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MAGICA Tome of Mystic Secrets for Fantasy RoleplayingSECOND EDITIONBy Steve JacksonAdditional material by Marc Janssen, Walter Milliken, S. John Ross,Steffan O’Sullivan, W. Dow Rieder, Brett Slocum, and Daniel U. ThibaultCover by Kirk ReinertIllustrated by Dan SmithAdditional Illustrations by C. Bradford Gorby, Dan Panosian,George “Speed” Webber, and Charlie WiedmanYGURPS System Design by Steve JacksonAlain H. Dawson, Managing EditorPage Layout, Typography, Interior and Color Production by Jeff KokePrint Buying by Russell GodwinRoss Jepson, Sales ManagerYAdditional spells suggested by Eric M. Aldrich, Nick Christenson, Lance C. Kirk, Michael Kuninobu,Mark K. Reynolds, Steven Seacord, Bob Traynor, and Stuart Venable Jr.Playtesters: W.G. Armintrout, Norman Banduch, John Blaylock, Steve Brooks, Craig Brown, Mark Brown, Jeff Gaines,Al Gaspar, Ray Greer, Scott Haring, Dennis Hefferman, Ben Kloepper, Sharleen and Creede Lambard, C. Mara Lee,Andy Liss, Charles Oines, John O’Reilly, Dave Searle, Bob Schroeck, Bob Simpson, Gus Smedstad, Rick L. Swan,Alexander Von Thorn, Philip Yanov, and the Illuminati BBSUseful Suggestions: Norman Banduch, Philip Bardaville, Loyd Blankenship, Craig Brown, Chris Jessop, David S. Raley, CurtisScott, Bill Seurer, Lisa A. Smith, Monica Stephens, Warren Spector, and Allen VarneySpecial thanks to Jeff Gaines for bug-hunting in the first printing of this edition.GURPS and the all-seeing pyramid are registered trademarks of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. Pyramid and Illuminati Online and the names of allproducts published by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated are registered trademarks or trademarks of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated, or used under license.GURPS Magic is copyright 1989, 1990, 1994, 2000 by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.ISBN 1-55634-286-14 5 6 7 8 9 10STEVE JACKSON GAMES
CONTENTSINTRODUCTION.3About GURPS.31. PRINCIPLES OFMAGIC .4Learning Magic.4Magical Terms .4Finding a Teacher.5Prerequisites .5Grimoires .5Casting Spells.5Hiring a Wizard .5Mana .6Caster and Subject.7Time Required to Cast Spells.7Magic and Psionics.7Alternate Magic Ritual Rule .7Distraction and Injury .8Energy Cost to Cast Spells.8The Mage’s Touch.8Duration of Spells and MaintainingSpells .9Magic Ingredients .9Casting Spells While MaintainingOther Spells .10Different Kinds of Magic.10Colleges of Magic .10Spell Classes .10Areas of Effect.10Long-Distance Modifiers .10Ranged Attack Modifiers.11Limits on Protection.11Magic in the Basic Combat System.12Special Combat Rules: Invisibilityand Darkness.12Magic Resistance .13Ceremonial and Group Magic.14Wand and Staff.14Inventing New Spells.15Alternate Systems of Magic.15GMing Magic .16Secret Spells .162. MAGICAL ITEMS .17Enchanting: Creating a Magic Item .17Power of a Magic Item.17Making Magical Items in aCampaign .17Success Rolls When CreatingMagic Items.18Controlling Magical Items.18Using a Magic Item.19Controlling PC Enchantment.19Identifying Magical Items .20“Always On” Items .20CONTENTSCost to Make Magic Items .20Multiply-Enchanted Items.21Value of Magical Items.21Sample Cost Chart .21Powerstone Costs.223. SPELL LIST .23Animal Spells.23Body Control Spells.25Communication and Empathy Spells.28Elemental Spells.31Earth Spells .31Elemental Spirit Spells.33Air Spells .34Fire Spells .36Water Spells .39Enchantment Spells.42Weapon Enchantments.44Armor Enchantments .46Limiting Enchantments .46Wizardly Tools.47Food Spells .48Healing Spells .49Illusion and Creation Spells .51Knowledge Spells .53Divination.55Light and Darkness Spells .57Making and Breaking Spells.59Meta-Spells .61Linking Spells .63Mind Control Spells.65Movement Spells .69Necromantic Spells .72Plant Spells.75Protection and Warning Spells.76Sound Spells .78SPELL TABLE .804. IMPROVISED SPELLS .85The Basic Improvised Spell Formula .85Skill for Improvised Spells .85An Improvised Spell: Waterproofing .85Prerequisites .86The Verbs .86The Nouns .87Casting the Spell .87Improvised Spells in Combat .87Disadvantages of ImprovisedSpells .88Mastering Improvised Spells .88Special Verbs .88More Improvised Spells .88Linking Improvised Spells.89GMing Improvised Spells.89Creating Magical Items byImprovised Magic .90—2—Rune Magic.90Rune Skills .90The Futhark Runes.90Spell-Casting .91Example of Rune Casting.91History of Rune Magic .92An Emergency Rune Casting .935. ARCANE MAGICKS .94Aspected Mana.94Clerical Magic.94Changes in Aspect.94Magically-Aspected Items.94Sample Religions.95Inherent Magic: Knacks.96Cantrips: Poetic Magic.976. ALCHEMY.98Making Alchemical Items.98Using Alchemical Items.99Types of Elixirs.100Other Alchemical Abilities .1027. CHARACTERS.103Designing a Wizard.103Advantages.103Disadvantages .104New Skills.105Money and Equipment.106Magical Jobs .106Wizard Character Types .107Non-Mage Spellcasters .109Magic Affinities as aLimiting Factor .109Shapeshifters (“Weres”).110Sample Character:Raphael Holyoak.111Sample Grimoire.1128. CREATURES OFENCHANTMENT .113Demons .113Elementals.114Familiars .115Acquiring a Familiar .115The Nature of Familiars .115Limitations on Familiars’Abilities .116Examples of Familiars .116Golems .116Undead .1179. MAGICAL WORLDS .118Restrictions on Magic .118Wizards and the Law.118Wizards and Society.119PREREQUISITE CHARTS .120INDEX.126CAMPAIGN PLAN .127BLANK GRIMOIRE.128
