OROBORUS: Adaptation for Contemporary Fantasy

Yes, it's the world of teenage witches and high-school angst, made easy through the miracle of Oroborus.

The nature of this sort of setting, immortalized in the works of Fritz Leiber, L. Sprague de Camp and Archie Comics is that magic is quick, easy and whimsical. Witches mix among mortals with ease, manipulate their lives, competing for status and for the best dates at the prom. With the snap of a finger or the wiggle of a nose (ritual magic?) they command the powers of the universe, be it to bake a cake or bring a stuffed dragon school mascot to life.

To start off with, everyone probably wants to play a witch. You can play a mortal, but then you're mostly there to be pushed around and manipulated. Next, most witches are female. And certainly most of the good witches are. Male witches in the genre tend to be a bit older, darkly seductive and probably dangerous, or else bumbling fratboys who've gone a bit too far in developing their latent talents through unusual hazing rituals.

Yes, this is THE setting for girls, because it's all about girl power. The girls have the power, get to live forever, and benevolently rule over their hapless and defenseless male companions, directing the lives of their chosen mates from behind the scenes with their mystical powers.

CHARACTER CREATION

Use the normal character creation rules, with the following changes.

Allow characters 130 points to distribute to their primary characteristics and allow them to have one characteristic of up to 30 if they want.

In secondary characteristics, Bonus Points - or in this case Magic Points are equal to Creativity x 3. They regenerate during the course of a day at a rate of 3 points per hour while the character is awake, with the remainder returning overnight.

Characters start with 50 Advanced Skill Points and 50 Basic Skill Points. Nationality and Profession are pretty much meaningless in this setting. At some point it might be sort of neat to set up skill templates, but for now allow characters to pick up to 5 Basic Skills and any 5 Advanced Skills. They must still spend points on at least 3 skills of each type and may not put more than half their SP of either type into a single skill. Paranormal Abilities and Affinities can be purchased just like any other skill with Advanced Skill Points.

DOING MAGIC

In this setting, spells are usually quick and easy to do, customized to the particular situation. In fact, the less thought put into them the better.

Effects are produced in the normal way, except that costs are somewhat different.

Casting a spell costs:
Power Rating in Magic Points
(APMxAPMxPR)/5 in Action Points
Action Points/10 in Fatigue Points

To make magic more interesting, you may wish to enforce an additional restriction. Give players a choice of one of the following casting requirements: short incantation (they must recite an original rhyming couplet or quatrain for each spell cast), somatic gestures (they have to do a particular combination of hand or other body movements to cast a spell - and can't cast spells if immobilized) or physical component (they must use a wand, spell book or other object to cast their spells - and can't if they lose it). This adds some fun and gives players a greater sense of involvement in the process.

SAMPLE SPELLS

Beauty - Increases Charm by 3. Range: 1M. Duration: 1Hr. MP: 8. AP: FP:

Love Charm - Makes one specific being fall in love with chosen person or object. Both must be present at the time the spell is cast. Range: 10M. Duration: 6 Hr. MP: 15. AP: 216 FP: 22

Magical Warding - Reduces the effective power level of any magical effects in a specified area by 10. Area: 10 CuM. Duration: 1Hr. MP: 16. AP: 231. FP: 24.

Magic Shield - Reduces the effective power level of any magical effects directed at a specific target by 10. Range: 1M. Duration: 1Hr. MP: 15. AP: 216 FP: 22

Lightning Bolt - Creates a bolt of lightning directed at a specific single target. Range: 100M. Base Damage: 10. MP: 14. AP: 180 FP: 18

Sleep - Puts one specific target to sleep for the duration. The target will awaken if disturbed. Range 10M. Duration: 10Min. MP: 9. AP: 137. FP: 14

Invisibility - Become invisible to normal vision for the duration. Range: S. Duration: 10 Min. MP: 8. AP: 192. FP: 20

Shapechange - Assume the form of a specific animal (including humans) with which the character has an affinity. Costs may be slightly higher if the size of the creature changed into is higher or lower than man size. At this cost it works best for assuming the appearance of another person. Range: S. Duration: 10 Min. MP: 7. AP: 202 FP: 21

Eavesdroping - Hear noises in another place which you have been before, or around a person or object with which you are familiar. Range: 1000M. Duration: 10 Min. MP: 7. AP: 224. FP: 23

ADVENTURE DESIGN

I plan to make an adventure for the setting available soon. If you want to design your own, I suggest starting with a high school or college setting as a basis. This offers several good possibilities.

As an introductory adventure, having characters discover that they have magic powers is always an effective way to start. In a high-school setting this might happen as they begin to notice that things they think should happen start to happen. Alternatively they might get picked out for some after school extra credit work by an odd teacher and discover that the after school work is training in magic. Another possibility would be spying on a clique of kids who are acting strangely, and discovering that they are practicing magic. In the college context one of the best introductions is the 'Rush Week' scenario, where the characters are pursued by a fraternity or sorority, and after going through a bit of hazing, they finally get to the initiation ceremony and discover that it's a full black mass with human sacrifice and all the trimmings. The idea of fraternities and sororities as secret magic using cults within the university context has a lot of potential.

SOURCES TO READ

This genre has fallen out of favor in fiction, but seems to be coming back in the movies and on TV. There are some very good novels you can read which explore the idea of modern society with magic in it. Try these:

Conjure Wife - Fritz Leiber
Burn, Witch, Burn - A. Merritt
Creep, Shadow, Creep - A. Merritt
Operation Chaos - Poul Anderson
A Personal Demon - David Bischoff, Ed.
The Toxic Spell Dump - Harry Turtledove
Stalking the Unicorn - Theodore Sturgeon

FINAL NOTE

I'm working on developing a full-scale setting called 'Witchery', based around the idea of college students practicing witchcraft. It's sort of a combination of The Craft, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Bewitched and Fritz Leiber's Conjure Wife. If you have any suggestions email me at albumen2@yahoo.com