
Codex
Search across origins, spells, items, perks, roles, influences, and NPCs.
274 results
A conduit for raw mystical and cosmic energies flowing through reality fractures. Spellcraft is as natural as breath—and just as dangerous when unstable.
Trained under Samara's scholarly orders at the Arcane Sanctuary. You catalog futures, decrypt Aspect lore, and treat secrets as both weapon and burden.
You map rift biomes that rewrite themselves overnight. Your charts save caravans—and occasionally redraw fate.
Guardian of the Crystal Canopy and other living rift biomes. You read forests that grow through starship wrecks and calm beasts warped by the Bleed.
Attuned · Shaping
The target's body grows whatever the local reality is demanding of it. Gills, cloud-treading soles, a heat shell, night-adapted eyes, or a sealed vacuum layer — the target gains one feature that lets them survive an environment which would otherwise kill them. Inside a rift biome the GM may rule the environment changes faster than the carapace can keep up.
Attuned · Concord Heart
You whisper each target's own worst doubts back at them. Choose up to three creatures within range; each becomes Impaired for the duration. This is the mirror of Bless, and the two cancel each other out on any creature caught by both.
Attuned · Infinite Strategy
The seams of the world resolve into visible scar tissue. For the duration you see every dimensional tear, rift seam, and Bleed convergence within 60ft as clearly as you would see a crack in a wall, along with a rough sense of how old and how stable each one is. Prolonged use gives most casters a headache and some of them opinions about the Fracture.
Attuned · Starstep
You teach a creature's body to read the local physics before it commits to a step. For the duration the target ignores rough terrain, inverted gravity, and shifting-surface hazards inside a rift biome, and gains Edge on Athletics Skill Tests made to cross unstable ground. Dimensional Wanderers find this spell mildly insulting.
Attuned · Concord Heart
Motes of warm light settle on your allies like slow snow. Choose up to three creatures within range. For the duration, each of them upshifts 1 on attack Skill Tests. The effect is obvious to anyone watching, which makes it a poor choice when you are trying not to look like a spellcaster.
Attuned · Synergy
You copy the shape of one ally's training and press it into another. Choose two willing creatures within range. For the duration the second creature counts as Specialized in one Skill the first is Specialized in. The lender feels the absence and suffers Snag on that Skill while the spell lasts.
Attuned · Shaping
You wear someone else's outline for a while. Your appearance, voice and scent become those of any creature of your size you have seen, and you gain Edge on Deception and Infiltration Skill Tests to pass as them. Anyone who knows the original well may make a DIF 15 Awareness Skill Test to notice something is wrong. Touching you gives it away immediately.
Attuned · Concord Heart
You lean on a stranger's better nature until it gives. One creature within range that is not currently fighting you becomes Mesmerized for the duration. The spell ends early if you or your allies harm them. When it ends the target knows exactly what you did to them, and reacts accordingly.
Attuned · Unbroken Spark
A narrow lance of rift-fire, the first attack spell most Arcane Channelers ever land. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against a target within range. On a success, you deal 1 Fire damage. On a Critical Success the lance punches through and you may make a second Attack Test against one creature directly behind the first.
Attuned · Concord Heart
You close a wound with a press of your hand and a steady thought. The target creature Heals 2 damage, or 3 on a Critical Success. This spell does nothing for creatures that do not heal, such as most Living Machines — use Patch Chassis for those.
Attuned · Infinite Strategy
You widen your senses until enchantment reads as colour. For the duration you are aware of every magical effect, item, and residue within range, even through thin barriers. A DIF 10 Spellcasting Skill Test identifies the School of any single effect you sense; DIF 15 identifies its Tier as well. Lead, running water, and active rift static all block it.
Attuned · Starstep
Falling bodies slow as though the air had turned to syrup. Choose up to five falling creatures within range; for the duration they descend at 60ft per round and take no damage on landing. Casting Feather Fall is a Free action, which is the entire point of it.
Attuned · Unbroken Spark
You flick a mote of fire off your fingertips. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against a target within range. On a success, you deal 1 Fire damage. On a Critical Success, any flammable object the target is carrying or wearing catches light and burns until someone spends a Standard action putting it out.
Attuned · Sparkcraft
You pull a thread of Arcane Flux out of the ambient field and snap it. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against a target within range. On a success, you deal 1 Energy damage. If you are holding an Arcane Flux Cell or standing in a rift biome, you gain Edge on the Attack Test.
