Hocus Pocus

The supernatural world is rooted in the material world. Two pieces that once fit together are forever connected, and this applies to mystic connections as much as to material ones.

Your magic traditions requires props, power words and dramatic gestures. Powders, solutions, salves, burnt pieces of tortoise shell; all these are important to you and help you focus your magical abilities. Scrolls, tablets, fetishes and talismans all make good props. Rote numbers, arcane poetry, secret names or other giberish makes good incantations. Gestures can be dancing or simple hand movements, but they are certainly impossible if you are cramped or bound.

A techno-mage can depend on machinery, drugs or gadgets instead. Incantations become technobabble, formulas or the strange sounds made by your gadgets. Gestures are the movements required to operate the machines.

Generally, this is but a small hindrance. You keep your sorcerous kit with you at all times, and even if it takes up a large chunk to renew these components, it will seldom be a problem during play. Speaking and gesturing is no problem. But sometimes, it will be a major hassle. Your kit can be taken from you, shot to bits, get destroyed by water or otherwise unuseable. You can be grappled, gagged, magically silenced or otherwised shut up. And occasionally, the gamemaster will require you to make a montage of how you perform some magical song-and-dance number or go out of your way to pick five different flowers on a short midsummer night.