[37-0130] Thaumatology - Urban Magics.pdf - GURPS - sororita

Urban Magics

Written by WILLIAM H. STODDARD

Edited by JASON “PK” LEVINE and NIKOLA VRTIS

Illustrated by LARRY MCDOUGALL, SHEA RYAN, and DAN SMITH

An e23 Sourcebook for GURPS ®

STEVE JACKSON GAMES

Stock #37-0130

Version 1.0 – November 2009

C ONTENTS

I NTRODUCTION . . . .3

Publication History . . . . .3

About the Author . . . . . .3

About GURPS . . . . . . . . .3

S ACRED

A RCHITECTURE . . . .21

The Language

of Stone . . . . . . . . . .21

Placing Buildings . . . . .22

Drawing Plans . . . . . . . .22

Construction . . . . . . . . .22

Conflicting Aspects . . . . .22

Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Ornamentation . . . . . . . .23

U RBAN D IVINATION . . . .23

Agoramancy . . . . . . . . . .23

Demomancy . . . . . . . . . .24

Geomancy . . . . . . . . . . .24

Mediospicy . . . . . . . . . . .24

Numerology . . . . . . . . . .24

Electronic Voice

Phenomena . . . . . . . .24

5. T HE E NCHANTED

C ITY . . . . . . . .32

E NCHANTED

H OUSEKEEPING . . . .32

E NCHANTED

B UILDINGS . . . . . . .32

P UBLIC W ORKS . . . . . . .34

Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

Sewers and Dumps . . . .35

Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

Cities of Darknes s . . . . .35

Weather and

Climate . . . . . . . . . . .36

Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

T RAVEL AND

T RANSPORTATION . . .36

Personal Travel . . . . . . .36

Vehicular Travel . . . . . . .36

Transportation

Infrastructure . . . . . .37

Flight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

Ley Lines and Travel . . .37

Teleportation . . . . . . . . .37

Maps and

Magical Travel . . . . . .37

Enchanted Streets . . . . .38

Interdimensional

Portals . . . . . . . . . . . .38

Ley Lines and

Interdimensional

Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . .38

Cities on the Move . . . .39

W ONDERS AND

M ARVELS . . . . . . . .39

The Bronze Giant . . . . .39

The Elevator . . . . . . . . .39

The Key to the City . . . .40

The Memory House . . .40

The Spring of

Healing . . . . . . . . . . .40

M AGICALLY C REATED

B EINGS . . . . . . . . . .42

Phantasms . . . . . . . . . . .43

H AUNTED S TREETS . . . .43

Alienation . . . . . . . . . . . .43

Criminal Spirits . . . . . . .44

Disease Spirits . . . . . . . .44

Gargoyles . . . . . . . . . . . .44

Haunted Houses . . . . . .44

Lost Souls . . . . . . . . . . .45

Necropolises . . . . . . . . .45

The Spirit

of the Mob . . . . . . . .45

Urban Vampires . . . . . .46

Vermin Spirits . . . . . . . .46

Rat Kings . . . . . . . . . . . .46

1. O NTHE S TREET

OF THE

W IZARDS . . . . .4

O RGANIZING M AGIC . . . . .4

Rank in Local Guilds . . . .4

Mages’ Guilds . . . . . . . . .4

Specialists . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Schools for Sorcery . . . . .5

Magical Factories . . . . . .5

Magical Texts . . . . . . . . . .6

Magical Research

Institutes . . . . . . . . . . .6

Mafias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Street Gangs . . . . . . . . . .6