Attuned · Silence
You take a memory out of a creature and it does not come back. Touch a willing, Asleep or Stunned creature and remove up to five minutes of their memory. They will not notice the gap unless something later depends on it. The caster loses a memory of the same length in exchange, chosen by the GM and never announced in advance.
Attuned · Infinite Strategy
Prismatic Lumen detonates in a soundless white bloom. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against every creature in a 15ft radius. Each target you hit is Blinded until the end of your next turn. It deals no damage at all, which makes it the Vanguard's preferred opener when they want prisoners rather than bodies.
Attuned · Concord Heart
A single spoken word carries across the fight and knits flesh where it lands. The target creature Heals 1 damage. Casting Healing Word is a Free action, so you can shout it mid-charge — but the Spellcasting cost still lingers exactly as it would for any other spell.
Attuned · Concord Heart
You fill a creature with borrowed, uncomplicated courage. For the duration the target is immune to the Frightened condition, and Heals 1 damage at the start of each of your turns up to their normal Health maximum. A creature under Heroism will not willingly retreat, which is not always what their squad needs.
Attuned · Infinite Strategy
An object you touch begins to glow, shedding bright light in a 20ft radius and dim light for 20ft beyond that. You choose the colour. If you target an object held or worn by an unwilling creature, make a Spellcasting Attack Test first. Casting it again ends the previous Light.
Attuned · Starstep
The ground seems to offer itself up a little faster under the target's feet. Each of the target creature's Movement Rates increases by 10ft for the duration. Casting it on the whole squad before a rift crossing is the single most common use of an Attuned working in the Vanguard.
Attuned · Infinite Strategy
A spectral hand appears and does what you would do if your arm were ten paces long. As a Free action once per round you can move the hand up to 30ft and use it to open an unlocked door, retrieve an item, pull a lever, or carry up to 10 pounds. It cannot attack, activate a magic item, or exert more force than one hand comfortably could.
Attuned · Unbroken Spark
Two darts of pure force leave your hand and simply arrive. No Spellcasting Attack Test is made and the darts cannot miss. Each dart deals 1 Energy damage; send both at one creature or split them between two you can see. Cover and Evasion are irrelevant, but the darts cannot find a target you cannot see.
Attuned · Sparkcraft
Two edges of a broken thing remember they used to touch. Repair a single break or tear no larger than a foot across — a snapped strap, a cracked housing, a torn map. It leaves no seam. It cannot restore something that has been destroyed outright, and it will not repair a Living Machine's injuries; that is what Patch Chassis is for.
Attuned · Starstep
You dissolve into silver mist and reform a heartbeat later somewhere better. Teleport to an unoccupied space you can see within range. Casting Misty Step is a Free action. If the space turns out to be occupied you arrive in the nearest free space instead, and the GM is entitled to make that inconvenient.
Attuned · Infinite Strategy
A mote of steady light hangs at your shoulder and always points the same way. For the duration you know the direction and rough distance to the nearest stable reality anchor or Haven city. It does not know the route, only the bearing — plenty of expeditions have walked a straight line off a floating landmass following one.
Attuned · Sparkcraft
Living alloy runs like solder under your hands and closes the gap. A Living Machine, warframe, or construct you touch Heals 2 damage. Cast on a creature of flesh it does nothing except leave a faint smell of hot metal. Most Coilworks medics learn this and Cure Wounds together and never admit which they are better at.
Attuned · Unbroken Spark
You drive a spike of fixed reality into a creature and tie them to it. For the duration the target cannot be teleported, phased, or displaced against their will, and gains Edge on any test to resist a Paradox Storm, a rift surge, or a Bleed-driven relocation. Standard issue before any rift crossing, and the first thing anyone forgets.
Attuned · Story
You sleep on a question and the story answers, obliquely. After an hour of rest you receive a symbolic vision concerning one course of action you are considering. The GM tells you whether the likely outcome is good, bad, mixed, or obscured — and gives you one image you will not understand until it happens.
Attuned · Silence
Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against one Living Machine, construct or powered device within range. On a success it shuts down entirely for the duration — no actions, no movement, no powered abilities. Sparkcrafters consider this closer to assault than to spellcraft, and the law in most Haven cities agrees with them. Each casting leaves the caster unable to feel warmth in their hands until the next dawn.
Attuned · Starstep
A pale blue beam draws frost across everything it passes, and everything it passes slows down. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against a target within range. On a success, you deal 1 Cold damage and every one of the target's Movement Rates drops by 10ft until the start of your next turn.
