DRU
Druidic
The Living Root
Spells drawn from nature: growth, decay, animal instinct, and the slow patience of old wood and turning seasons.
Magic in Altarmn is not one substance but six disciplines, each with its own grammar and its own cost. A seeker is born into affinity with some schools and must earn the rest through study and repetition.
Spells drawn from nature: growth, decay, animal instinct, and the slow patience of old wood and turning seasons.
The school of the dead and the dying. Necromancy unmakes the boundary between living creature and obedient corpse.
Magic of perception and misdirection. Illusion alters what enemies believe they see, hear, and fear, at reduced cost in rooms attuned to its rune.
Fire, ice, and acid shaped into force. Elemental spells deal damage in a form the target may or may not be able to resist.
Restoration, purification, and the defence of the body. Clerical magic cures afflictions, restores resources, and wards the faithful against dark harm.
Direct channeling of raw magical force. Invocation draws deeply from mana and delivers results without subtlety.
Spells begin as scrolls: physical objects that carry the spell's intention in written form. Any character with sufficient Knowledge can read a scroll and release its effect immediately, paying the mana cost and discarding the scroll in the process.
Permanently learning a spell is a different matter. Only characters whose spirit runs deeper in mana than in physical endurance can absorb a scroll's teaching. The chance is modest at low levels and grows with experience. A high Knowledge score doubles the learning rate. Once mastered, the spell remains forever: it becomes a learned spell that can be cast from memory without consuming any object.
Characters begin with one or two spells granted at creation, drawn from their school affinities. Pure spellcasters receive their first grant as an offensive spell if they have no other known spells.
Harder scrolls demand practice in their school. Simple scrolls can be read by anyone. Most mid-level scrolls need level 1 in their school, and the most powerful need level 2. A scroll you are not practised enough for cannot be read or learned, and a learned spell of that kind cannot be cast until you catch up. Each successful cast of a school raises it, so practice with the simple scrolls of a school is what opens its harder ones. Rare school tomes, found among scrolls and sold by merchants, teach a larger share of that knowledge at once. A spell gained on levelling up is always one you can already cast, when such a spell is available.
Every attempt to cast a learned spell is tested. The base chance draws on Will, Knowledge, and Psyche together: a seeker who is mentally sharp, widely read, and deeply attuned to their inner spirit is simply more likely to succeed. To this base, the caster adds whatever proficiency they have earned in the relevant school.
Mana is spent at the moment of the attempt, before the dice fall. On failure, the spell does not fire. A caster whose Psyche is well developed recovers the spent mana when they fail: the mind is skilled enough to reclaim what it could not direct. A caster whose Psyche is critically underdeveloped loses the mana regardless and gains no effect.
A character with almost no Psyche cannot cast learned spells at all. The spirit is simply too weak to hold the intention together.
These scrolls follow the normal rules for reading, learning, mana, Action Points, proficiency, and magic canons. Their targets and effects differ from an ordinary spell aimed at one enemy.
For five turns, every enemy at distance 0 suffers 2 holy damage each turn. Holy defence reduces the damage.
For five turns, an enemy that lands a melee, ranged, or spell hit suffers 3 poison damage. Acid defence protects against poison.
Grants 5 defence for five turns.
Choose one enemy. The blast also strikes an enemy in the opposite field: north and south are paired, as are east and west.
Deals 7 damage to every enemy in the room.
Raises Sneak by 50% for five turns. Fractions are rounded up.
Place the trap in an empty north, east, south, or west field. It explodes when an enemy enters that field, then disappears. An observant enemy may evade the blast.
Not every magical act is cast from the hand. Some spellcraft is anchored to a place and answers a circumstance instead: rest, sleep, waiting, or the presence of a prepared object. Rituals are this quieter branch of magic. They do not ask for a normal casting action; they change what the room can do when the right moment arrives.
