Does that also mean that when you use your Excalibur's Excaliblast spell, you can't use it as a sword for a while?
Although you did shift all of the basic swording functions to Resources. What would a FSN style Excalibur even look like under your system? Under the canon system it would be a daiklave with an Anti-Fortress option, which presumably costs a lot of motes. Under your system it would be a high-resource weapon made of actual magical materials (probably Orichalcum) with an activated effect that lets you kill a fortress.
Would the Excaliblast be a spell that Saber invented which she can use to blow up a fortress using the artifact as background support, or a built in effect by the Lady of Lake when she made (or crystallized, or whatever) Excalibur?
Hell, if you have an artifact with a given spell built in, could you attach a different spell to it, so you can use your Exalibur to level a fortress or just cut down an army on a level plain?
Artifacts are still a thing, all that got moved into the Resources 3-5 range was the boring 1-3 dot weapons that had literally no powers beyond being a better sword, turning all of those things into lesser artifacts made of less pure magical materials, thus making room so that artifact 1-3 weapons can actually be something cool, instead of a tax everyone pays at char gen.
As to Excalibur and Excaliblast, that would be a high level artifact with a charmlike effect and a restriction of "may only be used by King Arthur" (if you want the exact thing from FSN)* or a spell cast from a pure Orichalcum daiclave, and probably a really high level one blessed by the UCS or someone else that could conceivably have "50-foot fortress cleaving sun powered laser swords" in their domain if you want to be able to use it for swording any time soon afterward.
*EDIT: Although thinking about it, if this were an actual weapon in Exalted, it would probably need some extra balancing. Maybe the fact that you aren't a king if you lose your lands and crown, and so qualifying to be The Once and Future King is both easier (since you just have to be a King Arthur, and then mould yourself to fit the legends in order to fit the swords prereqs) and harder (since you actually have to maintain your kingship and cult legend, or the sword becomes a useless paperweight).
Panhu Born of Undergrowth Expansion
Wood Elemental
Vines twining and coiling through ruins in the jungle, roots as thick as a blacksmith's waist breaking through paving stones. Ancient roads buckling up under the pressure. A fortress on the edge of a frozen forest, the great halls littered with leaves and sheltered by snow-laden boughs. The parade grounds host to bramble and bracken. Flowers and grass growing in the cracks and crags of sheer sided cliffs, burrowing into the hide of bleak bluffs. In a year those harsh edges will be softened into so much soil. The Dogs of Shattered Stone are a crucial part of the elemental transformation of Earth to Wood. Theirs is to serve on the leading edge of erosion and reclamation. Converting raw, rude rock to fertile earth and forestland.
In form they appear much like deep chested, sleek-snouted, hounds. Their broad shoulders bearing the weight of three sinewy necks, three snarling, snapping heads. Each brow lined with six, shining eyes the color of surrounding foliage. A thicket of snakes sprouts from their backs. Vine and root given splinter-fangs and tattered teeth. Their flesh is fashioned from a living bark that darkens and hardens with age. Becoming as fine as a suit of armor at maturity, creaking with heartwood sinews. The pelts that spill down their spines are twin to local flora and cycle with the seasons. Sprouting and flourishing in the months of Earth and Wood, shed short and ashen in chill Water or freezing Air. Pups stand as high as a grown man's knee and content themselves with wrestling free bricks and mortar or gnawing at boulders. Adults stand head and shoulders above humans and can bring curtain walls low. The most ancient of their kind are forest guardians who tower over the trees and leave saplings in their tread. These woodland kings often shape their center head to resemble a patrician's solemn visage with a flowing, lichen beard.
In behavior too they emulate the dogs they resemble. They are social and cooperative, oft acting in loose packs to lay claim to an area. Rich greenery grows where they rake their claws and sink their fangs. Returning even First Age cities to jungle and forest (much to the misery of many a Sorcerer or theurge). Their life cycles are comparatively long for an elemental and they may commonly endure from anywhere between two weeks to a full month. Maturing in days and subsiding at the end into a peaceful grove growing from the spine of a sleeping hound.
