“There is more to this world than merely what one can see. Whilst other endeavours may be more practical, they rely on large-scale behaviour which masks intricate detail. Those who understand this may perceive the subtle ways in which this detail works, and bend it to one’s advantage.”

Scholars with a thirst for knowledge and understanding, Mages are spellcasters who use their understanding of the world to conduct magical rituals to manipulate the world around them in various ways and attempt to study the insights granted through being Enlightened. In battle, Mages have a variety of spells they may cast to aid their allies or harm or hinder foes.

The Resource used by Mages is the Manipulation. Mages have a base pool of 5 Manipulations that are used up to cast spells. Once a Manipulation is expended the Mage may cast at base 5 different spells before needing to expend another Manipulation, left over spell casts are lost at the end of the encounter or upon commencing a new Manipulation. In order to cast a spell the mage must complete a ritual appropriate to the magic for a spell that they have not yet cast within this Manipulation.

Each mage has an understanding of one form of Magic with a nagging sensation that there is something fundamental to it that they are not quite grasping.

The types of Magic are:

• Space, about the physical positions and shapes of things as seen to an observer.
• Identity, about being one's own self and not being swayed by others.
• Uncertainty, about the possibilities which exist within the current plane.
• Life, which is reasonably self explanatory.
• Body, about the bodies formed by the soul in Vision Quests, and working/strengthening them.

Your knowledge of magical manipulation lends to a strong willpower. You have 2 VOIDs to Mental Impairments per encounter.

You know and may cast a rank C spell from your magic’s grimoire.

You know and may cast an additional rank C spell from your magic’s grimoire. You may purchase this skill twice.

You know and may cast a rank B spell from your magic’s grimoire.

The first spell you cast in a Manipulation may be cast instantly and does not require performing its symbolic actions.

Through a process that is entirely personal to yourself and in fact utterly nonsensical to any other Mage you have discussed it with you have created or simply created a bond with a small creature at most the size of a large mouse that will generally sit on your head. These creatures range from floating rocks to normal animals and appear to show general distress when placed somewhere other than a sentient creature’s head. Passing your familiar to an unresisting target can be done as many times as you wish and requires 5 seconds of handover after which the recipient takes a STUN 3.

Once per encounter when your familiar is sat on your head you may hurl your familiar at someone else in the encounter calling STUN as your familiar almost unerringly lands on their face. Your familiar does not automatically return but can be retrieved with 5 seconds of close action to the target it was thrown to once they are unresisting. If a familiar is lost on an adventure it will either return between adventures or you will be able to create a new one between adventures, talk to the LARPOs.

With an act of concentration (get a GM’s attention) you may now make your familiar convey messages from you to person it is currently on, the mechanism by which the message is delivered varies based on the exact nature of the familiar but generally cannot be overheard by people other than its target.

In addition you always know exactly where your familiar is and which way you need to go to get to it.

You may channel the power of your magic into your works. For each instance of this skill you gain 1 Act of Power per adventure.

You know and may cast an additional rank B spell from your magic’s grimoire. You may purchase this skill twice.

You know and may cast a rank A spell from your magic’s grimoire.

You may cast an additional unique spell each Manipulation.

You get the sensation that there is some aspect of your magic that you are not quite grasping. You suspect that with additional insight there would be a further ability here.

With an act of concentration (get a GM’s attention) you may now make your familiar convey the effect of a spell from you to the person it is currently on. This often takes some small period of time to actually take effect.

Your familiar is adept at making a nuisance of itself. Every 30 seconds you may call a STUN 3 at the person who your familiar is perched upon if you wish.

You have acquired a second familiar of the same sort as the first. You aren’t actually entirely certain of where it came from as you certainly didn’t create it by the same means. At the same time as it came about your maximum number of unique spells you can cast per Manipulation appears to have decreased by 1.

On the positive side you can do exactly the same things with it as you could do with your original familiar and uses of the two sets of familiar abilities are entirely separate.

The spell cast instantly without performing its symbolic action may now be any one spell from a Manipulation rather than being constrained to the first spell of the Manipulation.

You know and may cast an additional rank A spell from your magic’s grimoire. You may purchase this skill twice.

You know and may cast a rank S spell from your magic’s grimoire.

Your Resource pool includes one extra Manipulation.

You get the sensation that there is some aspect of your magic that you are not quite grasping. You suspect that with additional insight there would be further abilities here.

Your familiar has developed the capacity to drain power from others, once per encounter you may call SAP ONGOING at the person who your familiar is perched upon if you wish, if you have done that you may call BUFF ONGOING on yourself upon retrieving your familiar.

There is no lasting effect from the SAP, if the familiar is retrieved from an unconscious target the BUFF is accompanied by a lingering sense of distress and despair lasting for the next few encounters, talk to a GM if it is retrieved from a willing volunteer.

You have developed your own special signature magic. Discuss with the organisers what you would like this to do, generally it will come in the form of a spell.

You know and may cast an additional rank S spell from your magic’s grimoire. You may purchase this skill twice.

You may channel the power of your magic into your works. For each instance of this skill you gain 1 Act of Power per adventure. Having the second rank of this skill allows you to gain 2 levels from self sacrifice, though note that there is no such thing as a level 4 Act of Power.

You may cast an additional unique spell each Manipulation.

You get the sensation that there is some aspect of your magic that you are not quite grasping. You suspect that with additional insight there would be a further ability here.