Nightcats:Sorcery

Nightcats

Sorcery: Using the Secret Fire

“Those who speak lightly of the Secret Fire do not speak of it long.”

Sorcery in Jhelum is not a neat catalog of spells, nor a polite mystery preserved in orderly books. It is a dangerous practice of bargains, rites, names, dreams, idols, blood, roads, and old powers that were never meant to answer mortal need. Those who practice it do not memorize fixed effects. They learn how to approach the Secret Fire, how to force it into a shape they can survive, and how to endure the cost of doing so.

The Secret Fire can wound, command, hide, reveal, transform, bind, ward, and open impossible ways. It can also mark the one who calls upon it, draw the gaze of spirits and gods, and strip away memory, strength, time, or pieces of the self. No one comes to it cleanly. No one leaves it unchanged.

The Sorcerer Career

Not every hedge-worker, diviner, or shrine attendant is a true sorcerer. To take the Sorcerer career is to have crossed a threshold that most people never approach.

A character may not take any ranks in Sorcerer unless they already possess Apprentice 1. This requirement is not optional. Any player who wishes to begin play as a sorcerer must therefore begin with at least Apprentice 1 and then take Sorcerer normally.

Any character who takes the Sorcerer career must also choose a Path at character creation. A Path is not merely a visual style or a descriptive flavor. It is the road by which the sorcerer has learned to make the Secret Fire answer. It determines what sorts of workings come naturally, what sorts come badly, and what sorts may be all but impossible without dreadful effort.

Two sorcerers may seek the same result and reach for it by utterly different means. One opens his own palm and lets blood fall on hot stone. One burns narcotic incense and speaks through half-sleep. One whispers into the painted ear of an idol. One knots cords at a roadside shrine and asks the road to carry the burden. One buries a name and lets misfortune ripen.

Apprentices

Sorcery is rarely practiced entirely alone. A trained assistant can steady the rite, tend the vessel, maintain the chant, prepare offerings, watch for omens, or bear part of the ritual burden.

If a sorcerer has a willing and capable apprentice actively assisting with a working, the sorcerer gains 1 Bonus Die on the Task Roll.

The apprentice must be present and meaningfully involved in the rite. An apprentice who is absent, distracted, silenced, unconscious, or otherwise unable to assist provides no benefit.

This bonus applies only once, no matter how many apprentices or helpers are present, unless the GM rules that a larger ritual specifically requires assistants as part of its Cost.

The Secret Fire

In rules terms, sorcery is powered by Secret Fire. This is the same resource BoL calls Arcane Power, but in Jhelum it is better understood as a dangerous inner reserve spent to force workings into the world.

A character with the Sorcerer career begins play with Secret Fire equal to 10 + Sorcerer rank. When Secret Fire is spent, it is gone until recovered.

Recovering Secret Fire

The Secret Fire returns slowly, and never without rhythm.

• Secret Fire spent on Cantrips returns at both noon and midnight
• Secret Fire spent on First Magnitude workings returns at either noon or midnight; each sorcerer chooses one of these and keeps it for life
• Secret Fire spent on Second and Third Magnitude workings returns at a rate of 4 points per lunar month, on the phase to which the sorcerer has bound themselves

Whenever a sorcerer performs a Third Magnitude working, they permanently lose 1 point of Secret Fire. At the GM’s discretion, this loss may instead reduce an appropriate Attribute, representing visible aging, bodily distortion, spiritual exhaustion, or some other lasting diminishment.

The Paths of the Secret Fire

Sorcery in Jhelum is fragmented, secretive, regional, and often contradictory. Most practitioners know only one Path well enough to survive it. Each Path favors two Domains of Effect. Those Domains are the kinds of workings the sorcerer truly understands.

The Blood Path

The Blood Path works through sacrifice, opened flesh, spilled life, kinship, vow, and the old truth that blood answers blood. Its practitioners know that life may be bought with life, that a threshold may be sealed with a wound, and that a promise fed by blood is harder to break than one spoken in comfort.

The Blood Path is strong in Harm and Ward. Blood sorcerers wound by feeding the Fire with living force, but they also protect through sacrifice, seal thresholds with bloodline, bind vows, and lay taboos that flesh hesitates to cross. Their workings are intimate, visible, and never clean.