Summoning and Use: This longevity and overall ubiquity means that mortals have developed an impressive repertoire of tricks for managing the beasts, many of which have been adopted and expanded by Exalted. The Dogs hold Earth in a good natured sort of contempt but fear and hate Fire and will scatter at the scent of ashes and the sight of embers. Panhu are gluttons; easily bribed with offerings of red meat or trimmed greens and quickly becoming drunk on mixtures of fermented milk and sweetened syrup. No few settlements across Creation have domesticated the beasts in such a manner. Acquiring one or two or even a handful of playful wooden guardians who return for their rich treats again and again until finally they cease to leave.
Panhu have power over erosion, growth, and forest reclamation and are invoked to erode the cold and static and replace it with the living and verdant. Their senses are keen and with training and a good temperament they may also make excellent guardians and fine hunters and, even as they increase in intelligence, remain loyal and eager to please. Sorcerers who take the Dogs as familiars should note that the creatures are commonly considered fair judges of internal character and their trust in their master may purchase some trust by proxy, especially among rural or frontier populations. However it should be noted: few things are as vicious and savage as a Dog abused and neglected.
Gelic Monitor Born of Rime
Water Elemental
Seasons turn and the Unconquered Sun warms the world on his journey across the sky; waking Creation from its frozen slumber. Forests drip as snow returns to water. The days lengthen, the nights recede, and all manner of burrowing and hibernating beasts awake to root and rut and wander. Later the Sun's light will grow distant again and the cold, hungry darkness will draw near. Sharp-toothed beasts, steam curling from their snouts, hunting beneath a shimmering aurora as frost gathers on fur. Yet some reaches of Creation are exempt from this cycle, their borders may expand and contract to be sure, but behind their lines winter never truly loosens its jealous grasp. The evenings are ever long and the lands mantled in shawls of snow and ice. The former is an astronomical oddness based on proximity to the Poles and distance from the blessed core. The latter is the work of the Gelic Monitor.
They appear as hexapodal lizards as large as a draft horse. Their limbs lean and lanky. Their skin slick and smooth, the reptilian brawn beneath crafted from unmelting ice and flowing water; ranging from sky-blue to purple-black in hue. Razor edged shards run down their backs, pressing out in irregular thickets and stray fins, but these plates become fused and blunted towards their tail. Forming a lethal maul whose crystalline callouses detonate on impact into in flash-freezing domes of snow and frost. They are, by all appearances, eyeless. Their skulls helmed and masked by a razored cluster, the only visible gap forming when they open their glass-fanged mouths. Chill, wet, mist issues from vents in their hide and from their lungs. Wrapping all it touches in cauls of progressively thicker ice. They emerge to herald the arrival of winter and smother forests in sleet and seal waterways in cracking casks of ice. They return again at the end of the dark season, to stave off the advance of spring and will battle other Elementals who may seek to alter the environs. Certain chill regions see their presence year round. Gelic Monitors flourish and spread during cold snaps and perish into meltwater when the temperature spikes.
Fundamentally they are slothful creatures. Pudgy lumps of ice and water mounted atop stubby, scrabbling legs, when they are firstborn they learn the virtues of well-considered movement. Typically content to simply bob down riverways and crawl up on cold mud banks now and then. Coating a bush or the base of a tree in a clear coat of frost. As they age they become lean and hungry and this hunger drives them to establish more expansive ranges. To vent their freezing breath on greater swathes of countryside. In doing so they ensure that portions of Gaia's garden remain as they are ordained. Locked in a frozen sort of stasis.
