Doing direct damage. The standard Damage value for a Blast is your character's permanent Willpower, lethal damage. You can subtract a success to do Bashing as usual. The Difficulty of a Blast spell is 1, with a range increment of 30 yards. Blast spells work like a melee attack, using the caster's Perception+Occult, and like most melee attacks can be used to parry. Backlash for all Blasts is the caster getting hit with his own Blast. Metaphysically, Blast empowers the caster to throw Blasts for a few seconds. The game effect of this is that the caster can split his action normally. Many blast schticks give you a number of automatic successes on your to-hit roll equal to your permanent Essence when targetting certain materials or creatures. This are usually pretty clear: Fire blasts target water elementals, Karma blasts target Horrors, etc. Pick three Blast schticks from below when you buy this Sphere.
Area Blast. (T3.) Many blast effects can affect an area at the cost of a Willpower point. The damage of such an area attack is still your Willpower; make one attack roll and everyone in the area gets to defend individually. Unless noted otherwise, an area attack actually is a spherical volume with a radius equal to twice your Essence in yards. It does not expand out of bounds in a restricted area, but cannot be placed so that a large part of the volume is deliberately confined.
Interdiction. If the special effect is appropriate, you can create a continuous Blast effect as a barrier by concentrating, requiring a continuous action. If it surrounds only you, you may reflexively parry with your Perception+Occult, and may reflexively counterattack with your Perception+Occult, minus one die per success they acheived to hit you.
Alternatively, you can spend a willpower point and create a freestanding wall by making a test against current environmental factors— the modifier is +0 if such a wall is likely to spring up at any point (wall of fire in a volcano or forest fire), +1 if not at all difficult (wall of fire in a desert at noon under a blazing sun), +2 in ordinary circumstances, +3 in difficult ones (wall of fire during rain or snow), and +4 if nearly impossible (wall of fire in a blizzard)— with a length equal to twice your Essence (in yards) and a height equal to your successes (in yards). It lasts one minute per success. Anyone passing through must expose themselves to damage equal to your Willpower.
You can also spend a willpower point to just create a personal Aura that will last one turn per success, with the target number determined by ambient factors (in a desert, in a rainstorm, etc.).
Acid. Creates a stream of liquid or cloud of gas that eats away at tissue and other material.
Animate Object. (T3.) Animate gives you control over some object, creature or force and uses it to attack. Different variants of Animate control different things (called Animates), with some specific effects covered below, but they all have some rules in common.
The Animates stay around after you use them to attack. This means opponents must strike them down or move around them in order to get past, so they form a sort of living wall. An Animate will last until your next action comes up, and if you keep concentrating, it will remain, so it has tactical uses. You can maintain the Animate while doing other things as a continuous action. Each Animate has attributes equal to the sorcerer's Essence, an attack skill (including Dodge) equal to his Occult, and is dispelled if hit. Having it attack a second time requires another casting action.
By strengthening it with two willpower points, the sorcerer can give a thing some motivation of its own. It now becomes a normal unnamed creature, capable of its own actions. It lasts until hit (a fragile mook — anything which penetrates its soak destroys it) or until the end of the fight. Extra willpower points to increase the effectiveness of such a spellcast can be truly horrifying.
Opponents can spend an action "disbelieving" the spectre, and if they make a Perception roll at a difficulty of your Essence, the spectre is dissipated.
A spectre that is used to enhance an already-existing illusion that people believe in does not need an extra willpower point to act on its own; it draws this sustenance from the minds of those who believe in it instead. Such a believable spectre can actually make area attacks for a willpower point, if appropriate to its supposed abilities.
Antifire. Black flame that turns ashes into wood. (Stolen from Niven and Barnes' Dream Park.)
Balefire. A sickly greenish flame that works through the heat of accelerated decay. Wounds inflicted by balefire tend to fester, rather than cauterize. (The original term comes from an Old English term for a funeral pyre, and later meant a signal fire, though a lot of fantasy gaming systems seem to consider it baleful. In Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books, it destroys a person so completely their recent actions are erased from the universe. In White Wolf's Werewolf, it's an unnatural flame that mutates as well as hurts.)
Binding. (T3.) A variant of blast often associated with summoning, and which works only on supernatural creatures. Binding damage is soaked using Willpower, and a creature "killed" with Binding does not die, rather it falls under the magical domination of the caster, who can order it about for the rest of the session. It is probably still very heavily damaged, and will soon collapse. Sorcerers commonly use the summoning effect Naming on such a creature. In this case, the difficulty of Naming is the creature's Essence rather than its Essence+Willpower.
Damage Immunity to Summoning, rather than Blast, prevents this effect.
Bliss. The amount of damage caused registers as a short-term continuous peace, lassitude and relaxation. A lost Incapacitated level means the target has blissed out completely. The damage entirely wears off in a number of minutes equal to the caster's Manipulation+Occult. Mark them separately as "B" instead of "/" or "X".
