Magic in the Prophecy

The Prophecy or Profetien as the proper the Norwegian title, is a fantasy roleplaying game I am writing. it has focus on being an old norse and Scandinavian folk belief type of fantasy. Where I also use runestunes as part of the subsystems.

A trollpakk chieftain, on of the varied races in Vanahem that lives there with the humans. Trollpakk have been away from the surface world for well over a millenia and have newly arrived through certain cataclysmic events. And before now they have never seen humans before as the humans are not native of Vanahem.

The main engine for this game is based of  the Basic Roleplaying system, Runequest and a few design choices from Call of Cthulhu 7th ed.

One of the places I have put much effort in is the magic system, or Trolldom as it is called in the setting. And I have divided Trolldom into four different branches that are thematic for the game.

Galdr: This is the trolldom of runic vibrations. With only the users voice one can shift reality. it can be heard as a deep song and also as a massiv roar. Galdr can be quite powerful, but it is not flexible. it does only have the focussed effect its kvæði allows and there only excist so many kvæði. Most practitioners of Galdr may only have two till three kvæði but there are rumors of vættirs that have access to many types.

Galdr have two skills, Galdr and Ånde. One uses Ånde to inhale the power of Galdr, and one can do this a number of turns up to the users skill limit. Then Galdr is used to release the kvæði and see how powerful the effect is.

Gande: Is often seen as a darker form of trolldom. it is preformed using small movements and the whisper of your voice. And it is always used against someone or something. An victim may even hear the whisper even if he is far away from an audible range, as he can feel the runes of his essence begins to vibrate and shift. Ganding comes in three different skill sets.

- Cursing
- Spellbinding
- Warding

There are several skills used in Ganding. Gande is rolled to perform the trolldom, Hamingja is not rolled, but the higher it is the stronger the power of the Gand is. And then there are the three different Gande skill sets. The higher one have in each the more you unlock the versatility of Gande.

Seidr: By using their own Húg can non runeborn also manipulate the runes directly. But they do it by pulling out the power of megin from their own Lik or the sacrifice of items , the very landscape itself or others. Seidr uses binding runes as formulas to create their intended effects. Seidr is very flexible and powerful, but can leave a barren wasteland behind it and corrupt its own user if a balance between what is taken and given is not upheld.  It is the practising of Seidr that finally led to the great trolldom and vætir hunt so many decades ago. to perform Seidr one needs megin and a formula from one of the bindingrunes (Wild rune, muspel rune, nivl rune, midtgard rune, vættir rune ore the Loki rune).

The skill sets one uses are Seidr to trigger the trolldom, Húg to extract megin from the sacrifice. Also each binding rune is its own skill set and the higher they are the more complex formulas one can use.

Rún: This is a form of trolldom one can only be born with. And only in the last thirty or so years have people started to be born with the rune markings yet again, since the rain of fire. A rune born have a marking from one of the 25 runes some place on his body (the exception is the 25th rune as it is the invisible rune of nothingness). The rune born have the power of that rune within him. And uses his own storage of megin to power the trolldom.Each rune have different powers, but all are fairly powerful and very quick to use.

One only rolls for the skill Rún to use the trolldom, and the amount of megin used determin its power and effect.



So that is a little bit of what I am working with for the moment.