Summoning and Use: Gelic Monitors fuel sorcerous workings based around darkness, cold, and resistance to alteration and are viewed as ominous omens with connections to the bleakest season of the year. While they lack the capacity for emotional attachment other elementals may develop they can attain a curious, clinical sort of affection for a given master. Aquatic, agile and highly mobile in surges and spurts (if rarely roused to such a level of action in the wild) the Gelic Monitor makes a fine mount for a sorcerer and their sharp fins may be sculpted into a makeshift saddle with no pain to the creature itself. Devouring Everlasting Ice prompts their development, increasing size and intellect and a sorcerer's ability to procure the material is typically the initial foundation for a contract. The upper limits on their size is uncertain: in the farthest North there are tales of Gelic corpse-glaciers that mantle entire mountainsides. Sages speculate even larger variants may dwell beneath the black, arctic, seas.
I think the Protocols would be more the akin to the Authocthon version of casting with whispers, only replacing whispers with Authocthon's authority as the great maker and his innate nature verses the 'pesudo necromancy' of just casting with Authocthon flavored energy akin to powering normal sorcery spells with the energy of the underworld instead of being crazy and calling upon the whispers.
Personally I'd make Alchemicals invoke their Clarity to do Protocols, as that's the Authocthon infection of their humanity, also encouraging powerful Alchemical sorcerers to be strange beings whom plan their actions with a cold and alien logic.
But just casting with Cybertron flavored energy wouldn't be the Protocols, was what my point was meant to be.
If you have Mentor : Solar, X Dots, that sounds like a completely reasonable background to hang some spells on, specially when the Wyld Hunt shows up to ask pointed questions about those Glorious Golden Death Lasers you've been sniping ghosts with.
Casting with Clarity opens up the possibility of casting using Limit. It's not the same thing, but I do think there is some design space for powerful Solars who exult in the Great Curse, in defying the will of powerful magical mental influence, who throw themselves into situations where they have to make hard choices, and who then fuel their Sorcery with their own hubris.
Limit might not be the right thing to tie it to, because it swings around so wildly and Solars already can get casting power for being god-kings who make everyone worship them and so on and so forth, but it's something to think about, especially for Lunars, who could get quite a bit of utility at the cost of some permanent limit. Hey, TAW Elders already have their favorite capbreaker which gives them permanent Lunacy. Work it into their Intelligence Sorcery charms, possibly replacing their "blending the line between sorcery and necromancy" bit, and you're golden.
You probably would need to limit it to things that are rationally a bad idea, like Whispers powered necromancy.
Hell, have a background Hubris, or Lunacy, or something, and hang spells on it. Make it not quite as bad and not quite as powerful as necromancy, and make very sure to leave a reason for hubristic Solars to build empires, but it could work very well indeed.
Well, Alchemicals already kind of cast with Clarity, in a way. Many Protocols have a minimum Clarity the Champion must have to cast them and the Protocol Charms both give you permanent Clarity while installed (IIRC).
Artifacts are still a thing, all that got moved into the Resources 3-5 range was the boring 1-3 dot weapons that had literally no powers beyond being a better sword, turning all of those things into lesser artifacts made of less pure magical materials, thus making room so that artifact 1-3 weapons can actually be something cool, instead of a tax everyone pays at char gen.
That's why I mentioned the basic swording functions, like hitting people with a length of sharpened Orichalcum. The actual Excaliblast and inspiration stuff is still Artifact 5 or N/a, depending on how bullshit you want your 5-dot artifacts to be.
As to Excalibur and Excaliblast, that would be a high level artifact with a charmlike effect and a restriction of "may only be used by King Arthur" (if you want the exact thing from FSN)* or a spell cast from a pure Orichalcum daiclave, and probably a really high level one blessed by the UCS or someone else that could conceivably have "50-foot fortress cleaving sun powered laser swords" in their domain if you want to be able to use it for swording any time soon afterward.
*EDIT: Although thinking about it, if this were an actual weapon in Exalted, it would probably need some extra balancing. Maybe the fact that you aren't a king if you lose your lands and crown, and so qualifying to be The Once and Future King is both easier (since you just have to be a King Arthur, and then mould yourself to fit the legends in order to fit the swords prereqs) and harder (since you actually have to maintain your kingship and cult legend, or the sword becomes a useless paperweight).
I was mostly using it as a generic example, in the same way that no one has actual bulbasaur elementals in their games.