The Dream Path

The Dream Path works through incense, altered breath, trance, sleep, memory, song, and the uncertain boundary between waking sight and inward vision. Its practitioners step sideways in the mind before they attempt to alter the world.

The Dream Path is strong in Conceal and Reveal. Dream sorcerers hide, misdirect, unveil, interpret, and perceive. They cloud attention, send visions, draw out truth, and turn the eye away from what stands plainly before it. Their power is subtle, but rarely harmless.

The Idol Path

The Idol Path works by giving force a form. It binds power into vessels, masks, blades, rings, jars, sacred figures, painted signs, and crafted bodies. Its practitioners do not trust raw sorcery when it can instead be housed, sealed, and made to endure.

The Idol Path is strong in Bind and Transform. Idol sorcerers imprison, anchor, contain, preserve, and reshape. They house spirits in matter, lay force into a crafted object, alter flesh through an inhabited vessel, and give the invisible something it can wear. Their workings are durable, prepared, and difficult to improvise.

The Road Path

The Road Path works through crossings, thresholds, pilgrim signs, way-shrines, stars, footprints, hidden routes, guide-spirits, and the old truth that not all journeys obey the same distance. Its practitioners know that a path may be found, opened, shortened, lengthened, hidden, or cursed.

The Road Path is strong in Travel and Reveal. Road sorcerers find ways, open ways, shorten roads, cross barriers, lead travelers safely, send others astray, and uncover paths hidden from ordinary sight. Where others see jungle, stone, flood, or wall, they see passage.

The Curse Path

The Curse Path works through names, tokens, contamination, burial, repetition, neglect, taboo, dread, and effects that ripen over time. Its practitioners are less interested in the strike than in the consequence that cannot be escaped afterward.

The Curse Path is strong in Harm and Control. Curse sorcerers lay weight upon a life. They bind action through taboo, ruin a household through lingering affliction, compel through dread, and let doom gather until resistance becomes difficult. Their workings are patient, malicious, and enduring.

Paths and Domains

Each Path is aligned with two Domains of Effect. These are the Domains the sorcerer truly understands.

Path	Favored Domains	Nature of Practice
Blood Path	Harm, Ward	Sacrifice, blood, oath, threshold, protection bought at living cost
Dream Path	Conceal, Reveal	Trance, dream, illusion, omen, perception
Idol Path	Bind, Transform	Vessels, objects, housed power, crafted force
Road Path	Travel, Reveal	Passage, hidden ways, thresholds, direction, signs
Curse Path	Harm, Control	Doom, taboo, compulsion, lingering affliction

Favored Domains

When a sorcerer works within one of their Path’s Favored Domains, choose one benefit:

• Reduce the Secret Fire cost by 1 (minimum 1), or
• Gain +1 to the Task Roll

Choose each time a working is cast.

Strained Domains

A sorcerer may attempt a working outside their Path’s Favored Domains, but such workings are unnatural to their practice. If a sorcerer attempts a Domain outside their Path, the GM should either increase the working’s Magnitude by one step or add one additional Cost from the d66 Ritual Costs & Conditions table. If the effect strongly contradicts the Path, the GM may rule it impossible without rare lore, special training, or major story justification.

Path Expression

The Domain describes what is being done. The Path describes how it is done. For example:

• A Blood Path sorcerer who works a Ward does so by bloodline, sacrifice, oath, and living taboo.
• A Dream Path sorcerer who Reveals truth does so through vision, trance, omen, and inward sight.
• An Idol Path sorcerer who attempts Harm outside their Favored Domains is more likely to do so through a prepared vessel or spirit-housed blade than through a sudden bolt of raw power.
• A Road Path sorcerer who Reveals a hidden shrine does so by reading signs, distances, and crossings.
• A Curse Path sorcerer who Controls someone does not usually snatch their will in a single instant; instead, dread, taboo, doom, and compulsion settle over them until disobedience becomes harder than obedience.

If the Path does not clearly explain how the effect happens, the GM should raise the Magnitude, add Costs, or refuse the working.

What Sorcery Can Do

All workings fall into broad Domains of Effect. There are no spell lists.Instead, there are categories of intent. The player declares what the sorcerer wants to accomplish. The GM decides which Domain applies, what Magnitude is required, how long the effect lasts, and what the Fire demands in return.

