spellcasting draft
The Casting Die
When you cast a spell, roll 2d6 + your casting modifier
The Results
| Roll | Outcome |
|---|---|
| 13+ | Triumph: The spell succeeds with amplified effect. Choose one: double duration, double range, affect an additional target, or the spell costs no resources to cast. |
| 10-12 | Success: The spell works as intended. |
| 7-9 | Success with Cost: The spell works, but choose one Cost (see below). You cannot pick the same Cost twice in a scene, if you are forced to choose the same option then all success with cost results become failures instead. |
| 3-6 | Failure: The spell fails. Take a point of Corruption or roll on the Chaos table. |
| 2 or less | Catastrophic Failure: The spell fails spectacularly. Take 2 points of Corruption or roll on the Catastrophe table. |
Cost
- take 1d4 damage as the magic tears through you
- the spell's effect is halved (duration, damage, or targets)
- gain 1 point of Corruption
- this spell is exhausted and can only be cast by Pushing Your Luck until you rest
Modifiers to the Roll
- +1 for each appropriate spell component consumed
- +1 if casting in a place of power
- +1 for each full round spent ritually preparing (max +3)
- −1 if wounded below half health
- −1 if you've already cast the same spell in this scene
- −2 if interrupted during casting
- −1 cumulative for each failure or catastrophic failure since your last full rest (magical exhaustion)
Pushing Your Luck
When you've exhausted a spell, you may Push Your Luck.
Roll 3d6 instead of 2d6, but:
- Use the lowest two dice for your result
- Natural triple 1s automatically trigger a Catastrophe with the caster gaining a point of Corruption as well
- Natural triple 6s are a Miraculous Casting and the spell succeeds with extraordinary power, up to the GM how this effect plays out
Corruption
When you gain a point of Corruption, roll 1d10 + your current Corruption level and consult the table. Cross off the result permanently; even if the effect is later cured, that entry remains unavailable.
If you roll a crossed-off result, take the next available entry down the list (eg. re-rolling a 6 means you take result 5). If nothing remains below, take the next available entry above it instead.
| Roll | Effect |
|---|---|
| 1 or less | Thick, ropy scars spread across your face in branching patterns. They never fade and impose a −1 penalty to social rolls. |
| 2 | A patch of your flesh becomes gelatinous and translucent, constantly rippling and shifting beneath the surface. Roll 1d6 for location: (1) face, (2) arms, (3) legs, (4) torso, (5) hands, (6) feet. |
| 3 | Your spine twists, and you develop a hunch on one shoulder. You walk with a lurching, uneven gait. |
| 4 | Your eyes change. Roll 1d4: (1) the pupils become vertical slits (+1 to all rolls during night), (2) they turn milky and sensitive (−1 to all rolls in daylight), (3) they turn solid black and can see heat signatures at 100', (4) they bulge outward and become segmented, like an insect's. |
| 5 | Patches of your skin become thin as paper. Wounds open on your hands, feet, chest, and legs that weep fluid and never fully close. |
| 6 | Your ears reshape themselves. Roll 1d4: (1) they stretch outward like a bat's, (2) they wither and fall off (hearing remains), (3) they grow large and furry like a bear's, (4) they elongate and droop like a hound's. |
| 7 | You always feel cold. Your body shivers constantly and your teeth chatter loud enough to be heard across a room. |
| 8 | Your jaw unhinges. The tendons stretch and elasticize until your mouth can open wide enough to fit a melon. Your throat distends into a fleshy pouch that hangs beneath your chin, bulging and contracting as you breathe. You can no longer chew; food must be swallowed whole and stored in the pouch until your body digests it. The sound of your breathing becomes wet and labored. |
| 9 | Your hair changes permanently. Roll 1d4: (1) it turns bone white, (2) it turns ink black and seems to absorb light, (3) it falls out in clumps until nothing remains, (4) it rises and writhes as if blown by a wind no one else can feel. |
| 10 | Your mind shuts down to protect itself. You collapse unconscious for 1d6 hours and cannot be woken by anything less than pain or violence. |
