Part I · Play
Magic
Everyone’s got a soul, and a soul can be spent.
Zi’Dara starts with Zi, the Sumerian word for soul. In Zi’Dara, magic is a permission, like a sword or a silver tongue. It runs on the same rules as everything else, and it grows the same way: more steps, bigger dice, and then more dice.
Magic Is a Permission
- You need a magic permission or a magic item to do magic at all. Throw fire, change my face and speak with the recently dead are permissions like any other, and they’re written as narrow as any other: throw fire, not fire magic. See Writing permissions.
- A school of magic is a Title, and a Title’s the name you give one of your archetypes. Ash’s first Title is The last fire-speaker of the Ember Court. That’s the Fire school, and her archetype’s the Elementalist. It’s one school per Title, so pick the one you’re known for, because Archmage is too wide. Every permission has to fit inside its Title, so Ash’s fire-speaker can have throw fire and feel every flame in a room, and her other Title, The Court’s runaway heir, can’t.
- A magic item works the same way. Ash’s ember stone is attuned, and it’s got one permission: call fire without a word or a gesture. A magic permission on an attuned thing lets you do that magic, school or no school. See Attunement.
- Every permission does what it says, for free. Ash’s Fight is her Title, throw fire and her ember stone, so with the action it’s 4 steps, a d8, and no Aura. If throw fire covers it, whether it’s a bolt at a man or a rope burning through, it doesn’t cost a thing.
- Going beyond what a permission normally does costs 1 Resolve, the same as it does with a sword. Phasing’s free until you phase through a wall. If you have to make a case for why it’s normal, it’s going beyond, so pay the Resolve and keep playing. There’s more in Going beyond.
- Areas are an Elementalist’s. A fireball that fills a room is an area, and an Elementalist makes one for free. Everyone else puts their magic on one target, or splits it. See Area magic, below.
- Anything that works on its own is summoning, and only a Summoner does that. Raising the dead to fight or carry something as part of your own action is your permission doing what it says, and it’s free. One of the dead that gets up and works for you on its own is a summon.
It’s exactly the same with a sword. A master of combat fights for free, and an aimed shot that takes out the tag you choose costs 1 Resolve.
How far magic reaches is the story’s call. A fireball can land across the town square, but burning hands need you close. A threat that’s Warded is protected against magic the way Armoured is against steel: it’s one more reason the threat’s still standing.
Going beyond lets your permission do the bigger thing. If something’s in the way, it’s still in the way, and you’ve still got to beat it.
ExampleMagic at the table
For free: A guard levels a crossbow at Ash across the warehouse. She throws fire at him from her Fight, 4 steps, a d8. A bolt of fire at a man is what throw fire does, so it doesn’t cost her anything.
Going beyond: In the Vane crypt, Isolde wants a word with the mason who built the vault, a hundred years dead. Her set action for the dead is her first Title and speak with the recently dead, with the action 3 steps, a d6. A hundred years isn’t recent, so that’s going beyond, and she pays 1 Resolve. The old man doesn’t want to come, and the GM makes him Challenge 3, a d6. Isolde rolls 5 against his 4, and he starts talking.
Bigger, with a friend: The city gate is Challenge 5, a d10, and two tags keep it shut: Iron and Barred. Throw fire doesn’t normally make iron give, so Ash pays 1 Resolve to go beyond. Bram puts his action in with his war hammer, so it’s a combo. Ash’s Fight is 4 steps, and Bram’s is 3, because hold the line doesn’t fit a gate and he leaves it out. That’s 7 steps between them, a d12 and a d2, and they share them out as a d8 for Iron and a d6 for Barred. Ash rolls for both of them. The gate hasn’t been attacked yet this round, so it rolls its d10 once, a 5, and both dice have to beat it. The d8 comes up 7, so Iron’s gone. The d6 comes up 5, a tie, and the gate keeps a tie unless she pays, so Ash pays 1 Aura, the bar splits, and the gate swings open.
Area magic
A fireball that fills a room or a storm that rakes a street is an area, and areas are an Elementalist’s. One of your dice can be your area instead of an intent: a burst (that many squares out from a point), a cone (that long the way you face, and as wide at the end) or a line (twice as far, straight out). It takes one of your splits, and it doesn’t cost Aura. Everyone the story puts in it defends against your other die, and you can always make it smaller. If it comes up short, 1 Aura puts +2 on your area die. There’s more on the shapes in Area.
Every other caster puts their magic on one target, or splits it: a d6 at the captain and a d4 at the rope he’s cutting, or a ward on one friend and a second ward on another friend you can touch.
