Wick Magic

Every nomadic wick tribe in Anaxas has a different approach to their relationship with the mona, and while even tsat wicks in cities across the Six Kingdoms have some form of written book that they pass amongst themselves like a magical heirloom, every edition is called the Spoke's Almanac. The contents of a Yellow Eye's Almanac may differ in style and tone from a Red Crow's, but the general aim is the same: an Almanac is for wicks what a grimoire is to a galdor, only far more casual in nature.

The wick approach to magic is not at all academic. Wicks view the mona as a necessary part of existence and tend to approach it in a much more organic and natural way. Their conversations are casual chats—in fact, instead of the galdori word "conversation," wicks often call casting spells a chat or chatting.

Many Almanacs carry on the tradition of having this blunt and to-the-point inscription behind the cover. "This tome holds the many secrets of the nomadic peoples of Anaxas. Look ye no further if ye seek to betray us."

The spells listed in this Almanac are for wick use only. They are not officially sanctioned by any court or published anywhere in Anaxas; they are the accumulated knowledge of the wick people.

In addition to spells, there are other things written within the pages of the Almanac that do not have any actual magical content, but can be learned in the same way that magic is learned - with patience and potential. These nonmagical spells are called Tricks. The spells and tricks are divided into levels of proficiency just as the galdori spells are, with Beginning being a relatively basic incantation, Proficient being intermediate, Expert reaching closer to full potential, and Master representing the highest level of skill.

Wick magic is weaker than galdori magic, even at its strongest point, but there are rumors of wicks and black market spells that can nearly rival a galdor's abilities.

For Character Creation

All wick characters can choose to begin with the Magic (Spoke's Almanac) at Beginner or the Tricks (Spoke's Almanac) at Beginner. If they wish to, they can also begin with both at Beginner.

You will gain the ability to cast more powerful spells as you progress in your studying of the Spoke's Almanac, as you search for different Almanacs by different tribes, or by finding a more advanced wick teacher, building your narrative use of these skills through role-playing.

Spells

The spells listed below are just guidelines—literal examples of the kinds of magic that wicks perform and spells passed down from generation to generation. Just like galdori, each wick has their own unique approach to their relationship with the mona, but, unlike galdori, this relationship is much more casual, almost organic and freeform. While a galdor would be offended at just how much a wick takes the mona for granted, calling them feral perhaps, a wick is raised to feel a natural connection to the mona that a galdor would struggle to understand. Each tribe may word their spells differently, with a signature style, and each family may pass down an Almanac with new spells or variations. Any wick can attempt their own magic as well as learn to write their own original spells, but overall, wick magic is inherently less powerful than any galdor spell.

Note: About "Push" and "Pull" The most basic spell at any level is a Push/Pull spell. This spell has a variety of uses in everyday life. It is a single syllable, and therefore convenient to cast. Its function is movement; in its raw form it can be used to move objects from place to place. As a wick progresses in skill and understanding, the spell can be used for increasingly complex movements. Wicks have the ability to use Push and Pull, but its function is limited even at Mastery in comparison to galdori.

Beginner Magic Examples

Fix: You can heal a small cut or bruise.
Lamp: Makes a small ball of light, works as a candle.
Dark: Puts out any one light source.
Matches: Can start a fire. This fire will go out soon without fuel.
Gust: Creates a gust of wind that can put someone off balance.
Balance: Steadies you on a perilous edge.
Lift: A minor levitation spell.
Shroud: While remaining still, you become about the same color as your environment, and pretty difficult to spot.
Ghost Sounds: Makes a few noises of your choice. They could be a voice (of your choice) calling, or footsteps.
Wild Lights: Basic illusions. Wild, uncontrolled fake images dance in the air.
Sparks: Creates a lot of white-hot sparks in the air; can be used to set fires or signal a friend.
Push/Pull: Move objects. The movements are not sophisticated, but you can perform more complex pushes and pulls as you advance in level. This is a modified version of the galdori spell, and it works similarly.
Purify: A spell used to make water good to drink. It filters out harmful minerals and impurities by bringing them to the surface and whisking them away.