Harm

Harm is sorcery that wounds, withers, burns, weakens, rots, sickens, spoils, ruins, or destroys. It includes injury to flesh, blight on crops, wasting sickness, destructive force, and curses that bring pain or death.

Magnitude	Harm Examples
Cantrip	Cause a sting of pain, spoil food or drink, crack a fragile object, extinguish a candle, blister skin, sour milk
First	Inflict a real wound, strike with fire or force, bring fever, weaken a target in a scene, blight a small patch of field
Second	Cripple several people, level part of a structure, spread serious wasting affliction, lay a powerful blight, call destructive force over a small area
Third	Plague a district, lay famine on a region, destroy major structures, curse a bloodline with sickness or death, unleash catastrophic ruin

Control

Control is sorcery that restrains, compels, dominates, commands, terrifies, enthralls, or enforces obedience. It includes bodily restraint, taboo, pressure on the will, enforced fear, spirit-command, and all manner of bindings laid upon living beings.

Magnitude	Control Examples
Cantrip	Cause hesitation, induce a brief pause, make a target flinch, stammer, or drop an object
First	Bind a person briefly, compel a simple act, send fear into a target, prevent movement for a few moments
Second	Enthrall a mortal mind, enforce obedience through a scene, imprison a spirit in a vessel, bind a dangerous haunting
Third	Create long-term thralls, geas a household or bloodline, seal a powerful being away, lay binding law upon a place

Conceal

Conceal is sorcery that hides, veils, blurs, masks, muffles, distracts, misdirects, or causes others not to notice. It includes illusions, obscurity, disguised appearances, hidden roads, silenced spaces, and memory bent away from what is there.

Magnitude	Conceal Examples
Cantrip	Dim a light, blur a sound, distract the eye, make a small object easy to overlook
First	Pass unnoticed, hide a person or thing from casual notice, create a convincing single illusion, muffle speech, blur memory of a moment
Second	Veil a room or group, erase or distort recollection, make a place difficult to find, sustain a major illusion for a scene or night
Third	Hide a shrine, road, tomb, or household for years, erase a truth from common memory, shroud a district in sustained obscurity

Reveal

Reveal is sorcery that uncovers, detects, sees, hears, interprets, remembers, locates, or forces hidden truth into knowledge. It includes omen-reading, divination, dream-sight, spirit-sense, identifying curses, and learning what has been concealed.

Magnitude	Reveal Examples
Cantrip	Sense nearby sorcery, feel a presence, receive a fleeting omen, know whether something is tainted
First	See recent events in a place, locate a nearby person or object, know whether someone lies, identify a curse or haunting
Second	Witness distant events, read dreams clearly, speak with the dead or a bound spirit, uncover a hidden path, know the history of a thing
Third	See across kingdoms, pierce ancient concealments, learn truths buried by kings or gods, witness the deep past

Transform

Transform is sorcery that alters shape, quality, nature, function, flesh, matter, or enduring condition. It includes enchantment of objects, alteration of bodies, corruption, strengthening, weakening, reshaping, animation, and all manner of making one thing become something else.

Magnitude	Transform Examples
Cantrip	Change taste, smell, warmth, color, texture, or another minor quality
First	Alter appearance, toughen skin, warp a simple object, strengthen or weaken one trait briefly
Second	Reshape flesh in a serious way, animate an object, alter a weapon or idol, twist flesh toward beastlike form
Third	Create permanent monstrous transformation, corrupt a sacred thing, alter the nature of a place, remake flesh or matter on a grand scale

Bind

Bind is sorcery that calls, houses, imprisons, tethers, anchors, compels, or seals spirits, forces, powers, and unseen presences into some structure of relationship. To summon is often a use of Bind. To imprison is also a use of Bind. To put something into a token, idol, body, ring, mask, bowl, or threshold is Bind.

Magnitude	Bind Examples
Cantrip	Stir a nearby presence, attract a minor spirit, receive a whisper, momentarily ward off a weak unseen thing
First	Call a minor spirit, bind a weak presence into a token, send a messenger-spirit, tether a small local power
Second	Summon a dangerous entity, trap a haunting thing, bind a force into an idol, command a spirit-servant for a scene or one task
Third	Call a great being, imprison something ancient, establish a lasting pact, bind a temple or tomb to a housed power

Ward

Ward is sorcery that protects, repels, seals, forbids, sanctifies, marks thresholds, defends a place, or sets a standing magical boundary. It includes protective lines, taboo thresholds, household defenses, shrine boundaries, repulsion of spirits, and sacrificial protections laid on people, objects, or places.

