Morgan's Iron Kingdoms Gearbooks: FMF Grimoire

This thread is going to collect all entries in the field of magic from the previous FMF Gearbooks thread, and is supposed to exclusively consist of entries regarding spells, ritual magic, enchanting, and magical constructs like thralls and wolds.

Grimoire Table of Content Links:

Abilities:
Benedictor
Favoured Soul

Enchanting:
Soul Transference (rune)
Anvil of Nyssor [dedicated magical item]
Eternal Bullet (dedicated magical item)
Geomancer’s Staff (dedicated magical item)
Staff of Growth (dedicated magical item)

Skorne Ancestor Abilities:
Future Sight
Sacrifice
Void Form
Void Step

Skorne Enchanting:
Auxiliary [Ability/Skill] (sacral stone shard)
Timeless Wisdom (sacral stone shard)
Tutelage [Skill] (sacral stone shard)
Subjugation Harness (ancestral item)
Titan Armour (ancestral item)

Spells:
Consolidate
High-Pressure Environment
Kinetic Containment
Orbital Mechanics
Rune Shot: Challenge
Spearhead

Thrall Crafting:
Bane (playable character)
Burdened Runes Upgrade (thrall crafting modification/thrall upgrade)
Bound Weapon (thrall upgrade)
Corpse Rider (thrall upgrade)
Hidden Runes [thrall upgrade]
Memento (thrall upgrade)

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The following entry is a repost from the old forum on a different way of crafting thralls:

A repost of a magical weapon used by blackclads, inspired in parts by how eSeverius’s staff could be used to make ranged attacks:

A repost of an entry on an idea for the unique way in which Skorne craft enchantments (which was unfortunately never fleshed out in official supplements):

A repost of a spell from the previous mixed Gearbooks thread that grants its subject several interesting abilities, which are, however, dependent on allies:

Continuing the reposts with a rune that makes soul tokens more versatile, for those with the power and inclination to collect them:

Another repost - this time of a Skorne ancestral item (the equivalent of a dedicated magical or mechanical item) that can be used to make handling newly-caught beasts intended for warbeast conditioning easier:

Continuing with the repost of a new ability that can be used by Gifted characters, an ability that was inspired by the Wayfarer ability in Wild Adventure:

Another repost, this time of a thrall that could be used as a playable race (work in progress as of the date of this repost):

Bound Weapon

[Thrall Upgrade]
Rune Points: +1 or +2 (see Special Rules)
Special Rules: A single non-magical, non-mechanikal weapon or shield has been permanently bound to the thrall. If this weapon or shield is ever destroyed, picked up by an enemy character, or moves further than 2” from the thrall, it immediately crumbles to dust, and the thrall can re-manifest the weapon or shield in its grasp by using a full action (If multiple weapons have been bound to the thrall, a separate full action must be used for each item. Ranged weapons and projectiles only crumble to dust after an attack has been completely resolved).
Bonding a melee weapon or ranged weapon to a thrall is a 1-point upgrade. By using a 2-point upgrade, a ranged weapon that is bound to the thrall will also always have ammunition, though the thrall needs to spend a quick action to “reload” the ranged weapon by re-manifesting an arrow, bolt, or bullet.
The only ranged weapons that can be bonded to a thrall this way are pistols, rifles, bows, and crossbows, as well as thrown weapons like knives, axes and javelins, but not grenades. If granted the ability to manifest ammunition, the thrall can only manifest standard ammunition (i.e. the thrall cannot manifest explosive arrows), though the thrall can still load a ranged weapon with special ammunition normally if it has a supply at hand.
The bound weapon must be inscribed with a rune specific to the thrall it is going to be bonded to before the thrall itself gets crafted, which takes 1 hour and requires appropriate engraving tools as well as a successful INT+Lore (Thamarite) or INT+Craft skill roll (determined by the weapon, e.g. Craft (gunsmith) for a firearm), whichever is lower, against a target number of 13. If this roll fails, it can be repeated after another 30 minutes’ of work spent correcting the mistake.

Comments welcome, as usual.

Corpse Rider [Thrall Upgrade]

Prerequisite: A thrall must receive the Ghostly upgrade (see IKUA, p. 74) to be able to receive the Corpse Rider upgrade
Rune Points: +2

Special Rules: A thrall with this upgrade can “step into” a corpse that may only be one base size larger or smaller than the thrall and possess it. Remove the thrall from play when it rides a corpse. All continuous effects, spells and animi on the thrall expire when it is removed. The thrall takes control of the corpse, which becomes undead and regains a single dot of vitality in each of its aspects, and can use all of its living stats and abilities (though it is restricted to the knowledge and language skills of the riding thrall).
The thrall can choose to exit the corpse during its Maintenance Phase, and will reappear within 3” of the corpse when it does so. The corpse is not destroyed by the thrall exiting, but simply becomes a normal corpse again. If the corpse was destroyed by damage while the thrall was riding it, however, the thrall is expelled once the corpse loses all of its vitality, with the thrall suffering any damage in excess of the corpse’s vitality. A thrall cannot ride a corpse again that was destroyed while it was being ridden.

