Sponsored Magic-Why won't it work?

[mariesb]

Hello there-

I am a very new player to fate.  We just started a few months ago with the DFRPG.  My question is about character building with a sponsored magic angle.

My character has generic sponsored magic with no additional evoc or thau.  So at a cost of 4 I have ritual and channeling.  This character is a Level 8.  It's basically the 5 "areas" of magic that I have a problem with.

5 areas are
Healing
Summoning/Binding
Gating (World walking althought I do this at the speed of evocation)
Veils
Mind Muck (Yes I know it sounds like Star Wars but it's basically like Mind Fog although it's actually stripping the powers from a person for a limited duration).

My GM says the Mind Muck would probably be evocation while the others are thau so ok I get that.  Ritual/Channeling would limit me to only 2 of these but the Seelie/Unseelie example he's using the build 5 areas.  Very Confused!

I'm

[Ryan_Singer]

I'm not sure what you're trying to do here. What is the overall theme for the sponsored magic? Who is the sponsor?

[mariesb]

The character is built from the female lead character in Anne Bishop's Dark Jewles series of books. 

The sponsor is a dragon.  THe dragon has typical enormous size, flight, and long life but none of the offensive abilities.  What he is a the embodiment of magic...particularly mind magics. 

The character's magic all evolves around this concept of the dragon bringing magic to the world and maintaining the harmony within it.

[Sanctaphrax]

I'm not entirely sure what your problem is, but I would guess that you are wondering why you have more than two fields. The reason is that Sponsored Magic isn't actually Channeling + Ritual. So it can have as many or as few fields as the GM says it can have.

[MijRai]

Hello there-

I am a very new player to fate.  We just started a few months ago with the DFRPG.  My question is about character building with a sponsored magic angle.

My character has generic sponsored magic with no additional evoc or thau.  So at a cost of 4 I have ritual and channeling.  This character is a Level 8.  It's basically the 5 "areas" of magic that I have a problem with.

5 areas are
Healing
Summoning/Binding
Gating (World walking althought I do this at the speed of evocation)
Veils
Mind Muck (Yes I know it sounds like Star Wars but it's basically like Mind Fog although it's actually stripping the powers from a person for a limited duration).

My GM says the Mind Muck would probably be evocation while the others are thau so ok I get that.  Ritual/Channeling would limit me to only 2 of these but the Seelie/Unseelie example he's using the build 5 areas.  Very Confused!

I'm

Well, Sponsored Magic isn't just limited to a single thaumaturgical branch. It gives you access to a theme that fits with the Sponsor. Cold, Death, Decay, etc. for Winter is an example. For a Hunter-Type Sponsor you could have Divination and Biomancy. It doesn't have to be 5, but it doesn't have to be 1 either.
All of those can be done at the speed of evocation with Sponsored Magic, although practically NeverNever opening, mind muck, and veils are the only viable ones. The others take too many shifts to do go as evocation.
The channeling part of this is seperate. Hellfire gives a fire channeling, while Soulfire gives spirit. Summer and Winter are a bit more nebulous, but you get the idea. For yours, I would do Spirit, since Spirit covers the fast mind junk and veils.

Do Biomancy, Veils, Summoning/Binding, and Gate opening fit the dragon?

[MyNinjaH8sU]

Hey, I'm a huge Black Jewels fan, first off.

What you are doing makes sense. Sponsored Magic is not limited in the way that Ritual and Thaumaturgy are. Instead of picking areas of magic, you have power related to your sponsor's "theme."

Also, there isn't a distinction between Evocation and Thaumaturgy for the purpose of effects. You can use Thaumaturgical effects with the speed and trappings of Evocation (see the sidebar in the Sponsored Magic section). The trick is that a lot of Thaumaturgical effects are still really complex, and thus will still need a ritual, since doing them as evocation could quite literally blow out your mind (think of it as the sort of thing that could shatter your jewels when done in a rush, however when done slowly, greater power can be controlled).

One last thing: consider checking out the item of power rules, and using the jewel as one that grants you access to sponsored magic. Make sure you read up on the debt system under the sponsored magic rules and work out with your DM what would be appropriate, since they are going to be in charge of that. Running hot on debt and losing access to your powers could be the equivalent of draining the jewel, and needing to let it recharge.

[mariesb]

Awesome that is what I thought!

My GM has said we should look at making the Ebony jewel into a Item of Power.  At a 2 build it's going to grant the 1/1 bonesus to conviction/discipline similar to soulfire as well as the automatic -1 to powers of supernaturals. Almost like knowing their catch.

The real problem was that my GM isn't comfortable making something so outside on of the examples for sponsored magic.  He tried to make it like Seelie magic but it isn't.

[MyNinjaH8sU]

Why not look at the themes and styles of Thaumaturgy, and pick some things that work for you? Kinetomancy, Biomancy, and the like all work well for it, and the notion of planar travel is best simulated by emulating the Worldwalker Supernatural Power.

When I get a chance I'll try and figure out a way to do a writeup for you. But in the meantime, remind your GM that Seelie and Unseelie magic are immensely broad, even if they don't seem like it. Hell, there's a mention of "Winter Fire, which would shed light but not heat." If that hadn't been mentioned, I'd never have even thought about it, since it seems so far out. Why not just outline some effects you'd like to accomplish? Since the GM is effectively playing your sponsor, he can always veto anything he doesn't think appropriate.

[luminos]

I can see why your GM is apprehensive.  Not being familiar with the source material you are using, it is difficult to see what the theme is for the magic you are using.  It looks like you will be getting all the trappings of full thaumaturgy, for the price of just the ritual.  If you can find a way to express all of those disparate types of magic as really being the same narrow theme, then you'll be able to sell it to him easier. 