INTRODUCTIONTHE very first roleplaying was fantasy roleplaying. No game system iscomplete without a good treatment of magic. That’s why GURPSFantasy was our very first GURPS worldbook. That book presentedboth the magic system and a brief look at the world of Yrth, a magical gamebackground.However, feedback from GURPS players indicated that they wanted anentire book devoted to magic, with the Yrth material moved and expanded to abook of its own. There were also a lot of requests that the Basic Set cover magic.Your wish is our command. The third edition of the GURPS Basic Setincludes a chapter on magic, and over 100 spells . . . but there’s room for muchmore. And here it is. This is the book for GMs and players who are ready for acampaign with high-powered magic.GURPS Magic contains nothing but magical source material; all the worldspecific background has been removed. (The world of Yrth has its own book:the second edition of GURPS Fantasy.)This book repeats the magic rules from the Basic Set, for two reasons.First, some buyers of this book will be using earlier GURPS editions, whichdid not include magic. And second, it seemed worthwhile to keep all the material together, to minimize page-flipping and make reference easier for both GMsand players. So this book includes all the rules and spells already presented . . .and many, many more.That extra space has allowed us to add more than 100 new spells to the listfrom Fantasy, for a total of about 420. It’s also given room for several additions,all leading to a more creative and “generic” approach to magic. These include:More detail on alchemy, and over twice as many alchemical elixirs.A new college of spells: Plant Magic.Some optional elaborations, such as mana “type,” clerical magic, and onespell mages.Advice for the creative GM of a magical campaign — and a CampaignRecord to make it easy to start a new campaign or game-world. All too often,fantasy campaigns seem trite and predictable, trapped by their sources inTolkien and Arthurian England. But magic and magical worlds can have infinite variety.And, best of all, we have a whole new system of spellcasting, designed bySteffan O’Sullivan and Brett Slocum. This “improvisational” magic allowsmages to improvise any spell . . . if they know the right Words! It can be usedto augment the Spell List. The 25 magical Runes can be used to create magicalitems, or to replace the spell list entirely, making all magic and enchantmentimprovisational.Finally, if this book isn’t enough, we’ve got a brand new book of completely new spells. The book is called GURPS Grimoire, and it’s available now. Itincludes new spells for every college in this book, and also introduces two newcolleges: Tech Magic and Gate Magic.The real purpose of GURPS Magic is to let the GM create exactly the typeof magical campaign he prefers, within the framework of a detailed spell listand other rules.Enjoy the book; may your triumphs be many and your backfires few.— Steve Jackson—3—About GURPSSteve Jackson Games is committed tofull support of the GURPS system. Ouraddress is SJ Games, Box 18957, Austin,TX 78760. Please include a selfaddressed, stamped envelope (SASE) anytime you write us! Resources now available include:Pyramid. Our bimonthly magazineincludes new rules and articles forGURPS, as well as information on ourother lines: Car Wars, Toon, OgreMiniatures and more. It also covers topreleases from other companies —Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun,and many more.New supplements and adventures.We’re always working on new material,and we’ll be happy to let you know what’savailable. A current catalog is availablefor an SASE.Errata. Everyone makes mistakes,including us — but we do our best to fixour errors. Up-to-date errata sheets for allGURPS releases, including this book, arealways available from SJ Games; be sureto include an SASE with your request.Q&A. We do our best to answer anygame question accompanied by an SASE.Gamer input. We value your comments. We will consider them, not onlyfor new products, but also when weupdate this book on later printings!Illuminati Online. For those who havehome computers, SJ Games has an onlineservice with discussion areas for manygames, including GURPS. Here’s wherewe do a lot of our playtesting! It’s up 24hours per day at 512-448-8950, at up to14.4K baud — or telnet to io.com. Give usa call! We also have conferences onCompuserve, GEnie, and America Online.Page ReferencesRules and statistics in this book arespecifically for the GURPS Basic Set(Third Edition). Any page reference thatbegins with a B refers to a page in theBasic Set — e.g., p. B102 means p. 102 ofthe Basic Set, Third Edition. A “BY” pagereference means a page in the GURPSBestiary, Second Edition.Becaus
Fantasy was our very first GURPS worldbook. That book presented both the magic system and a brief look at the world of Yrth, a magical game background. However, feedback from GURPS players indicated that they wanted an entire book devoted to magic, with the Yrth material moved and expanded to a book of its own. There were also a lot of requests that the Basic Set cover magic. Your wish is our .