With that said, it is the kind of thing that Solars would want: Good CQC weapon, powerful effect, magical DRM...
Also, 50 feet is kinda weak. Most fortresses are bigger than that. Saber's Excaliblast is never actually used against a fortress in canon, but I see it leveling a castle rather than just blowing down the gates.
I suppose it could just punch a hole through the gates all the way out the back of the keep, too.
One of the great things about @EarthScorpion's authority hack is it lets you dump the wasted space of the entire Astrology subsystem and you can just refluff Sidereal Astrology as a Sorcery Initiation only Sidereals get access to and which allows them to call on their admin passwords to hack the Matrix authority as the Chosen of the Maidens to submit commands to the Pattern Spiders and update the Loom of Fate.
Of course, Astrological Sorcery is bound to the Loom, and thus has no authority over anything Outside Fate which makes Sidereals extremely frightening against anything within Creation because casting from the Loom is basically free the way casting from Whispers is (with the only side effects being if you do it too often the Pattern Spiders get cross with you and start inflicting bad luck on you) but also their greatest power has no authority over their traditional enemies. So a Loom-based Dance of the Smoke Cobras can't even harm a Second Circle Demon because they are beyond the authority of the Loom.
This means that Sidereals who are assigned to Conventions that deal heavily with Outside Fate threats such as demons, ghosts and fair folk have all kinds of incentives to make pacts with otherworldly creatures so that the spells they cast can effect them. They have difficulty using the standard Authority because the Arcane Fate is constantly eroding their connection to any other Background, thus a contract with an elemental court is going to loose potency fairly rapidly as the elementals forget their bargains and even the very words on the page fade away (unless you bind them as Familiars, but that's limited).
Outside Fate creatures are not subject to this, so they make the most stable source of Authority. This leads to the fact that almost every Sidereal assigned to deal long term with a particular type of nasty will inevitably end up forging pacts and deals with some factions of that nasty against others, after all the demons are right there anyway and letting a little bit of demon worship go free in the long term is worth it to prevent a major demonic incursion. The Sidereals assigned to cushy Blessed Isle or Yu Shan posts always look at these field agents with a certain amount of distrust (and unofficial "we won't examine this too closely but have a file full of auditable blackmail on you so stay in line") and the field Sidereals are all Cold War Spy movie protagonists or Undercover Cop movie protagonists playing a dangerous game and risking being double-crossed or finding their loyalty compromised.
Resplendent Destinies, in this hack, would be sorcerous constructs which support traditional Authority but are tied to the Destiny and not the Sidereal himself. You'd get a background called Destiny which you could use to invest in spells but if you pull off too big a magical working with it (Celestial tier magic, essentially) you end up "breaking" it and not able to use it anymore. Thus you end up with a lot of mysterious mentors and servants who pull astounding feats of magic out of their ass to save the heroes only to 'die heroically' moments later.
You also have the only other background that Sidereal get access to Acquaintances, which you can also invest Terrestrial spells with or burn for Celestial tier magic and you have the delightful incentive for Sidereals to only foster friendship for their utility value and then burn them and leave them broken shells for some higher goal.
Hmm. Actually, maybe it's OK to use Mentor or Ally for something that directly references him and lets you summon his fire. I'm just playing around with working out how to get demons feeling different from other splats and like "they're trapped in Hell" is a real limit on their ability to affect the world.
Perhaps you can call on them, but with limited power? Liger in hell can only support a sapphire equivalent working, while Liger right there can support adamany ones. Or even increasing the backgrounds "refresh" rate.
And obviously while Liger is one source, you want more, and lesser sources might need to be closer.
That's why I mentioned the basic swording functions, like hitting people with a length of sharpened Orichalcum. The actual Excaliblast and inspiration stuff is still Artifact 5 or N/a, depending on how bullshit you want your 5-dot artifacts to be.
I was mostly using it as a generic example, in the same way that no one has actual bulbasaur elementals in their games.
With that said, it is the kind of thing that Solars would want: Good CQC weapon, powerful effect, magical DRM...
