This page is for hacking; the official mechanic is at HouseRulesOnDisciplineMagic

Disciplined Magicians have access to two different spell-casting mechanics.  One is very flexible, but produces relatively weak spells; the other uses rigid, highly specialized spell lists, but the spells are extremely powerful (e.g. "Depose Ruler and Gain Loyalty of Populace").  We've been calling these "Low Sorcery" or "Sphere Magic" and "High Sorcery" or "Ritual Magic".  Low Sorcery uses Spheres of magic — broad fields like "Movement" or "Summoning."  Many of these Spheres are divided into several levels.  Learning a level N sphere requires Essence N+1.  For Example, Illusion is broken into Illusion I, Illusion II, and Illusion III.  A character needs Essence 2 to learn the first, Essence 3 to learn the second, and Essence 4 to learn the third.  High Rituals are bought just like charms, and are divided into three Circles (Terrestrial, Celestial, and Solar).  In order to learn any spell of the Terrestrial Circle, you must have the charm Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, which requires Essence 3 and Occult 3.  Similarly, there are prerequisite charms for Celestial Circle Sorcery and Solar Circle Sorcery, each of which require an additional point of Essence and Occult.

In addition to buying Spheres and High Rituals, a Disciplined Magician is expected to be able to use Charms relevant to his Discipline: usually Craft for Elementalists, Larceny for Illusionists, and so on.

<h3>Matrix casting</h3>

Using Sorcery of either form draws on great quantities of astral energy, attracting the attention of nearby Horrors and risking damage or corruption of the caster.  The Ancients devised ways of mitigating this risk, called Spell Matrices.  A Spell Matrix is an astral construct which filters pure mana from the tainted, corrupted cesspool of the Astral Plane.

The following Occult charms allow for matrix casting

**Spell-holding Matrix Attitude**

Takes 10 minutes (possibly in parallel with itself), costs 1 willpower, 5 essence (committed)

Minimum Essence 2, Minimum Occult 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... (is its own tree, like Ox Body)

Creates a spell matrix.  A spell matrix is effectively a mook, with the three mookish health levels (-1, -3, Incap.).  When it takes the incapacitated box in damage, a matrix collapses (regardless of the damage type).

Matrices cast using your actions, your essence pool, and your dice pools (so a damaged matrix casts at a penalty based on the damage).  They take the bad effects of using your Peripheral Essence for you (see ExaltedHackingTaint), and have a soak for that purpose equal to your Willpower.  They can be hurt as spirits: for purposes other than absorbing damage from tainted astral space, they have a bashing soak equal to half your Willpower, and a lethal soak of half that again.

A matrix is created with a spell in it.  The spell may be changed by meditating for ten minutes and making a Manipulation+Occult roll against a difficulty based on the type of spell (2 for basic, 3 for intermediate, 5 for advanced) with appropriate penalties for the local corruption of astral space.  You will probably be burning Willpower for more dice in order to load larger spells.  Trying to change spells in a single turn adds 2 to the difficulty and requires a point of Willpower.  Failure collapses the Matrix.

**Reweave the Fraying Matrix**

(essence 2, occult 3, requires spell matrix)
Simple, costs 1 Willpower.

The mage makes an Intelligence+Occult roll.  He may remove a number of health bashing or lethal levels of damage from his matrices equal to the number of successes on this roll.  Each lethal health level healed costs 1 mote of Essence.

**Woven Armor of Creative Thought**

(essence 3, occult 4, requires Reweave the Fraying Matrix)

This adds your Essence to the bashing and lethal soak of a spell matrix.  It is a Simple charm, costs 5 motes of Essence, and lasts for one scene.

**Greater Efficiency of the Enhanced Matrix**

(essence 4, occult 5, requires Reweave the Fraying Matrix)
Reflexive, Variable Cost.

Each mote of Essence spent on this charm reduces the cost of all spells cast by the character for the rest of the scene by one mote.  No more than half the cost of a spell may be payed by this charm.  For example, even if you've spent ten motes on Greater Efficiency, you still need to pay five motes to cast a ten-mote spell.

**Advanced Spell Pattern Combining Method**

(essence 5, occult 5, requires Woven Armor of Creative Thought), Simple charm, Costs 1 willpower and 10 essence, Duration Indefinite.

Changes a matrix into a share matrix, which has a number of "slots" equal to the mage's essence.  Basic spells take 1, intermediate 2, and advanced 3.  A matrix can cast any spell loaded into it at the direction of the mage.  This charm lasts as long as the Essence is committed.

**Petty Wizard's Way**

(essence 2, occult 1), Supplemental, 2 motes per success

After making your (whatever) + Occult roll, you may use this 
Charm to buy extra successes, up to (Essence) + (Successes rolled).  This 
Charm can be used on any use of Occult that mortals can attempt: sensing 
magic, making talismans, reading omens, trying to contact spirits without 
Sorcery, and so forth.


<h3>Sphere Magic</h3>

Magician Characters buy Spheres of magic.  Spheres cover relatively
broad areas of competence: Earth Magic, Divination, Movement,
Illusion, Summoning, Fire Magic, Weather, Metamagic.  A Sphere of Level N costs N+1
times as much as a Charm.

