The Study of Magic
Magic is the use of sounds, symbols, gestures, and materials to manipulate the dimensional fabric of reality. The study of magic is divided into two domains: the Arcane and the Divine. The Arcane Magisteria are accessed through Intelligence. The Divine Magisteria are accessed through Wisdom.
Spell components must be precisely calculated by each spellcaster, conditional upon their individual vocal sounds and somatic movements. Intonation and gestures will invariably be subtly different for different casters, while the spell itself manipulates the same dimensions of the weave. Verbal and somatic components ‘tune’ and ‘pluck’ the strings required to produce the effects of the spell.
Curses
A curse is a magical affliction that imposes an unnatural condition upon a creature, object, or place. Unlike a simple spell effect, a curse persists beyond its initial casting, often resisting ordinary remedies and requiring specialized magic to remove.
Curses are categorized by their nature rather than their method of creation. A curse placed upon a sword, a curse inflicted by a monster, and a curse created by a wizard may all belong to the same category if they produce the same kind of affliction.
There are ten recognized forms of curse:
Bollixes: Curses That Ruin
A Bollix damages, degrades, or diminishes something that already exists.
Bollixes weaken the body, spoil possessions, reduce capabilities, or make ordinary tasks difficult.
Examples:
- Bestow Curse — Debilitation: The victim suffers a magical impairment, reducing one ability score to 3.
- A cursed weapon that constantly chips, breaks, or fails its wielder.
- A curse that causes armor to rust or food to spoil.
- A curse that permanently reduces strength, vitality, or skill.
A Bollix does not change what something is; it makes what already exists worse.
Coaxes: Curses That Compel
A Coax forces a creature toward actions, desires, or beliefs against its own nature.
Examples:
- Geas: The victim is compelled to obey a magical command.
- Abolethic Enslavement: The victim becomes magically dominated.
- A curse causing uncontrollable greed, hunger, obsession, or addiction.
- A magical oath that cannot be broken.
A Coax does not deceive the victim—it forces the victim.
Flummoxes: Curses That Confuse
A Flummox disrupts thought, comprehension, memory, or reason. It leaves reality unchanged and does not necessarily create false perceptions; instead, it prevents the victim from properly interpreting, organizing, or responding to what they experience.
Examples:
- Daze: The victim’s thoughts become muddled, leaving them unable to act effectively.
- Confusion: The victim struggles to distinguish friend from foe or choose a proper course of action.
- A curse that scrambles languages, causing words and meanings to become incomprehensible.
- A curse that causes forgetfulness, disorientation, or inability to concentrate.
- A curse that forces the victim to think in riddles, lose track of time, or experience fragmented thoughts.
A Flummox does not lie to the victim; it prevents the victim from making sense of the truth.
Hexes: Curses That Transfigure
A Hex changes the fundamental nature or form of the victim.
Examples:
- Lycanthropy: A humanoid becomes a werewolf or other lycanthrope.
- Petrification curses: Flesh becomes stone.
- A curse transforming a person into a beast.
- Minotaur Curse (Winze of the Minotaur): The victim gradually becomes a minotaur.
- Shadow Death: The victim eventually rises as a shadow under another’s control.
A Hex answers the question: What have you become?
Hoaxes: Curses That Deceive
A Hoax corrupts perception, information, or belief.
Examples:
- Glossolalia: The victim hears and speaks meaningless gibberish.
- A curse causing everyone to appear as monsters.
- A curse that hides a person’s true identity.
- A cursed map that displays false locations.
A Hoax does not change reality—it changes what is perceived.
Jinxes: Curses That Stymie
A Jinx interferes with success, causing actions to fail at crucial moments.
Examples:
- Bestow Curse — Butterfingers: The victim has a 50% chance to drop objects.
- A curse causing weapons to miss.
- A curse causing spells to fizzle.
- A curse causing locks, tools, or machines to fail.
A Jinx does not weaken the victim directly; it makes the world work against them.
Nixes: Curses That Negate
A Nix removes something that should exist.
Examples:
- Nymphamnesia: The victim loses memories or knowledge.
- A curse erasing someone’s name from history.
- A curse suppressing magical ability.
- A curse removing a sense, talent, or connection.
A Nix is defined by absence.
Paradoxes: Curses That Contradict
A Paradox creates an impossible state that defies natural law.
Examples:
- Undeath: A dead creature continues to exist and act.
- A creature that cannot die but cannot heal.
- A person who exists simultaneously in two forms.
- A cursed object that is both present and absent.
A Paradox does not merely alter reality—it creates a contradiction within it.
Poxes: Curses That Sicken
A Pox infects, decays, or corrupts the body.
Examples:
- Mummy Rot: A magical wasting disease.
- Eyebite — Sickening: A victim suffers magical illness.
- A curse that causes flesh to decay.
- A plague spread through magical contamination.
A Pox attacks health itself.
Vexes: Curses That Distress
A Vex causes suffering, torment, fear, or emotional anguish.
Examples:
- A haunting caused by a phantom.
- A curse causing recurring nightmares.
- A curse that inflicts terror or despair.
- A curse that forces a creature to relive traumatic memories.
A Vex harms the spirit rather than the body.
