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View Full Version : Campaign Setting/ New d20 System (FINISHED i think, advice apreciated.)



pseudovere
2008-06-03, 08:36 PM
This thing was converted from a Word document to the thing you see before you, so it might have a couple errors. It also was originally designed to teach people what a roleplaying game is, and so portions of it are really, REALLY dumbed down, although I think I managed to remove most of those.

Although it should be playable, and has gone through minor combat test runs well, this system probably has many holes to be fixed, so I want to get some of your opinions on this.

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The goal of this project is to create a roleplaying system that allows for a player to create any character concept that they would wish to create, while maintaining a balance of power between the players, and preventing any of them from feeling shortchanged by the character generation process. In addition to this, it will attempt to create a more realistic feel than most other currently marketed games, while keeping the simplicity of the game at a level that doesn’t exceed that of current games.

The World

History


The game takes place in a world that has been heavily torn by disaster. Ages ago, humanity was at its height, and had technologies far beyond our own and powerful magic. However, a disaster of apocalyptic proportions, now remembered only in legends, cast civilizations down from it’s height centuries ago, and these arts were lost, leaving only ruined skyscrapers as a testament to the ages lost. Since then, humanity has been growing back from the ashes, struggling against the monsters that they once held so easily at bay.
However, the recovery of humanity is no easy task, even without outside threats. While humanity has reestablished itself as a dominant force in the continent of Austius, the people there know nothing of the world outside of the continent, and about a century ago, a powerful sorcerer, known as Utgan, rose to power, using the lost arts of magic and technology to grant himself unnaturally long life and create a army for himself. He then conquered the entire continent of Austius, turning his city of Separida into a virtual paradise on earth by enslaving the rest of the continent, putting the known world through nearly a century of oppression, until the end of the civil war ten years ago.
While the war did end Utgan’s rule, it did not come without a price: as a last desperate act to repel the rebel army at his city’s gates, Utgan released his experiment upon the world, a magical plague, known as the blight. The blight destroyed the attacking army, but at a great price. It killed everyone inside the city, and seeped into the land, making the rest of Northern Austius almost completely uninhabitable.
The loss of nearly half the continent and the leadership that held the cities together has caused the major cities to break into city states drawing sustenance from a small network of towns around them.


Locations


The Blightlands

The area tainted by the blight, known to the residents of Austius simply as “the bightlands” is the huge area, about the size of this world’s Europe, almost entirely taking up the northern half of Austius. While the name of the blightlands and the blight that gives it its name might imply a barren wasteland, that is hardly the case. The blight has left the lands and the foliage almost entirely untouched. It is its effect on animals that gives it this name. The effect of the unchecked magic has varying effects on animals, but the majority of the time, its effects are to either slowly kill the animals, drive them insane, or both. As a result, the blightland is almost entirely devoid of life, and what little life there is often is simply left to rot.
However, while the blight generally simply kills its victims, on rare occasions, it causes creatures to mutate into different forms. While this is often at least partially responsible for the animal’s death, on rare occasions it creates a new type of creature, similar to the original, but more powerful, or simply infuses it with the raw magical energy of the blight, granting them access to blood magic, as described in the magic section. The monsters created by this effect often inhabit the blight, and occasionally wander off into the rest of the continent, posing a considerable threat to travelers throughout the continent.

The Southern Jungle

The Jungle of Southern Austius is the most verdant section of the entire continent. It is a rainforest, taking up a considerable portion of the southern peninsula, with a climate resembling that of an overgrown sauna. Very few humans call the jungle their home, largely due to the native inhabitants of the area: the dragons. Dragons are very protective of the land they live on, and have been known to eradicate anything that poses a threat to their jungle. As a result, not much is known about the jungle, and the only signs of civilization are the skyscrapers poking above the canopy, now little more than gigantic planters.



