Wisps can carry as many cards as they like, however they can only use a deck of up to 30 cards at a time. Generally they keep these cards put away, but can take them out for combat or utility purposes; whenever magic is needed. While the wisp has it's cards out, it slowly takes damage, which can kill the wisp in 10 turns. Putting it's cards away let's it heal that damage at three points per turn.
When your wisp takes out it's deck, it shuffles itself, 6 cards are drawn, and half of the remaining deck is sent to discard! Whenever a card is then sent to discard, the discard pile is shuffled and a card sent back to the deck.
Casting Avatar spells and Enchantments cost no energy. Only one Avatar may be "Active" at a time, but up to 5 Avatars may be made "Passive" as well. Passive avatars, once cast, provide minor benefits to the human and energy to the wisp. Active avatars give the human great powers and protect him or her from damage. Passive and active avatars may be swapped for free whenever the wisp draws cards. A human does not need an Active avatar to fight, but takes damage directly without one.
When taking damage, damage is first dealt to the Active Avatar. After that, any further damage is dealt to the human. Damage cannot be dealt to the wisp or to passive avatars. When an Avatar has taken all the damage it can, it's card is discarded.
Enchantments affect large areas, or sometimes only small things, and while they do not cost anything to use, they have conditions. If these conditions are not met, they become discarded.
Evocovations and Conjurations both require energy to cast. This requires a number of Passive Avatars or certain Enchantments to be active before they can be cast - energy is generated from these whenever you draw, and is not lost until it is either used or the deck is put away.
Evocovations deliver instant results, often being very destructive. They are discarded as soon as they are used. Conjurations also instantly deliver their results, but are far more constructive. When a conjuration is used, it is not discarded, but removed from the wisp's active deck entirely. Conjurations can only be used a limited number of times before they become too damaged to use again. Their results also vary based on what the users had in mind at the time.
It is not known why, but every so often a "Turn" will pass - damaging spirits (including wisps) who are using magic, and causing a number of cards to be drawn, up to the user's hand size (6 for wisps, but more powerful spirits often can hold much more). These turns come regularly enough that all units of time have been based around them, such as the "minute", which is four turns.
Cards all have some common design factors: Color, Element, and Runes. The runes are written in the language of the spirits, but wisps bound to humans will willingly translate the cards they use. Runes describe what the card can do, and sometimes it's costs.
There are Eleven colors and Eleven elements. Each color is assosiated with three elements, and each element is assosiated with three colors. The colors are Red, Yellow, Blue, Green, Purple, Orange, Black, White, Brown, Cyan, and Pink. The elements are Fire, Destruction, Light, Electricity, Wealth, Water, Unlife, Plant, Arcane, Earth, and Wind.
Using a card of one element or color restricts you to using only that element or color until the turn ends. Your second card may be either the same element or color, or both, but as soon as you use a card with a different color or element, then the common color or element you used is the only one you can play the rest of the turn.
Each deck must contain at least 5 cards of each of three colors. It must also include at least 5 cards of each of three elements. It may contain no more than three copies of any one card.
When your deck gets put away, all cards in the discard, in the draw pile, from your hand, and from play all get shuffled together and put into storage. You may have any number of decks assembled, but may only take out one at a time; remember that having them out hurts your wisp.
Every action you take, you may roll 2 dice. A 4-6 is a success, and a 1-3 a failure. Succeeding at least once for easy actions is a total success. For difficult actions, you will need to roll 2 successes. For superhuman actions, you will need 3 successes. And Godlike actions require four successes to succeed. You can gain bonus dice to certain actions for certain enchantments, and basically all Avatars. You can also get "Plus" bonuses, which make getting successes on one or more dice more likely.
Rolling a 1 or 6 is a Fumble, and will cause you to do something detrimental to yourself - fumbles do not affect whether you succeeded or not, but do affect how you succeeded.
Damage is dealt by success or failure as well, with a certain fixed damage and a number of rolls added onto that. By rolling successes on damage dice, more damage is dealt. However, rolling fumbles on a damage die causes the attacker to deal damage to himself.
Dealing damage without an avatar, generally with a sword or axe, deals 0+3r damage, meaning no fixed damage, and three dice rolled. If you have a bow instead, it deals 0+2r damage, but you can attack from further away. Fighting completely unarmed deals 0+1r damage. Having an avatar tends to increase the damage you can do in combat substantially.
If you die, you're out of the game and your wisp dies, dropping your entire card collection where you stand. If your wisp dies but you don't, it drops all your cards around you, but you're still in the game - you can't use magic or avatars until you bind yourself to a new wisp, though.
Remember, damage is dealt to your wisp over time while your deck is out, and normally cannot be dealt any other way. Damage is dealt to your Avatar before you, and Damage dealt to you is very bad.
Name: What you are called.
Description: What you look like, what you act like, and maybe where you came from.
Wisp's Name: What your companions is called.
Wisp's color: Wisps of a color get a small bonus from casting same-color spells.
Fighting Strategy: Give me a name, basically what you call your original deck. This will affect what cards you start with. I'll give you 45 cards, including 25 of your Wisp's color.
Starting Equipment: I'll allow up to three items - One combat oriented, one utility oriented, and one that can be either or both, or neither. I doubt you can come up with an item that's neither, unless you go for something like a desk toy.
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Topic: Roller's Block (RTD Brainstorming Thread) (HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY) (Derm is 5k) (Read 745730 times)