New Careers

Martial Arts Master

Career Break: [Agi 5+, Str 3+, End 4+] Language 1 (Defined by Martial Art trained: Karate, Japanese; Kung Fu, Chinese etc), Throwing 1, Stealth 1, Observation 1, Close Combat 3 (Kung Fu or equivalent).

Martial Arts Special Rules
If using his skills a martial artist cannot wear armour.  Can block melee attacks with Kung Fu using number of dice equal to agility.  Usual rules apply.  Damage done by Kung Fu is 1 up to Close Combat skill level 4 then increased by one for each level over it.  When using grapple can use the Close Combat skill instead of attacker’s strength or Endurance in defence. Kung Fu chokes are treated as if using a choke weapon using 2d6 + Close Combat Skill against opponents 1d6 + endurance.

Magician

Career Break: [Int 5+, Agl 3+] Language 1 (Latin), Observation 1, Elemental Magik 3, plus spells (see below).

Magician Special Rules 
Magicians learn by becoming an apprentice to a top magician – at the end of the apprenticeship they will have a magical spell book from which they continue to learn.  Magicians must nominate which of the Elemental Magiks is their prime research (as with other cascade skills they will have levels in the others equal to their Skill level halved and rounded down).  Magicians must lean both the principals and concepts of their chosen magik as well as detailed understanding of the individual spells to be learned.  Thus they need to lean the magik’s general skill level and then attempt to master each individual spell.  Each spell has a difficulty rating of 1 to 7.  To learn a spell a magician must study and research.  In effect the player uses the general experience points gained (GEP) during the campaign – each difficulty of spell takes 1 GEP to learn.  Hence a 4 difficulty rating spell requires 4 GEP.  Where spells are stated to be in sequence the magician must lean the lower spell before moving on to the higher one.  There chance of successfully learning the spell is automatic if the magician’s skill level in that branch of elemental magik the spell is in is equal to or higher than the spell they wish to learn.  Otherwise a d6 must be greater than the difference of the spell’s difficulty level and the skill of the magician in that branch of magik.  A magician initially gets their intelligence + 1d6 in GEP to allocate on spells.  Also they can convert any or all of their 2 General Skill Points into equivalent GEP to initially buy spells – a General Skill Point will buy 2 points in their prime research area but only 1 if used on the other elemental magiks.  In the same way as with all other skills the GEP’s can also be used to raise their Elemental Magik skill.  Magicians cannot usually create spells of their own – though if a magician becomes the “best” it is possible they could do so – talk to the Gamesmaster if you want to do this – it would require Int 6+ and to know all the known spells in one of the magiks before it is considered.

General Magik-Use Rules
Magicians have found that active magik spells (i.e. those which can be caste almost immediately) generally do not like to reside in a humans head – thus only so many memorised spells can safely be retained in their head at any one time.  These stay unless changed for the following reasons.  Each day the magician’s spell capacity changes this is calculated by their Elemental Magik skill level plus 2d6/2 rounded up (diced for at the start of each day).  The magician chooses which are to be discarded.  Spells can only be added or replaced by the magician concentrating solely on the required spell taking 10 minutes for each difficulty level of the spell.  Casting a spell counts as an attack in the turn sequence and requires the magician to use hands and voice to release the spell.

Fire Magik
Sequence Spell group - Fire stones equivalent to a light revolver (diff 2); Fire Arrow equivalent to a lever action carbine (diff 3); Fire Bolt equivalent to a Bolt action rifle (diff 4); Fire Storm equivalent to a Gatling 0.5 calibre (diff 6).  All these will be targeted using the pistol skill.

Create Burning Torch in the hand which gives light and lasts for 1 hour or until extinguished by magician on command or natural event. (diff 1).

Flame On a melee weapon – this will not harm the magician’s weapon and adds one to its damage.  It lasts for the duration of the combat.  Used on another’s weapon has the same effect but the weapon is useless at the end of the combat (diff 1).
Burn immunity of magician to fire damage (diff 5).

Earth Magik
Sequence Spell group – Earth Spirit armour I equivalent to helmet (diff 1), Earth Spirit armour II equivalent to helmet and shield (diff 2), Earth Spirit armour III equivalent to helmet, shield and chainmail (diff 3), Earth Spirit armour IV equivalent to helmet , shield and breast plate (diff 6).  The Earth spirits will only protect magicians and then only the vulnerable areas so this does not stack with any normal armour types.  It lasts for 12 hours when caste.

Create poison which does 1 point of damage if drunk or enters blood stream (diff 1).

Summon Demonic Servant (diff 3): The demon will not be too pleased at being summoned and the magician must be able to impose their will on the creature and bind it to them or it is likely to attack. The creature will be diced randomly to determine its abilities. It will stay until released or killed. The magician will have learnt basic demonic language commands as part of the spell – represented by any command can only comprising of 7 words.