| 11 | Your tongue lengthens and forks. Your nostrils flatten to slits. You can taste scent on the air like a serpent. |
| 12 | Fleshy nodules push up from your gums, crowding your teeth until they loosen and fall out. What grows in their place is not teeth. They are small, blunt, and they move, retracting and extending like the tube feet of a starfish. Your mouth is never still now. Eating is easier, somehow, but speaking becomes slurred and lisping, and when you sleep your mouth works silently at nothing. |
| 13 | Your skin takes on an unnatural cast. Roll 1d10: (1) corpse-white, (2) coal black, (3) translucent, (4) faintly iridescent, (5) bruise-purple, (6) jaundiced yellow, (7) grey as ash, (8) covered in fine scales, (9) thick with coarse fur, (10) pebbled like a lizard. |
| 14 | Something demonic manifests. Roll 1d6: (1) your fingers stretch into claws that deal 1d6 damage, (2) your feet harden into cloven hooves, (3) your knees reverse and bend backward like a goat's, (4) your skin hardens into leathery hide across your torso and shoulders, granting +1 AC but making you unsettling to look upon, (5) a ridge of spines erupts along your back from neck to tailbone, tearing through any clothing or armor not modified to accommodate them, (6) your mouth widens and splits further toward your ears, giving you a too-wide grin full of teeth that now go back farther than they should. |
| 15 | Fluted holes open in your skin near hard areas of bone: your elbows, your shins, your shoulders, your spine. Something moves inside them. At night you hear faint clicking from within your own skeleton. Your HP are permanently reduced by 1 as the colony feeds on your marrow. When you are wounded in combat, there is a 50% chance the things inside you swarm out to attack your aggressor, and a 25% chance they also begin mending your wound, restoring 1 HP every 2 rounds. |
| 16 | Magical energy no longer stays inside you. Sparks, frost, flames, or crackling lightning play across your skin constantly, reflecting the type of magic you most often use. |
| 17 | Your appetite becomes insatiable. You gain 6d12 pounds over the next month as flesh piles onto your frame. The weight imposes a −1 penalty to Dexterity and reduces your speed by 5'. |
| 18 | Your body begins consuming itself. You lose 2d10 pounds in a month as muscle and fat waste away. You suffer a −1 penalty to Constitution. |
| 19 | A second face grows on the back of your skull. It shares your features but moves independently, blinking and mouthing words when you are not paying attention. |
| 20 | A wasting sickness settles into your bones. Over the next 1d4 months you grow weaker, suffering a cumulative −1 penalty to Strength each month. |
| 21 | Your mouth hardens and protrudes. Over the next 1d12 months your lips fuse and calcify into a hooked beak. You gain a bite attack for 1d4 damage. |
| 22 | Your body adapts to something other than human life. Roll 1d4: (1) scales spread across your skin (advantage to rolls in heated climates), (2) gill slits open on your neck (can breathe underwater for CON rounds), (3) fine feathers sprout from your arms (you can glide safely down from tall heights), (4) webbing grows between your fingers and toes (you aren't slowed down in mud or water). |
| 23 | A tail pushes out from the base of your spine over 1d6 days. Roll 1d6: (1) segmented and tipped with a venomous stinger (1d4 damage, save or lose 1d4 Strength permanently), (2) long and scaled like a snake, (3) forked and leathery like a devil's (grants +1 Dexterity), (4) muscular and prehensile, ending in a functional hand, (5) bony and club-like, capable of striking for 1d6 damage, (6) bushy and coarse like a horse's. |
| 24 | The fingers on one hand fuse together while your thumb swells and hardens. Within a week you have a chitinous crab claw. It deals 1d6 damage but can no longer hold weapons or tools. |
| 25 | A third eye opens somewhere on your body. Roll 1d4: (1) centered on your forehead, (2) in the palm of your hand, (3) on your chest, (4) on the back of your head. |
| 26 | Small tendrils sprout around your mouth and ears. They start no larger than worms but grow an inch each month until they reach a foot in length, constantly twitching and grasping. |
| 27 | One of your limbs begin to change. One arm or leg transforms into a suckered tentacle over the course of a month. By the end, you cannot pass for human. |