Magnitude	Ward Examples
Cantrip	Mark a small token against ill luck, steady a threshold briefly, keep weak vermin or minor spirits at bay for a moment
First	Protect a person, doorway, room, or object for a scene or a day, repel weak spirits, set a simple taboo boundary
Second	Seal a house, shrine, or camp against intrusion, ward a group against sorcery or haunting for a night or longer, lay a powerful threshold
Third	Sanctify or close a temple, bloodline, household, road, or district under a lasting defense that endures until broken

Travel

Travel is sorcery that opens ways, shortens or lengthens roads, guides passage, crosses barriers, hastens movement, sends travelers safely, sends others astray, or permits journey by means not available to ordinary feet. It governs passage, not merely distance.

Magnitude	Travel Examples
Cantrip	Know which path is safer, avoid leaving tracks for a few steps, keep from being briefly lost, send a sign or whisper a short distance
First	Move unusually quickly for a scene, find the shortest path through known terrain, cross a small barrier unnaturally, make one traveler hard to follow
Second	Open a hidden way, carry a person swiftly across a substantial distance, lead a group safely through dangerous ground, make enemies wander in circles
Third	Step across great distances, open a road between sacred places, lead many travelers by impossible routes, exile someone onto a road from which return is difficult

What Sorcery Cannot Do Easily

Sorcery in Jhelum is broad, but it is neither effortless nor benign. As a rule, sorcery does not heal living wounds cleanly. It may preserve life briefly, shift hurt from one body to another, harden flesh unnaturally, or close wounds in ugly ways, but true healing belongs to herbs, prayer, treatment, and time.

Sorcery does not excuse preparation. Even a quick working has shape, method, and cost. It does not come free of consequence, because every working alters something. It also does not ignore the Path. If the Path does not support the effect, the GM should raise its Magnitude, add Costs, or refuse it.

Magnitude and Difficulty

The greater the working, the more the world resists.

Magnitude	Description	Target Number
Cantrip	Petty, fleeting, or slight effects	Automatic or trivial
First	Serious workings affecting a person, object, or scene	9
Second	Major workings beyond what one person could normally achieve	12
Third	Great desecrations that alter lives, places, bloodlines, or communities	15

A useful rule helps when judging Magnitude. If an ordinary person, given tools, labor, and time, could achieve something roughly similar, it is probably First Magnitude. If not, but the scale remains limited, it is probably Second Magnitude. If it changes a place, lineage, community, or sacred order of things, it is probably Third Magnitude.

Time and Performance

Sorcery is not usually quick. Even a simple working requires words, gestures, breath, offerings, focus, markings, vessels, names, or some other act by which the sorcerer gives shape to the Secret Fire. The greater the working, the longer this usually takes.

Magnitude	Typical Time
Cantrip	A moment or two
First	One round to several minutes
Second	Several minutes to several hours
Third	Several hours to days

These are guidelines rather than iron laws. A working done in haste is dirtier, riskier, and harder to control. A working done patiently, with proper ritual, is steadier and often easier to survive.

Fast Workings

A sorcerer may attempt a working more quickly than usual, but doing so invites strain. If a sorcerer tries to compress the time of a working, the GM should apply one or more of the following:

• Increase the Magnitude by one step
• Add one additional Cost
• Apply -1 to the Task Roll
• Rule that the working cannot be hurried at all

Only Cantrips and many First Magnitude workings are suitable for the middle of action scenes.

Long Workings

Many Second and nearly all Third Magnitude workings are rituals rather than combat actions. They may require repeated chant, fasting, incense, a fixed place, assistants, celestial timing, blood sacrifice, preparation of a vessel, or the gathering of names, tokens, and rare ingredients. In such cases, the time required is part of the working’s Cost.

Path and Time

Each Path tends toward a different rhythm of sorcery.

Path	Usual Rhythm
Blood Path	Often immediate or near-immediate, but violent and obvious
Dream Path	Usually requires a few moments of trance, breath, smoke, or altered perception
Idol Path	Rarely quick; vessels and prepared objects favor patient ritual
Road Path	Often requires sign-reading, crossing, chant, way-marks, or proper passage through a threshold
Curse Path	Slowest of all; many workings ripen over hours, days, or longer

Secret Fire Costs

Use the following as the standard costs of sorcery:

Magnitude	Secret Fire Cost
Cantrip	1 or 2
First	5
Second	10
Third	15

These are the starting costs before Favored Domain benefits or other modifiers.