Cities



Separida
Population: 0
Government: None
Major exports: None

Separida, formerly the most prosperous city in the known world, now sits vacant in the middle of the blightlands. Some bold adventurer parties have returned from the city alive to tell of the vast riches practically untouched behind its white marble walls. However, in all likelihood, due to it's position at the heart of the Blight, that is the way it will remain.

Basitus
Population: 35,000
Government: Military dictatorship
Major Exports: Worked metal, weapons, armor, ships


Basitus, after the destruction of Separida, is now the most powerful city state in the known world. It has tried to replace the power vacuum left by Separida several times, but it has repeatedly found that it is nearly impossible, due to the fact that maintaining supply lines to any armed force is nearly impossible, due to the strange monsters who now wander the wilderness. The city was initially run by one dictator, but when he passed away, he had two generals of equal rank, who both attempted to seize his power for themselves, but have now apparently come to an uneasy truce and share the power in the city.

Important Figures:
Lady Yanin (dictator): Kind but slightly shallow young woman at first glance, but upon further examination, is actually much older than she appears, and frighteningly clever and calculating, as well as deadly with a rapier.
Lord Dygan (dictator): A gruff, middle aged man, who has on multiple occasions shown himself to be a brilliant strategist, and is himself a force to be reckoned with.

Arbiryl
Population: 7,500
Government: Oligarchy
Major Exports: Magical devices

Arbiryl is the only city north of the blightlands, putting it in the arctic circle. As a result of the thick glaciers in the area, and the blight barring it off from the rest of the world, it is only reachable by sea and during the summer. This city, from its size and location, would have easily lost its place on the map, except for its ancient libraries and its world renowned academy, the best of its kind for both general and magical educations.

Atcyrof
Population: 20,000
Government: Oligarchy (Skilled craftspeople)
Major Exports: Machinery, Unworked metal, Firearms

Atcyrof is a city based on a small volcanic island. The island is completely developed, without a single bit of land to spare. The city is the most technologically developed of all of the cities on Austius, largely thanks to the vast amount of electricity produced by the large geothermal energy plant that dominates the center of the city. The city has developed many things, such as trains, small aircraft, and short range radios. These, unfortunately, are still very expensive to produce, and heavily dependant on the electricity produced by the volcano. Given the price and inefficiency of batteries and smaller generators, these devices are not of much practical use to other cities.

Creatures


Many creatures live in the continent of Austius, however, it would be foolish to try to list them all in one place. This is only meant to supply a sampling of the creatures that have the heaviest impact on human life.

Humans- Humans are the most populous sentient race in Austius. They are the most varied and versatile of all of the known races.

Orcs- Orcs are larger and more heavyset than humans (almost twice as wide), with bulging muscles coated in thick, dark grey skin and a height averaging over seven feet tall, with an almost proud posture. Their almost catlike eyes, long fangs and sharp teeth almost remind one of a saber toothed tiger, and show their carnivorous nature. They have practically no hair on their bodies, but have evenly spaced horns on the tops of their heads, starting from a few inches above their eyebrows and running down to the base of their skull, diminishing in size as they go.
Orcs typically live in wilderness areas, organized in small nomad bands, numbering from 10-30. They make their living entirely through hunting, but are very connected to the land they cross. They use everything they can get from the animal, to the limit of which they can carry, after which they leave the rest as a shrine to honor the animal. (Note that no edible parts of the animal are ever left, as they can always be used before it is necessary to move on, but as a small band of hunters, there is only so much equipment made from bones and hides that they can reasonably carry) They generally view many of the other races as infringing on nature, and while this is most often manifested as a haughty, disgusted view of these races, it has been known to escalate to the point of hunting groups of other races that they view as heavily upsetting to the balance of nature.