S PIRIT T RANSACTIONS . . .7

Death Will Not

Release You . . . . . . . .7

Sacrificial

Brokerages . . . . . . . . .8

Hell Money . . . . . . . . . . . .8

7. U RBAN

S ETTINGS AND

C AMPAIGNS . . .47

S CALE . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

Isolate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

Village . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

Metropolis . . . . . . . . . . .48

World-City . . . . . . . . . . . .48

L OCATION . . . . . . . . . . . .48

Basic Necessities . . . . . .48

Specialized

Resources . . . . . . . . .49

Transportation

and Trade . . . . . . . . .49

Defensibility . . . . . . . . . .49

Mana Level . . . . . . . . . .49

Built by Command . . . .50

Ruins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

H OW M UCH M AGIC ? . . .50

P LANNING THE

C AMPAIGN . . . . . . . .51

Civic Champions . . . . . .51

The Firm . . . . . . . . . . . .51

Great House . . . . . . . . . .51

Mean Streets . . . . . . . . .51

Police Procedural . . . . .51

Right-Hand Men . . . . . .52

School Days . . . . . . . . . .52

Sophisticates . . . . . . . . .52

Additional GURPS

Resources . . . . . . . . .52

4. M AGIC IN U RBAN

E NVIRONMENTS

. . . . . . . . . . .25

E NERGY S OURCES . . . . .25

Mass Magic . . . . . . . . . .25

Demurgy . . . . . . . . . . . .26

The Mechanical

Equivalent

of Magic . . . . . . . . . .26

Mana Transmission . . . .27

C ITIES AND M ANA

L EVELS . . . . . . . . . .27

Ex Machina . . . . . . . . . .27

Mana Depletion . . . . . . .28

Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

Religious Spillover . . . .28

Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . .28

Technology . . . . . . . . . . .28

Magical Defenses . . . . .29

The Urban

Landscape . . . . . . . .29

Precious Metals . . . . . . .29

Aspected Mana . . . . . . .29

M AGICAL

R ELIABILITY . . . . . .30

Enchantment and

Reliability . . . . . . . . .30

E SSENTIAL M ATTERS . . .31

Building Materials . . . .31

Essential

Economies . . . . . . . .31

New

Transformations . . .31

2. M AGICAL

P RACTITIONERS

. . . . . . . . . . . .9

T EMPLATES . . . . . . . . . . .9

Allied Tradesman . . . . . .9

Consulting Mage . . . . . .10

Criminal Mage . . . . . . . .10

Enchanted Item

Dealer . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Exorcist . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Forensic Sorcerer . . . . .12

Glamour Girl . . . . . . . . .13

Potion Seller . . . . . . . . .14

Street Wizard . . . . . . . . .14

Thaumatological

Scholar . . . . . . . . . . .15

Urban Shaman . . . . . . .16

A DVANTAGES . . . . . . . . . .16

Sacred Balance . . . . . . . .17

S KILLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

3. N EW M AGICAL

A RTS . . . . . . .18

L APIDISM . . . . . . . . . . . .18

L EY L INE S PELLS . . . . . .19

R ATPIPING . . . . . . . . . . .21

6. S UPERNATURAL

I NHABITANTS . .41

G ODS AND

S PIRIT A LLIES . . . . .41

Familiars . . . . . . . . . . . .41

Immigrant Gods . . . . . .41

Minor Gods . . . . . . . . . .41

Servitors of Gods . . . . . .42

Spirit Roads . . . . . . . . . .42

Spirits of Buildings . . . .42

Urban Faeries . . . . . . . .42

I NDEX . . . . . . . . .53

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C ONTENTS

I NTRODUCTION

Fantasy is about worlds in which magic is real. Many

accounts of those worlds depict them as rural places. The com-

mon people live in villages, the nobles in castles, and when

either of them go on quests, they travel through wildernesses.

Any cities they encounter are likely to be in ruins, inhabited

only by ferocious beasts or angry ghosts.

Despite a seeming dearth of urban settings, numerous liv-

ing cities exist: L. Frank Baum’s Emerald City, J. R. R. Tolkien’s

Minas Tirith, Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar, Terry Pratchett’s Ankh-

Morpork, China Miéville’s New Crobuzon, and many others.

These places can be just as magical as any other location in

their worlds. In some instances, they’re more so: With larger

populations and wealthier economies, they can support more

mages and more magical objects. Special magical arts and dis-

tinctive supernatural creatures may be found only in cities.

The practice of mystical arts may make the cities themselves

magical. Cities in the real world have urban legends; in fantasy

worlds, such legends may be true.

