Flux is the essence of soulless change. It is opposed to Law, and represents randomness. Other names are chaos and wild magic. It resists fate and Doom, giving the heroic and desperate a last chance. The change of flux does not require a steady progression; radical changes, even random changes, are possible with flux.
Flux has some very drastic and setting-altering effects, and many GMs may choose not to allow this Schtick in their campaigns - at least not to PCs.
Flux in a person is governed by Fortune, and that is the difficulty of most flux magic, though unwilling targets aware of your activity can use Dodge to resist.
Flux has some effects similar Metamagic, and is violently opposed to the principles of Law. In some magic traditions, it is associated with Time.
Flux is dangerous. Most effects are taxing, and madness is a constant danger for those who release powers beyond control, beyond comprehension. Backlash causes bouts of madness, stark raving lunacy where actions are random and inconsistent. See the Blast effect Hypnosis: Confusion for hints. This lasts as long as the GM desires, but rarely never more than a scene and often but a Sequence. Referees are urged to show mercy on those who role play this well.
Control Randomness
You can understand chaotic systems and achieve harmony with them. This lets you decide the outcome of a truly random process and, as long as something has an element of chance, you can affect that chance. The difficulty depends on the importance of chance to the situation; pure elemental chance, such as that of nuclear breakdown and the willed actions of sentient creatures are hard to control; intricate patterns and chaos-theory results are relatively simple to affect.
You can never decide what the result of a conscious decision will be, but you can decide what it will not be. This means that you can cause a skill roll to fail or make someone decide not to select a certain target or make a certain decision, but you cannot make them succeed or select a certain action. There is no such limitation on physical phenomena.
| Situation | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Elemental chaos; nuclear fallout | 15 |
| Complex randomness; city traffic | 10 |
| Simple randomness; the fall of dice | 5 |
| Consciously planned physical result: machinery | 10 |
| Intellect-influenced decision; target selection, skill roll | 15 (or skill value, if higher) |
| Conscious decision | 20 |
Disperse Effort
You can make tasks fail through a seemingly by chance; some random misfortune caused the task to simply fail. This allows you to you your Sorcery as an active or passive defense, and can also be used to defend another against any kind of task or effort, not only attacks.
Jam Machinery
This power causes machinery to fail. Guns jam, tires go flat, fuses blow and computers crash. The Outcome is the number of Sequences the machine is out. On an Outcome matching the driver's or operator's Agility it requires repair. Devices without power or moving parts, such as basic swords, are immune.
Jinx
You can disrupt the workings on any machine. The Outcome is the Impairment it suffers for the rest of the sequence. The operator must immediately make a skill roll, and on a fumble, the machine crashes.
Luck
A specialized prediction effect where you look into the future to see the most opportune way to do specific action. This costs a Magic point and gives you an extra die (similar to a Fortune die) to add to any one task decided upon when casting the spell. If conditions change a lot before you use this bonus, it is lost, so task prediction is usually best used for immediate tasks. In order for another character to get this bonus, you must somehow transmit the information. This bonus does not stack with itself or other effects that grant extra dice beyond normal Fortune dice.
Open Path
In a pattern of chaos, you can discern trends and analyze how to best adjust your actions to such situations. An example is inner-city traffic; you can find the perfect path through such a chaotic situation, or make sense of a hopeless clutter.
Invoke Chance
Spend three Magic points to add an element of flux to a task, making it more random. Whatever the result of that action, treat it as a Boxcars result, thus making it either a fumble or a critical success.
Magic Flux
This effect can either be cast on a sorcerer, and stays put with him, or used defensively when somebody is about to cast a Sorcery spell. The defensive version takes but a single shot and affects but a single spellcasting, the lasting version costs a Magicpoint and has a duration of one hour per point of Outcome. Both have a difficulty equal to the target sorcerer's Sorcery.
As long as Magic Flux is in effect, all use of sorcery causes backlash. The sorcery may well still succeed, but the caster may consider the price to high for his liking.
Wild Magic
Used together with other magics, wild magic invokes a surge of raw flux in that spell, increasing its power, but possibly changing it into uselessness.
Wild Magic has no difficulty of it's own, it is a technique used together with another sorcerous effect, including other Flux effects. Add an extra bonus dice to the casting roll, but if this flux die is open-ended, the spell is changed is some random manner. Roll a die on the table below for inspiration, but the GM is the final judge in all cases. When deciding whether a change is good or bad, use straight 50%/50% chances.
Wild Magic Backlash Table
- Randomly change target of the spell
- Exchange the spell for another of similar effect
- Exchange the spell for a totally different spell
- Add or remove area effect (diameter = Magic)
- World Flux in the area for the rest of the Sequence
- Spell works, caster goes mad (as backlash)
Wild Surge
When somebody else is about to cast a spell, you can make a defensive action with his Sorcery as your difficulty, success makes the spell he is casting Wild Magic.
Wild Zone
You can create a wild magic zone, where any magic cast inside or into the area automatically suffers Wild Magic. The zone has a diameter equal to your action result in meters. You must match the highest Fortune in the area or fail.
Wish
You create a wild flux of magic and attempt to shape it by the force of your own will. The results are spectacular but not always what you want them to be.
It costs three Magic points to even attempt a wish. You must make a short sentence explaining your wish. The GM then interprets this, depending on your Sorcery roll and how outrageous the demand is. Anything normally possible to sorcery is certainly within the scope of a wish, and outrageous effects outside the scope of the normal rules may be granted, based on the GMs whim and yourSorcery roll.
There seems to be an equalizer effect to wishes. If you have been successful and fortunate lately, wishes usually backfire. If you have been unlucky and suffered numerous setbacks lately, they often go well. This is just a tendency though, not a law.
World Flux
You can make the world around you seem to become mad: straight surfaces twist, distances change and even directions seem to reverse themselves.
Invoking World Flux costs a Magic point per sequence you want it to last. The area effected is a diameter equal to your Sorcery result. You must match the highest Fortune in the area or fail.
Any action in, through or into the area has a straight 50% chance to fail. The target simply walked in the wrong direction, or was totally confused. Some actions are enhanced, however, and succeed against all odds.
Roll an additional die. If this die comes up 1-3, the action fails. If it comes up 4 or higher, add it to the Action Result just as if it had been a Fortune die.