Removing Curses
The remedy for a curse depends upon its nature. Some curses may be removed by Remove Curse, while others require stronger magic such as Greater Restoration, Wish, divine intervention, or the destruction of the source that created the curse.
A curse is not merely a harmful spell. It is a magical wrongness imposed upon the world.
Lycanthropy: Natural and Afflicted
Origin: The Selenium Fall
When the primordial impactor struck Urthe at the dawn of the Third Age, its iron-rich core sank to the planet’s centre, but a separate mass carried alongside it, a shell of nearly pure elemental selenium, brittle and black, was largely vaporized on impact. The resulting cloud, cooling and recondensing swiftly in the upper atmosphere, settled back to Urthe not as the black solid it had been, but as a fine, blood-red dust, the amorphous red form selenium takes when it forms this way, drifting down across the animal populations of the era in the weeks following the Catastrophe. In a small number of creatures, it altered their biology at the deepest level: a lasting, heritable sensitivity keyed to the exact narrow band of reflected light the newly formed moon, itself flung into orbit from the very same impact, now casts upon Urthe each month. These are the first natural lycanthropes, their condition inherited cleanly through their bloodlines ever since, distinct from anything since attributed to a hexed or bite-cursed affliction.
The Afflicted Line
Natural lycanthropes carry trace selenium concentrated in their saliva and bloodstream, a residue of the original exposure event passed down alongside the transformation itself. A bite from a natural lycanthrope transmits enough of this selenium-infused toxin to induce the same photosensitive mutation in an ordinary humanoid, though crudely and without the generations of inherited stability a natural bloodline carries, producing the afflicted lycanthrope: involuntary, unstable, and far less able to control the change once it begins. Where hexcraft is involved instead of a bite, the curse very likely requires selenium as a material component, whether refined element or a compound derived from it, artificial magic reproducing by design what the original Catastrophe produced by accident.
The Cycle
Day One: No outward transformation yet, but the coming change makes itself felt: restlessness, irritability, an inability to settle or sleep, as the body’s selenium-sensitive tissues begin responding to the moon’s gathering light.
Night One: As the sun sets, transformation begins in earnest. A hormonal cascade takes hold; fever spikes to perhaps 40–42°C; bones soften and remodel; muscles tear and regrow; fur emerges. Appetite vanishes entirely, the body diverting every available resource to the change itself, and the victim, delirious with pain, instinctively seeks out a secluded den or burrow before the transformation completes.
Day Two: The metamorphosis is complete, but the newly changed beast spends this day resting within its den, physically healthy but not yet active, recovering from the transformation’s own toll before exerting itself further.
Night Two: The wolf emerges to hunt. This is the period of territorial patrol, pursuit, and whatever instincts define the particular lycanthrope in question, the one night each month the beast is genuinely active in the world beyond its den.
Day Three: The wolf returns to its den before dawn, and rests through the daylight hours, still in beast form, recovering from the night’s exertion before the reverse transformation begins.
Night Three: As the sun sets again, the reverse process begins: the body starts reverting to its humanoid form, accompanied by another fever, dehydration, and pain fully equal to the first night’s transformation.
Day Four: By the deep hours of the night the change is complete, and the victim wakes within their den sometime the following day, human again, exhausted, malnourished, and left with only fragmentary memories of the three days and nights just passed.
Only a single night in every lunar month is actually spent hunting as the beast, the surrounding days given over entirely to the transformation’s own considerable cost. That scarcity is precisely why the legend so outpaces the sightings: a creature this rarely, and this briefly, abroad in the world leaves far more room for rumor than for confirmation.
Damage Types
Different attacks, damaging spells, and other harmful effects deal different types of damage. Damage types have no rules of their own, but other rules, such as damage resistance, rely on the types.
The damage types follow, with examples to help a DM assign a damage type to a new effect.
Bludgeoning. Blunt force attacks—hammers, falling, constriction, and the like—deal bludgeoning damage.
Slashing. Swords, axes, and monsters’ claws deal slashing damage.
Piercing. Puncturing and impaling attacks, including spears and monsters’ bites, deal piercing damage.
Cryogenic. The infernal chill radiating from an ice devil’s spear and the frigid blast of a white dragon’s breath deal cryogenic damage.
Pyrogenic. Red dragons breathe fire, and many spells conjure flames to deal pyrogenic damage.
Alchemic. The corrosive spray of a black dragon’s breath and the dissolving enzymes secreted by a black pudding deal alchemic damage.
Toxic. Venomous stings and the toxic gas of a green dragon’s breath deal toxic damage.
Gravimetric. Pure magical energy focused into a impactful force is gravimetric damage. Most effects that deal gravimetric damage are spells, including magic missile and spiritual weapon.
Electric. A lightning bolt spell and a blue dragon’s breath deal electric damage.
Necrotic. Necrotic damage, dealt by certain undead and a spell such as chill touch, withers matter and even the soul.
Psychic. Mental abilities such as a mind flayer’s psionic blast deal psychic damage.
Genetic. Genetic damage, dealt by a cleric’s flame strike spell or an angel’s smiting weapon, sears the flesh like fire and overloads the spirit with power.
Sonic. A concussive burst of sound, such as the effect of the thunderwave spell, deals sonic damage.
The Ages of Urthe 