Blood Gout. (T3.) Sucks the blood out of a living target; can be used to feed your buddies with Blood Drain, capture valuable samples from exotic creatures, and terrify the peasantry. Does no damage to anything lacking a circulatory system, and only half damage against something with sluggish circulatory fluid like sap.
Boil Blood. The target's blood heats up, causing blisters, internal bleeding, and occasional mook explosions.
Bone Dance. The target's skeleton acts independently of their flesh, straining against muscles in an attempt to rebel. Mooks killed with this effect have their skeletons burst free, joining the minions of the necromancer using this effect.
Chaos. Inflicts warping equal to half your Willpower rating plus extra successes of the check. Some creatures who are particularly strong in the way of Order take aggravated damage instead, due to their inability to shift.
Karma. Too much raw karma energy can burn and sear opponents, and wither objects. When cast within a feng shui site it will sever or disrupt the connections between the site and those attuned to it. When done successfully, those attuned to it lose any benefits of attunement until they re-attune. The Difficulty of severing a karma connection is the number of attuned characters. You can't deattune some characters and not others. Multiple Willpower points can be spent for automatic successes.
Cold. Freezing cold causes frostbite damage. Also handy for cooling off drinks on a hot day and making water solid enough to walk on.
Coldfire. A pale blue flame of freezing cold, whose light make shadows deeper without really illuminating much. (Stolen from C S Friedman's Black Sun Rising.)
Conjured substance. (T3.) Corresponds to the Foul Spew Creature Power.
Darkfire. Black flame straight from the demon world.
Deathlight. Radiant darkness powered by Taint. Can blind or cause deathburn, a sunburn-like ailment involving corpselike pallor and rot, to living beings who spend too much time under its light.
Decay. Accelerated entropy. Targets may suffer from rot or crumble into dust.
Disintegration. Causes affected matter to simply disappear. Also useful for simulating vanishing tricks and destroying evidence. (T3.) A target that dies from disintegration is gone. Instead of restoring him through healing, the disintegrate magic must be dispelled, with a difficulty equal to the normal lifesaving difficulty, and the same time limits. If successful, he is not considered to have failed the Death Check, after all, and can remain active. Targets can also be resurrected normally by mystic means, such as Inevitable Comeback or Immortality.
Drain. (T3.) Drain reduces the target's attributes, reducing his power to act. Instead of delivering instant Wound Points, the Damage determines the severity of the drain caused.
There are several variants of Drain; each has a resisting attribute and a number of affected attributes. When hit by a Drain, subtract the resisting attribute from the damage rating. The result is the Drain Rating. For every point of accumulated Drain Rating, the victim loses one points from a single attribute, distributed evenly among the affected attributes.
This may reduce the effectiveness of certain skills, such as Intimidation for a silenced character, at the gamemaster's discretion. Attributes reakarmang zero can no longer be used. Physical attributes so reduced cause helplessness. Attributes for which there is a related point pool or value (Initiative, for example) lead to a loss of such points equal to the attribute loss.
Drain can be dispelled by the Karma sphere of Sorcery; anyone suffering from Drain can gather their willpower and roll their resisting stat against the Occult of the caster to dispel it, as a normal action.
Earthquake Wave. (TotL.) By striking the ground with a staff, stomping, or some similar maneuver, you create a wave of tremors moving toward the target. The Earthquake Wave damages buildings, walls, carts, and other large objects. Target characters must make a Dex+Athletics check (opposed by your casting roll) to remain standing. Though they take no damage from the wave, its ancillary effects might harm them: debris could fall on them, or the floor could collapse from underneath. Buildings and structures take normal Blast damage from the wave.
The basic wave is 1 yard wide, and moves in a straight line. For 1 willpower point, you can create a wave that spreads into a cone of destruction. For 2 willpower points, it forms an expanding circle around you. You are not affected by the wave, but could be hurt by falling debris or buildings.
Fire. The classic flamethrower effect, also handy for lighting cigars and heating drinks.
Flaming Ash. (TotL.) Pyroclastic flow is your friend! A stream of hot coals and burning ash pours forth, sticking to targets like Mother Nature's napalm. If your target's soak is penetrated (not just a nibbling by ducks), the ash will cause a -1 modifier as from wounds until scraped off. It ignites anything flammable, and does a dandy job of making a pre-lit barbecue.
Force. (TotL.) Kinda like taking a sledgehammer to the stomach. This invisible punch is great for knocking people over and breaking down doors.
Heat. Anything from enhancing the target's fiery humors to a microwave beam: the target is cooked from the inside.