Attuned · Story
Objects remember whose hands they have been in. Touch one and make a Spellcasting Skill Test: DIF 10 to learn its last owner and how it changed hands, DIF 15 for its origin, DIF 20 for the most significant thing it has witnessed. Relics forged in the Fracture answer readily and at length, and nobody has yet found a reliable way to make them stop.
Attuned · Concord Heart
You mark a creature as something the fight should flow around. Any creature that tries to attack the target must first succeed at a DIF 15 Smarts Skill Test or lose that attack and be unable to target them again this round. Area effects still catch them. The spell ends the instant the warded creature attacks, casts a harmful spell, or damages anyone.
Attuned · Sparkcraft
Broken machinery remembers being whole, and will complain about it. Touch a damaged or inert device and make a DIF 10 Spellcasting Skill Test. On a success it conveys, in impressions rather than words, what it was for, what broke it, and roughly when. Astran living alloy is far more talkative than ordinary equipment.
Attuned · Synergy
Two or three allies agree, briefly, to be one target. Choose up to three willing creatures within range. For the duration, damage dealt to any of them is divided as evenly as possible among all of them, rounding in the victim's favour. It turns one lethal hit into three survivable ones — and one small hit into three.
Attuned · Unbroken Spark
A pane of hardened force snaps into being at the edge of your vision. You gain a +3 bonus to Evasion until the start of your next turn. Casting Shield is a Free action, but you may only do so once per scene — after that it costs a Standard action like any other spell.
Attuned · Starstep
Lightning arcs from your palm the moment you make contact. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against a creature within Reach, gaining Edge if the target is wearing metal armour or is a Living Machine. On a success, you deal 1 Electric damage and the target cannot take a Move action on its next turn.
Attuned · Concord Heart
A drift of soporific glitter settles over a patch of the battlefield. Every creature in a 20ft radius with 2 or fewer Health remaining falls Asleep. A sleeper woken by damage, loud noise, or an adjacent creature's Standard action is immune to this spell for the rest of the scene. Creatures that do not sleep are unaffected.
Attuned · Sparkcraft
You bind a pilot to their machine until the two stop arguing about which is which. A willing creature and a vehicle, warframe or construct they are operating share senses for the duration. The pilot gains Edge on all Technology and Driving Skill Tests involving that machine, and knows its damage and power reserves as though they were their own body's.
Attuned · Concord Heart
Speech from the wrong side of a fracture arrives scrambled; this unscrambles it. For the duration you understand and are understood by any creature within range, including ones whose language never existed in your reality. It does not help with Memory Echoes, who only ever repeat what they said the first time.
Attuned · Unbroken Spark
A wall of hard sound rolls out from you. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against every creature in a 15ft cube originating from your space. Each target you hit takes 1 Thunder damage and is pushed 10ft away from you; on a Critical Success they are also knocked Prone. Unsecured objects in the area are shoved along with them, and the boom is audible 300ft away.
Attuned · Unbroken Spark
The Cross-Realm Vanguard's field ward, taught to every recruit who can hold a working at all. Choose up to two creatures within range; each gains a +2 bonus to Toughness for the duration. The ward glows in the caster's own colour, which is how squads tell whose ward failed after the fact.
Attuned · Shaping
Wings unfold from the target's back — insect, feathered, or panelled alloy, depending entirely on who cast it. The target gains a 30ft Aerial movement for the duration. Living Machines grow thruster vanes instead, which are louder and, by universal agreement, considerably more fun.
Adept · Sparkcraft
The signature working of Sparkcraft. A machine you touch wakes up and discovers it has opinions. A vehicle, construct or device gains temporary consciousness and a personality of the GM's devising. It acts on your turn as an ally with d8 in the Skills its function implies, follows reasonable instructions, and argues with unreasonable ones. When the spell ends it goes back to being an object — mostly.
Adept · Infinite Strategy
The signature working of the Infinite Strategy. The battlefield resolves into a living tactical map only you can see. For the duration you know the position of every creature within range even through cover, are aware of traps, hidden doors and structural weak points, and any ally you spend a Free action directing gains Edge on their next attack Skill Test. You cannot be surprised while it holds.
Adept · Sparkcraft
Living alloy unfolds into something the frame did not previously have. A willing Living Machine or construct you touch grows one armament or tool of your joint choosing: a blade dealing 2 damage, a 60ft Aerial thruster, a cutting torch, or a sealed environment shell. It reabsorbs when the spell ends, and the frame remembers the shape a little better each time.