Goblins- Goblins appear small humanoids, about 4 feet tall for an adult, with a hunched posture, and thin, disproportionately long limbs, ending in clawed digits. They typically have moist, ivory skin, rows of small, sharp and pointed teeth, as well as gigantic fish-like eyes. They dislike the sun, as it is quite harmful to their eyes. When out in the daylight, or in human areas, they typically wrap themselves in cloth, so as to avoid any contact with the suns rays, and wear large tinted goggles to dim the light on their sensitive eyes. Aside from this, they are physically weaker than the average human, and much frailer as well. However, they make up for these flaws with two redeeming features: they are much quicker and more graceful than their size or posture would suggest, both in thought and in form, and have the ability to scale walls, much like a gecko. Goblins typically live underground in caves, or (when inside large cities) in sewers. Most goblins are scavengers by nature, and often make livings by selling information and stolen or salvaged goods.

Dragons- Several dragons have, throughout history, learned to speak one or more human tongues, and have given humanity insight into dragon culture.
Dragons are huge, serpentine creatures, with thick, segmented, bonelike plating coating their entire body. They have four, triple-jointed arms, connected to the second segment behind their head. Their bodies range in length from 5 to 50 meters, and in width 1 to 5 meters. They are completely blind, but have an extraordinarily precise echolocation ability, apparently capable of detecting grooves in a structure less than a centimeter deep, allowing them to read their written language, which is carved into tree trunks. Their echolocation is a very low hum, imperceptible to the human ear, and they apparently communicate to each other through small variations of this.
Dragons love knowledge and nature above all else. While they find magic captivating, and have many skilled mages among them, they disdain technology, and are fiercely protective of their forests. While they do not mind allowing humans or any other creature to walk through their lands, they have been know to destroy entire human villages as retribution for the destruction of a single tree. As a result of this, human travelers in dragon territory are quite rare.


Creating a Character

Assign Abilities- Now that you have a basic idea of what you want your character to be like, you can begin putting it into game terms. As described in the next section, assign your base ability scores.

Choose Your Merits and Flaws- Often, your character may have things that give them an advantage or disadvantage over other characters, such as ambidexterity, a rich family, a mental disorder, or a missing limb. These sort of things effect your character strongly, and are factored into the game.

Assign Skills- Skills represent everything your character was taught or trained to do. Everything from reading to farming, gambling to blacksmithing, and from magic to acrobatics is represented by a skill.
Abilities


Each ability is described by both what it effects (physical, social or mental), and how it effects that feature of your character (power, finesse & resistance), creating 9 separate abilities: Physical Power (PP), Physical Finesse (PF), Physical Resistance (PR), Social Power (SP), Social Finesse (SF), Social Resistance (SR), Mental Power (MP), Mental Finesse (MF), and Mental Resistance (MR). These abilities are referred to throughout the rules section as their abbreviations.
The nomenclature may seem complicated at first, but is much easier to reference off of the table on character sheet (see below), and also ties related abilities together.

Ability Table
{table]
|P|S|M
P|||
F|||
R|||
[/table]
Physical Power (PP):
Determines how strong your character is. A character with a high PP has a larger muscle mass, can lift heavier objects, and exert more physical force, while a character with a low PP generally has very little muscle, can lift only light objects, and exert only a small amount of physical force.
Physical Finesse (PF):
Determines your character’s reflexes and coordination. A character with high PF can be graceful, with sharp reflexes and good hand-eye coordination, while a character with low PF is often clumsy with slow reflexes.