Example
A line: Say you’re a storm-caller, an Elementalist with 6 steps on your Fight. You throw lightning down the corridor, with a d8 for the bolt and a d4 for a line. The d4 comes up 2, a line four squares long, but the third guard’s six squares back, so you spend 1 Aura and it’s a 4: eight squares. That’s the d4’s top face, but the +2 got it there, so there’s no Aura back. All three guards defend against your d8.
A split: The volley’s coming, and Bram and Dorrie are pressed up against Isolde. Her Ward is her first Title and her chalk and salt, with the action 3 steps, and she splits it into a d4 and a d2. Nothing pushes back, so nothing’s rolled. Bram’s Warded d4, and Dorrie, close enough to touch, is Warded d2. See Wards and blessings.
Schools of Magic
A school of magic is a Title, the same as a role, so it’s the name you give one of your archetypes. Here are fifteen to start from. Each one shows the archetypes it suits, a few things its permissions do for free, and what going beyond looks like, for 1 Resolve. Pick one and an archetype it suits, write your Title for it, real and specific, and choose three permissions that fit inside it. There’s more on archetypes in How archetypes work, and you’ll find the full ideas for every school, with Titles, permissions and traits, in Title ideas.
Where a school suits more than one archetype, pick the one that fits how you play it. Warding on a Guardian stands in front of the crew, and Warding on an Oracle shrinks what’s coming before it lands.
| School | You might be | Suits | For free | Going beyond, for 1 Resolve |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fire | a pyromancer or fire-speaker | Elementalist | throw fire · light a room with a word · burn through rope or wood | become a column of flame · see through a fire on the other side of the city |
| Storm | a storm-caller or wind-witch | Elementalist | call lightning down on a man · throw a gust that knocks men flat · fill a sail | ride the wind · call a storm out of a clear sky |
| Illusion | an illusionist or trickster | Illusionist | make a false sound · change my face · hide in plain sight | duplicate myself · an image that fools the whole street |
| Enchantment | an enchanter or mesmer | Face | calm someone with a word · make someone like me · put a moment of fear in someone | make someone forget the last minute · put someone to sleep with a word |
| Divination | a seer, oracle or scryer | Oracle | know if someone’s lying · find something lost in a room · see an object’s past | see a place far away · glimpse what’s coming |
| Wildcraft | a druid, beast-talker or green witch | Shifter | calm an animal · make a vine hold · speak with birds | wear a beast’s shape for the scene · make a plant grow in a moment |
| Warding | a warder, sigil-maker or ritualist | Guardian, or Oracle | ward a friend against harm · bar a door with a sigil · keep a spirit out of a room | seal a room so nothing gets in or out · unpick a ward someone powerful made |
| Mending | a mender, healer-mage or bone-setter | Healer | stop bleeding with a touch · draw out a poison · mend a broken object | keep the dying alive till dawn · mend a whole wall or a ship’s hull |
| Veil | a shadow-mage or night-walker | Shadow | snuff the lights · silence my steps · see in the dark | open a shadow door to somewhere nearby · make a room forget I was in it |
| Phase | a walker-through-walls or blink-mage | Teleporter | slip out of any grip · pass through a crowd without touching anyone · step to a place I can see | step through a wall · take someone with me when I step |
| Medium | a medium, spirit-talker or necromancer | Summoner, or Oracle | speak with the recently dead · sense the dead nearby · raise the dead to fight or carry things | call up someone who died long ago · lay a ghost to rest for good |
| Hexer | a hexer, curse-witch or bone-caster | Oracle, or Bloodsworn | make someone stumble · spoil food and drink · put bad luck on someone | break a curse someone else laid · curse a bloodline |
| Faith | a priest, paladin or holy warrior | Bard, Healer or Guardian | steady a friend with a prayer · bless a friend before a fight · hold holy ground | drive out a spirit · hallow a place so nothing evil can enter |
| Kinesis | a mind-mover or force-mage | Elementalist, or Warrior | shove a man without touching him · catch anything that falls · lift something heavy with my mind | fly · stop an arrow in the air |
| Artifice | an artificer, sigil-smith or golem-maker | Maker | read a sigil · wake a lock · mend a construct | make a lock only I can open · bind a spirit into an object |
A beast called up to hunt for you through the scene, or one of the dead brought back to work at your command, works on its own, so it’s a summon, and only a Summoner can do that (see Summoning, below).
Writing your own school
A school’s a Title, so write it like one: who you are, real and specific, and one school only. Pick the archetype it suits, and give it three permissions, each with a doing word and the part that says how, what or where. Magic’s written as narrow as anything else, so it’s throw fire, not fire magic. Then think about what going beyond looks like for your school, so the table knows when it’s time to spend the Resolve. There’s more on permissions in Writing permissions.