Sorcery cast while wearing armor is more difficult. Increase the Secret Fire cost by:

• +1 for Light Armor
• +2 for Medium Armor
• +3 for Heavy Armor

Cantrips usually need no roll unless they directly affect a sentient target or circumstances make them difficult.

Costs and Conditions

No working is free. Before a sorcerer rolls, the GM sets one or more Costs using the d66 Ritual Costs & Conditions table. These are not decorative details. They are the actual conditions under which the Fire will answer.

Magnitude	Typical Cost
Cantrip	Usually none, or one slight condition
First	1 meaningful Cost
Second	2 Costs
Third	3 or more Costs

The player may suggest Costs appropriate to their Path, but the GM decides what the working requires.

Default Mechanical Benchmarks

Sorcery in Jhelum is described freely, but resolved by fixed benchmarks. A player may describe a working however they like, but its actual game effect should use the default values below unless the GM has a strong reason to rule otherwise. This keeps sorcery flexible in fiction while consistent in play.

Harm Benchmarks

If a working is meant to directly injure, weaken, or destroy, use these defaults.

Magnitude	Default Effect
Cantrip	Causes 1 point of damage, or a momentary painful distraction with no lasting injury
First	Causes 1d6 damage
Second	Causes 2d6 damage or 1d6 damage to everyone in a small area
Third	Causes 3d6 damage or 2d6 damage across a large area, or inflicts devastating blight, plague, or ruin at the GM’s discretion

If the working is subtle rather than explosive, the GM may trade raw damage for weakness, fear, nausea, blindness, lingering pain, or another fitting effect.

Ongoing Harm

If a Harm working continues over time rather than striking all at once, First Magnitude ongoing harm usually lasts for 3 rounds, Second Magnitude ongoing harm usually lasts for a scene or one day, and Third Magnitude ongoing harm may last for days, weeks, or longer. Ongoing harm usually requires one of three things: the sorcerer must maintain it, the target must remain inside the effect, or the working must be anchored to a vessel, curse, or condition. Direct combat damage should usually happen once, not every round forever.

Control Benchmarks

If a working restrains, compels, terrifies, enthralls, or dominates, use these defaults.

Magnitude	Default Effect
Cantrip	A brief hesitation, flinch, stumble, or dropped item
First	A target is hindered, frightened, or briefly restrained for 1d3 rounds
Second	A target is fully restrained, enthralled, or compelled for one scene or until the sorcerer’s concentration breaks
Third	A target, group, household, or bound being is controlled by a lasting geas, enthrallment, or binding that endures until broken

A brief distraction, pause, or scare is usually Cantrip or First. Binding limbs, freezing someone in place, or forcing a simple act is usually First. Enthralling a mind for the rest of a scene is usually Second. Long-term domination, taboo, geas, or binding loyalty belongs to Third.

Maintaining Control

Brief control does not require maintenance. Scene-length control usually requires either concentration from the sorcerer or a visible ongoing bond such as a vessel, seal, chant, curse, or spirit-tie. Long-term control never relies on concentration alone. It must be anchored by geas, curse, oath, spirit-binding, or some other lasting structure.

Conceal Benchmarks

Magnitude	Default Effect
Cantrip	Brief distraction, dimming, muffling, or making a small thing easy to overlook
First	Hide one person or object from casual notice, create a single convincing illusion, or muffle sound in a small area for one scene
Second	Veil a room, group, or route; distort memory; sustain a major illusion for one scene or one night
Third	Hide a shrine, tomb, household, district, or truth for a long duration: weeks, years, or longer

Reveal Benchmarks

Magnitude	Default Effect
Cantrip	Sense nearby sorcery, spirits, taint, omen, or hidden influence
First	Learn a recent truth, locate a nearby target, identify a curse, or glimpse recent events in a place
Second	Witness distant events, question the dead, read dreams clearly, uncover a hidden path, history, or influence
Third	Pierce ancient concealment, learn truths buried across generations, or see across vast distance or deep time

Reveal workings should usually provide useful but not perfect information unless the GM wants the answer to be absolute.