Also, 50 feet is kinda weak. Most fortresses are bigger than that. Saber's Excaliblast is never actually used against a fortress in canon, but I see it leveling a castle rather than just blowing down the gates.
I suppose it could just punch a hole through the gates all the way out the back of the keep, too.
Going by convos with scorp a sorcerous spell has an anchor and a cost. The anchor is a prerequisite "must be this cool to cast" and commits the thing for the duration of the casting. Excalibur isn't stabbing people during excaliblast, its blasting. It also has a cost, something consumed by the spell. In the case of excaliblast, that's still just motes. Solar Arturia needs X motes to cast it, and as such can still use Excalibur immediately after the blast ends.
EDIT: meanwhile, say, the yak-men of the she'ol plateau might be working on some psychotic working to purge the plateau of all life, because fuck that place, that requires cult 5 and manse 5 as anchors and has a cost of resources and an artifact 5, in which case the artifact is straight up consumed in the process of casting the spell.
Perhaps you can call on them, but with limited power? Liger in hell can only support a sapphire equivalent working, while Liger right there can support adamany ones. Or even increasing the backgrounds "refresh" rate.
And obviously while Liger is one source, you want more, and lesser sources might need to be closer.
There should be a difference between Spells (ie, Instant effects like blasting an army with Total Annihilation) and a Working (an ongoing magical effect, like moving your entire country into Elsewhere with Pressed Beyond the Veil of Time). You can probably call on Ligier's power through your Mentor for the former but need him present for the latter.
Either that or you need to spend ten years gifting unto Ligier one-hundred raksha a season in exchange for him taking a mote of his own transcendent flame and capturing it within a cage of crystal and brass so that his loyal servant (that'd be you) can call upon his flames to smite impudent enemies.
Or sacrifice a thousand souls in his name so he can take them and make new prayer-concubines out of them, or insert any other inconvenient task that might have some monks showing up to ask hard questions about. You know, the kinds of things like those traditional mythic demonic pacts where demonologists have to do strange and annoying things and make weird and often horrible sacrifices in exchange for their hell-born powers being granted to them.
One of the great things about @EarthScorpion's authority hack is it lets you dump the wasted space of the entire Astrology subsystem and you can just refluff Sidereal Astrology as a Sorcery Initiation only Sidereals get access to and which allows them to call on their admin passwords to hack the Matrix authority as the Chosen of the Maidens to submit commands to the Pattern Spiders and update the Loom of Fate.
Again, I think you are far too eager to take everything and turn it into sorcery. This is bad for the game and leads down a road that eventually gets you "well, charms are just spells anchored by your Exaltation." We don't want everything to be sorcery because then sorcery isn't special or interesting.
Now, it would be perfectly reasonable to use the same or at least similar mechanics to represent workings and astrology and even mundane projects, with a mostly-unified system to represent committing backgrounds dots to produce effects. But it's not desirable at all to say that these things are, in-universe, sorcery.
EDIT: meanwhile, say, the yak-men of the she'ol plateau might be working on some psychotic working to purge the plateau of all life, because fuck that place, that requires cult 5 and manse 5 as anchors and has a cost of resources and an artifact 5, in which case the artifact is straight up consumed in the process of casting the spell.
That is a slightly ridiculous set of requirements. Cult 5 is direction-scale, iirc. How big is this plateau that it requires that much belief as well as a priceless relic to destroy?
Also, how do you get from your chosen effect to your requirements? I suppose these are things that would be written up in the actual document.
Is ES keeping 3e's spell and working distinction? How many things can you hook onto a given background? Can you hook more things onto a given background if you're better at sorcery, or do you just have to get more things? Do you have to spend XP on backgrounds?
There should be a difference between Spells (ie, Instant effects like blasting an army with Total Annihilation) and a Working (an ongoing magical effect, like moving your entire country into Elsewhere with Pressed Beyond the Veil of Time). You can probably call on Ligier's power through your Mentor for the former but need him present for the latter.