ExampleA school of your own
Say you want a sea-witch, and none of the fifteen fits. Your school’s the tide, and your Title is The tide-witch the fishing fleet won’t sail without. For permissions you take calm a rough sea, call a wave onto a deck and breathe under water. Each one’s something you’d do a few times a session in a campaign at sea, and each one fits inside the Title. You want your waves to sweep a whole deck, and that’s an area, so your archetype’s the Elementalist. Going beyond is parting the harbour, or sinking a ship with one wave.
Magic in the World
Magic in Zi’Dara is a craft, and there’s no caste or class of wizards, just people with a magic permission or a magic item on their sheet.
The Book-Bound learned it from reading, and Isolde’s one of them. The Quiet Orders are small religious traditions that do one or two things very well and nothing else. The Practical Crafters are the alchemists, ward-makers and sigil-carvers. The Born could always do it and never knew why. The Desperate can be anyone, once, when they need something enough.
How magic sits in society is up to your world. In the Steeplands it sits quietly: most people don’t believe rituals are real, and the ones who do keep their voices down. Decide it in Session Zero, because it decides what happens when the crew uses magic in the street.
Summoning
Only a Summoner catches souls and summons. A Summoner catches souls, then calls them back out to work for her. A summon is anything that works on its own, like a hound that tracks for you, or a caught courtier who’ll talk to people you can’t.
Souls go in attunement. A summoning attunement holds souls the way an attuned item holds permissions, and the souls you catch are its material. It sits in one of your attunement slots and grows through the same three stages:
| Stage | Souls | It can hold more | In all |
|---|---|---|---|
| Awakened | 1 | 1 more with a Catch | 2 |
| Tempered | 2 | 2 more with a Burden | 4 |
| Perfected | 3 | 3 more with a Burden and a Catch | 6 |
You start at Awakened, like anything you attune, so that’s one soul, or two if you give it its Catch. Starting souls are d4s.
Your Summon dice are a set action like any other: your Title, the permissions that fit, and the action. They’re what you catch souls with, and what you call them back out with.
Catching a soul. When a creature falls, spend your action and roll your Summon dice against its Challenge. Beat it and its soul goes into one of your utility slots. Miss and that soul’s gone. In downtime, put it into your summoning attunement. You can swap a soul in your attunement for one you’re carrying whenever you’ve got the slot.
Calling them out. Summoning takes your action, and it needs a reason in the story. Nobody calls up a horde to drink at the tavern. Roll your Summon dice against your souls’ dice, and each of your dice brings out one soul it beats. Split to go for more.
Aura. When you’re catching or summoning, 1 Aura adds +2 to one of your dice. That’s the Summoner’s +2, so take Summoner twice and it’s +3, and three times it’s +4. A tie still costs 1 Aura to win.
A soul is what it was. A caught courtier talks, a hound tracks and a Warden fights. It keeps its Challenge die, and each one rolls its own die for whatever it does.
Summons act in the round like anyone. One hit takes a summon out, and its soul goes back to its slot, so you can call it again. Like anyone, a summon can take the hit for someone.
Blocking. As its action, a summon can pull the attacks aimed at someone onto itself and roll against each one. Each one it beats is stopped. The first one it loses takes it out, and any others it loses go through to whoever it’s protecting.
At the end of a scene, roll each summon’s die. On 3 or lower it goes back to its slot. They all go back at downtime.
Summons can’t combo, and their top faces don’t give Aura.
ExampleSummoning at the table
Sable’s a Summoner. Her Summon action is a d10, and she’s got three souls: a rat swarm (d4), a hound (d6) and the harbour Warden (d8). She splits into a d6 and a d4 and goes for the two small ones. Her d4 comes up 2 against the rats’ 3, so she spends 1 Aura to make it a 4, and the rats pour out. That’s the d4’s top face, but the +2 got it there, so there’s no Aura back. Her d6 beats the hound.
Next round, two dockhands come at Sable with clubs, a d6 each. The hound blocks for her: it pulls both clubs onto itself and rolls its d6 against each. It rolls 5 against the first club’s 4, so that one’s stopped. It rolls 2 against the second club’s 3, and that’s the hound out. Its soul goes back to its slot, ready to call again.
Later the dock boss falls, and Sable spends her action catching his soul: her d10 against his Challenge 3, a d6. She rolls 7 against his 4, and his soul goes into one of her utility slots, a d6. In downtime she can put him in her attunement if there’s room, or swap him for the rats.
At the end of the scene the rats are still out, so Sable rolls their d4. It’s a 2, so they go back to their slot too.
