a province or even become Emperor. Possesses at least a few servants and a large home. Access to high quality metal weapons and armor (+2d6 to Fight or Shooting).
• 4d6: Wealthy Noble. Has a large home and several servants. Access to the same kind of items, but gets more of them.
• 3d6: Noble. Allowed to rent land from royals. Has a house and possibly a servant. Access to high quality metal weapons (+1d6 to Fight). Can get Crossbows (+1d6 to Shooting).
• 2d6: Commoner. Allowed to rent land from nobles. Probably has a shack to live in. Only allowed normal (either non-metal or very low quality metal) weapons. Can get bows.
• 1d6: Lowlife. Sleeps on the street or as the guest of an employer. Only crude melee weapons like clubs allowed.
• 0d6: Outcast. No possessions. Gets run out of town regularly.

Spell Effects

Compel

• Small Magicks: nudge an unsuspecting target towards a particular mental state (like making a drowsy guard fall asleep), make an uncertain foe hesitate before attacking you, control the actions of a single tiny creature (like a cricket, flea or ant).
• High Sorceries: hold a foe at bay (requires only 1 success), change someone's emotional state, control the physical actions of a mouse-scale animal (riding beetles or even small birds are okay, but not a sentient being), control the actions of a mouse-scale intelligent creature (requires enough successes to overcome their Determination in a single roll), attempt to banish a spirit or force a foe to flee.

Glamour

• Small Magicks: prevent yourself from being noticed so long as you remain perfectly still, startle a creature with an momentary illusion of something large and frightening but very vaguely outlined, make a tiny and translucent animated illusion of something in your outstretched paw (this is obviously fake but is great for entertaining children).
• High Sorceries: create a phantasmal version of yourself or some other mouse-sized object that vanishes if touched (it can be programmed to move in certain ways, but can't actually make any noises or interact with other objects), prevent anyone from noticing you as long as you don't do anything to overtly draw their attention, make an object or person temporarily look like something else of similar size and shape (the disguise vanishes after a few hours or whenever the item undergoes really close examination), create a large and very realistic illusion of something that only lasts a few rounds (an onrushing predator is a perennial favorite).

Scry

• Small Magicks: negate penalties for blocked senses (such as blindness or deafness) by substituting the magical equivalent, aid sense tests by heightening your senses, render a physical barrier semi-transparent to you by touch (by touching it you can partially see through it), see invisible forces like ambient magic or non-corporeal spirits, study an ongoing spell to see its full nature and effects, sense the general sort of events associated with an area or object especially if those events are bad (e.g.- a knife might seem full of murder or a location full of fear or pain).
• High Sorceries: see through a chosen object as though it wasn't there, see a recent event associated with an object or location by touch, search a wide area for a particular kind of thing (you set the target; it might be a particular person you know, a specific kind of creature, any ongoing spells, etc.), enter a prophetic trance where you may make enigmatic pronouncements about future or current events (you have little or no control of what is revealed, if anything), divine the name by which a dark god can be communicated with using Whisper.

Shaping

• Small Magicks: slowly repair damage to an object by touch (this can be used to aid healing rolls), sculpt non-metals clumsily (as though it were heavy clay and you were sculpting it with mittens on), sense the presence of internal damage in a person by touch, sense the presence of hidden compartments in an object by touch.
• High Sorceries: attempt to do physical harm to something by shattering it, perform magical surgery on a severely hurt person by touch, sense the internal structure of a creature or object just by looking at it, sculpt an non-metal object by touch as though it were clay.

Spark

• Small Magicks: light a torch/candle or other extremely flammable object on fire, conjure a small ball of light or fire and hold in your paw or direct it mentally (whereupon it moves as you command, but very slowly), startle a foe with an electric shock by touch.
• High Sorceries: hurl an explosive ball of flame to harm foes, set nearby object or person on fire, conjure a bright-as-day ball of light or fire and carry it with you or direct it mentally (whereupon it moves quite rapidly), blind foes with a momentary flare of bright light, zap a foe with a powerful electrical arc like a tiny lightning bolt.

Tug

• Small Magicks: move a small object as though you were tugging on it with a string, attract or distract someone with a telekinetic tap, guide a rope or other flexible object into looping around something and tying itself into a knot.
• High Sorceries: send a foe flying with a telekinetic shove, float through the air slowly, make an item float in place as long as you maintain the spell, grant a bonus to a jump or climb roll, grant a bonus to a missile weapon attack, grant a bonus to defend against missile weapon attacks, move a small object as though you were holding it in your paws (this could even be used to hit a foe with a melee weapon at range).

Whisper

• Small Magicks: send a psychic whisper to someone in sight or whom you know well, have a two-way mental conversation (which bypasses language barriers) with someone by touch, aid animal handling checks by whispering into the creature's head, share the senses of a tiny animal (such as a flea, beetle or small bird but no sentient creatures), send mental commands to or share the senses of your familiar (if you have one).
• High Sorceries: have a mental conversation with multiple nearby people, have a two-way mental conversation with someone far away but whom you know well, have a two-way mental conversation with a demon/spirit/dark god that you can clearly identify, shout a mental message to every creature of a certain type in the area, project a mental beacon to every creature of a certain type in the area (letting them sense your current position as long as you maintain it; what they do with that information is up to them), attempt to snatch surface thoughts from an unsuspecting target, aid any social interactions by subtly whispering thoughts into the target's head, turn a tiny arthropod (such as a flea, dragonfly or small spider) into a familiar (you can only have one at a time).

??? Hold a dying person's spirit so that they can be treated?
Possibly move Scry to something like Spirit and let them sense and banish spirits?