Physical Resistance (PR):
Determines how physically durable your character is. A character with high PR can shrug off physical damage, heal quickly, resist disease, and continue strenuous activity for long periods of time without harm, while a character with low PR takes damage easily, recovers slowly, gets sick easily, and can only continue strenuous activity for short periods of time without risking physical injury.
Social Power (SP):
Determines how likable your character is. A character with a high SP has great leadership skills, and is viewed more favorably by the people they run across, while a character with low SP has difficulty with crowds, and is often viewed unfavorably by the people they run across.
Social Finesse (SF):
Determines how good you are at getting people to believe what you say and respond how you want to it. A character with high SF can lie easily without being detected, and control the emotions of the people they run into, while a character with low SF has difficulty doing these things.
Social Resistance (SR):
Determines how well you can control its emotions. A character with high SR can prevent otherwise aggravating experiences from altering their actions, and easily resist resulting depression and/or rage, while a character with low SR often will let emotions control their actions, and may have trouble with anger or depression.
Mental Power (MP):
Determines how well a character can process information, and how powerful the spells they cast are. A character with high MP can cast powerful spells more easily that one with low MP, and understand complex concepts, while one with low MP can have trouble doing these sort of things.
Mental Finesse (MF):
Determines how perceptive a character is and how quickly a character can think on their feet. A character with high MF is very aware of their surroundings, and can act quickly, while a character with low MF is often distracted and unaware, and can be easily surprised by their surroundings.
Mental Resistance (MR):
Determines how well a character can endure pain, fatigue, and damage when they are past their physical limit. A character with high MR has a high pain tolerance, and stay conscious after taking heavy damage, while a character with low MR has a low pain tolerance, and easily falls unconscious after taking heavy pain, fatigue, and/or damage.

When starting, each character receives 90 ability points, to divide among these 9 abilities on a one for one basis (i.e. spend 10 points on PP, and you have a PP score of 10, and 80 ability points left over).

You may spend up to 15 points on one ability score, or as few as 5, but you may not have more than one score of 15 or more than two scores of 14 or higher.


Experience Points (XP)


Experience points are awarded by the Narrator for the actions of the character. They may be spent to add merits to your character, or increase their capabilities in a skill, and the more XP your character has, the more XP you may put into any individual skill.


Merits/Flaws


Merits describe benefits to your character that cannot be described by the skill system, either because they have a maximum amount that you can put into them (i.e. speak language, ambidexterity, etc.), you are born with it, or it comes from your background (i.e. good looking, a high ranking official owes you a favor, good reputation, etc.). After character creation, you can advance merits based on training by spending XP on them, but merits the character has to have been born with or that come from the character's background may not be advanced in this way. At character creation, a character may freely buy merits with XP, although the price of each individual merit will vary.
Flaws, are the opposite of merits: they impede your character's effectiveness, (i.e. dyslexic, missing an eye, bad looking, etc.) but give you bonus experience points for taking them.


Skills


While abilities represent the innate abilities of your body, skills represent areas that you have trained in. (Combat skills and Magic skills are variants of this general system, so see the enclosed Magic Skills and Combat Skills section.)
Skills are bought with XP at a 1 for 1 basis, but can only go up to one tenth your XP total. (i.e. A character with 50 XP can have a maximum of 5 points invested in any given skill, while a character with 100 XP can have 10 points in any given skill.)
The skill list is not by any means set, and the system promotes creation of skills on the players part (subject to Narrator approval.)



Example Skills:
Scribe: Literacy is a rare skill among the dwellers of Austius. Scribe entails the ability to read and write. Key ability: MP
Resist (_____): Used to resist the effects of the declared situation or substance. (poison, hunger, cold, fatigue, pain, etc.) May be further specialized (i.e. resist (arsenic) rather than resist (poison)) to give a +2 bonus on that use of the skill, at the expense of Key ability: PR
Running: Used to temporarily increase movement speed. Key ability: PR
Sprinting: As running, but only usable for short periods of time. Key ability: PF
Animal training: Used to train animals for handling. Must be specialized (Animal training (cats), Animal training (birds), etc.) Key ability: SR.
Craft (______): Used to create the item named in the skill. May be phrased differently with same effect. (Gunsmithing, Blacksmithing, Silversmithing, Sewing, Carving, Carpentry, etc.) Key ability varies with item being crafted (Blacksmithing PP, Sewing PF, etc.)

