Hyperborean Mice:Main Page

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The game of gritty Swords & Sorcery action... as performed by talking rodents.

The game's home page is at http://www.kizandjenn.com/hmice/

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The 7th Spell: Augment

History

Hidden in the wastes around Fashar is the secret temple of the cult of Kenshai. Though the cult's membership is largely composed of Jumping Mice, they credit the founding of their order to a forgotten White Lord named Kenshai, from whom they take their name. Supposedly he sickened of the decadence of his fellows and went into the wastes alone, where he learned to survive without food or water and achieved a transcendental existence. He taught his ways to a nearby clan of Jumping Mice and the arts of Kenshai were born.

Clan members are taught to prize inner peace, discipline, giving up worldly goods and martial skills. For most of the cult's history, it remained in hiding, fearful of the other churches, particularly the followers of Jandara, who rule most of Fashar. It has only been within the last generation that a new leader arose within the followers of Kenshai and overturned the ancient prohibitions against revealing their existence. Now acolytes are encouraged to go forth into the more civilized areas and work to spread the word of Kenshai. So far they have made little impact, but if they ever do succeed in attracting the attention of the larger churches, a pogrom is sure to follow.

Mousy Martial Arts

The most secret and prized teaching of Kenshai is the use of magic to augment their physical abilities. Their techniques are oriented around maximizing the effect of their relatively poor Magic ratings, but a Magic rating of at least +1 is required to take the Augment spell and learn the techniques associated with it.

What Augment can do

The Augment spell is primarily a way of turning magic inwards, focusing the mind on a particular task. It can boost the caster's abilities in a narrow area, so long as they continue to maintain the spell.

What Augment cannot do

This magical art cannot enable a mouse to do anything that they could not normally attempt. It could enable the caster to hold their breath longer, but not to breathe water as though it were air. Unlike most magical arts, Augment cannot affect other characters; it is strictly an internal art used on the caster themselves.

Example Trivial Spells

SELF-DENIAL: the caster can double the length of time that they can go without something normally essential, such as air, food, water or sleep. The spell must be constantly maintained or the normal penalties for this lack suddenly return, often with devastating consequences. Each Critical Success adds another multiple (x3 for a single crit, x4 for a double crit, et cetera).

SELF-CONTROL: the caster can reduce any penalties to their rolls due to fatigue, fear, poison, disease, etc. by up to 1 point. This lasts as long as the character concentrates of maintaining the spell. Each Critical Success can reduce the penalty by another point.

MINOR FOCUS: the caster grants themselves a +1 bonus to their next roll by concentrating all of their efforts on that task. The downside is that this requires complete concentration and they cannot do anything else in the meantime. If forced to make any other rolls during this time period, they suffer a -4 penalty to them. Each Critical Success enables the caster to maintain the bonus for an additional roll without recasting it.