| 28 | Your skull reshapes itself overnight in a process of grinding agony. When dawn comes, your head is that of a beast. Roll 1d6: (1) snake, (2) goat, (3) bull, (4) rat, (5) insect, (6) fish. |
| 29 | Your flesh begins to rot while you still live. You lose 1d4 hp per day as chunks slough away. Only magical healing can slow the decay. |
| 30 or higher | Something claims your soul. Your character is lost. They have become something else entirely and are no longer playable. |
Corruption can be reduced by 1 point through:
- A week of complete magical abstinence
- Significant personal sacrifice (GM discretion)
- Rare purification rituals (find a priest)
Chaos Table
When Chaos occurs, roll 1d20 + 1d6
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Soul Leak. Your eyes go white and you speak in a voice not your own for the next hour. 1d6: (1) you prophesy doom for a specific ally, (2) you reveal a secret you've never told anyone, (3) you speak only in a dead language, (4) you narrate everything happening around you in third person, (5) you answer every question with another question, (6) you compulsively lie about everything. |
| 2 | Wrong Spell. The magical energies twist into something else entirely. 1d6: (1) a random spell you know fires instead at a random target, (2) the spell inverts (healing harms, harm heals, light darkens, etc), (3) the spell targets you instead, (4) the spell affects the nearest ally, (5) the spell goes off at half power but also affects you, (6) the spell succeeds but won't stop (it repeats at the start of your next turn whether you want it to or not). |
| 3 | Arcane Debt. Something notices. 1d6: (1) you owe a minor demon a favor and it will collect within the week, (2) a dead wizard's ghost begins following you, offering unwanted advice, (3) your shadow detaches and sulks in the corner for several hours, (4) your reflection stops matching your movements for a day, (5) you hear distant laughter that only you can hear for the rest of the day, (6) a crow arrives within the hour bearing a tiny scroll with your name on it but the message is blank. |
| 4 | Sympathetic Damage. The spell's failure ripples outward and damages things within 30 feet. 1d6: (1) all light sources extinguish, (2) all glass cracks, (3) all food spoils instantly, (4) all water turns brackish and undrinkable, (5) all paper yellows and crumbles, (6) all fire flares violently for one round, doubling in size. |
| 5 | Magical Hemorrhage. You cannot cast spells for 1d6 rounds as the magic bleeds out of you. 1d6: (1) you weep tears that glow, (2) your breath comes out as colored smoke, (3) sparks crackle from your fingertips painfully, (4) your words echo strangely, arriving a half-second late, (5) your skin becomes translucent, showing shadows of your bones, (6) you leave glowing footprints. |
| 6 | Unwanted Weather. Localized atmospheric chaos erupts in a 30' radius for 1d6 minutes. 1d6: (1) thick fog obscures everything, (2) rain falls upward from the ground, (3) snow drifts down regardless of temperature, (4) a miniature dust devil whips around you, (5) static electricity builds and everyone's hair stands on end, metal objects spark, (6) the temperature drops or rises by 30 degrees. |
| 7 | Sensory Scramble. Your senses twist for one hour. 1d6: (1) you see sounds as colors, (2) you taste emotions, (3) you hear light as musical tones, (4) you smell emotions (fear is acrid, kindness is sweet, etc), (5) everything you touch feels wet, (6) you perceive time slightly out of sync (you see things a half-second before they happen but react a half-second late). |
| 8 | Arcane Stigmata. A visible mark appears somewhere on your body and remains there until you sleep. 1d6: (1) a glowing sigil on your forehead, (2) your veins glow faintly through your skin, (3) a black mark like a bruise in the shape of a palm over one eye, (4) your hair turns white at the temples, (5) a ring of small blisters around one wrist, (6) one of your eyes changes color permanently. |
| 9 | Vermin Herald. Creatures arrive to witness your failure. 1d6: (1) moths swarm around your head for an hour, (2) earthworms surface in a 10' radius, (3) spiders emerge from nearby cracks and crevices, watching you, (4) flies buzz around you for the rest of the day, (5) a murder of crows land nearby and stare at you judgmentally, (6) ants stream toward you in lines, circling your feet before dispersing after being noticed by others. |