Adept · Concord Heart
The signature working of the Concord Heart. You draw a ring of light around your squad and it holds. Up to five willing creatures within range are bonded for the duration: each gains a +1 bonus to Toughness, is immune to Frightened, and may spend a Free action to share one sense with another member of the circle. If any member would be reduced to 0 Health, another member within range may choose to take that damage instead.
Adept · Synergy
You give a machine a safe throat for magic to pass through. For the duration a willing Living Machine, warframe or device you touch may carry your spells: you may cast anything you have Mastered as though you were standing in the machine's space, using its line of sight. Forcing a spell through a machine without this bridge damages both.
Adept · Sparkcraft
You fold ambient Essence into something with wheels, or wings, or worse. A vehicle appears in an unoccupied space within range, large enough for you and five others to travel comfortably. It drives itself with a d10 Driving Skill and has Ground and Aerial movement of 60ft. Its shape is whatever the caster imagines — Vanguard couriers intend something inconspicuous and almost never manage it.
Adept · Infinite Strategy
You interrupt a spell in the half-second it is still only an intention. When a creature within range you can see begins casting a spell, cast this as a Free action and make an opposed Spellcasting Skill Test against them. If you win, their spell fails and they still pay its full cost. You pay yours either way.
Adept · Unbroken Spark
You hang a single refusal over a creature's head and leave it there. The first time the target would become Defeated during the duration, they instead drop to 1 Health and the spell ends. It also cancels any one effect that would defeat them outright without damage. One ward at a time — recasting replaces the old one.
Adept · Starstep
You step through a door that was not there and will not be there again. Teleport yourself, plus one willing creature within Reach, to any point within range that you can see or can accurately describe. If the destination is occupied, both of you arrive in the nearest free space and each take 1 damage from the rebound.
Adept · Infinite Strategy
You find the seam in someone else's working and pull the thread. Choose one magical effect within range and make a Spellcasting Skill Test: DIF 10 against an Attuned effect, DIF 15 against an Adept effect, DIF 20 against an Ascendant one. On a success the effect ends. On a Critical Success you also learn who cast it.
Adept · Story
You call up someone who is no longer available and ask them to help anyway. A translucent echo of a hero associated with this place appears in an unoccupied space within range. It fights on your side with d8 in its signature Skills and 4 Health, cannot leave the area, and will speak of nothing but its own story. When it falls, it thanks you.
Adept · Silence
A whip of Null Reach unmaking cracks out from your hand and takes something with it. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against a target within range. On a success you deal 2 Entropy damage, and the target cannot Heal by any means until the end of your next turn. Using this spell more than once in a scene tends to get a caster reported, and each use dulls one of the caster's own senses for an hour.
Adept · Concord Heart
Every creature in the cone sees the thing they least want to see. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against each creature in a 30ft cone. Each target you hit becomes Frightened of you for the duration and must use its Move action to get further away from you if it can. A target that ends its turn with no line of sight to you may make a DIF 15 Smarts Skill Test to shake it off.
Adept · Unbroken Spark
A bead of ignition streaks to a point you choose and blooms. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against every creature in a 20ft radius of that point. Each target you hit takes 2 Fire damage; targets you miss take 1 anyway. The fire spreads around corners and lights anything flammable that is not being worn or carried.
Adept · Sparkcraft
You force every power cell in range past its tolerance at once. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against one Living Machine, warframe, powered weapon, or flux-bearing device within range. On a success it takes 2 Energy damage and cannot use any powered ability until the end of your next turn. Against a creature of flesh carrying no tech, the spell does nothing at all.
Adept · Starstep
The target simply stops needing the ground. They gain an Aerial movement of 60ft for the duration and can hover in place without effort. If the spell ends while the target is airborne they fall, which is why experienced casters pair this with Feather Fall before anything ambitious.
Adept · Starstep
You crease the intervening ground and step over the fold. You and up to five willing creatures within 30ft travel instantly to any point within a mile that at least one of you has seen with your own eyes. The route matters, not the destination: if the straight line between here and there crosses an active rift, the spell fails and everyone takes 1 damage.
Adept · Shaping
You argue with a creature's scale and win. Choose to enlarge or reduce a willing creature within range by one Size category. Enlarged, they deal 1 additional damage with melee attacks, gain Edge on Strength Skill Tests, and suffer Snag on Infiltration. Reduced, they gain Edge on Infiltration and a +2 bonus to Evasion, suffer Snag on Strength Skill Tests, and deal 1 less melee damage to a minimum of 0.