If you want to include cities in your fantasy campaign –

whether as starting points, places to visit, or the setting of the

entire campaign – GURPS Thaumatology: Urban Magics will

help you. This supplement is a collection of ideas for you to use.

Most of them include new (optional) rules. GMs can rely on

these if they’ll help the campaign, and ignore them if they don’t.

Most of this material focuses on the cities of

traditional, low-tech fantasy worlds. However,

many ideas here can work in a modern-fantasy

setting. In fact, some are specifically designed for

such a campaign or based on modern supernat-

ural beliefs, such as electronic voice phenomena

and hell money.

About GURPS

Steve Jackson Games is committed to full support of GURPS play-

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Resources include:

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for errata, updates, Q&A, and much more. To discuss GURPS with

our staff and your fellow gamers, visit our forums at

forums.sjgames.com . The GURPS Thaumatology: Urban Magics

web page is www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/urbanmagics .

Bibliographies. Many of our books have extensive bibliographies,

and we’re putting them online – with links to let you buy the

resources that interest you! Go to each book’s web page and look for

the “Bibliography” link.

Errata. Everyone makes mistakes, including us – but we do our best

to fix our errors. Up-to-date errata pages for all GURPS releases,

including this book, are available on our website – see above.

Rules and statistics in this book are specifically for the GURPS

Basic Set, Fourth Edition. Page references that begin with B refer to

that book, not this one.

P UBLICATION H ISTORY

GURPS Thaumatology: Urban Magics is a

set of footnotes to GURPS Fantasy , particularly

to its discussions of local settings in fantasy

worlds. Nearly all of the content of Urban

Magics is new. The treatment of ley lines is partly

borrowed from, and partly inspired by, the mate-

rial in GURPS Places of Mystery. The

Mechanical Equivalent of Magic is inspired by

GURPS Technomancer.

This book also relies on options from GURPS

Magic, GURPS Thaumatology, and GURPS

Thaumatology: Magical Styles.

A BOUT THE A UTHOR

William H. Stoddard is a professional copy

editor, specializing in scientific and scholarly

books. He lives in San Diego with his cohabitant

Carol, two cats, two computers, and far too many

books. His hobbies include cooking, reading sci-

ence fiction and alternate history, running and

playing in roleplaying games, doing library

research, and discussing philosophy and politics

online. His previous work for Steve Jackson

Games includes the latest edition of GURPS

Fantasy .

GURPS System Design

❚

STEVE JACKSON

Page Design

❚

PHIL REED and

JUSTIN DE WITT

Marketing Director

❚

PAUL CHAPMAN

GURPS Line Editor

❚

SEAN PUNCH

ROSS JEPSON

GURPS FAQ Maintainer

❚

Managing Editor

❚

PHILIP REED

WILL SCHOONOVER

Production Artist & Indexer

❚

–––––––

VICKY “MOLOKH” KOLENKO

❚

e23 Manager

❚

STEVEN MARSH

❚

NIKOLA VRTIS

Prepress Checker

❚

WILL SCHOONOVER

Lead Playtester: Jeff Wilson

Playtesters: Fred Brackin, Brett Evill, Mark Gellis, Martin Heidemann, William Keith, Paraj Mandrekar,

Matt Riggsby, Michael Roy, Hans-Peter Schöni, Kevin Smith, and Ben Zittere

I NTRODUCTION

Director of Sales

Art Director

O N THE S TREET

OF THE W IZARDS

By living in a city, people who have chosen the mystical

arts as their profession potentially have more people in need

of their services. Mages may be able to work as wizards full

time, even specializing in a particular kind of magic. If there

are enough mages, they may be organized or they may com-

pete for business – sometimes both. The practice of magic

may be legally regulated or self-regulated. If mages are

known to live in cities, then magically talented people may

come there looking for knowledge and training – and the

cities will have even more mages.

This chapter examines how the daily life of cities affects the

practice of magic.

O RGANIZING M AGIC

Like almost any human activity, magic has a social aspect.

Mages are seldom entirely solitary; they have other mages as

mentors, disciples, allies, or rivals. The history of cities over

the centuries provides several models for the organized prac-

tice of magic.