| 10 | Temporal Stutter. Time hiccups around you. 1d6: (1) you repeat your last sentence involuntarily, (2) you freeze in place for one round while time continues, you're aware but cannot act, (3) you move in reverse for one round, undoing your last action, (4) everyone within 20' experiences déjà vu simultaneously, (5) you age or de-age by 1d6 years (cosmetically only—no mechanical effect), (6) your next action happens twice in rapid succession. |
| 11 | Chromatic Chaos. Colors go wrong. 1d6: (1) you turn a single vivid color for an hour, (2) everything you see loses all color until you sleep, (3) you leave a trail of colored light behind you when you move for an hour, (4) your body and blood glows for a day, (5) your eyes become an unnatural color permanently, (6) the spell's target (or the area where it would have been) is stained an impossible color that hurts to look at permanently. |
| 12 | Auditory Anomaly. Sound distorts around you. 1d6: (1) everything you say comes out as a whisper for an hour, (2) your voice echoes dramatically for the rest of the day, (3) you can only speak in rhyme until you sleep, (4) a musical note chimes every time you move for an hour, (5) your footsteps are silent but your breathing is deafeningly loud for a day, (6) you hiccup sparks for the next hour. |
| 13 | Gravity Wobble. Physics protests mildly, this lasts for an hour. 1d6: (1) small objects within 5' of you float gently as if weightless, (2) your hair and clothing billow as if underwater, (3) your skin and gear sag as if far heavier than they actually are, (4) you feel weightless and must concentrate to stay grounded, (5) metal objects within 10' float or slide toward you as if magnetic, (6) gravity pulls on you at a 45° angle. |
| 14 | Strange Appetite. You develop an unusual craving that lasts until satisfied. 1d6: (1) chalk, (2) raw meat, (3) flowers, (4) candle wax, (5) something belonging to an ally, (6) dirt from a specific location you can vaguely sense the direction of. |
| 15 | Minor Manifestation. Something small and harmless appears. 1d6: (1) a palm-sized glowing orb that follows you for an hour before popping, (2) a small perfectly normal frog, (3) a single gold coin of unfamiliar mint, (4) a flower that wilts within the hour, (5) a puff of smoke that smells of your childhood home, (6) a single page of a book in a language you don't recognize. |
| 16 | Cosmetic Quirk. A minor but noticeable change occurs. 1d6: (1) your shadow falls in the wrong direction for a day, (2) you smell of rotten eggs for a week, (3) your teeth tingle unpleasantly for an hour, (4) your nose bleeds for an uncomfortable amount of time, (5) you sneeze loudly and dramatically, (6) your hands shake uncontrollably for the next round and no spellcasting or combat is possible. |
| 17 | Residual Glow. Faint magical energy clings to you for 1d6 hours. 1d6: (1) your hands leave glowing trails when you gesture, (2) your eyes reflect light like a cat's, (3) small sparks dance in your hair, (4) your breath is visible even in warm air, (5) you cast two shadows, (6) writing near you glows faintly. |
| 18 | Harmless Omen. Something mildly eerie but ultimately meaningless occurs. 1d6: (1) a distant bell tolls once, (2) a cold breeze passes through even indoors, (3) nearby flames flicker blue for a moment, (4) you taste copper briefly, (5) everyone nearby shivers simultaneously, (6) the sound of dogs barking as if riled even if there are no dogs around. |
| 19 | Fizzle. The spell simply fails with minimal consequence. 1d6: (1) a puff of colored smoke, (2) a disappointing spark, (3) a wet squelching sound, (4) the faint smell of burnt offal, (5) your clothing and gear looks scorched as if burnt, (6) nothing visible happens but you feel embarrassed. |
| 20 | Lucky Break. The spell fails, but fortune favors you. Your 1d6 modifies your next casting of this spell by +1 to +6, otherwise the magical energy disperses harmlessly, refreshingly, and you feel slightly invigorated. |
Catastrophe
Catastrophe Table
When a spell fails catastrophically, roll 1d20. There are no saving throws. What happens, happens.
