How to play · Chapter 10

Magic

Six kinds, who may use them, and what they cost.

Magic comes as touchstones, lanterns, potions, scrolls, wands and words. An untried find shows only its kind, not its name, and not whether it will help or harm you.

Three things tell you what one does. Use it and find out. Pay a Living Statue to name it. Or buy from a magic counter, whose goods come already identified. A living wizard senses what kind of work an untried find was made for, or that it will harm you, and never its name.

A wand spends its own charges and no mana. A scroll is used up and costs its reader half what the same page costs. A page of the book costs mana alone and is not used up. A word is spoken at a door the party has heard the monsters through, and it changes what waits behind it.

Only a reader, the wizard, the king or the hero, can use scrolls, wands, words and the book. Anyone may carry them, the refusal comes when you try to use one. Magic that fills or deepens a well of mana works only on a reader. Most touchstones fire when somebody picks one up, for good or ill.