Suggestion (diff 4) Useful when summoning demons! The magician can make a suggestion to a sentinel being (if he can communicate with it) with success depending on the reasonableness of the suggestion, the skill of the magician and the intelligence of the victim.

Water Magik
Sequence Spell group – Heals only work on sentinel creature and are done by touch.  The punter can only take one heal spell a day for every 2 intelligence points they have; as it draws on their own inner power.  The spells are: Fumble Heal restores 1 point lost (diff 2), Touch Heal restores 2 points lost (diff 3), Massage Heal restores 3 points lost (diff 4), Walk Heal restores all points lost (diff 6). If administered within 5 minutes of death the being will recover but there is a 1 in 6 chance they will have lost one intelligence point.

Love Spell (diff 1) This will cause a person to fall in love with the next person or creature they see.  The victim has an initial saving throw of equalling or getting below their intelligence attribute, then if they fail each day they have another chance - but need to throw below their mentality.  The victim will react as if they actually were in love to that being – i.e. seek to defend its cause and willing to help it.  There could also be jealousy if another gets attention.

Meal (diff 1) If caste on a person it will be the equivalent of a full meal. However it will only sustain the person on the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 10th, 15th, days as the body still needs to draw on some natural energy.

Shimmer (diff 5) The magician can caste this on himself and then ‘disappears’ becoming just a shimmer, as light is bent around them.  They are still there and hence can be hit but opponents (and friends) need to make a seeing throw under their intelligence to do so. It only works on sight. It lasts for 1 hour and cannot be deactivated before then.

Air Magik
Sequence Spell group – Create Wings on self (diff 2).  This allows the magician to fly at 10 miles/hour (100 yards in a combat turn).  The spells requires the magicians full concentration while in use.  Call Cloud (diff 4). This allows the magician and four other people (or their equivalent weight) to fly at 300 miles/day.  The spells requires the magicians full concentration while in use.  Iron Brew (diff 6) This gives the magician a pair of wings which last for a day – people see them as large feathered wings but this is only an optical illusion.  Once called they will be present for 12 hours.  It is the same as the spell “Create Wings” but does not require any concentration to use.  It can lift whatever the character can lift.

2nd Sequence Spell group – Space Suite (diff 3).  This works on caster and gives 12 hours full protection (meteorites and hostiles excluded) and life support while in space.  Space Sphere (diff 5) Creates a transparent sphere which is the same as the Space Suite but holds up to five people.

Feather light (diff 1).  This can be used on self or others and halves the weight burden of equipment.  It will last for 8 hours.

Fish Breath (diff 1).  This can be use on self and lasts for minutes in magician’s skill in this magik and enables the magician to breath underwater or in gas.

Freak

Career Break: [Chr5+] Freaks Skills will be dependent on the power chosen.  An outline of how this will be administered is given below:

It should be realised in this period that there was a bigoted attitude to people who were different especially if this difference was physical and the Church branded it as being a sign of the devil’s work.  Of cause if one could become accepted in High Society, preferably royalty, then this would be mainly negated.

Any unique power needs to be agreed with the Gamesmaster.  Its concept will have to be in keeping with the Victorian period and the top level of any power will maintain game balance.  Unique powers can be treated as either minor or major, trainable or non-trainable skills – players may choose a combination of powers but this will have to be consistent in themselves and will only start with the equivalent level of skills similar to a single career.  In special circumstances if different freak powers are linked and consistent in themselves these may be treated as cascade freak skills with one being nominated as primary and the secondary ones being at level of half rounded down of the primary one.  Handicaps may be introduced if the unique ability would be frowned upon by the Victorian public.

Guidelines for powers are:

• Those unique skills which are based on a mental or similar attack will use the mechanics of skill levels and dice rolls as for the rest of the game.  However depending on the sort of attack the victims may be given an attribute saving roll (based on the relative attribute though this is likely to be mentality in most cases).
• Those unique skills which require a targeting skill will use the unique’s marksmanship score (a new skill) under cascade marksmanship – hence they will get half level rounded down in all the other cascade marksmanship skills;
• Transformation changes will rearrange attribute scores and appropriate form.
• Armoured skin will act as the equivalent armour for saving throw purposes and could be either trainable for the higher ones to un-trainable if part of a greater power.
• Any unique abilities which give improved transportation will be in line with the speeds of transport vehicles of the period.

Disabilities

Disabilities will flow automatically from a person’s attributes especially social class or if one takes up the unholy career of magician or have demonic abilities as a freak.  If players wish to propose other disabilities to gain extra General Skill Points this should be discussed with the Gamesmaster.  To maintain game balance his is really going to be treated to add “flavour” to characters and not to make massive increase in their skills (or attributes).