The sphere templates are at http://www.evenmere.org/~bts/Shadowdawn/high-fantasy-feng-shui-spheres.html :

When a magician wants to cast a spell, he spends some number of
turns weaving threads to a matrix: he rolls Wits+Occult (casting
from a grimoire or other slow, ritual casting would be Int+Occult).

Thread-weaving costs you three motes per round.  All such essence counts as if it were spent from your Peripheral pool for causing you to flare and take Taint, so you *really* want to use a matrix.  It costs a Willpower point per scene to hold a spell ready to cast.  Difficulty One threads get you the following:

The limits mentioned elsewhere are that a stable of trained mundanes
should still be marginally useful to a magician; a magician should
have exceptional versatility, and exceptional strength in his
specialty, but should not have exceptional strength across the board.
If a spell out-performs a charm, something is Wrong.  If a spell
out-performs a highly talented, well-trained professional mundane,
without requiring the magician to have similar skills, something is
Wrong.

It should be clear, then, that a normal (Difficulty 1)
sphere-magic spell only:

 * Affects one target, or a small nondiscriminating area (say,
   lighting a room, or creating a breeze).

 * Does no more damage than a mundane combatant (say, Essence+2L,
   roughly parallel to a blade or arrow wielded by a man with Str=Ess)

 * Summons a weak semi-autonomous creature: a zombie, a not-too-bright
   elemental, an Olliphant.  A bit more pumped than a Watcher, but not
   in the same league as most Intuitively-Conjured whatzits.

 * Summons a slightly stronger non-autonomous creature: as powerful as
   a moderately buff mundane, but entirely controlled by the
   concentration of the caster, and using his skills.  (These autonomy
   guidelines pretty clearly transfer to reality of illusions)

 * Lasts no longer than a single use.  This might be a moment, a
   combat, a scene, or as long as the caster concentrates.

 * Intuitively ranged spells reach no further than a thrown
   weapon. (lightning bolts, for example) Intuitively close spells
   reach no further than an arm-length. (mind-scanning or telekinetic
   lockpicking, for example) Intuitively rangeless spells
   (some sorts of divinations) require strong arcane connections.

 * Don't do conditionals, delays, links, or other metaspell stuff
   without the Metamagic sphere.  

 * Simple Metamagic spells should be able to: Notice active magical effects.  Change the experienced reality of a magical effect (e.g. show it a slower time stream, so it lasts longer).  Analyze spells and enchantments.  Ward against specific spells (at higher difficulties, against specific sorts of spells, or against all magic), providing an effective parry.  
Change any part of a spell which isn't part of its True Name
(i.e. which doesn't have a Thread woven to it), thus adding it to the
True Name.  At a difficulty equal to the total successes scored when
weaving a thread, Change the magnitude (but not direction) of a thread, or
reinforce it against such change.
Also, this should let you use your normal skills to affect spells (in
ways someone with Occult could normally do with days of ritual).  So
where Bob the Hedgie could use Man+Occult to dress himself in Fred's
clothes and fake a spell coming from Fred... Sue Lar can just use
Metamagic and Man+Larceny to create a lens of Fredness and cast through that.

 * Simple karma spells should be able to:
Notice and move small quantities of Essence, including granting it to
people or stealing it.  "Chi Blast".  At higher difficulties, store it
in a prepared receptacle.  Strike into the astral, including at
matrices.  Flavor/taint/color Essence, or note such resonance.
Provide effects like that of a Walkaway or Luck Charm, but much more
focussed (Walkways from being Thrown From This Particular Horse).  At
very high difficulties, move Willpower or Taint.
Bless and Curse: minor effects (+ or - a couple of dice in very very
specific circumstances: see Weather Cloak, maybe target
number stuff though I'd rather not) and this involves shouting out the
escape clause, which should be about on the level of "do a handstand".
Make charms/spells more expensive to use, or pay part of the cost.


Increasing beyond these limits increases the difficulty of some rolls.
A good idea for stunts is explaining the mystic circumstances
(ingredients, astrology, symbolism) which allow you to get away with
pushing these limits.

Remember that "let me throw Firebolts" as a spell lets you throw firebolts, but you still need to take an action to throw each one.

<h3>Ritual Magic</h3>

Spells and inspiration for them should be taken from the Exalted Sorcery system &mdash; see the main book or the Book of Three Circles.  Remember to stay in-genre for your Discipline when picking spells.  Also, all Essence spent on such spells counts as if it came from your Peripheral pool:  see ExaltedHackingTaint for details of why Matrices are a really good idea.

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There's plenty of spell support in Exalted for OokyScary summoners (Nethermancers), elemental special effects (Elementalists), and Knowledge and Abstract geeks (Wizards).  There isn't a unified Disbelief mechanic.  Also, there's very little which screams "I'm an Illusionist spell!" in the Book of Three Circles.  So I want to take a look at ExaltedHackingDisbelief, which includes some commentary on Illusionists.
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