Intermediate Magic Examples

Big Fix: Heals a sprained wrist, a broken bone, or even a pretty bad wound.
Green: A good spell for encouraging plants to grow.
Wind: More powerful than Gust. Can knock someone completely over.
Cloak: You become transparent, and quite difficult to spot if you don't move. If you do, the spell is broken.
Blind: You blow dust at a target, temporarily blinding them.
Deafen: The target's ability to hear is heavily muffled, as if they wore big earplugs. Lasts a few minutes.
Trip: Create an invisible stone or wire intended to trip someone. After one person trips, it vanishes.
Woozy: The target is made dizzy and tired.
Illusion: Much more solid illusions than Wild Lights. Illusions of people appear to be real people, and the things that are formed seem quite realistic. If the illusions are touched, however, they dissipate. The illusions cannot speak. This spell is difficult and requires a lengthy incantation.
Blue: Gathers water from the surrounding air. At Proficient it is only really good for getting a drink, but at Expert or even Mastery it is more powerful.
See: You can use some rudimentary techniques for scrying, such as aquamancy and incaustomancy. Your visions are less accurate on the whole than the galdori, but it can be a useful skill.

Master Magic Examples

Major Fix: You can heal a person who has been mauled by a hatcher, even if their insides aren't on the insides anymore.
Feather Fall: You fall as if moving through water, not taking any damage for landing.
Panorama Extremis: Your illusions are incredible, and lifelike. Everyone thinks they are probably real. You can even trick the mind into thinking that they are really touching them. These illusions can move and speak, but cannot withstand damage.
Ghost: You are completely unseen while not moving. You can move with the spell on, but people will see your outline moving, with the background reflected through you.
Blackout: Create total darkness around you for a few minutes.
Slumber: Makes a target sleepy; can result in sleep lasting a few hours.
Root: Roots a target to the ground for a few moments, giving you precious time to run!
Din: Creates an EXTREMELY loud noise, deafening your opponents for a few minutes. Also affects you and anyone else around you. "I think they heard you in Roannah!"
Vodundun: Creates a link between a doll of the caster's creation, and the target. The doll must be completed with an item previously belonging to the target, such as a piece of hair, part of their clothing, a camera spectra picture of the target, or so on. Once completed, stabbing the doll will cause pain in the area attacked, burning will cause pain across the target's skin, and so on until the doll is destroyed. Conversely, resting the doll in a peaceful place can bring peace to the person's life. Note: Ripping the doll apart will not rip the person apart. Vodundun cannot cause straight death. However, causing the person to trip at just the right moment... A wick should use their imagination carefully, as backlash can occur.

Mastery Wick Magic

At Mastery level, many wicks are capable of casting spells from memory, having access to the entire Almanac in their mind. Their field is much more noticeable, but still will never entirely rival the weight of a well-practiced galdor. Those who choose to actually study can cast lower level galdori spells, should they ever manage to get their hands on such things. Many Master wicks become hermits or shamans, isolating themselves to pursue their magical studies in a more spiritual, connected way with the mona.

On Fortune Telling and Prediction

While many wicks claim to be fortune tellers, reading palms and using cards or bones, the Vitan hard truth is that the future is unseeable. Most wicks are, instead, very good at reading their customers, often using magic to read thoughts or emotions and direct the "telling."

Tricks

Please note that these tricks involve no magical ability whatsoever. They're simply various cultural tricks of the trade for nomadic and tsat wicks alike, but as such, some are more closely guarded or unique than others. These are all just references; feel free to make up some of your own!

Humans and passives who lived with wicks might know these tricks and can request from a moderator to begin with this as a Magic (Spoke's Tricks) Focus Skill instead of ever taking an actual magic skill. Please note that even without taking these as a specific Focus Skill, many of these skills overlap with an Aptitude Skill (Mental, Physical or Social) or other Professional Skill (such as a Performer, a Thief, or a Healer of some kind), and are thus purely for role play flavor and enjoyment in the game.

