Crunch adapted from Clinton’s book with original additions, some original fluff.
When Maldor reigned supreme, a great magical working was attempted by wizards of utmost skill. Magical sight was utilized to reveal the underlying structure of the world. This new mysticism that partook of other magics of the age was called Three-Corner, for it unified mind to body with spirit. Emperor Absolon sponsored a great academy of magic for the research and teaching of this superior art. A great three-cornered fortress was erected in a secret place on the western hills to house the Three-Corner Academy. Cultural Inspection units were sent to trawl the world for secrets. At its zenith the Three-Corner Academy taught a clarified magical philosophy based on the dual triangles of Night and Day. Many highest officers of the court were drawn from the Academy, and ThreeCorner magic spread to far reaches of Near. Today the Academy is lost, but the magic itself survives in the courts of Maldor. Knowledge of the Three-Corner arts is feared and respected among the commoners and foreign peoples who know little difference between hucksters, witches and magical philosophers. Many wizards have taken to the roads in the hope of improving their lot in various ways.
Students of the Three-Corner way learn magical FOCI, methods for unlocking the mind and seeing the world-that-is. There are six foci divided into two triangles, the Day and the Night. Like so:
| DAY TRIANGLE | NIGHT TRIANGLE | |
|---|---|---|
| Vigor | Creation | Destruction |
| Instinct | Enhancement | Transformation |
| Reason | Divination | Enthrallment |
Of the two triangles the Day triangle was considered the more benign in the Academy, and the Night triangle was only taught to Day adepts who could handle the responsibility. Now, with the school scattered and third-generation knowledge being passed around, much of the structure has been lost. The Night foci are today the more common arts, even as they are considered evil magic (as opposed to just dangerous) in a manner that was unknown in the past.
Each of the Three-Corner foci is an Ability that is learned separately. They hardly come naturally to humans, so a player can only write a focus on the character sheet if the character has had schooling in the art. This is surprisingly common in Maldor among all social classes, as many arcanists were reduced into village wise men after the Year of Shadow. Elsewhere it’s mostly learned sages who know of the foci, as well as the occasional traveler. As a rule of thumb, if the players decide to give a character access to Three-Corner based on his background, he would usually know one or both of the triangles, not just one or two Abilities at random – understanding comes at once for each triangle.
| Creation (V) |
|---|
| CREATION is to bring matter into being. The character can create a small amount – a handful or so – of a basic element (fire, earth, water, air) out of nothing. |
| Destruction (V) |
| DESTRUCTION is to make matter disperse. The character can erode materials he touches. How this looks like depends on the player, but it is obviously supernatural. |
| Enhancement (I) |
| ENHANCEMENT is to make things more like themselves, increasing order. The character can improve and strengthen items and people. The Ability can be used to support most anything else, but does not do anything by itself. |
| Transformation (I) |
| TRANSFORMATION is to change things into something else, decreasing order. The character can force naturally pliable things to take on a new shape without tools or containers. |
| Divination (R) |
| DIVINATION is to reveal purpose. The character can sense magical auras in things and people, as well as see invisible things and the disposition of animals and people. |
| Enthrallment (R) |
| ENTHRALLMENT is to control purpose. The character can force another being to bend to his will. The target is well aware of the magical compulsion. |
The Three-Corner foci are normal Abilities in most respects. As pure Abilities they are pretty limited, however, and more powerful magical workings often require the wizard to combine magical Secrets in their workings. Furthermore, all Three-Corner magic has certain rules and limitations that hold true unless lifted somehow:
In actual play a magical working is often created by combining the powers of several foci and Secrets that modify their limitations. For example, a wizard who wanted to use any of the foci at distance would need to modify the basic function with the SECRET OF MAGICAL HAND.
When a wizard makes a working that requires the use of several foci, the focus Abilities are tested normally as a support chain, starting with the best Ability. All checks need to succeed for a working to be successful.
Complex Three-Corner magic usually requires the character to spend Pool points to power the magic. Discretionary costs are assigned by the player to any Pool associated with the foci used by the working.