This answers one thing, but raises a bunch of other questions:
Does a bound demon count as a background? Does a summoned but unbound one? Do both count, but one is more powerful than the other? How do you measure the power of the backgrounds you are using? Does using those backgrounds damage them?
I should probably just wait for the actual documentation for these answers. They're things to think about, but may be better off adjusted on the fly by the ST and player.
Again, I think you are far too eager to take everything and turn it into sorcery. This is bad for the game and leads down a road that eventually gets you "well, charms are just spells anchored by your Exaltation." We don't want everything to be sorcery because then sorcery isn't special or interesting.
Now, it would be perfectly reasonable to use the same or at least similar mechanics to represent workings and astrology and even mundane projects, with a mostly-unified system to represent committing backgrounds dots to produce effects. But it's not desirable at all to say that these things are, in-universe, sorcery.
I think it depends very much in what's being shown as sorcery. Sorcery, in this view, is a weird way of using authority granted by others or external things(backgrounds) to invoke power. Astrology is a wierd way of invoking power by assering authority granted by fate/the maidens. In universe why shouldn't they be treated similarly?
Again, I think you are far too eager to take everything and turn it into sorcery. This is bad for the game and leads down a road that eventually gets you "well, charms are just spells anchored by your Exaltation." We don't want everything to be sorcery because then sorcery isn't special or interesting.
Now, it would be perfectly reasonable to use the same or at least similar mechanics to represent workings and astrology and even mundane projects, with a mostly-unified system to represent committing backgrounds dots to produce effects. But it's not desirable at all to say that these things are, in-universe, sorcery.
Nah, I'm the guy who got in a massive flamewar with @EarthScorpion over reducing Artifacts to nothing more than crafted Sorcery in the first place and I stand by that.
Sorcery is a specific thing; it takes a long time to cast and leaves you vulnerable while doing so, it allows you to step outside your themes and limits of your PC-type, it draws on external sources of energy, it requires Initiation and its tiered.
Charms are another thing; they're fast and easy to use, they are strictly limited to your themes and are often more effective than equivalent Sorcery in your themes, they are strictly internally powered by your Exaltation/essence type, they don't require anything but being yourself and they are all built to be on the same power scale.
Further, the Authority hack doesn't work unless stuff like Backing, Cult and Artifact have value in and off themselves without requiring Sorcery to unlock. Choosing to link an Artifact to an ongoing Spell only works as a sacrifice if it costs something, thus Artifacts have to be capable of conferring benefits beyond access to Sorcery. You can use Excalibur as just a supernaturally powerful sword rather than using it to fuel fortress destroying lasers and choosing to do the one temporarily deprives you of the other. Trinkets and talismans whose whole purpose is only to foster Sorcery are better used as representatives of Backgrounds like Resources or Backing or Contacts than they are Artifacts, representing that instead of gaining mansions or political power or information you instead use them to gain access to spells and workings.
The main weakness of this system is that Sorcery effectively becomes Elder Level play, which means everyone needs to gain access to it regardless of character type. Thus you should not be required to invest Occult dots in it, because some character concepts are not Occultists. You would instead have a variety of Initiations that are appropriate to various character types and which build of raw Essence, maybe even linked to an Initiation background.
The Initiations would represent the ability to fuel external magic that is reliant on Backgrounds, with hard caps based on your character types. The trick would be that while the various Initiations are all, mechanically represented via Sorcery they are, in setting, not treated as such and are limited by character type as well. An Immaculate Monk who spends decades mastering the Coils of the Dragon and attain Bulb of the Perfected Lotus can use his mastery of the Dragon Styles to cast associated Celestial Level spell-like effects but he can never Initiate into Celestial Sorcery even though mechanically whether he is casting Flight of the Brilliant Raptor or using his katas to perform Breath of the Fire Dragon is indistinguishable.
Similarly while on a meta-level we known that Sidereal Astrology is just refluffed Sorcery for Sidereals in setting the two are treated differently. The process of gaining it, the way the users act and so on are different but a Sidereal who evokes Fate to drive everyone in a town to suicidal despair is just using a variation on Cantata of Empty Voices mechanically.
