I found the following character abilities in some mid-1990s LARP rules I made for con events in Wisconsin. Clearly, they are heavily influenced by Mage: The Ascension and the Planescape AD&D2e campaign setting. The various discs mentioned as spell requirements (Alpha, Beta, etc.) were in-game physical props characters could find hidden at the event venue.
MORTAL MAGICAL POWER
Magic abilities available to eldritch mages…
SPELL OF DIVINATION
You can see things hidden to others, including the past and the future. A successful magic challenge allows you to notice an invisible spirit or mage, or force another to truthfully whisper to you the answer to one question you ask about that character’s nature, powers or intentions. If your magic challenge fails against a target, you may not try again for a half hour.
SPELL OF EXECRATION
You can remove infernal spirits and taints from people, places or things. If successful, your target loses whatever powers, flaws, enchantments or curses were placed on it by a supernatural being, spirit, or wizard.
SPELL OF INVOCATION
You can call on spirits and request them either to do a specific task or give you secret knowledge. Doing simple tasks or finding out mundane information is routine, but getting spirits to use their magical powers or uncover hidden knowledge is hard. In play, the role of the spirit contacted and the magic challenge required are acted out with a game master.
SPELL OF EVOCATION
You can force hidden spirits, mages or creatures to reveal themselves to you. Such a task requires successful magic challenges against the unseen targets, who then must reveal their true appearances and locations.
SPELL OF HEALING
You can repair the damage done to injured living beings or broken objects. In play, each successful use of this power heals one level of damage; healing people or things in “feeble” condition is hard, while affecting targets in “abysmal” shape is very difficult. Other uses of this power include removing a poison, disease or fatigue from a living body (a routine challenge), or curing a mental disorder (very hard).
SPELL OF BINDING
You can trap, control, or enslave another being or spirit. After a successful magic attempt, you can order your target to stand still, move into an area of your choosing, follow you someplace, or just avoid contacting or acting against a specific person. In any case, this power can only be attempted against each target once per day.
SPELL OF ILLUSION
You can create sensations that seem believable but actually only exist in your targets’ minds. Sight, hearing, smell, taste and feeling can all be fooled. If successful with a magic challenge, your target must act as if the scene you describe is accurate. Although your illusion cannot do damage, others who must ignore reality could get hurt by what they don’t see; for example, a target that “sees” a normal floor could walk into a hidden pit and get hurt by falling. This power may only be used against each target once per hour.
SPELL OF WARDING
You can protect yourself or others from harm. If this power is used on yourself or a specific target, opponents must win an additional magic challenge before attempting a harmful action against whatever the ward protects. If this power is used on a specific place, others not named at the moment the ward is created will be unable to enter or cross the warded area unless they win a magic challenge. Each opponent only gets one chance per day to break through such warding unless the magic wears off or is somehow canceled.
SPELL OF CURSING
You can inflict ill on others, causing injury, blindness, deafness, sickness, or madness. After winning a magic challenge, your target loses one health level, the use on one sense (sight, hearing, balance, or so forth), one rating level in a specific ability (strength, magic, dexterity), or else suffers a new character flaw or the worsening of an existing flaw. This power can only be attempted against each specific target once per hour.
SPELL OF ENCHANTMENT
You can detect or “broadcast” feelings or thoughts to those around you; put a suggestion or command into another’s mind; create or remove memories; or cause sleep, confusion or madness. Each of these uses of requires a successful magic challenge. This power can only be attempted against each specific target once per hour.
TECHNOMAGICAL POWERS
These abilities are used by technomancers, memetic engineers, industrial shamans and other agents of the Technocracy who have had eldritch circuitry and arcane formulae hardwired into their bodies and minds. All of these effects require the use of special floppy disks used to focus the user’s power; different disks are required for different powers.
For powers that require more than one magic user, characters with any sort of magic rating can assist, regardless of their spirit natures.
Damage caused by these powers lasts until healed, but all other effects each last for only 10 minutes. Unless noted otherwise, powers may be “renewed” for 10 minutes before the original 10-minute duration has expired. The effect’s duration is “re-set” to 10 minutes; you cannot use a power six times in a row and say the effect lasts an hour.