Example:  I have a player who has The ritual (not from sponsored magic, but the theme stuff is still applicable between the cases).  He can do all kinds of things with The Ritual including various kinds of divination, veils, and other useful stuff.  But it always has to fall within his theme, which in his case is photomancy.  So he can do anything he can justify by using magic that manipulates light.  Without that theme to unify all of his magic, I'd restrict him to doing just one kind of thing and that's it (so only divination, or only veils, etc.)

[MyNinjaH8sU]

I can see why your GM is apprehensive.  Not being familiar with the source material you are using, it is difficult to see what the theme is for the magic you are using.  It looks like you will be getting all the trappings of full thaumaturgy, for the price of just the ritual.  If you can find a way to express all of those disparate types of magic as really being the same narrow theme, then you'll be able to sell it to him easier. 

Example:  I have a player who has The ritual (not from sponsored magic, but the theme stuff is still applicable between the cases).  He can do all kinds of things with The Ritual including various kinds of divination, veils, and other useful stuff.  But it always has to fall within his theme, which in his case is photomancy.  So he can do anything he can justify by using magic that manipulates light.  Without that theme to unify all of his magic, I'd restrict him to doing just one kind of thing and that's it (so only divination, or only veils, etc.)

Exactly.

Being familiar with the source material myself, I would say that it falls within Biomancy for attacks and healing, with raw force for defense (ala force shielding, and wards in general), veils only for the purpose of invisibility and inaudibility, rituals for divination of "possible" futures only (sort of like cassandra's tears, actually, without the social stigma. Or maybe with it, depending on the character you want to play), and with the generation of ice as the default fallout for magic out of control.

Personally, I don't dig the notion of bypassing toughness, but if you had to, do it like soulfire and pay a refresh extra.

What do you think, mariesb, did I miss anything?

[Vryce]

    I have read the Dark Jewels trilogy as well as her other work, love the idea.  But if I remember right the people in the book are all mages.  Or how they say it witches.  It fits all the stuff the book says about mages as well.  Passed on from family to family, it does not say that mostly passed from women to child but women are the ruling class.  For me you would be a witch/mage born with a Item of power that shows your strength, allows you to hold excess amount of power, possible focus item. 
    As a DM I would also start you off with a less powerful Gem and have you work your way up.  Get different titles as time goes by, warlord, priest, black widow, etc….
    Mind muck as a route could have problems but if you are just trying to surpass magic ability, you don’t have to affect the mind.  AKA not breaking one of the laws of magic.   
    Go with heavy Spirit, Water for healing, and if you want to go with the whole hell or dragon thing fire.  Air if you want the traving by wind coach thingy.
   Would love to hear what your aspects are?

[mariesb]

My GM really wanted a Sponsored Magic character or Emissary of power so I happened to be rereading Bishop and thought why not use Lorn as the sponsor.  So we used the 5 "areas" of things Jeannelle could do in the book.  With the dragons being the "source" of power than all options that the dragons can do are open.

I would have rather gone with generic thaumology since it's generally where most of her magic "lives"

I can't think of anything you missed Ninja.

I will be adding Supernatural toughness later since I used 2 refresh to create Kaelas as a bound sort of "familar".  He does all the fighting for me.  Since I'm throwing in 2 refresh into him he's also at an 8 refresh.  So he gets all the fighting skills while Jeannelle gets all the magic.

I am toying with an Aspect of "My body is not my temple".  Invoke for to take physical damage rather than mental Compel: Take a consequence voluntarily or something of that type.
I was also going to take Catch For Moonblood Time

[MyNinjaH8sU]

My GM really wanted a Sponsored Magic character or Emissary of power so I happened to be rereading Bishop and thought why not use Lorn as the sponsor.  So we used the 5 "areas" of things Jeannelle could do in the book.  With the dragons being the "source" of power than all options that the dragons can do are open.

I would have rather gone with generic thaumology since it's generally where most of her magic "lives"

I can't think of anything you missed Ninja.

I will be adding Supernatural toughness later since I used 2 refresh to create Kaelas as a bound sort of "familar".  He does all the fighting for me.  Since I'm throwing in 2 refresh into him he's also at an 8 refresh.  So he gets all the fighting skills while Jeannelle gets all the magic.

I am toying with an Aspect of "My body is not my temple".  Invoke for to take physical damage rather than mental Compel: Take a consequence voluntarily or something of that type.
I was also going to take Catch For Moonblood Time

Just wanted to point out that taking physical stress isn't something that you can invoke for. Invoking is strictly about rerolls and bonuses. However, you could make a case to ask for a compel when taking backlash against physical stress even when it's a bad idea, just to power a spell to big for you anyway.

[devonapple]

Just wanted to point out that taking physical stress isn't something that you can invoke for. Invoking is strictly about rerolls and bonuses. However, you could make a case to ask for a compel when taking backlash against physical stress even when it's a bad idea, just to power a spell to big for you anyway.

I think the idea was to allow the character to avoid a Mental Compel and instead take physical damage. A definite plus in some cases.

[MyNinjaH8sU]

Hmmm, don't know if I'd let someone avoid a compel for stress like that. Stress is temporary most of the time, so unless it was a truly heated situation where those stress could play a big part, I don't know how I feel about it. Besides, it gives someone the option of avoiding spending their Fate Points, and I don't like that. I'm sure there's a way to work it in, of course, but if it is an Aspect, then I feel like compelling it to force the character to sacrifice their physical self rather than their mental when given the option (yay magic) makes the most sense.

I do see what you are saying, I just feel like what we're talking about there is bordering on a power, and at the very least a stunt, and not an Aspect.