Hindrance. (T3.) A collection of impairing attacks designed to incapacitate the target and set him up for other attacks. Instead of delivering Damage, the net successes determine the severity of the hindrance caused. Different variants of Hindrance are directed against different secondary attributes, determined when the effect is bough. This is the target attribute, and used to decide the effect of the blast. Subtract the victim's target attribute from the Damage, rather than Stamina. The result is the Hindrance Rating. For every 5 points of Hindrance Rating (rounding all fractions down) the victim suffers a one die impairment penalty until cured. When impairment equals the character's target attribute, he is entirely helpless, and can no longer fight the condition.
Hindrance Rating can be reduced by spending a normal action and making a roll of the relevant attribute. Reduce the hindrance rating by the net successes of the attribute check. A friend can do this for you.
Ice. Conjures actual ice, rather than just cold; the damage caused is based on the impact of the ice. If you use this schtick to create a wall of ice, its Stamina is equal to your net successes. Usually manifests as hailstones in the hands of nature-oriented spellcasters.
Lava. Globs of glowing molten rock, doing a combination of impact and fire damage.
Life. Brilliant life energy, aggravated to undead and apt to encourage plants to sink their roots deeper into rock.
Light. (TotL.) A high-intensity flash. Causes no damage, but the target is blinded for a number of rounds equal to the net successes, putting them at -4 penalty if they need eyes to see. For 1 willpower point, everyone looking at the caster is affected.
Lightning. Wizards throw lightning bolts from their hands; some elementalists may call it from the heavens.
Magical Disruption. (TotL.) While this blast will harm supernatural creatures (by disrupting their karma flows), it is primarily useful for taking out spells and disabling magical artifacts. For spells, the soak equals the original caster's Willpower. If successful, the spell is destroyed. Artifacts usually have a difficulty of their rating, and are disabled for a number of sequences equal to the net successes. When used against a supernatural creature, this effect does normal Blast damage.
Mind Blast. (T3.) This is an attack that is soaked with half Willpower instead of Stamina. A target that fails a Death Check against Mind Blast does not die or need hospitalization. Instead, he goes unconscious, and he is then extra vulnerable to certain Sorcery, such as Influence. Some Influence effects have the notation that they can only be used against targets defeated with Mind Blast. Non sentient creatures (such as animals) are immune to Mind Blast. Damage Immunity to Influence or Blast protects against this.
Order. Does aggravated damage against beings of Chaos— any being that has Creature Powers as a result of chaos warping qualifies. Tends to damage substances by crystallizing them, making metals brittle and inflicting burn-like damage on flesh as cells burst.
Pestilence. Instead of delivering instant Wound Points, the Damage determines the severity of the illness caused. Subtract the victim's Stamina from the Damage; the result is the disease rating. For every point of disease rating the victim suffers a 1-die penalty to all actions until cured. (Alternatively, the disease can be highly contagious and the Pestilence only causes 1 Impairment per 2 points.) The disease can be cured by conventional medicine, the Heal schtick, or the Healing Karma fu power, working against a Difficulty of the disease rating.
Poison. This is a bashing attack by default, but if it penetrates soak, it does normal damage and then does another amount of unsoakable lethal damage equal to your net successes to hit at the end of the round.
Projectiles. Conjured crystal darts, etc. (Earth.)
Reverse Gravity. (T3.) Must always be an area attack, requiring a willpower point to use. The targets fall upward, possibly impacting the ceiling, then fall to the floor again, for net damage equal to usual Blast, soaked by Dexterity rather than Stamina, plus knockdown (if they don't take actions to land on their feet). Flying creatures are merely disoriented by the attack, and must take an action to avoid falling out of the sky (on their next action is okay).
Sand. Sandblasting.
Sleep. The amount of damage caused registers as sleepiness ("S" instead of "/" or "X"). "Incapacitates" means the target has fallen asleep, and will not wake up (without magical aid) for at least the caster's net successes in minutes. (T3.) Sleep is soaked with half Willpower instead of Stamina. Damage immunity to Influence or Life protects from this blast.
Soul Eviction. You attempt to detach a possessing entity from its host... or a person's soul from their body. If damage from Soul Eviction reaches Incapacitated, the possessing being is expelled, or the person's soul steps out and life functions cease mysteriously. A person suffering from Soul Eviction damage feels hollow and disconnected from life; the damage can only be healed over time— appealing to a person's virtues speeds recovery— or by a healer with Healing I and Summoning I.
Soul Sword. (T3.) The sorcerer conjures a huge, glowing weapon, usually a sword, the essence of his magical power. Summoning the Soul Sword is a separate action, with a difficulty equal to its damage value, which costs a Magic point. Keeping it around costs an additional 3 motes each turn. You must hold the sword to strike with it, but use your Dex+Occult as the skill. Each attack with this weapon also costs a willpower point, but damage is aggravated. The Soul Sword of a truly good sorcerer will not kill the innocent, and can be used to kill a possessing creature while sparing the host; the Soul Sword of an evil mage is frightening to behold.