Technomagic may be used anywhere, at any time, without fear of “paradox backlash” unless done in front of a group of mortal humans who could not accept the noticeable effect as an ordinary, believable event. No power works if witnesses were to think the result would be “impossible.” Technomancer must always find rational explanations for the wizardry they do.
CREATE ANTI-ENTROPIC FIELD OF PROTECTION
You can protect yourself or others from harm. If this power is used on yourself or a specific target, opponents must win an additional magic challenge before attempting a harmful action against whatever the field protects. If this power is used on a specific place, others not named at the moment the field is created will be unable to enter or cross the protected area unless they win a magic challenge. Each opponent only gets one chance per day to break through such protection unless the magic wears off or is somehow canceled.
REQUIRES: YOURSELF, ONE OTHER MAGIC USER, AND BOTH THE ALPHA AND BETA DISKS.
CORRECT PARADOX
You can remove supernatural spirits and taints from people, places or things. If successful, your target loses whatever powers, flaws, enchantments or curses were placed on it by a supernatural being, spirit, or wizard. This power cannot strip natural magical abilities from another being.
REQUIRES: YOURSELF AND THE DELTA DISK.
EXTRINSIC EVOCATION
You can force hidden spirits, mages or creatures to reveal themselves to you. Such a task requires successful magic challenges against the unseen targets, who then must reveal their true appearances and locations.
REQUIRES: YOURSELF AND BOTH THE DELTA AND GAMMA DISKS.
EXTRINSIC BINDING
You can trap, control or enslave a supernatural being or spirit. After a successful magic attempt, you can order your target to stand still, move into an area of your chosing, follow you someplace, or just avoid contacting or acting against a specific person. You can only attempt this power against a specific target once every 60 minutes, and even successful commands last no longer than 10 minutes. Targets with the spirit trait of “mortal” are immune to this power.
REQUIRES: YOURSELF AND THE EPSILON AND ALPHA DISKS.
SUMMON MEDIA ELEMENTAL
You can call on spirits of pure information to give you secret knowledge. Finding out mundane information is routine, but getting spirits to uncover hidden knowledge is hard. In play, write down one question on a piece of paper and give it to a game master; proof of having this power also may be required. The game master will write down an answer which you can retrieve after a minimum 10-minute-long waiting period.
REQUIRES: YOURSELF AND ANY TWO OF THE FOLLOWING DISKS: ALPHA, BETA, OR GAMMA.
TELEPATHIC UNION
You can detect or “broadcast” feelings or thoughts to those around you; put a suggestion or command into another’s mind; create or remove memories; or cause sleep, confusion or madness. Each of these uses of requires a successful magic challenge. This power can only be attempted against each specific target once per hour.
REQUIRES: YOURSELF, ONE OTHER MAGIC USER, AND BOTH THE DELTA AND THETA DISKS.
EXTRINSIC BANASHING
With this special power, you can expel a supernatural legion not native of Earth to return to its plane of origin. In play, any planar legion occupying a zone on the Earth map is removed. No magic challenge is required, but only one banishing of this sort can be successfully done every 10 minutes, regardless of who or what was bannished from Earth. Unlike your other powers with limited durations, any legion bannished with this power remains out of play for good (although other legions might get summoned as replacements). This power has no effect on individual supernatural beings or spirits (other player characters).
REQUIRES: YOURSELF, FOUR OTHER MAGIC USERS, AND ANY FIVE OF THE FOLLOWING DISKS: ALPHA, BETA, DELTA, GAMMA, EPSILON, THETA, OMEGA.
IMMORTAL POWERS
These immortal powers are used by beings native of the outer planes. Because Earth is governed by different physical laws, none of these powers will work in the presence of mortals. An effect called “paradox backlash” prevents magic outside the belief system of local creatures. On modern Earth, people believe much more in the power of technology than the power of the supernatural. As a result, the “impossible” really is impossible.
Damage caused by these powers lasts until healed but all other effects last only 10 minutes. Unless noted otherwise, powers may be “renewed” for 10 minutes before the original 10-minute duration has expired. The duration is “reset” to 10 minutes; you cannot use a power six times in a row and say the effect lasts an hour.