Merchant Rank (p. B30). Spells with long-distance modifiers

can help hold together a national or imperial guild system. Its

archmage may be anywhere from Rank 6 to 8. If such a sys-

tem of ranks is of little concern to anyone but mages, its cost

can be reduced to 1 point/level, making it a leveled perk as

discussed for Academic or Guild Rank in GURPS

Thaumatology: Magical Styles (p. 21).

In some worlds, advances in Rank may involve elaborate

rituals that confer increased knowledge and power. Perhaps

everyone starts out at Magery 0 and gains a level of Magery

with each added Rank. This combination has a total cost of 15

points per Rank. (The GM needs to be willing to cope with

Magery 8 being available!)

M AGES ’ G UILDS

Mages in historical fantasy settings, like other specialized

workers, often organize into guilds. The guild organizational

style fits several needs of the profession: passing on knowledge

and skills, maintaining professional standards, and keeping

out unlicensed practitioners.

Establishing a guild implies that mages are in business

largely to earn money. This is most likely in a world where

magic is a regular part of daily life (see Magical Reliability ,

p. 30). Such a world may look medieval, but its effective

TL is likely to be TL(3+1) or TL(3+2); see p. B513.

Although mages may be expected to step in and cast spells

when people are in trouble (just as doctors are expected to

help the sick or injured in an emergency), most of the

time, they work for paying customers. Consequently, most

mages study spells that people often want.

A mages’ guild is likely to train new members through

apprenticeships. The apprentice starts out performing

menial tasks for his mentor. When he begins casting spells,

the first one he learns is likely to be Lend Energy; this boosts

the number of spells his master can cast and thus increases

his income. As the apprentice learns other spells, his master

will have him cast the easy ones, reserving his own effort for

the more advanced ones.

Like other professional organizations, mages’ guilds

have an internal hierarchy. In some settings, mages have

enough prestige for this to be definable as a form of

Rank in Local Guilds

As a variation on Rank, the GM may choose to define

forms recognized only locally, with fewer levels. A one-city

guild, whether of wizards or weavers, might have three lev-

els: Rank 1 for a master with his own shop or practice,

Rank 2 for a syndic (a member of the guild council), and

Rank 3 for the guildmaster. (Mages could acquire Magery 1-

3 as they learn guild secrets.) For a socially influential guild,

this would confer Status in the local community in the

usual way. For a guild that totally dominates a city, local

Rank may replace Status. It’s convenient to assume that Sta-

tus within one city will be honored by other cities, at least

within the same cultural milieu, and thus the point value of

Rank and Status need not be discounted.

If a city is an independent state, with its own king, or is

the capital of an empire, this limit should not apply. The

city’s hierarchies are the hierarchies of an entire society.

O N THE S TREET OF THE W IZARDS

C HAPTER O NE

Alternatively, Rank 0 journeymen are only taught spells with-

out prerequisites. Each added Rank opens up spells with one

added prerequisite, until the Rank 8 archmages get to learn any

spell they please. (At the GM’s option, this could be defined as an

Unusual Background worth an extra 5 points per level of Rank.)

Other magic-based professions may have their own guilds.

For example, alchemists’ guilds are common in fantasy.

Ages with a similar style of instruction. Fantasy novels often

portray schools of wizardry based on this model, such as Le

Guin’s Roke, Pratchett’s Unseen University, and Rowling’s

Hogwarts. Anywhere there are enough practicing mages to

make classroom training more convenient than one-on-one

apprenticeships, such a school is likely to develop.

Some fictional schools of magic are isolated, with only stu-

dents, teachers, and servants in sight. Others are in cities of

various sizes. A large city may have enough magically gifted

youths to support a magical day school. Any size settlement

(particularly small ones) may have boarding schools for stu-

dents from distant locations.

S PECIALISTS

If magic is treated as a profession, bigger cities will support

specialized magical practices. Two different forms of special-

ization are possible.

First, there’s the mage who only knows a few spells, but in

a big city, enough people need those spells for him to make a

living from them. See the Allied Tradesman template (pp. 9-10).

