Signs of Sorcery | Mastery

Making casters feel magical

This publication, recently called The Circle, is now Wayside Games. Do not be alarmed.

The door opened, and the room grew still. From the street beyond, there blew a cold and wicked wind. A wind with winter on its heels. The candle flames flickered and dimmed until they were pinpricks only, their light so mere and meager that the rangers could hardly see their breath frosting the air before them.

So heralded, he entered.

His beard was white as frost, his eyes as blue as northern ice. He was tall and regal, draped in grey robes as thunder is draped in cloud.

“I would speak my name, but you know me by my signs. Lay down your arms.”

---

I've taken prestidigitation, thaumaturgy, or druidcraft every time they’ve been on my spell lists. When folks at my table play casters, they do the same nine times out of ten. These are spells that allow you to demonstrate your character’s magic in small, subtle ways, and they represent a fantasy of magic that D&D rarely tries to meet.

This is the fantasy of being magical. Not just being able to cast spells but to be attuned to the world in such a way that the world acknowledges your presence. An angered sorcerer causes thunder to clap overhead, and an overjoyed druid causes flowers to bloom a dozen feet in every direction. You are not only magical for your ability to cast sorceries worthy of a turn in combat, but for the way your existence realigns the world around you.

Thaumaturgy

This is a core component of many mages’ stories, and it’s a favorite trope of mine. I love the idea that even though the specific spells you can cast are varied, there is a unified theme or vibe that defines your magic. I love the idea that casters have a distinctive aura that can be recognized. I love the idea that magic leaves marks which are difficult to hide.

This last one important to me: in my usual fantasy setting, magic is forbidden and its wielders are hunted. I love to make this threat against my players, and giving magic unpredictable, visible consequences makes that threat much more real.

I want all this in my home games. I bet you do too! What follows is my system for Channels and Signs. It gives players opportunities to leverage their magic in creative ways, it gives DMs the tools to create interesting consequences, and gives your game a sense of magic that is more alive.

The Shape of the Thing

First, let me be very clear about what I’m trying to make. DMing and design are both about intent, so we need to get mine down on paper. What is this system for?

This is a system that supplements the magic D&D’s casters already do. To that end, it wants to be simple (so as not to supplant or distract from the RAW system) and it needs to be integrated (meaning that by interacting with either the new or base system, players will be interacting with the other).

This is a system that creates interesting situations at the table. A game is a series of choices, and new rules need to create new choices for us and our players.

This is a system that gives players creative, non-resource-expending ways to demonstrate their magic. It should feel like the world is reacting to their presence - sometimes that is under their control and sometimes that is not. Magic should feel cool, feel connected, and feel a little bit dangerous. I want being a mage to be harder to hide.

Channeling and Signs

So here’s the heart of this new system: when you build a caster, you choose a Channel. Your Channel is the pathway by which you guide magic into the world, and it determines the outward Sign of your magic.

Rules for Channels

The first time you learn a non-cantrip spell, choose a Channel.

As an action, you may begin or stop channeling. If you are not channeling, you cannot cast non-cantrip spells. While you are channeling, the Signs associated with your Channel are active.

A Sign is a magical effect that surrounds you, a noticeable signal of nearby sorcery. A Sign could make candleflames flare, make hairs stand on edge, or darken a room.

In order to cast spells, you have to be channeling, and because channeling takes an action, it’s best to start channeling before combat begins. As long as you’re channeling, though, you’re announcing your magic to the world around you. What if starting to channel causes that combat?

Play Example

Aben is a sorcerer with the following channel:
The Second Gate of Fire: Fires near you burn hotter and higher.

Aben sat at the bar’s corner table, his contact in the Court of Beggars across from him. It had been hard to set this meeting, and expensive too. For all that legwork, it wasn’t going well.

This Beggar-Baroness was nervous as sin. By the way she kept throwing looks to the mercs at the next table, she hadn’t come alone. The whole scene was trouble, but it didn’t mean he needed her intel any less. How much danger would he let himself get into before he showed some teeth?

Then again, maybe some teeth would speed this conversation along. Aben closed his eyes and concentrated. As he opened them, the candles on the table flared. Their light shown in Jessa’s now-wide eyes. Slowly, he closed his fist. The flames faded into near-nothing.

”Let’s try this again,” Aben said, “Where can I find the Dutchess?”

We’re starting to hit our intended cool and reactive targets with our Signs, and creating danger with those Signs’ consequences. We create interesting decisions by making players choose between anonymity and power at any given moment as well as by requiring an action to begin channeling during combat.