In play we often need to figure out which foci and Secrets a character needs to activate to achieve a certain magical effect. The sensibilities of the group, often expressed by the Story Guide, are a fine guide in this. The example spells later on will provide a fine guide to the degree of fanciful freedom we’ve found optimal for fun play.
A wizard who wants to reuse the same magical working again and again will do well to consider creating a SPELL of it. Spells are cheaper and quicker to cast than free workings, but less flexible as well. For example, a wizard could make a working that dropped a big rock on his enemy; this would require the CREATION (V) focus, SECRET OF INVISIBLE HAND and the SECRET OF CREATE VOLUME. As a spell it would look like this:
| Spell of Rockfall |
|---|
| The caster points at a spot and a large rock drops on it from nowhere. The rock disappears after an hour. Requires a CREATION (V) check. |
| Cost: CREATE VOLUME: 3 VIGOR MAGICAL HAND: 1 VIGOR Total: 3+1-1= 3 VIGOR |
As can be seen, a spell gains the wizard a one Pool discount in casting cost. However, it is less flexible: the caster cannot choose the size of the rock, drop something other than a rock or otherwise modify the working when casting it as a spell.
Spells cost an Advance to learn, just like Secrets. A character can further improve the spell’s cost by spending several Advances on it, even making the spell free. In traditional academy magic the cost of a spell after discounts and assigning discretionary costs turns out as balanced as possible between the involved Pools.
Another benefit of spells is that, depending on the group’s aesthetics, they might be simpler and quicker to cast than freeform magical workings. In my games, for example, a spell is much more feasible than any other working in time-constraint situations, as the wizard has practiced this particular working many times before.
A final benefit of a spell is that a character can learn one even if he doesn’t know the different Secrets that were used in creating it. This is useful for Three-Corner dabblers or characters that want to specialize.
Three-Corner is supposed to be one of the most flexible and comprehensive magical theories in Near – to a degree of arrogance, in fact. Thus we might well presume that the Three-Corner Secrets depicted here are only a small part of the whole magical tradition. The group should definitely create new Secrets to give Three-Corner magicians the tools to do almost anything they want. Magicians can research new solutions, too, arduous as that might be.
This is not to say that all feats of magic should be equally easy. Perhaps there are some blind spots to the comprehensively bland, scientific approach Three-Corner takes to magic. The Story Guide is unlikely to allow improvisation with a system this regimented. There is no poetic mystery to Three-Corner – whether this is a flaw could be a major theme in play.
The Three-Corner Academy was never as influential on the religious and otherworldly life of Maldor as when it came to an end, scattering the masters and students alike all over the world. Now every court of any note boasts a court magician of supposedly vast power and knowledge; every village has a physician or craftsman with some small shard of the thrice-wound philosophy. Even outside Maldor proper it is rare to encounter a sage who’d fail to list the dual triangles.
Academy magic was atheistic, mystical and alchemical, convinced of its universal character and superiority of the message, which was nevertheless considered too elevated and complex for the common man. In their own mind academy tricornerists formed a secret elite of the Empire, one that was spiritually ascendant simply by the virtue of their practice. It was said that Three-Corner philosophy was the true secret, with the magic an afterthought.
Today the understanding of the thought behind the magic is considerably less certain and unified; two practitioners of the magic do not necessarily see eye to eye on even what the dual balance achieved by the Three-Corner practitioner is supposed to mean. Many tricornerists are members of the Celestial cults, unsatisfied or unknowing of the cosmology behind their own practice. When the magic is practiced by little more than hucksters and hedge magicians, it is no wonder if they mix in RITUAL MAGIC (R) practices and other ideas; everybody swears that theirs is the pure lineage of the Lost Academy, but sometimes their ideas are total opposites of each other. Maldor is a xenophobic, traumatized land. When rumors of the Shadow Cult rise, a wandering Three-Corner wizard may find himself being burnt as a witch. It is a horrible death.
The Story Guide should remember that Three-Corner magic still benefits and is limited by all the normal rules that concern all Abilities and Secrets. For example, the following points have sometimes proven elusive:
When magic is used indirectly against a target, such as by destroying the floor below him or dropping something heavy on him, he is still allowed to resist the outcome (and resulting Harm) normally, provided that he has any leverage at all. Casting the magic takes time and it is not always overwhelming, so a simple REACT (I) check to jump out of the way or even ENDURE (V) to withstand the magic’s effects is quite appropriate. Giving the wizard a gut full of steel before he finishes the spell also works.
Speaking of finishing spells, different groups imagine the practical craft of Three-Corner in different ways. The text is intentionally vague. My imagination often involves chanting, gestures and magical ingredients that are mostly glossed over as mechanical issues. Still, I’ve been known to issue penalty dice or deny usage of Three-Corner due to leverage issues when a character would have had to whip some exotic and unlikely magic up in an eye blink. My rule of thumb is that a one-focus spell takes a couple of seconds to set up, but anything more complex takes up more time, to a degree where I don’t usually allow multi-focus workings (except as spells) in split-second action sequences.
The important part is to follow the group’s expectations in this matter. If there are none, then explore what the magic feels and tastes like! Ask the player to make the calls to find out what your magic looks like.
One particular approach is to make the academic paradigms described in Keys lift their weight: what the wizard believes and strives for in his magic could influence his methods in working the magic, answering these questions.
Most SOLAR SYSTEM mechanics eschew fictional measurements. Typically we only care of dramatic measure, which is much easier to ascertain without busting out the fictional rulers to ascertain distances, volumes and such. Three-Corner magic, however, uses plenty of fictional measures, just as one would expect of a scientific magical discipline. How does one judge these matters?
My own rule of thumb is always that the Story Guide is the final arbiter of fictional measurements. When a character tries to block a cave entrance with a big magical rock, say, the Story Guide decides according to setting fidelity and dramatic coordination whether the entrance is small enough for a third magnitude CREATE VOLUME or what. Similarly, when a wizard cloaks himself with magical invisibility, it’s the Story Guide who decides when the one-hour duration of magic runs out and the spell needs to be recast.
A basic question for any Secrets that cost a lot of Pool to make something happen: what if another character conflicts the event and takes it into extended conflict? After all, the other character has a right to resist, but it also sucks to spend 10 Pool on a spell and have it do nothing.
The simple answer is that while the conflict is still on-going, the wizard’s spell has not resolved yet: the character can continue casting his spell in extended conflict, making appropriate Ability checks or even doing something else while the magic percolates (or whatever; it’s magic). The spell will only ultimately fail if the character stops casting it in the fiction or he loses the conflict (which was over the success of that spell in the first place).
If spells are cast during on-going extended conflict, the opponent might have to take a Defensive Action to cope with the new situation and change their goals to include preventing the spell, but they still get to declare opposition against the magic. It depends on the effects of the spell whether this is worthwhile for the opponent, of course.
These large magic systems are easy to use if you remember that I’m including so much material for the people who’ve played TSoY for years. The beginner tricorne wizard will get by just fine with very simple fare:
Almost any sensible magics a proper wizard would hope for can usually be created just by combining one of the focus Abilities and one Secret. For example:
Burning your foe to ash would be accomplished with DESTRUCTION (V) + MAGICAL HAND. This would cost just one VIGOR point for doing it at a distance. If you had several enemies to burn, adding MAGICAL CONTAGION would take care of them all.
Flying can be done with smart creation, but I added a GRAVITY Secret specifically because I wanted an easy and cheap way of flying about. So Transformation (I) + GRAVITY do the trick.
Charming people is done with ENTHRALLMENT (R) + GENTLE TOUCH. The latter is important, as most don’t take it very well when they are magically controlled.
As you can see, most things the wizard wants to do can be done with just one Ability and Secret, even if the bulk of the text is concerned with multi-focus workings, spells and such. There are fault-lines to this, explored by the example spells on the facing page; sometimes a wizard might create a new Secret to take care of a weakness, but when he can’t, all sorts of roundabout methods are devised by powermad sorcerers.
The players should also remember that the rules on what a given working can accomplish and what it can’t are basically as flexible as the group wants them to be. The example spells can be read with this in mind: the system is followed to the letter only where constraint and fine detail work are fun, not where they become a chore.
The Three-Corner wizard would do anything and everything he wants were it not for the prohibitive expenses in Pool. Some things are almost insanely expensive for him: these are usually the ones with magnitudes listed in the corresponding Secret.
There’s not much to be done about how expensive Three-Corner magic is in terms of experience and Pool costs. Looking at it from the player’s viewpoint, the idea is not that this is a way to amazing power; rather, it’s interesting to play with the limitations and self-perception of the wizard, and the expectations others place upon him. Often the wizard will find that he is trusted to do much greater things than anyone but the Sun Lord himself could accomplish.
| Instant Sword |
|---|
| A sword made of solid steel appears in the character’s hand. Requires SMITHING (V), CREATION (V) and TRANSFORMATION (I) checks. |
| Cost: CREATE ANYTHING: 1 VIGOR CREATE VOLUME: 2 VIGOR CRAFT: 1 INSTINCT Total: 3V+1I-1= 2 VIGOR, 1 INSTINCT |
| Be Unseen |
| The target becomes invisible to the eye. Technically, the spell works by confusing the sight of anybody looking in the caster’s direction, so it can be circumvented by using other senses than sight or overloaded by having several dozen people look for the character. Anybody looking for the character is considered a target and entitled to a RESIST (R) check. Requires an ENTHRALLMENT (R) check. |
| Cost: MAGICAL CONTAGION: 3 POOL (a group) GENTLE TOUCH: 1 REASON ALTER SENSES: 1 REASON (sight) Total: 3+1+1-1= 4 REASON |
| Fall to the Sky |
| A character the caster points at has his personal gravity reversed and starts falling upwards. The spell ends in one hour as normal. Requires a TRANSFORMATION (I) check. |
| Cost: MAGICAL HAND: 1 POOL GRAVITY: 3 INSTINCT (fall up) Total: 1+3-1= 3 INSTINCT |
| Werewolf Curse |
| The target becomes a scary, wolf-like monster until the next eclipse. Reason is reduced to one point, with the points split between Instinct and Vigor. The target’s best Ability is flipped with BESTIALITY (V), and the second-best with ENDURE (V). The target’s build and claws provide him with the SECRET OF NATURAL WEAPONS. Requires a TRANSFORMATION (I) check. |
| Cost: BEAST MORPH: 2 INSTINCT + 2 for Ability flips + 1 for the Secret MAGICAL PERSISTENCE: 6 POOL Total: 5+6-1= 10 INSTINCT |
| Wizard Tower |
| The caster creates a large keep out of local countryside and conjured matter. The keep remains for three days before crumbling. Several casters who know the spell may cooperate in casting it, sharing Pool and focal responsibilities. The keep may be defined as equipment to be utilized militarily. Requires ENGINEERING (R), (V), ENHANCEMENT (I) and CREATION TRANSFORMATION (I) checks. |
| Cost: CREATE VOLUME: 10 VIGOR CREATE ANYTHING: 3 VIGOR (granite, iron and wood) CRAFT: 1 INSTINCT MAGICAL HAND: 1 POOL MAGICAL PERSISTENCE: 3 POOL EMPOWER OTHERS: - POOL Total: 13V+1I+4-1= 12 VIGOR, 5 INSTINCT |
| Word of Gwangju |
| All who hear the word (speaker included, unless protected) forget what happened during the current scene, and do not realize that they forgot. The memory might return after a week or so, provided something reminds the victim. The word doesn’t work on large crowds; only the closest group of people hears it. Requires a SPEAK (R) check. The cost is halved for each additional committed Advance instead of being reduced by one. |
| Cost: ALTER MEMORIES: 2 REASON GENTLE TOUCH: 1 REASON MUNDANE INTERFACE: 3 REASON (DIVINATION to SPEAK) MUNDANE INTERFACE: 3 REASON (ENTHRALLMENT to SPEAK) MAGICAL CONTAGION: 3 POOL (a group) MAGICAL PERSISTENCE: 3 POOL (a week) SPELLCRAFT: 1 POOL per Advance Total: 16R/2= 8 REASON |
| Force Crush |
| A target the size of a house is first enveloped by a field of energy, then crushed by the slowly shrinking field. Characters in the field can break free with ENDURE (V). The caster has to stand on the edge of the target area when casting. Requires CREATION (V) and TRANSFORMATION (I) checks. |
| Cost: CREATE ENERGY: 2 VIGOR CREATE VOLUME: 6 VIGOR MAGICAL CUNNING: 1 POOL Total: 8V+1-1= 7 VIGOR, 1 INSTINCT |
| Singing Sword |
|---|
| A Singing Sword starts to hum when drawn, and may ultimately voice anything from horrid battlecries to beautiful ballads, depending on the skills of the wielder. It is not sentient, the voices are long-gone echoes of the past, cleverly recombined. |
| Ratings: +3 for performing sword-dances +2 for demoralizing enemies in battle +1 for musical performances. |
| Creation: Each of the three ratings is a variation of the idea of a singing sword, so the wizard-smith would have spent 2 INSTINCT on his ARTIFICE. |
| A Spell-Crystal |
| In Antiquity this sort of magic was common: the crystal holds one spell, which may be cast forth by the wielder with a Passive Ability check. In this case it is FALL TO THE SKY, cast with a REACT (I) check. |
| Imbuements: Mundane Spellcraft Fall to the Sky (I) Null-Rating (I) Cost: 1 INSTINCT per scene. 4 INSTINCT to cast the spell. |
| Creation: The crystal really has just one magical function, so the wizard-smith would spend only 2 INSTINCT on his ARTIFICE. |
| The Triangle Manteau |
| The Triangle Manteau is a wondrous cloak of legend purportedly gifted to general Kalder by Absolon himself. The cloak has several key powers, each activated with Passive Ability checks: For 2 REASON it turns the user invisible. For 2 INSTINCT it flies, spread out, carrying up to three people. For 2 VIGOR it protects the wearer from any physical harm. |
| Imbuements: 2 x Mundane Spellcraft Invisibility Spell (R) 2 x Mundane Spellcraft Flight Spell (I) 2 x Mundane Spellcraft Protection Spell (V) Null-rating (I) |
| Cost: 1 VIGOR, INSTINCT and REASON per scene. |
| Creation: There are three distinct magics in the cloak, so the wizard-smith would have spent 6 INSTINCT on his ARTIFICE. |
| Magical Hand |
|---|
| Normally, a character must touch a target to affect it with magic. With this Secret, they can affect any target they can see or have the effects of their magic occur anywhere they can see. |
| Cost: 1 point from the associated pool. |
| Magical Contagion |
| Normally, a character’s Three-Corner magic affects one target. With this Secret they can spread their magic over a group of targets by spending points from the associated pool. |
| Cost: Per magnitude: |
| 1 A team (5) |
| 3 A group (25) |
| 6 A crowd or herd (100) |
| 10 All targets in the scene. |
| Magical Persistence |
|---|
| Normally, a character’s magic can last for a maximum of one hour. With this Secret they can extend the duration by spending from the associated pool. |
| Cost: Per magnitude: |
| 1 Until the next sundown (or sunrise) |
| 3 Until next moon phase (weekly) |
| 6 Until next eclipse (monthly) |
| 10 Until next solstice (biannually) |
| Magical Cunning |
| Normally, Three-Corner magic is always primarily opposed by RESIST (R) when directed at an unwilling target. With this Secret the character can choose another Passive Ability to be used against his working. |
| Cost: 1 point from the associated Pool. |
| Magical Ritual |
| Normally, Three-Corner magical workings have to be executed and paid for in Pool all at once, without rest. With this Secret the character can stop a magical working in the middle to resume it later: pay a part of the working’s Pool cost and make at least one focus Ability check before making the latest Ability check into an Effect. The ritual can be finished later as long as the character preserves the Effect, which may then be used normally as bonus dice for the rest of the ritual. |
| Cost: the cost of creating the Effect. |
| Spellcraft |
| Spells are cheaper to cast for the character: for every Advance invested into the spell, he may halve the Pool cost of the spell (round down) instead of reducing it by one point. |
| Cost: 1 point from the associated Pool per halving. |
| Law of Effort |
| If the character does not have enough Pool for a Three-Corner working, the player can activate this Secret to roll penalty dice into the check (distributed freely to multiple checks if there are multiple foci) to reduce the Pool cost on a 1:1 basis. If a check fails, however, the character suffers a MAJOR (4) Harm from the backlash. |
| Cost: 1 point from the associated Pool. |
| Create Anything |
| The character can create any pure material he wants. “Pure” materials are simple natural or crafted, homogenous materials – not modern base elements so much as things like wood or steel or tar. Only one material may be created with one activation. |
| Cost: 1 VIGOR |
| Create Energy |
| The character can create “energy”, a massless, semi-opaque substance that releases light when disturbed. Energy does not occur in pure form naturally and cannot be mistaken for any natural substance. It is considered the ideal matter by many wizards. |
| Cost: 2 VIGOR |
| Requirement: CREATE ANYTHING |
| Energy Imbuement |
| The user of an item made of Energy can pay VIGOR to reduce any harm to the item on a 1:1 basis, forcing it to keep its form against attempts at breaking it. The light (or heat, when adjusted) released by Energy on impact causes any opponent in violent conflict to suffer a penalty die to their checks. Remember that Energy created by Three-Corner magic is not permanent. |
| Create Volume |
| The character can create large amounts of material. The material comes to existence in a simple geometric shape such as a sphere, wall or cube. |
| Cost: 1 VIGOR + extra per magnitude: |
| 1 A knapsack’s worth |
| 3 Enough to fill a pit |
| 6 A ship’s hold |
| 10 A city wall |
| Overlay Creation |
| Normally Three-Corner Creation does not work to overlay substantial resistances, only to gently displace them. This Secret allows the character’s creation to share the space with other matter. Depending on the nature and shape of the creation, this might result in impalement, explosive displacement or instant and uniform mixtures of matter. |
| Cost: 1+ the target’s RESIST (R) check in VIGOR. |
| Inner Damage |
|---|
| The character can damage a target’s Pools instead of causing physical Harm. Pool points of your choice equal to the success level of a DESTRUCTION (V) check are lost. |
| Cost: 1 VIGOR |
| Massive Damage |
| Harm caused by a DESTRUCTION (V) check is multiplied by the VIGOR spent, but only to the maximum level of MORTAL (6). |
| Cost: 2+ VIGOR |
| Crippling Damage |
| Harm caused by the character is marked AGGRAVATED,I accordingly on the Harm track. Such Harm does not shake down and cannot be healed naturally. The target also suffers an additional penalty die when the aggravated Harm causes penalties. |
| Cost: 1 VIGOR |
| Destroy Magic |
| The character can damage immaterial magical phenomena, such as Three-Corner workings of other wizards and spirits. |
| Cost: 1 VIGOR |
| Artifice |
|---|
| When using (or having an ally use) the SECRET OF CREATION, the character may assign magical traits and imbuements to the equipment. Treat the appropriate craft Ability as a necessary additional focus for the working. The character can only imbue spells and Three-Corner Secrets he knows or creates for the purpose. Unlike normal Three-Corner magic, these items are permanent, made so by the craftwork. |
| Cost: an additional 2 INSTINCT per magical function (which may be presented by several ratings, note). |
| Burst of Power |
| Another character’s activity is blessed with a blatantly supernatural power. For every blank ‘ ’ result in the Ability check overflow, roll a bonus die into the check. This goes for blanks rolled from the bonus dice as well. |
| Cost: 1 INSTINCT and 1 point from the Pool associated with the other character’s action. |
| Empower Others |
| The character can spend his Pool points on the target’s stead, following his own Pool spend caps. This works in activating Secrets, too. |
| Healing Touch |
| The character can use ENHANCEMENT (I) to heal Harm and resist diseases by quickening the natural healing process. |
| Cost: 2 INSTINCT |
| Empower Magic |
| Pool spend caps do not concern the character in this working. |
| Cost: 1 INSTINCT |
| Use Equipment |
| A piece of equipment the character is using is activated using any equipment mastery Secret. |
| Cost: 1 INSTINCT |
| Beast Morph |
|---|
| The character can mold the target life form into an animalistic creature (see chapter 27), moving their Pool scores around freely in the process. This costs two INSTINCT. In addition, each of the following costs one extra point: Double or half the target’s size Flip two Ability scores Add an animal Secret Add an Advance of BESTIALITY (V) |
| Cost: 2+ INSTINCT |
| Craft |
| The character can create craft products instantly, provided that he has the skill and the raw materials. Treat the appropriate craft Ability as a necessary additional focus for the working. |
| Cost: 1 INSTINCT per craft |
| Gravity |
| The character can negate gravity for one man-sized target for 2 INSTINCT. In addition, each of the following costs one extra point: Affect a twice as massive target. Cause extra pull equal to the target’s weight in one direction. |
| Cost: 2+ INSTINCT |
| Pool Shift |
| The character can translate the check result’s worth of the target’s Pools into another type, even taking him over his normal Pool limit. |
| Cost: 1 INSTINCT |
| Know Truth |
|---|
| The character can use ENTHRALLMENT (R) without the target realizing that they are being manipulated. |
| Cost: 1 REASON |
| See Far |
| The character can see far-away places, things and people as long as he has something to go on, such as a memory of the sight, or a sufficiently specific name. |
| Cost: REASON per magnitude: |
| 1 Beyond a wall or other obstacle |
| 3 Beyond several obstacles |
| 6 This side of the horizon |
| 10 On the same continent |
| Or, when appropriate to your campaign: |
| 6 Same cultural region |
| 10 Anywhere in Near |
| Know Capabilities |
| You learn game statistics about the target, such as their best Ability, a specific Ability, details of a spell or a current Pool size. One bit of information per REASON spent. |
| Cost: 1+ REASON |
| Mundane Interface |
| The character can replace one focus from this Three-Corner working with another Ability from the same Pool. |
| Cost: 2 REASON for a Passive Ability, 3 for any other. |
| Gentle Touch |
|---|
| The character can divine the answer to any question phrased as such. The Story Guide determines the clarity of the knowledge based on the DIVINATION (R) check. |
| Cost: 1 REASON |
| Alter Senses |
| The character can manipulate the senses of the target, making them experience illusions. |
| Cost: 1 REASON per sense |
| Alter Memories |
| The character can manipulate the memories of the target, creating new ones (potentially played out as flashback scenes) or clouding the old. |
| Cost: 2 REASON per memory. |
| Requirement: ALTER SENSES |
| Sympathetic Magic |
| If the character has at hand property or body parts that uniquely identify a given person, they will find his magic much more difficult to resist: the player can expend any bonus dice to his check as opponent penalty dice, instead. |
| Cost: 1 REASON per sense |
| Key of Mystic Paradigm |
|---|
| The character considers Three-Corner magic a vessel for personal betterment, one that leads to happiness through a Balanced lifestyle. |
| 1xp: Desist from action. |
| 2xp: Advice another successfully. |
| 5xp: Using your magic has happy consequences. |
| Buyoff: Use your magic recklessly. |
| Key of Scientific Paradigm |
|---|
| The character considers Three-Corner magic a science to be explored and used to master nature, as the practitioner learns to control and understand the six Forces that compose the world. |
| 1xp: Learn new things. |
| 2xp: Use foreign magic or a new spell. |
| 5xp: Master a situation completely. |
| Buyoff: Witness the unexplainable. |
| Key of Alchemical Paradigm |
|---|
| The character considers Three-Corner magic a set of rituals intended for aligning the internal and external worlds, providing the practitioner an elevated position in the Totality. |
| 1xp: Practice magic of any sort. |
| 2xp: Understand your life from a new viewpoint. |
| 5xp: Improve your social status. |
| Buyoff: Abandon your position. |