Adept · Infinite Strategy
A lance of hard light hits and then clings, outlining its target in glare. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against a target within range. On a success, you deal 1 Radiant damage and the target sheds dim light until the end of your next turn — every attack Skill Test made against them before then gains Edge.
Adept · Starstep
Time loosens its grip on one creature. For the duration the target doubles all Movement Rates, gains a +2 bonus to Evasion, and may take one additional Standard action on each of their turns. When the spell ends the target is Impaired until the end of their next turn as the crash catches up with them.
Adept · Concord Heart
You seize the pathways between a mind and its body and pinch them shut. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against one humanoid creature within range. On a success, the target is Stunned for the duration. At the end of each of its turns the target may make a DIF 15 Strength Skill Test to end the effect early.
Adept · Infinite Strategy
The target stops returning light. They gain the Invisible condition for the duration, along with anything they are carrying or wearing. The spell ends the moment the target attacks, casts a spell, or damages another creature — so it buys an approach, not a whole fight.
Adept · Starstep
A bar of white lightning leaves you in a straight line and does not curve for anybody. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against every creature in a 100ft long, 5ft wide line originating from you. Each target you hit takes 2 Electric damage. Living Machines and creatures in metal armour suffer Snag on any test to avoid it.
Adept · Synergy
You braid your working into your allies' attacks so that they land as one thing. Choose up to three willing allies within range who have not yet acted this round. Each immediately makes one attack against a single target of your choice as a Free action. If two or more of them hit, the target takes 1 additional damage and is knocked Prone.
Adept · Story
You coax a place into replaying what it has already survived. Make a Spellcasting Skill Test: DIF 10 for something that happened within a day, DIF 15 within a month, DIF 20 within a year, DIF 25 before the Fracture. On a success, translucent figures act out the chosen event in the area. They cannot be interacted with, and hostile Memory Echoes may notice they are being watched.
Adept · Silence
You open a small, careful hole in the local magical field. Every creature inside a 20ft radius of a point you choose suffers Snag on all Spellcasting Skill Tests and cannot cast Ascendant spells at all. Your own casting is affected exactly as much as anyone else's, which is why most casters set this down and then walk out of it.
Adept · Story
You fold thirty seconds of a creature's timeline back onto itself. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against one creature within range. On a success, on its next turn the target must repeat exactly the action it took on its previous turn, targeting the same space — even if that action now makes no sense or hits nothing at all. It is fully aware this is happening and cannot stop it.
Adept · Unbroken Spark
Crystal grown out of a rift seam shatters outward in a hail of edged light. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against up to four creatures within range and within 30ft of each other. Each target you hit takes 1 Energy damage, and one target of your choice takes 2 instead. The shards leave a scatter of prism dust that makes Bleedsight and Detect Magic useless in the area for a scene.
Adept · Unbroken Spark
A thin shell of counter-resonance forms over the target's skin. Choose one damage type — Fire, Cold, Electric, Acid, Thunder, or Energy. For the duration, the target reduces all damage of that type by 1, to a minimum of 0. Choosing correctly before a fight is worth more than almost any attack spell you could have cast instead.
Adept · Infinite Strategy
You brace a failing patch of physics the way a medic braces a broken leg. Choose a 30ft cube within range; for the duration, local laws inside it hold steady — gravity points down, fire burns, and Bleed effects are suspended. Creatures inside gain Edge on tests to resist Paradox Storms. It does not close the tear underneath, and everyone can feel it straining.
Adept · Concord Heart
You catch someone on the wrong side of the line and pull, hard. A creature that became Defeated within the last minute loses the Defeated condition and returns with 1 Health. It does not restore lost limbs, undo what caused the defeat, or work on a creature whose body is destroyed. Most casters can only bear to do this once a day.
Adept · Synergy
A cord of braided reality runs from your hand to an ally and holds them in this world. For the duration the target cannot be pulled into the Null Reach, banished, phased out, or teleported by any effect you do not permit. As a Free action once per round you may reel them 15ft toward you, which has saved more Bleed Cartographers than any weapon.
Adept · Unbroken Spark
Three ribbons of fire leave your hand on separate paths. Make a separate Spellcasting Attack Test for each ray; aim all three at one creature or spread them across up to three targets within range. Each ray that hits deals 1 Fire damage. Against a single target this is the most reliable damage an Adept can buy.
Adept · Silence
You cut the line between two people and watch it fall. Choose two creatures within range who share a bond, a Synergy working, or any Concord Heart effect. The connection ends immediately and cannot be re-established for the rest of the scene, and both creatures are Impaired for 3 rounds from the shock of the absence. The caster forgets the name of someone they love until the scene ends.
