Magic

In addition to being monsters with shark teeth or blade hands or whatever else, in After Sundown most monstrous things have access to at least a little bit of magic. It's known by many names in many languages across the four worlds, and it's a fact of the universe that you have to be prepared for if you're hunting monsters or if you are the monsters.

The thing to keep in mind with magic in After Sundown is that it's never good magic. Magic is energy flowing from one of the three hells, and it's always evil. It might be used for a good cause, but in time the taint of evil will eventually twist even the best of intents until it begins to cause misery for the people involved.

Magical Terminology

"Now first let's get one thing straight about what's going on here."

An individual magical ability is known as a Power. Most powers are a kind of Spell that you cast to activate. Casting a spell involves you spending the action, possibly spending some power points, and possibly making a roll. Spells that involve a roll each have two different dice pools available, representing multiple paths of magical power. Some magic or other effects can alter your stats or skills from their base values, but magic is directed through your soul itself, so when casting spells you must always use your base, unaltered stats and skills. Only the permanent gains through Karma cards increase your magical prowess.

An Instant is a spell that you cast and the magic is gone as soon as the spell is resolved, even if the result remains (such as a book burned by a fire spell). An Enchantment is a spell where the magic lasts for some period of time after the spell is cast and then things go back to normal when the enchantment ends. Either some specific amount of time (such as one round), Scene (which is about up to an hour), Twilight (the next sunrise or sunset), or Permanent (it never runs out on its own).

If the target of an enchantment is killed or destroyed the enchantment ends, regardless of how much duration was remaining. Creatures cannot automatically end their own enchantments simply by willing it unless the spell says so, though they can dispel their own enchantments just like anyone else can (see "Countering Magic", below). Many self-enchantments are permanent, and for these it can be assumed that they are active at all times. The action required to cast it is only needed if you wish to re-cast the spell once it is dispelled and things are currently happening in combat time.

Instead of being an enchantment, some lasting powers are Passive. They simply have their effect at all times and can't be removed or halted. These are usually powers relating to the basic form of a thing. A vampire just doesn't age, that's the point of wanting to be a vampire. Passive powers are in some sense "stronger" than a permanent enchantment because they can't be counterspelled, but they usually have a much weaker effect in exchange. Passive powers are not subject to suppression by Sunlight, Alcohol, or Water the same way that a creature's other magic is.

Powers are grouped, roughly by theme, into Disciplines. Each power is either Basic or Advanced. When learning powers, you must know at least one Basic power within a discipline before you can learn an Advanced power within that discipline. The disciplines are themselves grouped into one of four categories based on where the energy that powers them comes from.

• Universal Disciplines copy the power source of whatever creature uses them.
• Astral Disciplines are powered by the dreams and nightmares of Maya.
• Infernal Disciplines are powered by the fires and ash of Limbo.
• Orphic Disciplines are powered by the death and blood of Mictlan.

Supernatural creatures have some inherent protection against magic with the same power source as themselves, and count as having 2 additional hits on any Resistance Test that they make against spells with the same power source as their own.

Example: Revive the Flesh is a Basic spell in the Fortitude discipline (a Universal discipline), so when cast by a Strigoi (the Orphic Vampire) it acts just like Orphic magic, and when cast by a Werewolf (the Astral Lycanthrope) it acts like Astral magic. Beast Form is a Basic spell in the Call of the Wild discipline (an Astral discipline), so it counts as Astral magic when used by either the Strigoi or the Werewolf.

Detecting Magic

"No way. No way, no how."

Sorcery and witchcraft don't normally "just happen" on their own. It requires a bit of evil knowledge and effort. That effort can be tracked by those in the know.

When a creature casts a spell, characters with the right equipment and knowhow can spot the power surge with a Dowsing Test. The dice that you roll depend on the type of magic being detected for:

• Astral: Intuition + Perception or Logic + Operations
• Infernal: Intuition + Perception or Logic + Survival
• Orphic: Intuition + Perception or Charisma + Animal Ken

Basic Powers are detectable to Way Out Range (100m), Advanced Powers or the expenditure of 3 or 4 power points at once is detectable to Extreme Range (1,000m), and the expenditure of 5 or more power points is detectable out to 300m per power point. The threshold to notice magic at normal range is 2, and you can detect out to double the normal range with a 3. Net hits on the test allow you to get a sense of direction towards the exact spot of the magic use. You usually need two net hits for a good sense of where to look, though in especially deserted or crowded areas you might need more or less.

The equipment you use to detect for magic depends on the sort of magic that you're detecting for.