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | The Replacement. Your consciousness is devoured and replaced by something that was waiting for exactly this opportunity. You continue to assist your companions, help with their goals, say the right things. But you are not you anymore. You are something wearing your face, waiting for the right moment. The GM takes control of your character in secret. |
| 2 | Gestation. Something is growing inside you now. You feel it shift when you cast spells. It feeds on magic, yours and others. In a month's time, it will be ready to emerge. The birth will not be survivable. Every spell you cast between now and then makes it stronger, and you can feel it purring against your spine when you do. The GM will give you a countdown for the birth. |
| 3 | The Unraveling. Your flesh loses coherence. Over the next hour, you become soft, pliable, difficult to hold together. Your bones liquefy. Your organs shift freely beneath your skin. You are still alive, still conscious, still you but you are no longer solid. Moving requires concentration. Holding a shape requires effort. You will never be fully human again. |
| 4 | Unmaking. You are being erased from existence, starting at the edges. People struggle to remember your name. Your belongings feel unfamiliar to those who knew you. Each day, more of your past becomes uncertain. Eventually, you will become a stranger to everyone who ever loved you. You're not sure what will happen once nobody can remember you at all. The GM will give you a countdown. |
| 5 | The Watcher. A powerful extraplanar entity has noticed you. It is always watching now: through mirrors, through pools of water, through the eyes of animals. It does not speak. It does not act. It simply watches, waiting for you to do something interesting enough to warrant its direct attention. You can feel its gaze like pressure behind your eyes. The GM will give you a countdown for their interest. |
| 6 | Magical Disease. Your spell failure is now a transmissible disease. Anyone who touches you, or touches someone who touched you, has a chance to experience random magical effects firing without warning. You are patient zero for an arcane plague. The effects spread faster than you can warn people. Eventually, someone will trace it back to you. |
| 7 | The Trade. One of your senses is gone. Not damaged, not impaired, simply absent. In its place, you perceive something else. Something that exists in the spaces between things. You can see/hear/feel what lurks in the margins of reality. You will wish you couldn't. The GM chooses which sense you lose and what you now perceive instead. |
| 8 | Beacon. You are now visible to things that hunt in the dark between worlds. They cannot reach you yet, but they know where you are. They are patient. They are always moving closer. When you sleep, you can hear them scratching at the edges of your dreams. When you are alone, you catch movement in your peripheral vision. They are coming for you. The GM will give you a countdown for their arrival. |
| 9 | The Debt of Flesh. Your body now belongs partially to something else. One of your limbs moves according to its own will, or rather the will of whatever claims it. It will not harm you directly, but it has its own agenda. It writes messages you cannot read. It gestures at things you cannot see. Sometimes it tries to go somewhere, and you must physically restrain yourself. |
| 10 | Echoes of Death. You accessed something you shouldn't have. Now, when you sleep, you experience the same death, every night, in excruciating detail. You feel spears pierce flesh. You feel prayers go unanswered. You feel despair. You wake exhausted, grieving for something you never knew. The dreams will not stop. |
| 11 | The Hollow. Something essential was scooped out of you. You don't know what it was, but you can feel its absence. A cold empty space behind your sternum. Food tastes like ash. Music sounds flat. The faces of people you love seem like strangers wearing masks. You are still capable of emotion, technically, but it arrives muffled, distant, like hearing laughter through a wall. |
| 12 | Sympathetic Bond. You are now magically tethered to the nearest creature whether they are friend, enemy, or stranger. When they are harmed, you feel it. When they die, part of you will die with them. You know roughly where they are at all times. They may or may not know about this bond. The connection cannot be severed by any means you currently know. |
| 13 | Temporal Fracture. You are now slightly out of sync with time. You experience moments twice, or skip them entirely. Conversations happen in the wrong order for you. You sometimes respond to things before they're said, or fail to react to things that already happened. Others find you deeply unsettling to interact with. You age at an unpredictable rate. |
| 14 | The Uninvited Guest. Something rode the spell's failure back into the world. It lives in your shadow now. You can see it in reflections, a shape that doesn't match your own. It whispers to you at night, offering advice that is always technically correct but invariably leads to worse outcomes. It wants something from you. It is willing to wait. |