Transform Benchmarks

Magnitude	Default Effect
Cantrip	Alter a minor quality: taste, smell, color, warmth, texture
First	Alter appearance, toughen skin, warp a simple object, strengthen or weaken one trait for one scene
Second	Reshape flesh, animate an object, alter a weapon or idol, or impose a serious bodily change for one scene or longer
Third	Permanent transformation of body, object, bloodline, or place

Bind Benchmarks

Magnitude	Default Effect
Cantrip	Stir or ward off a minor presence for a moment
First	Call a weak spirit, bind a small presence into a token, or send a messenger-spirit
Second	Summon a dangerous entity, trap a haunting, bind a force into an idol, or command a spirit-servant for one scene or one task
Third	Call a great being, imprison something ancient, establish a lasting pact, or bind a temple, tomb, or place

A summoned or bound being is not automatically loyal forever. First Magnitude summonings usually perform one simple task. Second Magnitude summonings usually serve for one scene or one clearly defined task. Third Magnitude bindings create a lasting relationship, prison, pact, or obligation rather than a simple temporary servant.

Ward Benchmarks

Magnitude	Default Effect
Cantrip	Protect a token or threshold briefly, repel weak ill luck or a minor presence for a moment
First	Protect a person, object, doorway, or room for one scene or one day
Second	Seal a house, camp, shrine, or group against intrusion, haunting, or sorcery for one night or longer
Third	Lay a lasting protection on a temple, household, bloodline, road, or district until the ward is broken

Travel Benchmarks

Magnitude	Default Effect
Cantrip	Avoid being briefly lost, know which path is safer, send a sign or whisper a short distance
First	Move unusually quickly for a scene, find the shortest path through known terrain, cross a small barrier unnaturally, make one traveler hard to follow
Second	Open a hidden way, carry a person swiftly across a substantial distance, lead a group safely through dangerous ground, make enemies wander in circles
Third	Step across great distances, open a road between sacred places, lead many travelers by impossible routes, or cast someone onto a road from which return is difficult

Duration Benchmarks

When no better duration is obvious, use this table.

Magnitude	Typical Duration
Cantrip	A moment, one action, or a few breaths
First	1d3 rounds, one scene, or up to an hour
Second	One scene, one night, or one day
Third	Days, months, years, or until specifically broken

The GM should choose the shortest duration that still fits the fiction unless the sorcerer pays heavily in Cost, time, or consequence.

Maintenance

Some workings must be maintained. Others do not.

Type of Working	Maintenance
Instant harm	No maintenance
Brief restraint or fear	No maintenance
Ongoing damage, scene-length enthrallment, sustained illusion, active travel effect	Usually requires concentration or a fixed anchor
Long-term curse, geas, vessel-binding, ward, or permanent transformation	No concentration, but must be anchored by ritual structure

If a sorcerer is maintaining a working, they may take no other sorcery action unless the GM rules otherwise.

Resistance

When a working directly targets a living being’s body, mind, senses, or spirit, the victim may attempt to resist it. The sorcerer first makes the normal Task Roll for the working.

If the target is capable of resistance, they then make a Resistance Roll using Mind plus the most relevant career, if any. Suitable careers may include Sorcerer, Apprentice, Priest, Scholar, Mystic, or another career the GM judges appropriate. If no career applies, the target rolls with Mind alone. A target with the Resistance to Sorcery boon receives 1 Bonus die on their Resistance roll.

If the target’s Resistance Roll equals or exceeds the sorcerer’s casting roll, the working is resisted and does not take full effect.

If the target fails, the working takes hold normally.

Resistance applies most often to workings that inflict permanent or long-lasting conditions on other beings, such as blindness, domination, fear, paralysis, transformation, curse, enthrallment, spirit-binding, possession, or other direct supernatural alteration of the victim.

Resistance does not usually apply to workings that affect the environment first, such as collapsing a wall, calling fire into an area, hiding a road, or warding a doorway. Such workings are resisted by escaping, enduring, or otherwise dealing with their ordinary consequences.

Partial Resistance

If the target fails the Resistance Roll by only 1 or 2, the GM may apply a lesser version of the effect instead of the full result.

A permanent blinding may become blindness for a scene. A domination may become hesitation, confusion, or one compelled action. A transformation may become pain, discoloration, or a temporary distortion rather than a lasting change.

