Life Mage

Talents, Half-Magic, and Knacks

By Keith Graham

New or Modified Talents:

Alchemical Focus

Step Number: Rank
Action: NA	Skill Use: No
Requires Karma: No	Strain: None
Discipline Talent Use: None

The Alchemical Focus allows the Adept to attune to an alchemical tool in the same manner as other magicians attune spell matrices to a spell. Unlike attuning a spell matrix, attuning an Alchemical Focus requires an appropriate alchemical tool. A Life Mage can only use an alchemical tool after she's attuned an Alchemical Focus to it. Each Alchemical Focus Talent represents a seperate talent with its own rank. The rank of each Alchemical Focus talent determines the Circle of the Alchemical Tool that may be attuned. A rank one Alchemical Focus can be attuned to a First Circle tool. See the Life Mage spell rules (below). This talent is similar to the Spell Fetish talent (see Magic: A Manual of Mystic Secrets pp. 103ff).

Alchemy

Step Number: Rank + Perception Step
Action: Yes	Skill Use: Yes
Requires Karma: No	Strain: None
Discipline Talent Use: Life Mage

The Alchemy talent allows a character to understand the magical principles associated with creating potions, blood charms, antidotes, poisons, and the like. Most alchemical concontions use animal parts, rare plants, and minerals. Alchemy helps the character to find such ingredients and incorporate them into usable final result. The Alchemy talent may be used in place of the Alchemy skill (see Magic: A Manual of Mystic Secrets pp. 58ff).

In addition, Life Mages use Alchemy in conjunction with the Read and Write Language talent to create Alchemical Tools for use with their spells. Use of Alchemy to create an Alchemical Tool requires at least one day, in addition to any time needed to gather the materials. For more information about creating Alchemical Tools, see the Life Mage Discipline: Creating Alchemical Tools.

Alchemy cannot be taught to other Adepts through the Versatility talent.

Blood Heal

Step Number: Rank + Willpower Step
Action: Yes	Skill Use: No
Requires Karma: No	Strain: None
Discipline Talent Use: Life Mage

This is the medieval practive of blood letting. The Life Mage makes a cut on the patient, typically on the arm, and bleeds out a quantity of blood. The Life Mage uses his abilities to amplify the power in the blood to help the patient heal faster. If the Life Mage fails, the patient takes damage from the blood loss. Wounded patients have been accidentally killed by misapplication of this talent.

The character declares how many Recovery Tests he is attempting to gain for his patient. Blood Heal requires 10 minutes, and the Life Mage must attempt to gain at least 2 Recovery Tests for the patient. The character then makes a Blood Heal Test for against a Difficulty Number determined by the gamemaster. The gamemaster determines the Difficulty Number by rolling 1D8, plus bonus dice, for each Recovery Test and sums the result. If the character's test result is equal to or greater than this Difficulty Number, he earns the additional Recovery Tests for the patient. These Recovery Tests are available for 24 hours after the successful Blood Heal Test. However, if the Blood Heal Test fails, the patient suffers one Wound and a number of Damage Points equal to the difference between the Difficulty Number and the Blood Heal Test result. This damage can result in a second Wound. Anything that prevents this damage nullifies the talent.

Blood Share

Step Number: Rank + Toughness Step
Action: Yes	Skill Use: No
Requires Karma: No	Strain: None
Discipline Talent Use: Cavalryman

Life Mages may only transfer damage to Name-givers, and must spend a Karma Point when doing so. They may transfer damage to themselves from both non-Name-givers and Name-givers alike. See the Earthdawn Rulebook, pp. 99 for more details of the Blood Share talent.

Cancel Poison

Step Number: Rank + Willpower Step
Action: Yes	Skill Use: Yes
Requires Karma: No	Strain: None
Discipline Talent Use: Life Mage

The Cancel Poison talent stops the effects of poison, for a price. The character must inflict two Damage Points near the wound in order to bleed out the poison. If the poison was ingested, any major artery will suffice. The character then makes a Cancel Poison Test against the poison's step number. A successful test stops the effects of the poison. In addition, the character may recover a number of Damage Points equal to the difference between the Cancel Poison test result and the poison's step number. Cancel Poison can only heal damage caused by the poison. It does not heal the two Damage Points inflicted by the character using the talent.