Magnets

Astral Sorcery has a noticeable, if weird, affect on magnetic fields. You can track Astral Sorcery and gauge its power with a lodestone. Natural magnetite reacts more strongly than an electro-magnet for whatever reason, so experienced geomancers seriously carry a black rock on a string when they want to find dream sorcerers.

Clean Water

Clean water is pure and healthy and brings joy and solace. It is very much inimical to the magic of the Dark Reflection, which causes clear water to be come darkened momentarily as if it was tainted with soot. An experienced douser can track the strength and direction of the use of Infernal sorcery by the darkness, apparent direction, and persistence of the image of taint in otherwise clear water.

Flowers

Orphic Sorcery is bad for you. Like polonium or something. But for big creatures it's really not something you'd notice without years of exposure, leaving the really observable effects to the very most fragile of lifeforms - those who would soon die in any case. And while one could tote around a bag full of mayflies or the like, most people in the know who want to track necromancers choose to use potted plants. A flower that blooms and dies every day is of course ideal, as it has a high responsiveness and gives good directionality.

Countering Magic

"Try this one on for size."

In addition to being able to detect for magic, you can also try to counter it. The process is not complex, at all: You just throw a pile of stuff at the source of the magic. In the case of a spell being cast you can throw it at the caster. In the case of an Enchantment on something or someone you can throw it at the enchanted target as well. Remember that Passive magic cannot be countered at all.

You spend a Simple Action throwing the correct material and make an Intuition + Rigging or Agility + Athletics test. The hits of the spell are reduced by the hits of your test. If the spell is reduced to 0 hits as it's being cast it fails to activate at all. Otherwise it still activates but with a reduced number of hits. An enchantment that is in place has its hits reduced by the result, and if the hits are reduced to 0 then the enchantment ends immediately.

Some spells do not have a dice pool that is rolled when casting them, and in this case the spell's entry gives a number of effective hits that the spell counts as having for the purposes of counterspelling. You usually don't need to write the number down until someone actually tries to dispel your magic.

If power points were spent to cast a spell they also add a buffer of additional hits that must be dispelled before the actual hits of the spell are reduced. This applies to any required power points as part of a spell's casting, but you can also add power points into a spell simply to make it harder to counter.

Counterspell materials are spoiled by evil once used, and they can't be swept up and used again or anything like that. The whole process is technically magic itself, but any Luminary can do it with a moment's explanation. You just throw a handfull of the stuff with the intent to nullify and it works. The opposing intent is a vital element though, and simply falling onto a pile of salt isn't going to disrupt all your Astral magic.

The actual material that you use to nullify magic depends on the type of magic that you're attempting to nullify. Some forms of ritual magic cannot be countered by any of these materials. The strange circumstances of their creation give them equally strange requirements for their negation. Raising a castle above the clouds, making all the skies burn, things like that.

Salt

Salt draws water into itself and preserves food. Things treated with salt remain clean and non-poisonous long after untreated objects blacken and stink with putrescence. Thrown at Astral magic it draws the wetness and poison of the sorcery into itself and dampens it.

Sand

The fires of Limbo burn ceaselessly, but they are still fires. Clean sand thrown upon them douses them - cutting off the source of wicked Infernal sorcery.

Seeds

Representing the promise of new life and the growth of great strength from humble origins, the seed is a key ritual component in practically every mortal magical tradition ever devised. And indeed, throwing it on Orphic magic results in the nullification of both.

Protean Powers

Some powers are Protean abilities: ones that change the character's form. A character who knows a protean spell can return to their real form with a Complex Action and a Power Point, ending all shape-shifting enchantments on them instantly.

Furthermore, if a character has multiple protean abilities, they may activate more than one simultaneously, and the entire transformation takes the action of the longest transformation. So if the character has two different abilities that both take a Complex Action, they may activate both as a single Complex Action.

Reading a Power Entry

The exact format of a power entry depends on the spell, but the general format is as follows:

Example Power Name

[tags]

• Dice: Stat1 + Skill1 or Stat2 + Skill2
• Effective Hits: Value One + Value Two
• Resistance: Stat + Edge
• Duration: time, Scene, Twilight, or Permanent

Action Type, pp cost: Description Text.

The spell tags (Basic or Adanced, and others such as Protean) will be given in square brackets. Powers either have you roll some number of dice to activate them or they have an effective hits entry if they're an enchantment that you don't roll dice for. Powers that target others will have a Resistance test that the target can roll. For enchantments a duration will be given. Finally, the action to cast the spell, as well as any power points required, will be given at the start of the description of what the spell does. If the spell is passive it will simply say passive instead of giving an action type.