Adept · Unbroken Spark
A painfully loud ringing tone builds at a point you choose and then breaks. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against every creature in a 10ft radius. Each target you hit takes 1 Thunder damage and is Deafened until the end of your next turn. Objects made of crystal, glass, or metal take double damage, which makes this the standard answer to a sealed viewport.
Adept · Starstep
The air around your targets thickens into something closer to deep water. Choose up to three creatures within range. For the duration each is Impaired, halves all Movement Rates, and may take either a Standard action or a Move action on their turn but not both.
Adept · Shaping
You draw diffuse Lumen energy into a temporary bio-enhancement lattice around a willing creature. For the duration the target gains a +2 bonus to Toughness and Evasion, upshifts 1 on Strength and Speed Skill Tests, and their unarmed attacks deal 1 Energy damage. When it ends they are Impaired for a round as the lattice unwinds.
Adept · Starstep
The signature working of the Starstep. You become a streak of golden light and arrive having already done the work. Move up to 60ft in a line, ignoring rough terrain and any attack of opportunity, and make a Spellcasting Attack Test against every creature whose space you pass through. Each target you hit takes 2 damage. You must finish in an unoccupied space; if you cannot, you stop at the last free one.
Adept · Concord Heart
You tie your fate to an ally's with a thread of light that stays visible between you. The target gains a +1 bonus to Toughness and Evasion, and each time they take damage you take 1 of it yourself, wherever you are. The spell ends if either of you becomes Defeated or if you move more than 60ft apart.
Ascendant · Starstep
One bolt leaves your hand and then goes looking for company. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against a primary target within range; on a hit it takes 3 Electric damage. The bolt then arcs to up to three more creatures within 30ft of the first, and you make a separate Attack Test against each for 2 Electric damage. It will not arc to a creature you designate as an ally.
Ascendant · Unbroken Spark
A blast of absolute cold leaves you and everything in front of you stops moving. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against every creature in a 60ft cone. Each target you hit takes 2 Cold damage and has all Movement Rates halved until the end of your next turn. A creature reduced to 0 Health by this spell freezes solid where it stands.
Ascendant · Unbroken Spark
A thin green ray touches a thing and that thing stops having been. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against one creature or object within range. On a success you deal 3 Energy damage; a creature reduced to 0 Health by this spell is destroyed utterly, leaving only fine grey dust and requiring Ascendant magic to restore. It annihilates a 10ft cube of non-magical matter outright and will remove a Wall of Force.
Ascendant · Concord Heart
You take the controls of another mind and drive. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against one humanoid within range. On a success you may issue commands on your turn as a Free action and the target obeys, including commands that put them in danger. An order to do something obviously suicidal or violently against their nature grants a DIF 15 Smarts Skill Test to break free, as does taking damage. Concord Heart teachers include this spell only to explain why it is not to be used.
Ascendant · Synergy
All four Aspects settle on one creature at once, which is not what they were meant for. For the duration the target upshifts 1 on every Strength, Speed, Smarts, and Social Skill Test, and may take one additional Standard action each turn. When the spell ends the target is Impaired for the rest of the scene and cannot be the target of this spell again for a day.
Ascendant · Shaping
The signature working of Shaping. You take the form your strongest ideal has been waiting for. For the duration you gain a +3 bonus to Toughness and Evasion, upshift 1 on all Skill Tests tied to your highest Essence, gain a 60ft Aerial movement, and deal 1 additional damage with every attack. The form is unique to you and visibly reflects your personality. When it ends you are Impaired until the end of the scene, and stay a little changed.
Ascendant · Infinite Strategy
The target begins living a half-second ahead of everyone else. For the duration they gain Edge on every Skill Test they make, all attack Skill Tests against them suffer Snag, and they cannot be surprised. This is the single most expensive hour a caster can give an ally, and it is almost always worth it.
Ascendant · Sparkcraft
You do not animate a machine. You give it a life. A construct, warframe or vehicle you touch permanently becomes a Living Machine: a person, with its own memories forming from this moment, its own wants, and the standing of any other citizen of a Haven city. This cannot be reversed and the new spark cannot be commanded. Every Sparkcrafter is taught the ritual and most are taught to refuse it — a spark made to serve a purpose will eventually ask what it wants instead.
