Making Magic feel Magical - part 2
The Magus / Arcanist
In the depths of fighting off sleep deprivation with mediocre coffee I was struck by inspiration, blurry eyed and caffeinated I scribbled notes.
This is also part of my on going quest for more asymmetric play.
The Arcanist draws a number of cards, I have a few ideas on how many.
The First:
During the Crawl test wands to take a discarded card or draw the top card into their “library”. During the challenge phase may take a wands action to draw. During the camp phase, may take a camp action to draw three cards from the top of the deck or discard and keep one. When ever the Magician is player, draw either the top card of the GMs discard.
The Second
Draw all the cards after a challenge round and keep a number equal to your wands attribute. Spell books let you keep an additional card that is aligned with it, e.g. a spellbook of fire would let you keep the Nine of Wands whereas a Mars spellbook would let you keep the Seven of Wands
The Arcanist, then uses these cards to cast spells, consulting a handout of all the tarot cards, their meanings, astrological sign, elemental affiliation, etc.
For example, the entry for the Nine of Wands and Six of Pentacles might look like this:
| Name | Value | Suite | Element | Planet | Sign | Meaning Upright | Meaning Reversed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nine of Wands | 9 | Wands | Fire | Moon | Sagittarius | Resilience, courage, persistence, test of faith, boundaries | Inner resources, struggle, overwhelm, defensive, paranoia |
| Six of Pentacles | 6 | Pentacles | Earth | Moon | Taurus | Giving, receiving, sharing wealth, generosity, charity, balance | Self-care, unpaid debts, one-sided charity, power and domination |
Combining them the Arcanist could give or take, if one was played reversed, courage or resilience to a target.
Naturally such a reference chart would require several pages, in my mind this enhances the diegetic experience of playing an Arcanist, pouring over tomes and rustling papers as you prepare your spell.
The Wizard Is Taking Too Long!!
In my original note under the above headline, I simply wrote that they get left behind. I could see an hourglass being used to time spells, and taking too long could mean being skipped, left in another room, or a draw on the meat grinder.
Lastly I had scribbled the four Alchemical Elemental Symbols:
- Air 🜁
- Earth 🜃
- Fire 🜂
- Water 🜄
Envisioning a playmat where cards could be laid out, one at each point of the triangle and then one across for Earth and Air, to form more powerful elemental spells.
Bringing It All Together
Honestly, I am not entirely sure how yet… there are several ideas here and I’m not sure how to fit them together. This might be a prime time to slaughter some darlings but I’d like to play with the idea more.