Combat Skills

Combat skills are skills specifically chosen for combat. They include any form of weapons training (longswords, knives, throwing knives, staff, longbow, shotgun, etc.), martial arts (punch, kick, grapple, etc.), and defensive skills other than dodging (longsword:parry, defensive roll, parry, block, heavy shield etc.)
Each combat skill has a difficulty, a base damage, and an action cost.
The difficulty is a penalty to attack, representing the difficulty of hitting somebody with a heavier weapon. (example: A longsword takes longer to swing than a dagger, so it is easier to avoid. Because of this, a longsword has a -4 difficulty, while a dagger has a -2 difficulty.)
The base damage is fairly obvious: it is the damage that the weapon does without factoring in strength (PP) or skill (XP invested into skill). (Example: A dagger has 3 base damage, while a longsword has 9 base damage.)
The action cost of a weapon is how much time the weapon takes to use. Each character receives a certain number of action points each second (more on that later), which they may spend on any action they see fit. More difficult and larger weapons tend to have a larger action cost, resulting in a slower succession of hits. (Example: A dagger has an action cost of 11, while a longsword has an action cost of 13.)

{table]
Weapon Name|Difficulty |Base Damage |Action Cost |Notes
Punch|-1|2|10|
Low Kick|-1|3|10|May only hit the legs or torso.
High Kick|-2|5|11|You may not have more points invested in this skill than your flexibility skill.
Block|-1|*|10|Defensive skill
Grab|-1|*|10|Begins, maintains or ends grapple on targeted limb.
Throw|Varies|Varies|Varies|the amount of damage varies with the type of throw (determined when buying skill)
Body Shield|-3|*|10|Uses the grappled creature as a shield against attacks from others.
Dagger|-2|5|11|
Short Sword|-3|7|12|
Long Sword|-4|9|13|
Great Sword|-5|11|14|
Short Staff|-3|6|12|Has a +3 on parry attempts
Parry_____|Same as weapon used|*|Same as weapon|Add the difference between the selected weapon and the weapon you are being attacked with to the difficulty.
[/table]
In addition to these skills, there are 4 special skills that every character has, and automatically has full ranks in, as they are vital to combat. They are Physical Evasion, Mental Evasion, Physical Damage Reduction, and Mental Damage Reduction:
Physical Evasion represents your ability to dodge physical attacks (such as a punch, a longsword or a fireball) and is calculated by adding your PF score to 1/10 of your XP. (PE=PF+(XP/10))
Mental Evasion represents your ability to avoid the effects of attacks that are targeted by nonphysical means (such as a spontaneous combustion effect or a charm effect), and is calculated by adding your MF score to 1/10 of your XP. (ME=MF+(XP/10))
Physical Damage Reduction represents your ability to avoid damage, either through resiliency, or just bending your body out of the way. You calculate this through adding 5 to your PR and then adding 1/20 of your XP. (PDR=5+PR+(XP/20))
Mental Damage Reduction represents your ability to resist or lessen the effect of mental effects (such as a charm spell or a fatigue touch), and is calculated by adding 5 to your MR and then adding 1/20 of your XP. (MDR=5+MR+(XP/20))


Magic Skills

Magic skills function almost exactly like combat skills for the purpose of buying them at least. (More on differences in the magic section.)
However, you must have equal or greater ranks in a magic source skill (Magic Theory, Blood Magic, Divine Magic or Spirit Contract) in order to purchase magic skills.) For example, if you wanted to buy 10 ranks in Fireball, then you would have to have at least 10 ranks in one of the above skills, illustrating your ability to channel the required energy to cast more complicated spells.