Does a bound demon count as a background? Does a summoned but unbound one? Do both count, but one is more powerful than the other? How do you measure the power of the backgrounds you are using? Does using those backgrounds damage them?
I should probably just wait for the actual documentation for these answers. They're things to think about, but may be better off adjusted on the fly by the ST and player.
There should be a difference between invested Authority and burned Authority. You can only invest Authority in a spell if you've gone out of your way to earn an appropriate Background, representing something more than just a night's work in a summoning chamber. Invested Authority returns to you, because you spent the time/XP earning it. Burned Authority would be for stuff you gained temporarily. A summoned demon used to fuel a spell would be cast back to Malfeas and/or destroyed in the process because you didn't spend the time turning it into a Background.
You'd also have the option of burning Backgrounds for higher level spells. This would be especially true for Sapphire and Adamant spells.
In e3, making artifacts explicitly requires the ability to manipulate Essence. Mortal sorcerers can do it, but they are per definition no longer mortal.
Creation is a world suffused with magic, where wonders are commonplace and Essence is free for the taking. The Primordials, in their efforts, devised a technique by which they may share their efforts and construct their masterpiece. This language of existence is baked into every mote of Creation and all things connected to it. By understanding some fraction of this mastery, the student may manipulate and distort existing magic to pervert and redirect its form to his wishes. The power of Charms flows from the capacity of the user to impose their own soul onto the world, while other methods twist existing Essence flows into new shapes that serve their needs.
This background, even more than others, requires storyteller permission to acquire. Learning this Background means the character masters a particular form of Essence manipulation that exists outside his Charms. Some characters are limited in the types of Initiations they may learn and learning a particular Initiation may have other associated costs. The storyteller is heavily encouraged to play out this process, whether it be the five trials of Sorcery, the training in the Coils of the Dragon or selling one's soul for Necromancy or Diabolism.
You may never have this background at a rating higher than your Essence. However unless otherwise indicated you can have multiple Initiations. Some Initiations are mutually incompatible, however. Some Initiations require you to have other Initiations first (such as the tiers of Sorcery). Further, Initiations are not learned like a skill, having access to a higher ranked Initiation does not automatically grant access to lower ranked ones. Just because you picked up a Three Dot Initiation does not mean you get the benefits of a two or one dot Initiation for free.
* - You have been Initiated into a particular school of Thaumaturgy (Alchemy, Astrology, Bio-Enhancement, Warding, Weather-working etc) and may learn and use rituals associated with that particular science. Note that while many sciences are based off Occult, not all are. In the West thuamaturgist sailors Initiate into weather-working with their Sail skill while in the East herbalists use Survival to support to Alchemy. Select one school and an appropriate skill, subject the GM approval. All characters may learn this level of Initiation.
** - You have learned a variety of minor magical tricks, cantrips and shortcuts that make your life easier. In effect, this is an advanced form of thaumaturgy that works faster and more reliably. The exact tricks depend upon your particular Initiation but examples include cleaning a room with tiny dust elementals, conjuring minor demonic imps such as the Things Which Dwell in Shadows or spectral haunts. At best, the effects of these cantrips can justify a two die stunt on a related action. Alternatively you may know a variant form of an existing school of thaumaturgy such as a version of Astrology based on goat-entrails or intense mathematical analysis.
*** - You have learned Terrestrial Sorcery, Man-Machine Weaving, Shadowlands Necromancy, Emerald Infernalism, the Root of the Perfected Lotus, Sidereal Astrology or similar magic.
**** - You have learned Celestial Sorcery, God-Machine Weaving, Labyrinth Necromancy, Sapphire Infernalism, the Bulb of the Perfected Lotus, Greater Sidereal Astrology or similar magic.
***** - You have learn Solar Sorcery, Void Necromancy, Adamant Infernalism, the Blossom of the Perfected Lotus or similar magic.