Making it Scale

As described above, Signs are very static. No matter what level you are, the Sign of your magic is always the same. That Sign is never under your control. A first-level sorcerer would cause candles to flair and flash in the same wild manner as a twentieth-level one.

The following rules are in service of progression. Characters should feel more powerful over time, and in this system that comes from more dramatic Sign effects and from better control of your Signs.

So… Channels with escalating Signs:

The Gates of Fire

(1st Level) The First Gate: Your skin is hot to the touch, as if you burn with fever.
(2-3rd Level) The Second Gate: Fires near you burn hotter and higher.
(4-5th Level) The Third Gate: The air around you is hot and dry. It stings the throat.
(6-9th Level) The Fourth Gate: Flammable objects near you ignite spontaneously.

And here are the rules for these newly tiered Signs:

Continued Rules for Channels

A Channel has a number of Tiers, each associated with a range of spell levels. As an action, a character can begin channeling at any Tier for which they have an available spell slot. As an action, a character can stop channeling.

A character cannot spend a spell slot of a higher level than that of the Tier they are currently channeling.

The “highest Tier known to you” is the Tier associated with the highest level of spell you can cast (read, the highest level for which you have a non-zero maximum number of spell slots).

Each tier has an associated Sign. When you are channeling, the Sign of your current Tier and each lower Tier are active. The Sign of the highest Tier known to you is unpredictable; the DM chooses when and how it manifests. Each other Tier’s Sign is yours to control; you can suppress it entirely, or use it pointedly for a specific effect.

To cast more powerful spells, you are required to channel at higher levels, which carry more dramatic signs.

Casting at the limit of your ability enables your most powerful spells, but creates uncontrolled magical spill. As a DM, these uncontrolled signs create new opportunities for drama. You can use this magic to create peril, to give gravitas to the casting of spells (Signs should go wild when a PC is casting), or to highlight especially cool roleplay with magical flare. Aben shakes the hand of the garrison commander, who recoils at his too-warm touch. The angry electromancer creates a static charge in the hair of every nearby witness. It’s cool and it creates interesting new situations.

As you progress, your early signs change from dangerous inevitabilities to exciting opportunities as you learn to control their effects. You can use them to cajole or intimidate, to send signals, or to accomplish certain difficult tasks. In our last example of play, a higher-level Aben could have quietly channeled through that entire encounter, staying undercover while being prepared for both combat and Sign-based intimidation.

Play Example

Jessa is a warlock whose channel has the following highest known Tier:
The Fourth Hour of Midnight: For a mile in any direction, day is as night. The sun shines, but no warmer or more brightly than the moon. The sky is dark and starless.

Jessa felt a bolt cut the air behind her as she ducked the corner. The sewers beneath Oakhurst were a labyrinth; it would be hard enough to navigate without a dozen witch hunters behind her.

Dammit. It wasn’t that she couldn’t stand and fight. She was a witch, a Celebrant of the Eyeless and a master of the Fourth Hour. She drew her magic from the Nameless Saint. But the only squadron of the Silver Company that knew she was here was behind her. If she could just kill them discretely, the next week on the road would be uncommonly peaceful. If she called for the help of her patron, it would not be discrete.

Jessa rounded the next door and paused a moment to contemplate her foul luck. Three more Company rangers.

Fine, she thought, hunted across the countryside it is.

In the world above, darkness fell in an instant. It was met with silence first and then with screams. Horses cried and bolted, citizens fell to the ground in prayer, and every Company ranger for a mile readied themselves for pursuit.

In the world below, Jessa sighed as she stepped over a pile of ash and melted steel.

Incentives

The last rule we have to cover is one aimed at integrating this system more thoroughly with D&Ds core loop. This is a game about getting into fights and succeeding at skill checks – your Sign ought to give you an explicit way to interact with those systems.

Continued Rules for Channels

Each Channel has an attached ability. This is a small mechanical advantage that is active only while a caster is channeling at the highest Tier known to them.

It’s not just a game about wizards, it’s a game about wizards in FIGHTS

Giving channels mechanical bonuses also helps give players reasons to theme their casters’ spell choices; if you fire-based channel gives you a damage bonus on fire spells, you have a mechanical reason to focus your character’s skillset on that kind of magic. Remember, part of this systems aim is to give individual casters more overarching magical identity.

Usable Content

We need some channels to add mechanical bonuses to! That’s this section, just a whole host of Channels to go out and test in your games.

The Gates of Fire

As long as you are channeling at the highest tier known to you, whenever you deal fire damage, treat all 1s on damage dice as 2s.