Ascendant · Synergy
The signature working of Synergy, and the highest magic the Nexus formally recognises. Four willing creatures within range who between them cover all four Essences combine into a single entity of the table's joint design — a combining warframe, a rainbow-lit weapon, a walking fortress. The entity uses the best Essence Score, Skill Rank and Movement Rate among its participants, has their combined Health, and acts on the earliest initiative. If any participant is unwilling, or tries to dominate the others, the spell collapses and every participant takes 2 damage.
Ascendant · Unbroken Spark
A faintly shimmering sphere forms around you at a radius of 10ft. For the duration, any Attuned or Adept spell cast from outside the globe that would affect anything inside it simply fails, and its caster still pays the cost. Ascendant spells pass through unhindered, and nothing stops a creature from walking in and hitting you.
Ascendant · Concord Heart
You pour a surgeon's decade of work into a single second. The target creature returns to their full Health and loses the Blinded, Deafened, Impaired, Poisoned, and Stunned conditions. It does not restore a creature that is already Defeated — Revivify handles that, and only just.
Ascendant · Silence
You take away who someone is and leave the shape standing. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against one creature within range. On a success they forget their own name, allegiances and attachments for the duration, lose the benefit of all Perks and Specializations, and follow the last clear instruction anyone gave them. Some casters have not been able to give it back. The caster permanently forgets their own first name for a year and a day.
Ascendant · Story
The signature working of Story. You call on a tale the target is already inside. Name a heroic deed associated with them — their own, or one they are descended from. For the duration they gain Edge on every Skill Test that echoes that deed, may reroll one failed test each round, and cannot be Frightened. The more widely the story is believed, the stronger it runs; a legend nobody remembers grants only the Edge.
Ascendant · Silence
The signature working of Silence, and the reason the school is proscribed. Within a 60ft radius of a point you choose, Essence simply stops: every ongoing spell ends, machines shut down, transformations and heroic forms fail, and every creature inside loses their emotional bonds and is Impaired for the duration. Nothing can be cast inside the area, including by you. Every casting permanently removes something from the caster — a memory, a taste, a face — chosen by the GM and not returned.
Ascendant · Shaping
You rewrite what a creature is, from the bones outward. One creature within range becomes a beast of your choosing whose Health does not exceed their own. They keep their mind and Social Essence but adopt the beast's physical statistics, Movement Rates, and natural attacks, and can cast no spells. An unwilling target may resist with a DIF 15 Strength Skill Test. If the new form is reduced to 0 Health the spell ends and they revert, carrying the damage over.
Ascendant · Synergy
The reason the Ascendant tier is taught at all. Choose one dimensional tear within range and make a Spellcasting Skill Test: DIF 15 for a hairline seam, DIF 20 for an open tear, DIF 25 for a Bleed convergence, DIF 30 for a Null Reach breach. On a success the tear closes permanently and everything that came through it stays on this side. On a failure the tear widens by half and something notices you tried.
Ascendant · Synergy
A spike of crystallised law drives itself into the ground and the world around it agrees to behave. For the duration a 100ft radius becomes a stable nexus point: no rift may open inside it, Bleed effects and Paradox Storms are held off entirely, and every creature within Heals 1 damage per hour of rest. Haven cities are built on permanent versions of this. Destroying the anchor ends the spell immediately.
Ascendant · Starstep
You and up to eight willing creatures within Reach vanish and step out somewhere else entirely. Make a Spellcasting Skill Test: DIF 5 for a place you know intimately, DIF 15 for one you have visited once, DIF 25 for a place you have only had described to you. On a failure you arrive somewhere unintended but survivable, at the GM's discretion — and in the Nexus, that discretion covers other realities.
Ascendant · Starstep
You take three turns in a row while the world holds its breath. Everything except you stops entirely; you may move and act freely and no time passes for anyone else. The effect ends immediately if you damage another creature or affect anything being worn or carried by one. Casting this near an active Paradox Storm is how the storms usually start.
Ascendant · Story
You reach sideways to a version of the target who made different choices, and graft their training over the top. For the duration the target gains three Specializations of their choice in Skills they already have Ranks in, and Edge on any test where knowing the road not taken would help. When it ends they keep a clear and unwelcome memory of the life they did not lead.
Ascendant · Infinite Strategy
You strip every layer of pretence off the world within 120ft of the target. For the duration they see Invisible creatures plainly, see through every illusion and disguise as the thing it is hiding, perceive the true form of any shapechanged creature, and can see into adjacent dimensions through a rift seam. It is exhausting to look at anything for that long.