| 15 | Marked. You bear a visible sign of your failure now. A sigil burned into your flesh, a discoloration of your eyes, a crown of tiny horns sprouting from your head, or something worse. Those who know what to look for will recognize what you are: someone who has touched forbidden magic and been touched in return. Some will fear you. Some will hunt you. Some will want what you have. |
| 16 | The Leak. Magic bleeds out of you constantly now. Small, uncontrolled effects happen in your presence. Candles flicker, milk sours, animals grow uneasy, children stare. You cannot turn it off. You cannot control it. Prolonged proximity to you is bad for living things. Plants wilt. Pets sicken. People you live with will develop headaches, nosebleeds, nightmares. |
| 17 | Prophetic Curse. You know how you will die now. Not when but how. You saw it clearly in the moment of failure: the place, the circumstances, the wound. You will recognize the moment when it comes. Until then, you cannot die by any other means but you cannot avoid your fate either. The knowledge sits in your mind like a splinter, impossible to forget. |
| 18 | The Severance. Your connection to normal magic is damaged. Spells you cast manifest twisted, discolored, accompanied by sounds or smells that shouldn't be there. Other spellcasters can sense it on you, like the smell of rot. Some magics may refuse to work for you at all. You must find a new path to power, or accept diminishment. |
| 19 | Residual Haunting. The spell's failure echoes. Once per day, at a random moment, the spell will try to cast itself again without your input, without components, without warning. It will fail again, every time, but the failure will be loud, visible, and impossible to hide. You cannot stop this. You cannot predict when it will happen. You can only deal with the consequences. |
| 20 | Corruption's Seed. You feel fine. Nothing seems wrong. The spell failed, yes, but there appear to be no consequences and no visible changes, no voices, no curses. This is, of course, the worst possible outcome. Something has taken root in you so deeply that you cannot perceive it yet. The GM knows what it is and will give you a countdown for it. You will discover it eventually. By then, it will be too late to remove. |
Design Notes
Heavily lifted from Dungeon Crawl Classics, and inspired by Dungeon World, Freebooters on the Frontier, Wonders & Wickedness, and Last Gasp Grimoire. I've been picking up bits and pieces from various systems and making them my own. I have a few other things I want to bolt onto this system, and I consider this a first draft at the moment.
There is consistent success with the dice roll (roughly 72% chance of 7+ on 2d6 with no modifier) but the most beneficial effect requires some skill to achieve. There is meaningful risk (the −1 cumulative penalty for repeated casting) that creates escalating tension, and requiring a meaningful cost on partial success corrects the problem I've seen at tables where players repeatedly choose the least inconvenient option. Players still make tactical decisions with this system, such as using components, strategizing prep time, and the decision to push beyond limits, which can lead to great success/failure. There are also long-term consequences for reckless spellcasting that rewards restraint, similar to corruption in DCC.
The probability spread on 2d6:
- 13+: ~8% (before modifiers)
- 10-12: ~33%
- 7-9: ~42%
- 4-6: ~14%
- 3−: ~3%
With a +2 modifier (reasonable for a competent caster), catastrophic failure becomes quite rare (~1%), but pushing your luck or casting while exhausted dramatically increases danger.
The Chaos table is meant to make spell failure interesting rather than simply punishing. Even the worst results here should create memorable moments rather than derail the game.
The Catastrophe table is meant to create ongoing consequences rather than immediate damage. Every result here changes the character's situation in ways that persist beyond the moment of failure. None of these effects can be shrugged off or ignored. None of them can be easily fixed. Magic is dangerous, and catastrophic failure should feel catastrophic.
The absence of saving throws is intentional. When you roll on this table, the universe has already decided your fate. The question is not whether you escape but how you live with what you've become.
The Corruption table is a personal countdown clock for the character to eventually be removed from play. There are 30 results and with repeated spell failures its possible a caster will pick up several Corruptions throughout the course of play (a kind GM could extend the table further with more results).
The lower entries are cosmetic or socially inconvenient and as you go higher they begin to affect the character mechanically and make them difficult to hide in civilized society, the highest entries are severe transformations that threaten the character's humanity and eventually their life. Because you roll 1d10 + current Corruption, a cautious caster who gains Corruption slowly will linger in the early entries. A reckless caster who racks up Corruption quickly will skip past the minor disfigurements and land directly in the severe transformations. This system rewards restraint and punishes greed.