(1st) The First Gate: Your skin is hot to the touch, as if you burn with fever.
(2nd-3rd) The Second Gate: Fires near you burn hotter and higher.
(4th-5th) The Third Gate: The air around you is hot and dry. It stings the throat and lungs.
(6th-7th) The Fourth Gate: Flammable objects near you ignite spontaneously.
(8th-9th) Master of the Gates: All signs are active and yours to control.

The Hours of Midnight

As long as you are channeling at the highest tier known to you, you get +2 to stealth checks.

(1st) The First Hour: Light catches you harshly; shadows you cast are ink-black.
(2nd-3rd) The Second Hour: Your shadow moves independently of you.
(4th-5th) The Third Hour: The moving, too-dark nature of your shadows extends to all shadows near you.
(6th-7th) The Fourth Hour: For up to a mile in any direction, day is as night. The sun shines, but no warmer or more brightly than the moon. The sky is dark and starless.
(8th-9th) Master of the Hours: All signs are active and yours to control.

The Feathers of the Watcher

As long as you are channeling at the highest tier known to you, you do not take fall damage.

(1st) The First Feather: Choose a species of bird. Wherever you go, one of its kind watches.
(2nd-3rd) The Second Feather: Wherever you go, your chosen bird flocks to you in droves.
(4th-5th) The Third Feather: As you move, you find yourself walking just above the ground rather than on it.
(6th-7th) The Fourth Feather: Tremendous winds batter your surroundings for up to a mile. They drive clouds so fast across the sky it is as if the world is spinning.
(8th-9th) Watcher’s Mastery: All signs are active and yours to control.

The Eyes of the Mind

As long as you are channeling at the highest tier known to you, you get +2 to initiative rolls.

(1st) The First: Creatures near you develop mild headaches.
(2nd-3rd) The Second: Choose a repetitive sound (a strain of music, a rhythmic pulse, whispering). Those near you hear that sound in your presence.
(4th-5th) The Third: Small objects near you rattle and shake.
(6th-7th) The Fourth: When you speak, your words are projected directly into the minds of all creatures within a mile.
(8th-9th) Master of the Mind: All signs are active and yours to control.

The Winds of Winter

As long as you are channeling at the highest tier known to you, enemies get -1 to initiative.

(1st) The First Wind: Your skin is cold to the touch. A coroner might think your sleeping body dead.
(2nd-3rd) The Second Wind: Fires near you burn lower and dimmer.
(4th-5th) The Third Wind: Wherever you touch, frost blossoms outward. Water freezes under your feet.
(6th-7th) The Fourth Wing: A blizzard surrounds you for up to a mile, drowning flames in that area.
(8th-9th) Master of the Winds: All signs are active and yours to control.

The Faces of the Goddess

As long as you are channeling at the highest tier known to you, you get +2 to deception checks.

(1st) The First Face: Sometimes, when you blink, your eyes change color.
(2nd-3rd) The Second Face: Dead flesh near you squirms.
(4th-5th) The Third Face: The muscles and bones of those near you ache.
(6th-7th) The Fourth Face: As far as a mile away, sinkholes begin to open and maggots pour out in a seething mass.
(8th-9th) Master of the Gates: All signs are active and yours to control.

The Storms of the Nameless

As long as you are channeling at the highest tier known to you, creatures who damage you with a melee attack take 1 lightning damage.

(1st) The First Storm:
(2nd-3rd) The Second Storm: Creatures you touch receive a small static shock.
(4th-5th) The Third Storm: Creatures near you become statically charged, their hair standing on end.
(6th-7th) The Fourth: A lightning storm racks the area around you for up to a mile. Its bolts strike at unnerving speed.
(8th-9th) Master of the Gates: All signs are active and yours to control.

Wrapup

So that’s the ruleset! To cast, you need to be channeling. Your chosen Channel determines the visible Signs of your magic, and those Signs intensify as you progress. Over time, initially uncontrolled Signs become tools that you can leverage.

Needless to say, I like this system a lot. I think it’s going to help me achieve the vibe I want for spellcasters in my game, and I’m planning on writing some new content for it soon (think “magic items that grant new Channels,” “spellcasting focuses that affect your Signs,” and “enemies that channel or detect the presence of channels.”)

If you do test out these rules, comment or message to tell me how it goes! I think you’ll like them. I also want to hear your ideas for new channels! Comment them here (or on this note) and lets put together a whole list of community-generated magical signs :)

You know, I thought I would be posting this on February 10th. Shows what I know. I appreciate y’alls patience AND I appreciate all the new folks who have subscribed since my last post. I’m still alive, I just spend longer than I should editing my articles.

There’ll be something new out soon, and until then, I’m sending love and power to you all.

— Sam