Making Rolls


Almost all rolls are based off of the d20. In order to accomplish a task, the player rolls a d20, and then adds both the ranks they have in the appropriate skill (if applicable) and the appropriate ability score, and compares this to the difficulty of a task (determined by the Narrator).
For example, a character with 10 points in PF and 3 points in Balance wants to run across a frozen pond. The character rolls a d20 and gets a 14, then adds their PF (10) and their Balance (3), giving them a 27. Unfortunately, the difficulty for running across ice is 30, so the character fails, most likely falling on their face after a few steps.
In addition to this, if a character rolls a natural 20, they may roll again and add the results of this new roll to the previous roll. If they roll a 20 on this new roll, they may repeat this process.
Example: The character from the frozen pond example instead rolls a 20. They then roll another d20, and it also turns up a 20, giving them a total unmodified roll of 40 so far. They then roll a 3 on their next roll, giving them a total unmodified roll of 43. They then add their PF and Balance, giving them a total of 56, allowing them to run across the pond with ease.
Besides getting a benefit from a natural 20, you also receive a penalty from a natural 1. If you roll a natural 1, you roll again, and subtract the results from your Ability and Skill. If you roll a natural 20 on this roll, you roll again, and subtract the results again.
Example: the character running across the ice rolls a 1. They then roll again, getting a 14. This gives them a natural roll of -14, which gives them a total of -1 when they add in their PF and Balance. They have failed so badly, that they most likely sprain their ankle in their fall, or some other situation oriented penalty. (Determined by the Narrator.)


Combat


Combat takes place in 1 second rounds, and is broken into 4 steps: Dividing your action points into the actions you want to make, declaring your actions, making rolls to determine your success, and the Narrator's narration of what the result is.
Each turn, every character is given a number of action points to spend equal to the sum of their PF and their MF, giving the average human (a 10 in each score) a total amount of 20 action points to spend each round. These action points are spent on any action other than speaking and basic dodging that you might take in a round, and vary with the difficulty of the task that you are attempting. In addition to these limitations, each character can spend a maximum of one half of their action points on one type of action (punching, parrying, moving, casting multiple copies of the same spell) in one round, preventing an average human from spending more than 10 actions on any one action. If a character tries to do an action that takes more action points than they have available, then they do not complete the action on the same round. Rather, they spend all of the action points they are able to spend on that action during that round, and the action occurs on the next round, after the character spends the rest of the actions points required to complete the action. Example: A character swings a greatsword. (14 action points) However, they may only spend 10 action points on it this round. So, they spend the 10 action points they have available to swing the greatsword, but they do not actually hit anything until the next round, if they choose to spend the remaining 4 action points to complete the action.
Next, after you have told your Narrator what you will be doing during the round, you make rolls to determine your success at these tasks. Rolls not concerning other characters proceed as normal. However, all attack rolls are rolled against the enemy’s physical or mental evasion as appropriate.) Then, if you hit, you roll 2 six sided dice, and compare it to the following table to determine where you hit.

{table]
Location|Head|Left Leg|Left Arm|Torso|Right Arm|Right Leg
2 6-sided die:|2,12|5|3,4|6,7,8|10,11|9

[/table]
After determining the location of the hit, you roll damage by subtracting rolling 1 ten sided die, and adding your weapon damage, then subtracting the target’s mental or physical resistance, (as appropriate) and add the damage dealt to the total damage taken in that location.

Damage
Each limb records the amount of damage it can take separately from the rest of the body, and also measures how serious the damage is. It does this by dividing the damage into 4 types: Category 1 damage, Category 2 damage, Category 3 damage, and Category 4 damage. Category 1 damage is not very serious damage, and heals very quickly (a matter of days.) However, if you take more damage on a certain limb, it escalates to Category 2 damage, which is painful and begins to physically impair your character, as well as cause the damage to take a longer amount of time to heal. Category 3 damage is very painful, representing the sort of injury that one would go to the hospital to treat, but most likely would heal on its own if left unattended. Category 4 damage is very serious, being beyond the capacity to heal without assistance, and would be unlikely to be healable even with modern medical facilities, and when Category 4 damage is full, the limb becomes severed or permanently destroyed. The effect of reaching maximum damage in a location is, in the case of an arm or leg, loss of the limb, in the case of the torso or the head, death.
The head can take 4 damage in each of it’s categories, giving it a total of 16 damage it can take, while arms and legs can each take 5 in each category, giving them a 20 damage they can take, while the torso can take 10 in each category, giving it a total of 40 damage it can take until it ceases to function.
In addition to damage, each character receives pain points for every wound they receive. For each full set of category 2 damage, they receive 2 pain points. For each point of damage in category 3, they receive 1 pain point, and for each point of damage in category 4, they receive 5 pain points.
A character can take pain points equal to its MR before taking a penalty on its actions. After this, each additional pain point is applied as a penalty to all the character’s actions. After reaching a penalty equal to the characters PR score, the character will lose consciousness.

