T3

Sorcery / Limitations / Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus - Hoc et Corpus - This is my body - is the sacred mystery of transubstantiation put into words. A very powerful and very strange mystery. No wonder that people thought it could do magic.

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 tradition requires props, power words and dramatic gestures. Powders, solutions, salves, burnt pieces of tortoise shell, scrolls, tablets, fetishes and talismans; whatever you use is important to you and help you focus your magical abilities. Rote numbers, arcane poetry, secret names or other gibberish makes good incantations. Gestures can be dancing or simple hand movements, but they are certainly impossible if you are grappled or bound.

A techno-mage can depend on digital displays, taped mantras, machinery, drugs or gadgets instead. Incantations become techno babble, 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 of time to renew these components, it will seldom be a problem during play. Speaking and gesturing is ordinarily 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 unusable. You can be grappled, gagged, magically silenced or otherwise shut up. And occasionally, the game master 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.