Using Initiation as an Authority: You can use Initiation as an Authority to cast a spell or working only if the spell is compatible with your inherent nature, and even then only as an alternate spell, ritual or working. Solars, for example, may use their inherent Solar Essence to fuel spells that deal with sunlight, leadership and heroism while a Fire Aspected Dragonblooded could use his Fire nature to cast Fire spells or spells that arouse passions. If the spell or working lasts more than an Instant you loose access to the Initiation, and all its benefits including control over existing spells and workings, for the duration. Yes, this can release bound demons and ghosts.
The main weakness of this system is that Sorcery effectively becomes Elder Level play, which means everyone needs to gain access to it regardless of character type. Thus you should not be required to invest Occult dots in it, because some character concepts are not Occultists. You would instead have a variety of Initiations that are appropriate to various character types and which build of raw Essence, maybe even linked to an Initiation background.
I was planning to have basic access to sorcery running purely off Enlightenment, which allows you to cleanly and elegantly gate access to it by splat. Then, spell rolls are appropriate for the means. A spell which works cursing someone by calling on divine Allies, for example, is likely to run off Presence or Bureaucracy, depending on whether you're issuing paperwork or beseeching a friend. Your Kamehameha runs off your punching-people and your Starlight Breaker runs off your maths.
Personally I'd prefer more organic delineations between casting styles - that is to say, a king learns to be a sorcerer-king relying on bling and his authority because those are the tools he has available to him and so learns spells that require those kinds of material anchors, while the wandering vagabond can go and meet with the spirits and find sacred places in the wilds because that's what he can get. But a sorcerer-king can keep an entourage of elementals like his flame-cheetahs that lounge by his throne and kill those who offend him, and the vagabond can carry an artefact staff he found.
I was planning to have basic access to sorcery running purely off Enlightenment, which allows you to cleanly and elegantly gate access to it by splat. Then, spell rolls are appropriate for the means. A spell which works cursing someone by calling on divine Allies, for example, is likely to run off Presence or Bureaucracy, depending on whether you're issuing paperwork or beseeching a friend. Your Kamehameha runs off your punching-people and your Starlight Breaker runs off your maths.
Personally I'd prefer more organic delineations between casting styles - that is to say, a king learns to be a sorcerer-king relying on bling and his authority because those are the tools he has available to him and so learns spells that require those kinds of material anchors, while the wandering vagabond can go and meet with the spirits and find sacred places in the wilds because that's what he can get. But a sorcerer-king can keep an entourage of elementals like his flame-cheetahs that lounge by his throne and kill those who offend him, and the vagabond can carry an artefact staff he found.
But doesn't that mean there's no incentive to act in theme? If the same investment gets you access to all magic, then why would a Necromancer look like a Necromancer instead of an elementalist?
But doesn't that mean there's no incentive to act in theme? If the same investment gets you access to all magic, then why would a Necromancer look like a Necromancer instead of an elementalist?
Well, if you want to dress all in black and cover your tits with human skulls while casting all your magic using elementals, that's what floats your boat. I'm not going to stop goths focussing on the use of elementals.
But a necromancer is someone who commands, controls and interacts with the Dead here. So they fuel their spells with necrotic essence, they use ghost Allies and Followers to fuel effects, and they learn spells for summoning the Dead, entering the Underworld, and so on. Yes, that means that quite a few sorcerers might dabble in necromancy - although some them will insist they're "just exorcists" and they learned Banish Ghost and Call Ghost to help put spirits to rest.
Basically, what gets people calling you a necromancer is if you keep lots of ghosts around you, live in a Shadowland or a necrotic manse, and you generally flaunt how you do things with the Dead - and so learn a lot of spell-versions that require Underworld linked backgrounds. If you cast most of your magic with elementals - well, for one you need to explain how you're using elementals for Call Ghost and other effects like that, because the background has to be in-theme for the spell. But assuming you're very good at arguing that, you're going to look like someone who's constantly followed by elementals and who has holdings in the wild woods - and who also calls up Dead things, which is probably going to tarnish your reputation.
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