Use partial resistance when it keeps sorcery dangerous without letting a single roll decide too much.

Consequences

Sorcery is never clean. If a working fails, a consequence follows. If a working succeeds at Second or Third Magnitude, a consequence may still follow. A Third Magnitude working always causes a consequence, even on success.

Use the appropriate table:

• Minor Consequences for Cantrips and First Magnitude workings
• Major Consequences for Second Magnitude workings
• Catastrophic Consequences for Third Magnitude workings

The GM may choose an entry or roll.

The Mark of the Fire

Some consequences inflict a Mark of the Fire. A Mark is not spent. It is endured. It measures how much the Secret Fire has noticed the sorcerer, altered them, or laid some claim upon them.

The more Marks a sorcerer bears, the less ordinary they seem. Spirits take notice. Priests grow wary. Sleep becomes strange. Reflections worsen. The line between practitioner and practiced-upon thins. There are stories of such people, but they are not told only as warnings. They are told in recognition.

Working Sorcery at the Table

When a sorcerer attempts a working, use this order:

1. The player states what they want the working to do
2. The player identifies the most fitting Domain
3. The GM judges whether the Path supports that Domain naturally or only with strain
4. The GM sets the Magnitude and Target Number
5. The GM sets one or more Costs from the d66 Ritual Costs & Conditions table
6. The GM determines the time required
7. The sorcerer pays the Secret Fire cost
8. The sorcerer rolls, applying any benefits from Favored Domains or an assisting apprentice
9. If needed, the GM applies a consequence from the appropriate consequence table

Practical Examples

A Blood Path sorcerer wants to strike down a guard by boiling the man’s blood. This is Harm, which is Favored. The sorcerer may therefore gain +1 to the roll or reduce the Secret Fire cost by 1. Because the effect is direct, immediate, and aimed at one victim, it is usually First Magnitude at TN 9, with a default effect of 1d6 damage. If the sorcerer wants the blood to keep burning within the victim over several rounds, the GM may require concentration, add Costs, or raise the working to Second Magnitude.

A Blood Path sorcerer who wants to protect a child against grave-spirits through the night might cut his own palm, mark the child’s brow, and tie a thread around the door lintel. That is Ward, also Favored. If it protects one room or one person for a night, it is likely First or Second Magnitude depending on how strong the threat is.

A Dream Path sorcerer wants a guard not to notice her passing. She burns resin, breathes the smoke, and lets his attention slide away from her. That is Conceal and likely First Magnitude. If instead she wants to know who entered a shrine the night before, she may sleep within its threshold and seek the answer through dream. That is Reveal.

An Idol Path sorcerer wants to trap a haunting thing inside a painted mask hung over a merchant’s gate. That is Bind. If the spirit is minor and the task limited, the working may be First Magnitude. If the haunting is dangerous or the vessel must endure, Second is more likely.

A Road Path sorcerer wants to lead companions through jungle that should take three days to cross. He reads the stars, anoints the path-stones, and asks the way-shrine to shorten the road. That is Travel. If the effect only hastens a small group through known territory, it may be First or Second Magnitude. If it opens a road between distant sacred places that should not touch, it belongs to Third.

A Curse Path sorcerer wants revenge on a tax collector. She buries the man’s name with a knotted cord and a clipping from his robe. Over the next days he becomes fearful, obedient, and ill-tempered, until even his own household begins to bend around the curse. That may be Harm or Control depending on the intent. Because the effect ripens over time, it is likely anchored rather than maintained by concentration.

A Good Rule for the GM

When in doubt, decide the working by answering three questions. Is it instant, scene-long, or lasting? Is it narrow, serious, or overwhelming? Does it require concentration, or is it anchored in rite, vessel, curse, or threshold?

Those answers usually tell you what you need to know. Narrow and instant effects are usually First Magnitude. Serious scene-long effects are usually Second. Lasting effects anchored in ritual structure are usually Third.

A Final Truth

Sorcery can do what steel cannot. It can reveal what eyes cannot. It can destroy what law cannot touch. It can hide, guide, bind, protect, and open ways that ought not exist. It can also stain the hand that uses it, draw attention that cannot be escaped, and open doors that should have remained closed.

The Secret Fire does not care why it is invoked. It only cares that it has been fed.

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