Grimiore: A System For The Magical And Supernatural

Stats: Simple Stat System

Grimiore Dice
Basics
When rolling dice you have 3 D6 as your default dice on any roll. This can be added to by the stats contributing to your roll. For example attacking someone with Fight(Melee) Linked to Steel would have you looking at Steel and Fight(Melee). For this example let's assume you have 2 points in Steel and 1 point in Fight. You would take the 2 points in Steel, add the 1 point in Dice and convert those all to 1 D6 each for a total of 3. You then take those 3d6 and add them to the d6 you have by default, making your roll 6d6 Fight(Melee).
When rolling dice you do not add up he results of your separate dice. Instead you look at each result separately and count them as Successes or Failures. If the dice result is 1-3, it is a Failure. If it's a 4-6 it's a Success. These successes are counted together to determine if you passed or failed the roll based on how many Successes are decided to be needed, or it's Target Number(TN). The TN is decided by the GM but can usually be decided based on it's difficulty.



Devil's Deal:
Sometimes your luck is on a turn for the bad and you need the luck of the devil on your side. In these cases you can call in a Devil's Deal. A Devil's Deal can be called in after you see your dice roll but before the GM Dictates the result of your roll. When you call in a Devil's Deal, you can request any number of Devil's Dice to roll and add to your roll. However when you call in a Devil's Deal the GM gains an equal number of Devil's Dice to the amount you rolled that can be used in rolls against you specifically.

Link Stats/The Link System:
Rather than using the basic stat system of larger stats having smaller stats under them in an umbrella system there is the alternate option of making a Link System. In this proposed system each smaller stat would have multiple larger stats it could link up to in accordance to the will of the player. This allows for more flexibility of builds and allows for a way to disconnect the skills from the stats, broadening the array of stats able to be made. Link Stats and Substats can each increase to a maximum of 3 for a total of 6 for any given stat. Below is a proposition on various stats and their link stats.

When creating a character you will gain 9 Points to put into your Link Stats and 25 to put into Substats

Fight(Melee): Steel Or Silver
Force: Steel
Climb: Steel Or Silver
Acrobatics: Silver
Sleight Of Hand: Silver
Fight Ranged: Steel Or Silver
Fortitude: Stone
Focus: Stone Or the character's main casting stat
Ressilience: Stone
Arcane Knowledge: Parchment Or Glass
Logic: Parchment
Perception: Parchment Or Glass
Survival/Alchemy: Parchment Or Glass
Beastmastery: Glass Or Gold
Sanity: Glass Or Gold
Persuasion: Parchment Or Gold
Deception: Glass Or Gold
Intimidation: Steel Or Gold

Link Stats:

Strength/Steel: Steel, one of the earliest forms of the human race finding new and over-complicated ways of exerting their will over others. As such it's a natural fit as a component tied intrinsically with the human body's strength.

Dexterity/Silver: Silver, one of the softer metals. It is considered a pure and sometimes magical metal, especially when you look at metals associated with it in ancient times such as Mercury, or Quicksilver as they called it. This softness and lack of pure force makes it an excellent fit for a component tied with the human body's agility and swiftness.

Constitution/Stone: Stone, strong and unyielding it is the very backbone of the planet. It persisted long before we were here and will persist long after. It is a strong fit for a component tied with the human body's ability to persevere.

Intelligence/Parchment: Paper, Parchment, there are multiple words for this. But all of them can be used as a medium to transfer and store knowledge, therefore it's a wonderful fit for a component meant to embody the human mind's great intellect.

Wisdom/Glass: Glass, transparent and clear it shows the plain truth of anything seen through it. It can make things clearer and emphasize what is important. Therefore it is an amazing fit for a component embodying the human mind's wisdom.

Charisma/Gold: Gold, a rather useless material by itself. It's soft and heavy, impractical for many uses. But the human race's assigned value makes it one of the most valued metals in the world, making it a perfect analogy for a component meant to symbolize the human race's use of their natural charm.


