Magic in Narth 2000

Subtitle here

(A Note to the Reader: As with other pages for Narth 2000, the material on this page makes reference to books and rules from GURPS Third Edition, Revised. Because the campaign is currently moribund, this webpage is being retained more as a historical document than anything else, and thus for the moment at least, these references have not been updated to Fourth Edition. Should the campaign restart, I will make the requisite changes and post an updated version here.)

Magic is well-known and commonly practiced on the Jadiwan Continent. Most of the continent is a high-mana area, which allows many non-mages to cast spells; in fact, most farmers know just enough Plant magic to guarantee large, healthy harvests (not coincidentally contributing to the general economic wellbeing of most nations).

While simpler spells are common knowledge, and "beginner's grimoires" for all colleges abound in bookstores, the knowledge of more advanced magic is divided up among groups known as Orders. See the Orders of Magic page for more information about these. In general, they act as schools and professional guilds. No one order has all the colleges of magic available to it, and few mages ever leave their order to join a new one to learn more.

Certain mages have access to an extradimensional realm known as Cerebrospace, in which they can store objects and information. These cerebromagi, as they are called, come from many different orders, and have no special organization of their own, save for a loose agreement about how matters involving Cerebrospace are to be handled.

Many nations have laws governing the use of magic. Necromancy is generally outlawed, and careless mages may find themselves in the dock for reckless endangerment!

Some magic item manufacture has been all but mass-produced; many middle-class homes have at least one labor-saving gadget made by magic.

The elves and dwarves have also been able to blend magic with their technology, often with great success.

Familiar creatures are available, but usually only to the older, more powerful mages.

Magic in Game Terms

In game terms, almost all spells from the Basic Set, GURPS Magic and GURPS Grimoire are in use in the Jadiwan. The only spells that are not available are the Radiation and Plastic Subcolleges of the Tech College, the Awaken Computer spell, and the Create Mana Co-Processor spell from GURPS Robots.

Aspected Magery is allowed, and common for some -- those bards gifted with magical abilities frequently have Magery limited to use with music.

The Gate College spells can reach many different places, including the Dream Realms and Cerebrospace, but with few exceptions cannot reach any of the more remote planes of the gods beyond their various vestibule planes. (See Cosmology.)

Grimoire Spells with a "/TL" suffix are limited to TL5.

Any level of the "Blessed" or "Power Investiture" advantages (see Characters) counts as "Holy" for the purposes of those spells that have holy status as a possible prerequisite.

Players who want a familiar for their mage character should email me for the details -- specifics on familiars are unknown to non-mages and will not be posted publicly.


This page was created on October 20, 1997.
Last modified March 12, 2011.