RULEBOOK

Magic

Nobody in Soltherra throws a fireball bare-handed. Magic is physical work: you channel energy into a material object, seal it, and carry the effect until you choose to release it. The spell lives in the item. You are just the one who put it there.

How Magic Works

Magic in Soltherra has four steps, always in the same order.

  1. Prepare. Find an item made from the right material. Each of the six energy types can only be held by one material — Fire goes into iron, Force into copper, Restoration into crystal, and so on. The item has to be solid, hard, and the right substance. A lump of clay will not do.
  2. Channel. Hold the item and push energy into it. You can only channel as much energy as your Channeling gift plus your Enchant Item skill allows — that ceiling is the maximum spell level you can create. A single caster maxes out at level 10.
  3. Seal. When channeling stops, the item seals itself. Nothing more can go in. The stored energy waits — indefinitely, if needed.
  4. Release. Present the item, spend Action Points , roll your release, and the spell fires. The item is destroyed. You cannot get the energy back.

This means magical characters spend time before a fight, not during it. A Channeling-heavy character arrives with a collection of prepared items and makes choices about what to spend and when. Once the items are gone, they are gone.

Not all magic requires an item. A character with Channeling skills can produce small incidental effects — warming a room, lighting a candle, sensing someone’s mood — without any prepared material. These effects are flavor only: no damage, no bonuses, no substitute for a spell.

No roll required. The GM adjudicates what is reasonable. See Minor Itemless Magic on the Channeling page for the full list and the limits.

What Makes This System Different

Three things set Soltherra magic apart from most systems.

Preparation is the skill. The hard work happens before combat. Knowing which items to prepare, at which levels, for which enemies — that is where the tactical thinking lives. In the fight itself, you are just spending what you already made.

Items are consumable. Every sealed item is single-use. Release destroys it. This makes every spell a real decision, not a renewable resource you cycle through each encounter.

Material is identity. A character who pulls out a silver rod is about to use Electricity. Someone holding an obsidian shard is reaching for something that affects the mind. Anyone who knows the system can read what a mage is holding — which cuts both ways.

All mechanical values in the magic system — energy capacities, AP costs, explosion damage, spell effect percentages — are playtesting values. Expect them to change.

The Sub-Pages

The magic system is split across three pages. Read them in this order if you are new to it.

  • Channeling — The full prepare-channel-seal-release loop. Covers material requirements, the enchant ceiling, the release roll, Sense Magica, sealing, and minor itemless effects. Start here.
  • Spells — The spell effect catalog. Ten effects across six energy types, with tiers from level 1 to level 10. Read this to know what you are building toward.
  • Release Magic — Using the Release Magic skill to activate sealed items, and which items cannot be released.
  • Sense Magic — Reading magical items — success tiers, identifying spells, and learning spells from items.
  • Example — A narrative walk-through of the full magic flow, from buying materials to releasing a spell in combat.
  • Combat Magic — Using sealed items in a fight. AP costs, multi-round releases, interruption, and what happens when someone hits you while you are channeling a level 8 spell. (It is not good.)