Iconcraft

Icons and Totems

Icons are objects or places of immense magical power; be it an eternal fireplace, an ever-filling urn, the tree of life or even a mountain. No matter the type, however, every icon has a common quality: they were created before the making of the physical world, and thus are not composed of the elements.

Practitioners of this type of magic are worshippers of their icon and they use symbolic manifestations of it to perform techniques called "rituals".

Totem

Choose an icon when you take this branch. You receive a small object representing it in return, called a totem. You can recall your totem to yourself as an action. A totem can be partially or fully destroyed, making it lose its powers. A destroyed totem magically restores itself within at most 12 hours depending on the degree of damage it suffered. Your totem can be used in a variety of ways:

  1. Your rituals originate from your totem.
  2. If you hold your totem like a weapon in either hand, you can perform a lesser variant of a ritual of your choice in a one meter radius around you by spending 2 energy per round. This ability ends if you stop holding your totem.
  3. You can tap into your icon's power through your totem as a full-turn action, halving the cost of the next ritual you perform, down to a minimum of 1 energy.

Source of Power

If you are in the vicinity of your icon, your totem stops functioning. Instead, you can receive power from your icon directly. Your rituals:

  1. originate from your icon,
  2. have double the radius,
  3. cost no energy to cast, and
  4. are considered to have 10 of both aptitudes.

Ritual Casting

Rituals of icon magic are techniques with two special properties:

  1. You can have at most one ritual active at any time, and you can stop your rituals freely.
  2. Your rituals do not affect you, and creatures carrying totems of your icon, unless specified otherwise.
  3. Areas of effect of rituals are clearly visible, and followers of the same icon can tell which ritual is currently active from the appareance of this effect.

Techniques

Affect Self

Category: Utility
Execution Time: Rapid action
Cost: 1 energy
Effect
Your currently active ritual also affects you for 3 rounds.

Extend Ritual

Category: Utility
Execution Time: Rapid action
Cost: 2 energy
Effect
You can use this technique if you are currently performing a ritual. This ritual's radius is doubled, but lasts only for (1 + C/2) rounds.

Manifest

Category: Offense
Execution Time: Full-turn action
Cost: 4 energy
Radius: (3 + C/3) meters
Duration: (1 + C/6) rounds
Effect
This technique does not require precision rolls.
Summon a shadow of your icon on your current location for the duration. Creatures starting their turns within the radius take 10 magical damage, fall prone and receive immobilized for 1 round.
Creatures carrying totems of your icon are unaffected by this technique, but rituals around these totems immediately end.

Ritual of Empowering

Category: Offense
Execution Time: Full-turn action
Cost: 6 energy
Radius: (2 + C/4) meters
Duration: 1 hour
Effect
This ritual does not require precision rolls.
Your icon strengthens the creatures within the area, granting their weapon attacks (3 + P/2) bonus damage.

Ritual of Repulsion

Category: Defense
Against: Constitution
Execution Time: Full-turn action
Cost: 6 energy
Radius: (2 + C/4) meters
Duration: 1 hour
Effect
Your icon manifests an area of banishment. Make a precision roll against any creature who end their turn within this area. If this roll succeeds, that creature is pushed (1 + P/4) meters away from the center of this area.

Ritual of Shrouding

Category: Defense
Execution Time: Full-turn action
Cost: 6 energy
Radius: (2 + C/4) meters
Duration: 1 hour
Effect
This ritual does not require precision rolls.
A shadow is cast upon the area by your icon, improving effectiveness of taking cover by one step:
1. No cover becomes quarter cover
2. Quarter covers become half cover
3. Half covers become full cover
4. Full covers break line of sight

Ritual of Silence

Category: Utility
Execution Time: Full-turn action
Cost: 6 energy
Radius: (2 + C/4) meters
Duration: 1 hour
Effect
A soundproof barrier encompassing the area is created by your icon's power. Sounds from outside cannot be heard within the radius, and sounds from within cannot be heard outside.

Ritual of Stagnation

Category: Utility
Against: Constitution
Execution Time: Full-turn action
Cost: 6 energy
Radius: (2 + C/4) meters
Duration: 1 hour
Effect
A semi-transparent fog falls upon the area around your totem, weighing down creatures within radius. Make a precision roll against any creature starting or ending their turn within this area. If this roll succeeds, the creature receives slowed and weakened defenses for 1 round.

Ritual of Unbreaking

Category: Defense
Execution Time: Full-turn action
Cost: 6 energy
Radius: (2 + C/4) meters
Duration: 1 hour
Effect
This ritual does not require precision rolls.
Objects within the radius are enhanced with your icon's magic. Creatures starting their turns within the area gain 5 temporary physical armor for 1 round, while non-living objects become twice as resistant to damage and breaking.