Nightcats:Sorcery
Sorcery of Jhelum
“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.
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.
- 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. These are not spell lists. They 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
For workings that directly affect a person’s mind, will, or perceptions, the target’s Mind should modify the difficulty, as in BoL. A strong-minded victim is harder to enthrall, deceive, dominate, spiritually break, or probe. This matters most for Control, Conceal that alters perception, and Reveal that probes thought or memory.
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:
- The player states what they want the working to do
- The player identifies the most fitting Domain
- The GM judges whether the Path supports that Domain naturally or only with strain
- The GM sets the Magnitude and Target Number
- The GM sets one or more Costs from the d66 Ritual Costs & Conditions table
- The GM determines the time required
- The sorcerer pays the Secret Fire cost
- The sorcerer rolls
- 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.