Example: A mage with average attributes and Magery 1

could put 1 point into Apportation-9 and 8 points into Lighten

Burden-12. By spending 5 FP, he could reduce a load of 300 lbs.

(15¥BL) to an effective 150 lbs. (7.5¥BL) and carry it for 10

minutes. Without magical aid, an equally strong and fit man

would lose 1 FP/second with the same load.

Second, there’s the mage who has studied one college in

depth, mastering its most difficult spells. The healer can grow

back lost limbs or eyes, for example, and the elementalist can

create essential matter. Some specialists of this kind know

only spells from one college. Others know prerequisite spells

from multiple colleges – for example, a mage who can cause

or calm storms needs some air and water spells, as well as

weather spells. Usually this kind of mage will charge high fees

for his services, at least twice the standard rate, both because

he has a wider range of spells to draw on and to compensate

for all the time he spent in study. Clients who can pay his fees

are more likely to live in big cities or can afford to travel there.

Enchanters are a particularly important category of special-

ists. In the standard magic system, they have to create

enchanted items one at a time, making them the equivalent of

craftsmen. Thus, most enchanted items are costly, as much as

an excellent sword or a fine warhorse. Nonetheless, the skills

of these specialists can grant aristocrats or wealthy merchants

the benefits of spells without the study.

If a city has several mages with a particular specialization,

they may have a guild style, as discussed in GURPS

Thaumatology: Magical Styles (pp. 4-19).

She had graduated already, coming first

in English, equal first in Music, third in

Mathematics, seventh in Science, second in

Fighting Arts and fourth in Etiquette. She

had also been a runaway first in Magic, but

that wasn’t printed on the certificate.

– Garth Nix, Sabriel

Day students and boarding students may be rivals, whether

they attend two different schools or form cliques in the same

school. A small town with a large school of magic may have to

deal with “town and gown” conflicts between magically gifted

students and unmagical townsfolk. ( GURPS Banestorm:

Abydos describes a city struggling with such issues.) In a larger

city, the school may be an island of quiet retreat, or students may

be out getting a broader education from the life of the city itself.

Modern schools of magic preserve many older customs,

including lectures, seminars, and libraries filled with ancient

books. As their education progresses, students move from rote

learning in classrooms to personal apprenticeship under a

master sorcerer. They may even struggle to prove their fitness

to practice by inventing and writing new spells, much as Ph.D.

students research and write theses. Additionally, new paths to

magical knowledge may be open to them, from encyclopedic

grimoires issued by specialized publishers (see Magical Texts ,

p. 6) to online discussions of magical principles.

S CHOOLS FOR S ORCERY

Learning magic is often envisioned as resembling early styles

of classroom instruction. The teacher reads aloud from a text –

in this case a grimoire. Often this is in a dead language that the

student hasn’t fully mastered. The students memorize what the

teacher reads, and they recite it back. The teacher corrects their

recitals, answers questions about the text, and explains what it

means. The teacher may carry a rod or staff, though more as an

aid to casting spells than for punishing inattentive students.

Education exposes students to a series of standard texts.

Because of magical training, the student eventually compiles

his own grimoire.

Classroom instruction goes back to ancient Babylon, where

students learned cuneiform writing and a dead language,

Sumerian. The modern university took shape in the Middle

M AGICAL F ACTORIES

If industrial methods can be applied to magic (see Industrial

Magic on p. 67 of GURPS Fantasy for details), enchanted items

can be turned out on magical production lines at 10¥ the rate of

standard Slow and Sure enchantments. This assumes that there

is a nonhuman mana source; see Energy Sources (pp. 25-27) for

some possibilities. If the mages themselves have to provide the

energy, divide their productivity by 2.

The organization of a magical factory resembles that of

mass magic (pp. 25-26); the relationship of industrial magic to

mass magic is like that of standard enchanting to ceremonial

magic. Industrial magic may provide jobs for many people

with magical talent but limited intellect. It can also change the

nature of a society, raising its effective TL, as industrial magic

fills the stores with useful magical items.

O N THE S TREET OF THE W IZARDS

[37-0130] Thaumatology - Urban Magics.pdf

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