Rituals
A ritual is magic that’s too big for one moment.
Some workings can’t be done in a breath. They need a circle, a price and time, and while you work, something’s trying to stop you. A ritual’s a stake with a price, and everything in Conflict applies.
How a ritual runs
- Name the goal. To free a soul from its frame.
- Pay the cost. Every ritual has a price, paid before the first die’s thrown: a name spoken aloud, a memory given up, a drop of blood in someone’s tea.
- Work it. The ritual has a Challenge and tags in the way, and every win strips one. Strip them all and it’s done. Anyone with a permission that fits can work a tag, or put their action into someone else’s roll.
- Something interferes. Most rituals have an interference die: something’s coming. The GM telegraphs it every round, at the circle or at whoever’s working, from the round budget.
- If it fails (the interference lands on the working, or the scene’s clock runs out), the failure mode happens. A failed ritual goes wrong in a particular way, and each ritual below tells you how.
There’s no Aura to pay for a ritual. The price is what it costs.
If you’re out of danger, with all the time in the world, the GM can just let it take an hour and ask for the cost. The dice come out when something’s pushing back.
Twelve Rituals
Rule
The Unbinding: to free a soul from its frame.
Challenge 6. In the way: Names · Mercy · Old Ink. Interference d10.
Cost: You speak your own true name aloud.
Failure Mode: The soul is loosened: free of the frame, and of everything else.
Rule
The Quiet Word: to make one named person believe one named thing for one day.
Challenge 4. Interference d6 if the target has allies.
Cost: A drop of your blood in their tea.
Failure Mode: They believe the opposite for a week.
Rule
The Iron Door: to seal a room against entry for one night.
Challenge 5.
Cost: A lock of hair from whoever will sleep inside.
Failure Mode: The seal holds, but only against you.
Rule
The Debt Called: to make a person honour an obligation they’ve tried to forget.
Challenge 6. In the way: They Forgot.
Cost: Something they gave you once and now can’t have back.
Failure Mode: The debt transfers to you.
Rule
The Named Blow: to make a weapon strike true against one specific person.
Challenge 3.
Cost: You write their name on the weapon. Every day you do, you lose something you used to have.
Failure Mode: The strike lands on you instead.
Rule
The Empty Hour: to make one room forget that you were in it.
Challenge 4.
Cost: You must leave through a door you haven’t used before.
Failure Mode: The room forgets you, but everyone remembers where you went.
Rule
The Long Watch: to see through a linked token from any distance, for one hour.
Challenge 5.
Cost: You can’t eat for a day.
Failure Mode: You see the wrong thing.
Rule
The Quiet Passing: to let one recently dead soul speak, once, for a minute.
Challenge 3.
Cost: A question you’ve been avoiding, spoken aloud.
Failure Mode: The soul doesn’t speak. Something else does.
Rule
The Broken Vow: to make two people unable to harm each other for one day.
Challenge 5.
Cost: You break one of your own promises, aloud, in front of a witness.
Failure Mode: They can’t harm each other, but they both know you cast it.
Rule
The Waking Stone: to wake something sleeping inside a stone.
Challenge 6. In the way: Deep Sleep. Interference d8.
Cost: A memory that mattered, spoken and then forgotten.
Failure Mode: The thing inside wakes somewhere near you, and it isn’t pleased.
Rule
The Gilded Lie: to make a lie true for one hour.
Challenge 4.
Cost: You must believe the lie yourself while you speak it.
Failure Mode: The lie becomes true for a year instead of an hour, and you can’t tell anyone.
Rule
The Long Goodbye: to speak to someone who’s been dead for years.
Challenge 6. In the way: Years. Interference d8.
Cost: A day of your life, given willingly and never returned.
Failure Mode: You speak to something wearing their face.
Rituals at the Table
Every ritual worth rolling for has three things: something interfering, something at stake, and something that’ll break if it fails. If none of those are true, it’s just a lock with a fancy name, so let it take an hour and move on.
ExampleThe Unbinding, at the Vane manor
Isolde kneels in the binding room with the three paintings, and the crew gathers round the circle. She speaks her own true name aloud, and the GM starts the interference: Vane’s household is at the door, a d10 each round.
Isolde works Old Ink from her Study, and brings in read the order’s old script for 1 Aura, because this binding is her order’s work. Bram answers the interference at the door. Vesk works Names, since she stole these paintings and knows whose they were, and Dorrie puts her action into the same roll: she knows the old families, and she reads their names off the frames. Three rounds later, Mercy’s the last tag standing, and it’s Isolde’s to strip. She has to mean it.