{table]Magic[/table]


Spellcasting, through one form or another, is the art of gathering energy from your surroundings, and then using it to bend the energy around you to cause the desired effects. A spellcaster, rather than learning specific spells, learns specialties, much like how a scientist will specialize in a certain area. A specialty can be as specific (Flaming Touch) or as vague (Fire) as one would like, but focused specialties generally yield much more powerful results than vague ones.
All magic requires a focus to cast spells, through which to focus their energy. The reason for this is that the energies drawn through the body are highly damaging to organic tissue, and if they are cast without a focus, can be lethal. Focuses can range from a rune drawn in the air, to a dagger, to a staff, to a gigantic siege machine. Of course, the size and complexity of the focus is related the power and ease of control of the spell. A spell cast from a small simple focus will lack the power of one cast from a large, complex one, but be far easier to control.
Each focus has a difficulty, base damage, and action cost to hit depending on how complex it is. It is as complex as the creator of the focus decides it to be at the time of creation. The base damage is equal to 2*(the focus’s difficulty)+3, while the action cost is equal to 9+(the focus’s difficulty).
All casters must have a source for their power, known as a magic source skill. A caster cannot have a higher rank in any one magic skill than they have in their magic source skill. There are four known ways that casters channel their energies. While the sources of power for all of these types of casting differ, there is a very small amount of physical difference between these types of casting, other than how they acquire their energy. All casters can, with proper training, achieve the same effects any other type of caster can with the same amount of effort.

Magic Theory
Through an intricate under-standing of how the world works, magic theorists learn how to bend those rules to their advantage. Magic theorists require a daily focusing ritual to gather energy to power their spells.

Spirit Contracts
Casters who use spirit contracts, commonly known as shamans, create a relationship with an intelligent magical entity, which they draw their energy from. Shamans have no need to prepare their spells, but since their spells come from an intelligent, if non material being traveling with them, they must remember that their spirit can refuse to give them spell should it wish to deny them. Every day, their spirit goes dormant for several hours while it recovers it's energy.

Blood Magic
Blood mages have innate magic. They typically gain this through exposure to heavy magical energies, although the heavy magical energies radiating from the Blight make this fairly common. However innate this talent may be, it must be developed and honed: a person with the potential to be a blood mage will not become one unless they actually pursue it. Blood mages gain energy each time they wake up, related to their physical state (fatigue, hunger, how many spells they have cast that day and how wounded they are all affect how much energy a blood mage acquires after rest.)

Divine Channeling
These casters, commonly called clerics (this varies immensely between different faiths), channel the energies of their god to achieve magical effects. Clerics gain spells from their god automatically each day: however, they are incapable of using their magic to do something that their god would not approve of.

Each spellcaster can only use a certain number of spells. This is regulated by Energy (EN). Each day, a spellcaster gains an amount of EN to cast spells with equal to their MR+ its ranks in its magic source skill. To cast basic spells, a character can either use 2 EN to cast it, or use 3 EN to enter a spellcasting mode. Each second the caster must spend 1 EN to continue casting spells.
You may make may use magic at a range, but after the first meter, the spell does 1 less damage per meter away from you.