Enhanced Focus

Step Number: Rank
Action: NA	Skill Use: No
Requires Karma: No	Strain: None
Discipline Talent Use: None

Life Mages learn the Enhanced Focus talent to more easily utilize Alchemical tools that require threads. While a Life Mage has an Enhanced Focus attuned to an Alchemical Tool, the spell associated with that tool requires one less thread than usual. This talent is similar to the Enhanced Matrix (see Earthdawn Rulebook, Spell Magic pp. 42) and Enhanced Fetish (see Magic: A Manual of Mystic Secrets, pp. 103ff) talents.

Lifecasting

Step Number: Rank + Perception Step
Action: Yes	Skill Use: Yes
Requires Karma: No	Strain: 1
Discipline Talent Use: Life Mage

A Life Mage uses the Lifecasting talent to cast Life Mage Spells. The character makes a Lifecasting test. If the result is equal to or greater than the target's Spell Defense Rating, the Lifecasting Test succeeds. This is used in the same fashion as normal spellcasting, except it costs the character one Strain each time a spell is cast. If the character makes a Lifecasting roll for some other reason, such as to identify a Life Mage spell, the talent costs no strain.

Most items that increase or effect Spellcasting also affect Lifecasting, including Desperate Spell Blood Charms and most Common Threaded Items. Life Mages have also created items that are specialized to Lifecasting. Lifecasting may also be used with certain magical items or situations that require or allow a Per test to cast a spell, such as with magic items like the Spell Matrix Staff (see Earthdawn Companion, pp. 68) or a Crystal Spell box (see Earthdawn Rulebook, pp. 274).

Lifecasting cannot be used when Grimoire Casting, Normal Matrix Casting, or Raw Casting a spell from another Discipline, nor may Spellcasting may not be used to cast Life Mage spells. In all cases, the gamemaster decides when Lifecasting may be used in place of Spellcasting and which items increase Lifecasting. The gamemaster may, of course, defer to a group decision.

Physician

Step Number: Rank + Perception Step
Action: Yes	Skill Use: No
Requires Karma: No	Strain: No
Discipline Talent Use: None

The Physician talent allows the character to diagnose and perscribe treatments for injuries and diseases. To use the talent, the character spends 10 minutes looking over the patient's injuries. He then makes a Physician Test against the Difficulty Number of the diagnosis. A successful test means the character knows what the problem is and how to treat it. (See the Earthdawn Rulebook pp. 132 for a list of suggested Difficulty Numbers for diagnosis.)

This leads to improved recovery: the patient may add a number of steps equal to character's Physican rank to his next Recovery Test. This Physician talent bonus is not cumulative with any forms of magical healing, including potions, spells, or talents. However, successful use of the Physician talent in conjunction with magicial healing leads to appropriately dressed injuries, insuring that they will not become infected.

The character may also attempt to treat a Wound or Injury (see Earthdawn Survival Guide, pp. 96ff) specifically instead of assisting a recovery. When treating a Wound or other injury without additional Magical Healing, if the player rolls an Excellent Success on a Physician Test, the effects of the Wound or injury are negated for 24 hours (but the character still has the Wound or injury). Each Wound or injury may be treated only once in a 24-hour period by the Physician talent.

Life Mage Talent Knacks

Life Mages get Lifecasting talents knacks (when appropriate) at the same ranks as Wizards, and use Wizard modifiers during spell creation.

Half-Magic

A Life Mage may use a Half-Magic Test to recognize alchemical texts; identify herbs, magical animal parts, and chemicals; and to identify blood, alchemical, or healing magic. They may also use half-magic as an "Alchemical History" to determine the type of a given potion or blood charm. At the gamemaster's discretion, they may also be able to determine the Key Knowledges (as per Item History) of an item that requires or uses blood magic, particuliarly those that were created using Sacrifice Magic.

Copyright © 1995-9 All Rights Reserved
Keith Graham.
Please Mail if you have any queries.

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