Substats:

	Fight(Melee): Sometimes magic isn't always the answer. This stat is used when you need some good old fashion fists/swords/maces/chairs to faces action.
	Fight(Ranged) Now violence on the other hand... This stat is used when you want to ruin someone's day from a distance with less than peaceful methods.
	Force: Lift with your legs not your back. And push with your legs. And keep the werewolf from pulling the door open to eat your face like a piece of bologna with your legs. This stat is used whenever you need to leverage your strength against something or someone. Is also generally used for acts of strength.
	Climb: Climbing Targets include but are not limited to: Walls, rocks, giant abominations that have no right being on this earth, and that one bookshelf that you can never find the ladder to. This stat is used to well, climb.
	Acrobatics: Jack Be Nimble Jack Be Swift, Jack Really Should Have Invested In This Stat Before Jumping That Gap. This stat is used when you need to do something fast or that requires some level of athleticism such as jumping a gap or dodging that sword that's coming right at you. Used as a defensive stat.
	Sleight Of Hand: I swear I didn't take this skill to pick locks. This stat is used when you need to do something that requires finesse or fine movements such as lock-picking, pick-pocketing, and pulling quarters from behind people's ears.

	Fortitude: If you got killed by poison you just weren't trying hard enough. This stat is used to resist anything physical such as poison, a Banshee's scream, or that sandwich your classmate dared you to eat.
	Focus: It's not always easy to keep hold on a spell or remember the right word in the heat of battle, although it's still awkward when your Wall Of Fire spell conjures a chain link fence because you swapped an F and W. Used when you need to keep hold of your mental fortitude in the midst of battle, remember something, or keep a spell from fizzling when you get hit. This can also be under your main casting stat.
	Resilience: When you need to take a hit and keep going. (Mostly) This stat is rolled when you need to take a hit or generally be resilient. Used as a defensive stat.
	Arcane Knowledge: I'm not saying you're a nerd for taking this stat but I'm not, NOT saying that either. This stat is used when you want to call upon your knowledge of everything arcane, whether that be recalling what runes mean or knowing that Unicorns love getting their chin scratched.
	Logic: So if the one guy tells the truth and the other only lies... This stat is used to figure things out, solve puzzles, and realize that fire is hot.
	Perception: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADj-Ru3JQp0 This stat is used when you need to notice something.


	Survival/Alchemy: This leaf is either a deadly poison or makes a delicious tea. This stat is used to determine various things in nature, preform alchemy, and do various miscellaneous survival-esque things.
	Beastmastery: Anything's a good boy if you try hard enough. Unless it's a good girl...or a hellhound. This stat is used when interacting with non-sentient animals.
	Sanity: Don't ask why you need this stat. For your sake. In theory, this stat makes sure nothing gets into your head that really shouldn't be there. Let's leave it at that. For your sake.


	Persuasion: Honeyed Words and Silvered Tongues: Both descriptions of people good with words and people who signed up to be test subjects for the Transmutation Class for extra credit.(Headmaster Tirref is still, as it were, horrified.). This stat is rolled when you're trying to convince someone, haggle, or just tell a really good joke.
	Deception: Did you know mages actually built the Brooklyn Bridge? No? Well, I suppose that's a good thing, seeing as that's a rumor that started a while back when a demon got bored and decided to test a theory on just how gullible humans really were. This is the stat you use to be a dirty little liar.
	Intimidation: Pleasing people is for angels, piss people off, be rude, get what you want! This stat is used when you want to make people scared of you, force them into doing something, or just be menacing.

Health:
Your Health is a representation of how close you are to biting the big one. It is determined by taking 15 and adding your total Resilience Score after adding your Link Stat.

Damage:
Damage is what happens to take you closer to biting the big one. When attacking with a spell deal damage equal to the Spell Level+Your Magical Training Bonus+Your Magical Stat for that School. Meanwhile when you attack with a physical attack using Fight you may roll a dice of a size equal to your dice pool for Fight, ie someone with a Fight of 3 would roll 6d6 for Fight to attack and a d6 for damage.

Wounds:
Getting hurt is painful! You'll try to avoid it but eventually everyone gets hurt, and even if you dont die you'll be a little less effective at some things.
[Wounds Mechanics WIP]


Schools Of Magic:
Abjuration: Stone
Conjuration: Gold
Divination: Glass
Evocation: Glass
Psionics: Gold
Dark Arts: Stone
Transmutation: Parchment



Grimiore Magic
Magic, it's something that people think of as this mystical unknowable thing. Further proof people are idiots I suppose. Alchemists had it closer than anyone really. It's much closer to a science with a little bit of art thrown in. Everything you do is measured, calculated, all to get your desired effect. Each glyph and rune has it's own meaning that contributes to it's final effect.

Magic in this world is made of various building blocks that powerful mages can change out and build upon. There are various parameters to a spell and not every spell has every parameter.