A ritual object is a magical fixture in the current location. It is not a memorized spell and does not resolve like a scroll. Its power comes from being present where the player takes the matching action.
A Dream Catcher watches over sleep. When the player rests in a room where one is present, there is a small chance the rest draws a dream into the room instead of passing quietly.
The ritual can only manifest a dream if the room has an open side space. A crowded chamber may still hold the Dream Catcher, but the dream has nowhere to take shape.
The dream may arrive as a Beautiful Dream, Pleasant Dream, Unpleasant Dream, or Nightmare. Treat the result as a new encounter in the room: a magical consequence of sleep, not a direct spell cast by the player.
Familiars are magical companions rather than ordinary recruits. They can travel with the player and bring their own body, instincts, and combat profile into the party. The clearest example is Canidae, a summoned hound-shape from another plane.
A familiar is a companion presence with a name, a form, and its own statistics - not a piece of equipment counting down toward expiry. Once it joins the party, it travels with the player as a follower rather than remaining as a room object.
Familiars use the companion rules. They can be spoken to from the companion view, told to wait, or dismissed back into the current location. While travelling, they remain part of the player's active company instead of occupying a normal inventory slot.
A familiar may resemble an animal, but it should be treated as magical. Canidae looks like a dog because that is the shape the summoning chose; its loyalty and battlefield role come from binding, not domestication.
Every successful spell cast advances the caster's proficiency in that school. Proficiency adds to the success roll and enriches the spells themselves, building the qualities that define the school's power.
Spells with timed effects last longer as proficiency grows. A ward that lasts three turns at low proficiency may persist for six at high. This affects buffs, defences, elemental auras, and conditions applied to enemies.
Proficiency adds directly to the elemental damage and elemental defence values of spells that carry them. A fire bolt from a practiced Elemental caster burns hotter than the same bolt from a novice reading off a scroll.
Proficiency does not increase raw strength damage, healing, mana restoration, hunger or thirst relief, range, or the mana cost of the spell. These values are fixed by the spell's design. Only duration, elemental force, elemental defence, dodge, melee, and ranged values scale.
A caster who has taken the Witch perk may swear to one canon of power. There are six, and only one may ever be held. The oath cannot be broken or bought back.
The canon of Fire. Fire damage and fire defence.
The canon of Ice. Ice damage and ice defence.
The canon of Venom. Acid and poison, damage and defence alike.
The canon of Darkness. Dark damage, dark defence, and the whole Necromancy school.
The canon of the Light. Holy damage, holy defence, and the whole Clerical school.
The canon of the Mind. The whole Illusion school.
A spell of the sworn canon is cast at 150% of its strength, its duration and its elemental defence. A spell of any other canon is cast at 50%. A spell belonging to no canon is cast exactly as it always was.
A spell's canon comes from its school where the school claims one: Necromancy is Dark, Clerical is Light, Illusion is Mind. An Elemental, Druidic or Invocation spell is claimed instead by the element it deals, so Fireball and Ice Spikes answer to different canons and an Invocation Poison answers to the Venom Mage. Magic Missiles and Fist of the Mountain deal no element and belong to no school that claims one, so they are cast the same by everyone.
A ward that guards equally against every element belongs to no canon. Its duration is unchanged, but it still raises the sworn element's defence and lowers the other four.
The canon changes what the spell itself brings. Proficiency is added afterwards, so practice in an off-canon school still pays in full. Healing, mana, hunger, thirst, range and mana cost are never touched by an oath.
Three spells in the world do not kill. They persuade. Each reaches into a specific kind of creature and attempts to rewrite its allegiance. The method differs by school; the stakes do not.
Works only on animals. The spell whispers to the creature's instincts and attempts to shift it from foe to follower. The caster must be close. Success converts the animal into a friendly presence; failure still delivers a strike. The conversion chance is highest when the caster's school mastery exceeds the creature's danger level, and falls when the creature outmatches the caster's experience.
