The vicious cycle of magic
March 5, 2007
From my previous posts, it easy to see that initiating a magic contest is a ready way to prevent a character from losing a trick. After all, you can add up to a +20 rank bonus to a card with a magic contest – that’s pretty hard to beat.
But, the more power magic you invoke, the greater the chance that you will fail and the greater the consequences if you fail, in the form of Taint points.
Taint points do two things. They have a guaranteed, immediate, and temporary effect on magic ratings. They also have a non-certain, future, and permanent effect on Trick card rank value.
Immediately, the number of Taint points a character receives act as a negative modifier to the magic rating used for the magic contest they were received in. So if a character has a magic rating of 3 and receives 5 Taint points, their magic rating is decreased to -2 immediately.
The delayed effect can arise as part of the Winter Council phase of play. If a character has any Taint points, the owning player draws a number of cards equal to their total Taint points acquired since the last Winter Council. As each card is drawn, it is placed face up in front of the player.
If a face card is not drawn during this process, the cards are discarded and any Taint points the character has are lost. This also means that any negative modifiers to the character’s magic ratings, due to Taint points, are also lost.
If a face card is drawn, the player should stop drawing cards. All Taint points, and negative magic rating modifiers they cause, are lost as described above. However, the character has been Corrupted by magical energies. A character can gain at most a single point of Corruption each Winter Council if they have any Taint.
The suit of the face card drawn indicates which Trait is Corrupted this time (e.g. clubs = Vigor, diamonds = Craft, etc). Each point of Corruption interferes with the mage’s ability to perform effectively using one of their four Traits. This is represented mechanically by a permanent modifier applied to all future Trick cards, of the suit associated with the Corrupted Trait, that a player plays on that character’s behalf. The modifier is -1 rank per point of Corruption in that Trait.
Players are encouraged to describe how the Corruption manifests or interferes to cause this modifier. Examples of this include, but are not limited to:
-Deformation, withering, aging, weakness, or other infirmities of the flesh (e.g. cataracts or lameness) that interfere with Vigor activities.
-Materials and products of craft tarnishing in the mage’s presence (e.g. music sounds harsh, food turns bitter, etc). that interfere with Craft activities.
-Difficulty relating to and understanding others (e.g. megalomania or paranoia) or foul moods and vile smells that interfere with Influence activities.
-Hallucinations, delusions, madness, and other warped beliefs that interfere with Insight activities.
Over time, mages who use magic frequenctly will become Corrupted; which reduces the rank of the Trick cards they play. One way they can raise the rank of the Corrupted Trick cards is by using magic to bolster their rank value. Frequent use of magic will trigger more Corruption. And thus, a vicious cycle.