As the Soul Sword has no range to begin with, it is not available as an Elemental Attack, nor can it be an Elemental Aura. Nor is it a Martial Arts weapon, though you can use it with Melee if you really want. Attacking with it makes the wielder vulnerable to damage auras, counterattack powers, and so on.
Soul Twist. (T3.) You rupture the normal pattern of Karma energy within a healthy person's body, doing great harm. Often known as the "Dread Curse of Azathoth". This is an attack that is soaked with Essence instead of Stamina. Inevitable Comeback or Immortality does not work for creatures killed with this blast. Does not work against inanimate objects, golems, undead, et al. Each "health level" is three motes of Essence, which are considered to have just been spent (so they cause Taint if taken from the peripheral pool, for example).
Spirit Talons. Spirits of the dead claw at your soul.
Steam. Scalds opponents and causes water damage to some materials.
Sun Spear. (T3.) Call down fire from the sun to strike the unworthy. You can strike anyone you can see, ignoring normal range penalties. Naturally, this only works outdoors under a clear, sunny sky, but you can ignore this limitation if you spend a willpower point. Variants use lightning bolts, falling stars or scythes of the moon.
Tentacles. (GC.) Tentacles form from the sorcerer's own body (possibly their fingers, tongue, hair as in The Bride With White Hair, or even moustache and eyebrows as in Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain) or from available vines, mist, bolts of cloth. They make a Clinch attack against a target. They can be sustained as a continuous action.
Thunder. (TotL.) The target is deafened for a number of sequences equal to the net successes, and must make a Stamina+Resistance check against the spell's net successes or be stunned. (T3.) Variants can involve screams, trumpets, and other noisemakers.
Transmutation. Turns one type of matter into any other type of your choice. Damages tissue by turning it into one substance, like stone, water, or primordial ooze. Transmutation blasts suffer a +1 Difficulty modifier. If you transform people into Glutinous Goo, mooks can make a fine way of stopping other mooks.
Water. (TotL.) Creates a firehose stream of water. Puts out fires, cleans mud off castle walls, fills ponds. The target must make a Knockdown check against your net successes. Base damage is Bashing. Additional water damage and flooding are possible.
Wave. (T3.) Bash your opponents with great gouts of water. This ability has a limited range: the water can jump a number of yards from a water-source equal to your Willpower+Essence. If you know the Weather sphere, you can substitute with the Flood effect and a willpower point (this is not a separate action and gives no action penalty). A Wave cannot normally be parried or dodged. Does Bashing damage. This effect is powerful in that it can easily blast areas.
Similar effects can be gained from animating dirt, gravel, snow, sand and other masses of light particles or liquid-like substances. Specify what your Wave is made of when you buy it.
Wind. (TotL.) Good for blowing out fires, parrying volleys of arrows, scattering important documents, and sending hats flying into the nearest lake. Wind attacks cause no damage, but knock the target backwards a number of yards equal to the user's net successes. The target must make a knockdown check. Flying targets typically are knocked back instead. Additional stunts include creating instant sandstorms and capsizing sailboats.
Withering. (T3.) Too little karma energy can wither opponents and objects. Also known as Karma Strangulation, this damage manifests as aging. Damage is aggravated, but it causes a Taint point to the caster.
Wizard's Staff. (T3.) The Wizard's Staff is a favorite of traditional mages the world over. Five to six feet of wood, plain or decorated with glyphs or tied-on fetishes. Faeries like variants using slender wands or even flowers. It can only be used to strike in melee, but it works well as a parrying weapon. It is also possible to do other stunts as if the wizard was using the staff with Martial Arts, but Fu schticks are not allowed. This schtick lets you use it with Occult instead of Melee.
The sorcerer's mystic aura is transferred through the staff, so anything touched by the staff is considered to be touched by the sorcerer. This extends his reach by about two yards in critical situations.
Damage Immunity to Melee Weapons rather than Blast protects against this. As the Wizard's Staff has no range to begin with, it is not available as an Elemental Attack, nor can it be an Elemental Aura.
Wounding. Known variously as Cause Wounds and Anti-Healing. You cause wounds to appear spontaneously on your victims body. If you inflict HLs equal to the victim's Stamina, you have caused him some disability, maiming a limb.
Unlife. Withering and death; those who die of an Unlife blast have a tendency to reanimate as zombies.
The next level of Blast is an "exceptional Blast," picked when you buy the sphere. That is, the exceptional weapon modifiers are applied separately to each of your blast schticks.
Additionally, pick another three blast schticks.
The highest level of Blast does everything Blast II does, and adds in your Essence as Acc, Spd, Dam, and Def modifiers.
Additionally, pick another three blast schticks.