GURPS Magical Styles: Traditional Styles

$7.00 Save $-7

Belief Made Real

Magic in games is typically less subtle than real-world beliefs. That's fine in fantasy settings with dragons, elves, and fireball-chucking wizards. It's workable in horror stories, too, because those only look like they're set in reality . . . it's just a matter of time before evil cults, cursed tombs, and little girls with spinning heads show up to scare you. But it takes a special kind of magic to coexist peacefully with a world that could be the one outside your window – possibly for centuries or millennia.

GURPS Magical Styles: Traditional Styles is a look at magical practices inspired by historical ones. It uses the approach in GURPS Thaumatology: Magical Styles to craft five takes on magic that could be going on next door without anyone being the wiser:

• Bodily Magic reinterprets the boldest claims of traditional martial arts in terms of mana instead of chi.
• Dream Magic leaves much to the imagination – literally – by focusing on illusions that could pass for showmanship, and of course the sleeping world.
• Spoken Word Magic elaborates on the historical belief that words are power . . . which they are, even without magic.
• Theurgy is an academic art that takes a lifetime to master to the point where its effects truly matter, assuming the scholar doesn't get lost in their studies.
• The Way of the Mystic Assassin presents magic that makes staying out of sight its top priority – all the better to kill you with.

Each style comes with specialized spell lists and new spells. More important to GMs who want subtle magic in historical or modern-day campaigns, each refers liberally to real-world beliefs. And each comes with advice on how to use it . . . including thoughts on interactions with the "standard magic" of fantasy and horror wizards, for those who want a bit of everything.

Often, reality is stranger than fiction!