Beginner Tricks

Basic Card Trick: You can find a card in the deck that someone picked. Usually.
Cups Game: With a bit of trickery, you always make the ball be under the cup you want. Good for making money!
Magic Sleeves: You can pop little objects, smaller than your hand, out of thin air with the use of a special wrist piece that is worn under the sleeves. Usually, these objects are simply cards or coins, but an inventive and careful person might be able to slip something as large as a thin knife there...
Pickpocket (basic): With a good distraction, you can usually lift something from someone's pocket, and get away before they can tell who did it.
Chicken Snatcher!: Easy. Tie a string through a piece of corn. When the target nibbles it down, just lead the hen away on the string. A wick has to keep themselves fed, you know!
Lockpicking (basic): Any catch, or latch system you can pry open with a simple hook mechanism. Usually, you can slide it through the break in the door frame.
Ventriloquism: Where'd that voice come from?!
______ out of a Hat: Your hat is really neat. Plus it has a secret compartment. (Requires a hat.)
Dodge: You have a good chance of getting out of the way when something comes at you.

Intermediate Tricks

Minor Levitation: Using the power of your very mind (yeah, right), you can make a small object, perhaps a little bigger than your hand, float.
Pickpocket (intermediate): After "accidentally" bumping into someone, you can lift something out of their pocket pretty quickly. Better get moving afterward, though.
Lockpick (intermediate): With these new tools, locks on most homes can be opened, given you have enough time to work, and that no one is looking in your direction.
Sidestep: Quickly move out of the way of an advancing target, up to five feet away. To the untrained eye, it looks like magic.
Smoke Bomb: You know how to compress the right amount of flash powder into a small ball, that can cover you during quick escapes.
Vanishing Act: Not only can you make things appear in your hands, as with Magic Sleeves, but you are now adept at making things disappear into thin air (while misdirecting the viewer, and secretly dropping the object somewhere on your person)
Acrobatics: Wick-taught agility. A wick knows how to get out of trouble when they get into it, and frequently that involves leaping things, ducking behind cover, or rolling around obstacles. You are balanced and likely to land on your feet. And wow, it sure looks cool!
Gunshot: Create a realistic-sounding gunshot noise with your mouth. Everyone will ask how you do it.
Medic!: You can heal many wounds without magic, using available resources.

Master Tricks

Pickpocket (Expert): You are so good at lifting things off of other people that they are liable to forget they possessed the item in the first place.
Lockpick (Expert): The set of tools you have was hard to come by, but it paid off. Locks and tumblers are like building blocks to you, and given enough time, nearly any door will open to your asking.
Pyrotechnics: The secrets of chemically induced fires are yours, and given a fuse, you can set off an explosion that is sure to distract people from what's really going on... and probably cause some property damage on the side.
Acrobatic Perfection: You always land on your feet, and you could probably barrel-roll over a person if you caught them off guard. Master of your own balance, you can back flip without thinking twice, and you can dance like a God.
Stamina: Years of performing at ceremonies and street corners have paid off. You can keep going, and going, and going, and going...
Frazzle the Mind: Given enough time, ingenuity, and props, you can perform great feats of stage magic, such as levitating people, making very large objects vanish, and other feats! Just remember that this is stage magic, and there has to be an actual way of doing this without mona. You simply can't levitate yourself out of a jam... unless of course you happen to be in the middle of your trick when the Seventen come running, and your pals are ready to pull on the winches to fly you out of there.
Surgeon: You are adept at healing without magic and can mend most wounds without uttering a syllable of Monite.

Mastery in Tricks

At Mastery level, a wick or witch can choose one Signature Trick that is a stylized variation of any of the above tricks or something completely original and within reason. That trick is largely successful, and everyone knows that individual for their unique Trick. They also have a Mastery over all of the other tricks.

Scrying

Wicks can use all of the scrying methods available to galdori, though wick visions tend to be shorter and less accurate. A wick at or above Intermediate level will be able to scry successfully, though weaker wicks might attempt it with limited success. Scrying as a form of long-distance communication is not unheard of among wicks, and skilled wick scryers are under the employ of Silas Hawke himself as Bad Brothers, sometimes even intercepting galdori Clairvoyant communications.

See Clairvoyant Conversation for further details on scrying. Please do not hesitate to ask a moderator for help deciding your wick's limitations when attempting to scry.