Schools: The most basic parameter of the bunch, it dictates what type of Focus is used for the formation of the spell and acts as a stepping stone for further parameters. This stepping stone can be the difference between 2 very difference spells if the other parameters are the same. There is 1 Parameter for each school of magic. (In addition to 2 additional School Parameters for Angelic and Demonic Magic but this is extremely rare)

Form: Form is how the spell manifests and acts once the spell is cast. It can be one of the most complex parameters due to the many different forms that can be used. For instance a spell with the Form of Burst would be a spell that radiates out from a single point in one single effect while a spell with a Form of Ray would be a single target focused spell.

Range: Range is how far you need to be from someone to cast the spell. This is one of the simplest parameters as it's usually a concrete range such as 20 feet or contact. There can be sub parameters on spells such as spells with the Burst or Aura Form that dictate the area of effect once the spell is cast.

Duration: Another very simple parameter, Duration is how long a spell can be kept active. This can range from anywhere from instant, meaning it does what it does and dissipates, to an hour, to as long as you can concentrate on the spell.

Purpose: A more abstract Parameter, Purpose is what the magic is meant to do. Whether that be Damage, Healing, Creation, or Hexes. The Purpose can be one of the most important Parameters of a spell, dictating whether your spell soothes the wounds of your ally or causes their wound to split open.

Element: Element is what dictates the energy surrounding your spell and how it manifests. While this parameter is most important in damaging spells it has it's uses in many other spells.

Trigger: Sometimes you need to be a little more discerning in how your spell is used or set up a spell as a failsafe, this is where Trigger comes in. Triggers are conditions in which your spell activates once it's cast.


Spell Use:
Spells are a science yes, but they are also an art. An art that you need to practice, practice, practice. Of course when you're practicing an art you will find some things easier than others depending on their complexity.

Spells are sorted into different categories depending on how strong they are. They are referred to here as Spell Levels. (WIP Name)
Different spell levels are easier or harder to activate. When you cast a spell of higher than 1st level you have to roll to see if you can activate the spell, adding the Linkstat related to the school and the Magic Training of that school to it for the total dice as you would a normal stat roll.

For a 2nd Level Spell you need at least 2 Success
For a 3rd Level Spell you need at least 3 Successes
Ect Ect


Magic Training:
As a Mage your basic skills are only going to take you so far. Only experience and training will take you the rest of the way.

Every so often you will be given a point in Magical Training that represents how you spread your study of magic to the varying specialties of magic. You can add these points to the various schools of magic* in much the same way you add points to your Link Stats and substats. Just like Link Stats you can only add up to 3 points in any given school.
Each Magical Training School has 2 options per Level that you can take, giving you a small ability related to a specialization in the school.

*Supernatural Characters: The world is full of those of the more innately magical persuasion such as Werewolves, Fae, Vampires, and many many more. When playing a character of such a nature speak with your GM to design a Supernatural School, with abilities to reflect and advance your magical nature. As a result Supernatural Characters will not have the same amount of magical flexibility in the Schools as a normal character.

Sample Spells:

Spell Name: Fireball
School: Evocation
Element: Fire
Form: Burst
Range: 20 Feet (10 Foot Burst)
Duration: Instant
Purpose: Damage
Fireball is a spell where you focus flaming energy into a point within 20 feet and cause it to detonate into a 10 foot large explosion, burning and damaging anyone in the area

Spell Name: Phoenix Burst
School: Evocation
Element: Fire
Form: Burst
Range: 20 Feet (10 Foot Burst)
Duration: Instant
Purpose: Healing
Phoenix Burst is a spell where you conduct flaming energy into a point within 20 feet and cause it to detonate into a 10 foot large flood of cleansing flames, burning away impurities and healing the wounds of anyone caught in the area.


Binding Chains
School: Conjuration
Form: Glyph
Range: Contact
Duration: 2 Hours
Purpose: Hex
Trigger: When A Non-approved Individual makes contact with the glyph
Binding Chains is a spell where you place a Glyph and set a list of people who can make contact with the glyph safely by expending something from that person such as a strand of hair or bit of blood. Anyone not on that list who makes contact with the glyph are accosted by chains erupting from the glyph and trapping the culprit in place.

Lightning Bolt
School: Evocation
Element: Lightning
Form: Line
Range 40 Feet
Duration: Instant
Purpose: Damage
Lightning Bolt is a spell that summons a bolt of lightning in a 40 foot line in front of you, piercing and electrocuting anyone caught in it.

Obscuring Mist
School: Illusion
Element: Water
Form: Cloud
Range: 20 Feet (15 foot cloud)
Duration: 5 Minutes
Purpose: Concealment
Obscuring Mist is a spell that summons a cloud of mist to hide a 15 foot section of space within 20 feet, making it more difficult for people to see inside.