Ascendant · Unbroken Spark
The signature working of the Unbroken Spark, and the reason the school is trusted with a wall at all. Raise a barrier of crimson Essence up to 30ft long and 15ft high anywhere within range. Allies behind it gain a +4 bonus to Toughness and Evasion against anything crossing it, and the barrier absorbs the first 10 damage aimed at it each round before it can be breached. You must stay within range and take no Move action, or it falls.
Ascendant · Silence
You point at something that should not still exist and correct the record. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against one Memory Echo, paradox construct, Entropy Beast, or creature displaced from a collapsed timeline. On a success it is destroyed outright with no test allowed. Against anything native to this reality the spell deals 2 Entropy damage and nothing else. The caster loses all memory of the thing they unmade.
Ascendant · Silence
You borrow, very briefly, the attention of something enormous in the Null Reach. Make a Spellcasting Attack Test against every creature in a 30ft radius within range. Each target you hit takes 3 Entropy damage and is Frightened until the end of your next turn. Every creature in the area, including you and your allies, sees the same thing looking back — and the GM is entitled to decide it remembers your face.
Ascendant · Starstep
You stop treating the merged realities as one place and step between the layers on purpose. You and up to five willing creatures within Reach travel to any location in any reality currently touching the Nexus. Make a Spellcasting Skill Test: DIF 15 for a reality you have walked before, DIF 25 for one you have only read about, DIF 30 for the Null Reach. On a failure you arrive somewhere adjacent, and finding the way back is the adventure.
Ascendant · Unbroken Spark
An invisible plane of force settles into place and refuses to be reasoned with. Create a flat wall up to 60ft long and 20ft high, or a 20ft diameter dome, anywhere within range. Nothing physical passes through it in either direction and it cannot be damaged. Only Dispel Magic or a Disintegrate will remove it.
You bond with animals and chimeric rift-beasts that wander overlapping biomes.
You walk the edges of stable havens and report what the Bleed is doing tonight.
Equipment · Weapon· Homebrew
A long-hafted rift lance built for holding a corridor. Its reach lets you strike before anything closes.
Equipment · Tool· Homebrew
Hybrid first-aid kit with nano-sutures and soothing harmony salves for flesh and chassis alike.
Equipment · Tool· Homebrew
A sapphire datapad that cross-indexes local lore with Aspect archives; gain Edge on one Culture check per scene.
Equipment · Weapon· Homebrew
A high-frequency energy sword that flickers between dimensions mid-swing. Ignores the first 1 point of damage reduction from armour.
Equipment · Vehicle· Homebrew
Authorization crystal for a short-range phase skiff capable of skipping thin rift layers for one travel scene.
Equipment · Weapon· Homebrew
Standard-issue ranged plasma rifle effective against organic, mechanical, and spectral threats.
Equipment · Tool· Homebrew
Points toward the nearest stable dimensional anchor—or the nearest active tear, if you flip the dial.
Equipment · Weapon· Homebrew
A two-handed breaker bar reforged from hull plate. Slow, ugly, and extremely convincing.
Equipment · Weapon· Homebrew
A folding utility blade that every haven quartermaster hands out without asking questions.
Equipment · Weapon· Homebrew
A compact slug pistol. Reliable in any physics set you are likely to survive.
Equipment · Weapon· Homebrew
Grid-diffusion gauntlets that let unarmed strikes deal Energy damage and briefly light your path.
Equipment · Armor· Homebrew
Light boots threaded with Stella's speed-runes; increase ground movement by 10 ft while worn.
Equipment · Armor· Homebrew
A living-alloy buckler linked to Strength Aspect lore; once per scene, ignore the first critical hit against you.
Magic Item · Consumable· Homebrew
A self-replenishing crystal that can power either a spell focus or a plasma weapon for one scene.
Magic Item · Relic· Homebrew
A Solica-blessed ribbon; once per day, you and one ally share Edge on a joint Skill Test.
Magic Item · Relic· Homebrew
A rose-pink focus inspired by Solica's Aspect; once per day, grant an ally Edge on a Social test.
Magic Item · Relic· Homebrew
A sealed lantern that burns with anti-entropy light; reveals Memory Echoes within 30 ft while lit.
Magic Item · Relic· Homebrew
Projects a localised forcefield. Once per scene, as a Reaction, reduce the damage from one attack by 2.
Local haven factions are more willing to share routine help and safe passage with you.
Gain Edge when identifying, activating, or carefully handling Cross-Realm Relics.
Perks
Feats and mechanical boons