OMNISCIENCE
You can see things hidden to others, including the past and the future. A successful magic challenge allows you to notice an invisible spirit or mage, or force another to truthfully whisper to you the answer to one question you ask about that character’s nature, powers or intentions. If your magic challenge fails against a target, you may not try again for a half hour.
COMMAND SPIRITS
You can call on spirits and request them either to do a specific task or give you secret knowledge. Doing simple tasks or finding out mundane information is routine, but getting spirits to use their magical powers or uncover hidden knowledge is hard. In play, the role of the spirit contacted and the magic challenge required are acted out with a game master.
REVEAL SPIRITS
You can force hidden spirits, mages or creatures to reveal themselves to you. Such a task requires successful magic challenges against the unseen targets, who then must reveal their true appearances and locations.
RESTORE GRACE
You can repair the damage done to injured living beings or broken objects. In play, each successful use of this power heals one level of damage; healing people or things in “feeble” condition is hard, while affecting targets in “abysmal” shape is very difficult. Other uses of this power include removing a poison, disease or fatigue from a living body (a routine challenge)or curing a mental disorder (very hard).
CREATE WARD OF DENIAL
You can protect yourself or others from harm. If this power is used on yourself or a specific target, opponents must win an additional magic challenge before attempting a harmful action against whatever the ward protects. If this power is used on a specific place, others not named at the moment the ward is created will be unable to enter or cross the warded area unless they win a magic challenge. Each opponent only gets one chance per day to break through such warding unless the magic wears off or is somehow canceled.
MANIFEST DISPLEASURE
You can inflict ill on others, causing injury, blindness, deafness, sickness or madness. After winning a magic challenge, your target losses one health level, the use on one sense (sight, hearing, balance, or so forth), one rating level in a specific ability (strength, magic, dexterity), or else suffers a new character flaw or the worsening of an existing flaw. This power can only be attempted against each specific target once per hour.
MANIPULATE DESIRES
You can detect or “broadcast” feelings or thoughts to those around you; put a suggestion or command into another’s mind; create or remove memories; or cause sleep, confusion or madness. Each of these uses of requires a successful magic challenge. This power can only be attempted against each specific target once per hour.
TOKEN OF HOMECOMING
You may take small objects (human-size or smaller) and teleport them to your home plane. Props and other such objects must be turned in to a game master, who removes the items from play. Such objects remain on your home plane as long as you want; to retrieve them back to Earth, you must win two simple magic challenges against a game master. You may only attempt to retrieve such items once every 10 minutes.
CALL FORTH THE LEGIONS
With this special power, you can bring a legion of warriors from the outer planes to Earth – a major violation of the laws of paradox. You cannot do this alone; at least two magical beings with similar spirit traits must agree to your call, and a game master must be informed when this power is attempted. The following guide shows which spirit traits can help in summoning from which outer planes:
- Mount Celestia: benevolent, charitable, compassionate, faithful, focused, loyal, methodical, orderly, righteous, vigilant
- The Beastlands: bestial, benevolent, compassionate, faithful, feral, instinctive, loyal, natural, savage, wild
- Arborea: benevolent, charitable, compassionate, creative, dynamic, faithful, impulsive, loyal, passionate, turbulent
- Limbo: absurd, bizarre, changing, creative, dynamic, impulsive, mutating, passionate, shifting, turbulent
- The Abyss: dynamic, greedy, impulsive, jealous, lustful, malevolent, mutating, selfish, turbulent, vicious
- Carceri: — (no legions may be summoned from this prison plane)
- Baator: focused, greedy, jealous, lustful, malevolent, methodical, orderly, ruthless, selfish, vicious
- Mechanus: austere, calculating, focused, logical, methodical, orderly, patterned, rational, systematic, unemotional
For example, a mortal with the spirit trait “dynamic” could help summon a legion from Arborea, Limbo or the Abyss. Immortals can only summon legions from their own plane of origin, but they can help other immortals in a summoning if they have the correct spirit traits; thus modron of Mechanus could help a Celestial aasimon or a baatezu.
No magical challenge is required to summon a legion, but only one summoning may be made into Earth every 10 minutes, regardless of where the legion come from. (Thus, no more than six legions may appear on Earth in any given hour.)