Works only on the undead. Rather than destroying animated corpses, Necrosis severs the hostile compulsion that drives them and bends what remains toward the caster. It is a school of Necromancy repurposed as command rather than creation. A failed attempt still deals contact damage. The same chance mechanic applies: proficiency against creature level.
Works only on humanoids. The most dangerous conversion: taking a thinking, equipped, experienced creature and redirecting its will entirely. The formula is identical (proficiency measured against the target's threat), but the reward and risk are proportionally greater. A controlled humanoid becomes a sudden ally in the middle of a fight; a failed attempt still bites back.
Conversion starts at a fifty-fifty chance. For every level of proficiency the caster holds above the creature's danger rating, the odds improve by ten points. For every level below, they fall by ten. The result is bounded so it never becomes a certainty or an impossibility.
Whether the conversion succeeds or fails, the spell's damage component is still calculated against the target if they are within range. Conversion and harm are not mutually exclusive. The magic is imprecise enough to wound even as it persuades.
A successful conversion is instant. The creature's encounter is marked complete and its loyalty is high enough that recruitment is available on the spot. There is no waiting period. The newly bound creature can be spoken to, ordered to stay or explore, or brought directly into the party on the same turn it was converted.
Every conversion carries a countdown: 50 turns per proficiency level in the relevant school. A caster at level two gets one hundred turns of compliance. A novice at level one gets fifty. When the countdown reaches zero, charmed and dominated creatures revert to hostile enemies; necrotized undead crumble into Bones entirely. See Spell-Bound Creatures for the full expiry and equipment-drop rules.
Magic belongs to both sides of the dungeon. Certain creatures carry their own arcane capabilities, and they use them under the same pressure of resource, range, and success chance that governs mortal casters.
An enemy can cast a spell only if it carries that spell, has the mana to pay for it, possesses meaningful spellcraft, and the player is within the spell's range. All four conditions must hold. An enemy that runs dry on mana falls back to physical actions alone.
When an enemy spell lands, the player's Will modifies the damage received. A strong Will reduces incoming magical force by a quarter. A shattered Will - driven to its lowest possible value - amplifies the same force by a quarter. Mental fortitude is a genuine defence against spellcasting enemies, not just fuel for your own casting.
A player who has active Mana Shield, a timed magical ward, can deflect incoming spell damage through that barrier before it reaches health. The shield absorbs until its own capacity is spent.
Runes socketed into a room affect both sides of the spellcasting exchange. A fire rune in the floor amplifies fire spells cast within it, whether the player cast them or the enemy did. The dungeon does not take sides.
Health restoration and wound recovery are separate effects. Healing can stabilize bleeding, while other spells control infection, secure bones, or speed recovery. When no particular wound is chosen, a spell treats the worst injury it can help.
| Spell | Persistent-wound care |
|---|---|
| Lay Hands | Restores 5 Health and stabilizes one Deep Wound or amputation, stopping its linked bleeding. |
| Healing | Restores 10 Health and stabilizes one Deep Wound or amputation, stopping its linked bleeding. It does not add healing progress. |
| Regeneration | Applies its normal Health regeneration and adds 2 healing progress to the worst suitable non-permanent injury. |
| Rejuvenation | Adds 2 healing progress to the worst suitable non-permanent injury. It does not stabilize bleeding or secure a fracture by itself. |
| Cure Illness | Reduces infection risk and clears an active infection from the worst suitable injury. |
| Mend Bone | Secures one Fracture so natural healing can begin. It does not add healing progress. |
| Bone Shaping | Secures one Fracture and adds 2 healing progress, allowing natural recovery to continue. |
Healing progress can be added to a fresh wound, but natural recovery cannot finish until bleeding is stabilized or a fracture is secured.
An infected injury stops gaining natural healing progress. Cure Illness or suitable clean medicine can clear the infection.
Current spells can treat infection, fractures, and healing progress. None of the current playable spells regrows a missing arm or leg.