Wizardry allows the magician to manipulate the raw force of creation, Chaos, to build Patterns that have power in the world. These patterns can do nearly anything, from transforming someone into a frog to crumbling a strong wall of stone. The only limits on a Wizard's power are his imagination and his ability to withstand the terrible strain that shaping Chaos puts on his Pattern.
There is a Taint on Chaos Magic, a force that draws those who wield it closer to the Old Ones. There are those who claim that the Taint is a psychological addiction to power, similar to the madness that grips the oldest of Gods. Others believe that the practice of Wizardry itself causes the adept to become more like Old Ones over time. In either case, the end result is that over time Wizards can become deadly and corrupt, and may even go insane as a result of using their powers.
All cultures and races have some knowledge of the power of Wizardry. Some forbid its practice, claiming that it is too dangerous to be in the hands of mortals. Others, like the Elves and the People of the East, carefully train their Wizards and spend the rest of the time watching them for any sign of insanity.
A Wizard's Potency is a measure of how much Chaos he can shape without causing himself harm. No Wizard may shape more Chaos than his Potency in a single round without suffering damage, insanity, and possibly death.
Every round that a Wizard uses magic, even only a single point of it, his Potency goes down by one point until he has a chance to rest.
A Wizard may create any effect that he knows the Principle for. These effects are constructed using the Spontaneous Magic cost charts.
Chaos Magic rarely lasts for long; it is a construct of the character's will, and without his attention it tends to fall apart.
Every time the Wizard constructs an effect, he must make a Mental Endurance Attribute check, modified by his knowledge of the Principles of Wizardry. If he fails this check, the effect does not occur, although he did waste his time and energy on it.
If he rolls a critical failure, the Wizard gains one point of Taint.
If the Wizard rolls exactly his chance of success, the spell effect is slightly warped. This warping causes the spell to drop out of control, with effects up to the gamemaster.
In order to maintain control of a warped spell, the magician must spend 1 Potency and 1 action every round to make a Mental Endurance check. If he succeeds, then the spell remains under control. If he fails, then the spell spins out of control, and can only be cancelled by a force greater that the spell itself.
A Wizard who tries to channel more Chaos than his Potency in a single round takes 2 HP of damage per point of Chaos beyond his Potency. Thus, a Wizard who casts 30 Potency worth of spells in a round but only has a Wizardry Potency of 15 takes 30HP of damage.
It is possible for a Wizard to kill himself casting a spell. This phenomena is referred to as the 'Ultimate Effort' in the lore books of literature, and is only advised in the most desperate of circumstances.
If a Wizard takes more than 100 points of damage from a spell, his Pattern unravels entirely. He cannot be raised, contacted as one of the Dead, or even found. The Wizard literally ceases to exist, blown apart by the powers that he was attempting to control. Even the memory of the Wizard will slowly fade from the minds of others, so that in the end the Wizard never existed. The alterations caused by this level of effort are usually permanent, and continue despite the disappearance of their creator.
No one knows exactly what causes Taint to gather in Wizards. Even the Elven theorists are not even sure exactly what Taint is, although Eric of Math (a Wizard in the city of Narbar) has occasionally mentioned "the blood of the Oldest One". Such poetic references, however, to little to remove the grim reality of the Taint from the lives of Wizards.
Every time the Wizard rolls a critical failure on a spell creation attempt, the character gains one point of Taint.
Every point of Taint that the character possesses adds one Point to his total Wizardry Potency. The sad truth is that the more corrupt a magician becomes, the more powerful he is.
If the wizard gains more than ten points of Taint, he gets two points of Taint on a critical failure, not one.
When the wizard's Taint is within four points of his Mental Endurance, he must make a contested check between his Mental Endurance and his Taint every ten days. If he fails even once, he falls under the sway of the Old Ones. Any player character that fails this roll immediately becomes an NPC under Gamemaster control. At the Gamemaster's discretion, such a character might be allowed to play on with the group for some time before revealing his fall.
After the character falls to the Old Ones, he no longer gains Taint.
Eric of Math created a Folk Principle based spell that can remove the Taint. This spell has a Potency cost of 30, and can only be used by a Wizard on himself. The Pattern for the spell is available anywhere within that the Elves or the Circle of Three hold sway.
The knowledge of Wizardry can be divided into two separate skills:
The Theory skill has the following maneuvers:
The Principles of Wizardry include all of the Patterns that a Wizard can learn to construct. The Principles span a wide range of effects, running the gambit between simple manipulation of raw forces to the delicate creation of pure knowledge. No Principle includes purely elemental effects; Elemental patterns are simply too complex for a Wizard to create successfully.
For every maneuver that a Wizard spends on a Principle beyond the first, he gains +1 to his ME check for successful casting of spells involving that effect. Thus, a Wizard who spent four maneuvers on the Principle of Light would have a +3 to his ME when rolling for success on all Light based spells.
The Principles of Chaos Magic are: