Wyrlde uses several special scores from optional rules. These scores have equal import and should be given their just due. Each of them has an impact during the campaign – in some cases, they may be the key to solving a puzzle or surviving an encounter. Some scores are shown as Optional in the main game or come from a particular campaign. Here, on Wyrlde, they are all important scores for various events and circumstances.
Perception is an adjustment to the overall game, Sanity is an option made required, Honor is a modified option, and Mana changes how magic is done. Psyche is for Psychic abilities, Haul is an Encumbrance change, and Rage DC is a condition.
Perception (Per)
Perception is of surprising importance when trying to discern things, and any detective worth their salt is going to have a high perception.
Perception checks are used to search, identify, and more. It blends the traits of wisdom and knowledge.
Perception is used for both Passive and active purposes, and otherwise simply an acknowledgement of the importance of the skill.
Sanity (San)
Your Sanity score is used for effects related to fear, madness, dread, and terror, planar things, gods, and those things which are beyond mortal ken. This includes magic, things that are “impossible,” and things you may not have encountered before that can be overwhelming. Sanity is a key score for some, as in a world of magic, one of the greatest threats to people’s sanity is magic itself.
Madness on Wyrlde is not a mental illness. Madness does not make you insane. Insanity is a totally separate thing. This is more akin to the “seeing red” when angry, or “gloom” when depressed. It is a condition or state enforced on a person that encounters things which are psychosocially traumatic and is a form of trauma response. Wyrlde has a lot of things that are difficult for mortals to understand, things beyond their ken, and even some gods can drive the sanity right out of your head.
Sanity Checks
A Sanity Check is rare but used when encountering something that might threaten the character’s sanity that is abstract – the ideas, or trying to wrap your mind around something, or encountering a concept that is inconceivable. There is a lot on Wyrlde that does that. Sanity checks have different levels that your dungeon master will be able to identify and uses the degrees of difficulty.
Other Sanity checks:
Face the unimaginable.
Stare into the Abyss and hear it talk to you.
Craft a small or detailed object.
Sanity Saving Throws
Sanity Saves are performed whenever you run the risk of succumbing to madness due to something that is concrete – a madness effect, seeing a planar being without the form they take, or direct contact with the mind of an incredibly alien being, etc.
Madness
Resisting a madness-inducing effect usually requires a creature makes a Sanity saving throw. Those are determined in part by your score and the DM. The effects of madness may strike, however, and the specific form will be determined by a table your DM has.
Curing Madness
A calm emotions spell can suppress the effects of madness, while a lesser restoration spell can rid a character of a short-term or long-term madness. Depending on the source of the madness, remove curse or dispel madness might also prove effective. A greater restoration spell or more powerful magic is required to rid a character of indefinite madness.
Mana (Man)
Mana represents your facility with the power of magic. For spell casters, it is always the most important score, as it determines ow strong your spells are in some circumstances. Your Mana score is your Spell Attack and Spell Save. For those who don’t cast spell, it is also vital, as in many cases they may be Nulls, who have resistance.
Your Mana Score determines how much mana you can recover in a day during a long rest. Your Modifier to Mana is used for checks and rolls around the effects, uses, and application of magic, and in place of your other scores when magic is.
The entirety of Wyrlde’s magic system is shifted to a format that uses mana as the driving structure. Magic, as a result, is different in many ways from “normal” D&D. Mana is Used for Magic, and Psyche is used for Psychics.
Magic is a potent force, drawn from the interaction of The Pale with a given plane, such that all planes have some, and yet that magic is always different. Within the Ephemeral, the power of magic is called Mana, and mana is what gives a Mage their power. It is energy – drawn from the Pale itself, from the world around them, from within them, from the dedication and devotion to some task or in service to others. Mana is present within all things, living or not; everywhere, in everything, surrounding us, penetrating us, binding us, and flowing between us.
Those born with the gift of holding more of it, soaking it in, can hold and control more mana than most people; this is part of what enables them to grasp Caligulan, even before they have begun to store enough of it. Those without that gift cannot read Caligulan but are not without power. Some have a twist on that gift – they are resistant to magic.
Spell Points
Wyrlde uses a spell point base system for magic, and all people have at least a little bit of energy in them that can be called magic points, or spell points, or Mana. While the ability to store it is rare, and the skill to use it is learned, all people start out with a set amount of Mana, or spell points. For those from other worlds, Mana is much like MP for the character. You can run out of mana; you can use it up in excitement and then must wait to restore it. It is an ability, and like all abilities can be improved or limited. Mana can be stolen from another though the use of Planar devices, but not otherwise. Some attacks by creatures have an effect on Mana – for some beings, mana is food. Manic damage is damage to mana – just like hit points, it takes your mana from you.
There is a limit to how much power a person can contain, how much mana they can hold, and mana is slow to restore. A Mage’s Axiom determines the amount of mana they can gather and hold to empower spells. Most people truly have little mana – even if they don’t have the ability to use magic – and never learn to embrace or manipulate it. Mages can sense that mana within themselves, to manipulate it, to use it and play with it and fashion it into things.
Those classes which use magic focus to some degree and for differing reasons on building up the capacity to hold and regain mana. Mana comes from different places according to one’s Affinity, but the use and storage of it is built up according to one’s Axiom.
Spellcasting Ability
Everyone uses this as part of their spellcasting ability. It is rarely the only ability involved, but it has significant impact. Often, a spells effects will rely on other ability scores, such as Kno, Wis, Per, San, or Cha for aspects of how the spell functions.
Sharing Mana
Most people can share mana on a successful DC 5 constitution roll, even Nulls, but some people are cursed and unable to share mana or to find it difficult. Mana can only be shared among people with the same Affinity, regardless of the Axiom. So, a Cleric and a Shaman can share mana, but a Paladin and a Sorcerer cannot. If the subject is willing otherwise, sharing is possible.
Mana Recovery
You regain mana at a rate of your base Mana every long rest. Mana is a physically dependent characteristic, inherent in the body of the caster. No body, no spell points, no spells.
Using Mana
The number of spell points (Mana) you must spend on various feats and spells is based on the complexity of the spell, with your degree of Mastery and Profession determining how complex those spells can be. More on that in a bit, in Casting Spells.
A Mage who uses spells regularly typically only has a limited ability to hold these complex things within themselves. As they progress in skill, mastery, and knowledge, they gain a greater grasp of the glyphs, more control over the runes, and fuller power over the ciphers that they must hold within themselves as sigils.
Even though you might have enough points to cast a spell more complex than your mastery and profession allow, you cannot do so. You just don’t have the capacity yet to make the spell work or to hold that degree of complexity of Sigil in your mind while it writhes and struggles.
You cannot reduce your spell point total to less than 0.
On reaching zero spell points, you must make a constitution check or collapse, exhausted, as there is a physical toll to running out of Mana. In some cases, it could kill you to run out of mana. This acts as Exhaustion, a status effect and Condition.
Storing Mana
A lot of this means that people will often be concerned about finding ways to store mana and to be able to use that supply as needed. There are some items that can help to double your recovery speed, but there are no potions, philters, or similar devices to increase or add to your Mana. Sometimes you just need a bit of extra juice, y’know? A way to store mana on the side that you can draw from.
Those items are rare, but they do exist, and they do not require magic to create them. They are fashioned from a blue tinted metallic material called Orikal. Although it requires using mana to do it, one can store mana in an Orikal object, to an amount determined by the object based on several factors including amount and purity. For some, this is the only way they can truly access their mana.
Nulls
Nulls are people, objects, and creatures against whom magic works less well. They are not immune to it, and even have mana themselves, though they can only store a very little more of it at a time. It is this mana that allows some of them to do some unusual things, but mostly, it is this mana that acts as a kind of counter to magic. Nulls do have the ability to shape magic, but instead of doing so to create a spell, they do it reactively and instinctively in a way that enables them to resist magic. Nulls have Advantage on rolls against magical effects.
Nulls who are Adventurers go into the Professions of Gunslinger, Outlaw, Vanguard, and Warrior. These Professions do not have magical abilities.
Nulls use their Mana modifier for any saves against magical effects, and benefit from damage that is reduced by the amount of their modifier. So, for example, if a spell does 6 points of damage, and they roll a save that reduces that by half, they then apply their Modifier to reduce that damage again, possibly taking no damage. This applies to spells, and some magical effects, but not to all abilities, even if they appear to duplicate a spell like effect. This difference is identified by Spell and Inherent.
Nulls terrify most Mages.
Nulls also have a difficulty being healed by spells, but not by imbibed or ingested materials that can heal or cure illness – that reduction applies to those spells as well, but there is no roll against them.