Morgan’s Notes: This thrall upgrade is quite popular with necromancers intent on raiding urban cemeteries for the purposes of forensic necromancy, as it allows the unearthed corpses to simply walk off, pretending to be living, rather than requiring carts or needing to be conspicuously carried by the graverobbers (though this requires thralls of at the very least warrior-grade intellect to pull off; most necromancers also douse the ridden corpses in copious amounts of rotgut, both to provide an excuse for them struggling to speak as well as to hide the stench of decay).

Comments welcome, as usual.

The full rules for enchanting magical items can be found in the Wild Adventure rulebook, pp. 48-59.

Eternal Bullet [Dedicated Magical Item]

Cost : Usually not for sale.

Description: This strange item appears to be a golden bullet in a rune-inscribed metal casing, though as a matter of fact the cartridge is all one piece and cannot actually be fired. However, by placing this “bullet” into a firearm capable of firing that kind of ammunition, that firearm gains the ability to make a magical attack once round by pulling the gun’s trigger, essentially making this object an everlasting round of ammunition.
It is unknown who first made these unusual items, and very few exist, though there seems to be some connection to the arts employed by gun mages, though most eternal bullets cannot accept rune shots. Interestingly, some eternal bullets have been crafted in the likeness of the silk or paper bag rounds of old (though they are still a single piece of rune-inscribed metal), suggesting they were made before the advent of metal casings.

Special Rules: Once per round, a firearm that has been loaded with an eternal bullet can mage a magic attack with the same attack modifier, RNG and POW as the gun it has been loaded into, though this magic attack does not have an extreme range, RNG:SP or AOE, even if the gun would normally have these traits. The attack roll for this magic attack is made using POI plus the required military skill (i.e. Pistol, Rifle, Light Artillery or Heavy Artillery) and benefits from all usual modifiers to ranged attacks (e.g. aiming or bipods) except for non-magical equipment, abilities or effects that change the gun’s RNG (like scopes).
Firing an eternal bullet from a non-magelock firearm will slowly erode that firearm over time (see “Imperfect Instruments” in IKKNG, p. 244). Firing an eternal bullet from a mechanikal firearm that has not been fitted with a runic conduit (see MIKG1, p. 23, and MIKG2, p. 16) is extremely dangerous and risks an explosive disjunction (Roll 1d6 when making an attack with such a mechanikal firearm; on a result of 1 or 2, the attack fails and the mechanikal firearm explodes: Place a 3” AOE on the character who attempted the attack, who suffers a damage roll with a POW equal to 14 plus the firearm’s rune points value. The AOE becomes 4” if the firearm has a rune points value of 3 or 4, and becomes 5” if the firearm has a rune points value of 5. All other characters in the AOE suffer blast damage. The eternal bullet and the mechanikal firearm are completely destroyed in this disjunction event).
Some eternal bullets have been specially made to accept rune shot spells, though their capacity to do so is limited compared to standard rune bullets. Most eternal rune bullets can only accept rune shot spells with a total COST of 4, though some rare ones accept spells with a total COST of 6. If a gun mage attempts to cast more rune shot spells on an eternal rune bullet than it can accommodate, any spells that exceed the bullet’s capacity simply fail (though the gun mage must still pay those spell’s COST).
An eternal bullet can only be fired by the type of firearm it has been made for, and cannot be reworked to fit any other type of firearm. Additionally, as the attack granted by an eternal bullet is a magic attack, it is subject to all abilities that affect magic attacks (e.g. the spell ward rune in IKRPG, p. 286).

Prerequisite: Military Skill 2 (determind by the firearm the eternal bullet has been crafted for), Craft (gunsmith) 2, Lore (arcane) 2 for “standard” eternal bullets. For eternal rune bullets, the enchanter must also have the Craft Rune Shot ability (see IKRPG, p. 160); for an eternal rune bullet that can accept rune shots with a total COST of 6, the enchanter must also have Lore (arcane) 3.

Fabrication: The material cost for the shell for an eternal bullet is 15 gc. Attunement takes 6 hours and requires a successful ARC+Lore (arcane) roll against a target number of 14. Inscribing the runes takes two weeks and requires a successful ARC+Lore (arcane) roll against a target number of 14.
The material shell for an eternal rune bullet costs 45 gc. Attunement takes 12 hours for an eternal rune bullet that can accept rune shots with a total COST of 4 and requires a successful ARC+Lore (arcane) roll against a target number of 16. Attuning an eternal rune bullet that can accept rune shots with a total COST of 6 takes 15 hours and raises the target number for the ARC+Lore (arcane) roll to 17.
For a “standard” eternal rune bullet, inscribing the runes takes four weeks and requires a successful ARC+Lore (arcane) roll against a target number of 16, but takes five weeks and requires a successful ARC+Lore (arcane) roll against a target number of 17 for eternal rune bullets that can accept rune shots with a total COST of 6.

Comments welcome, as usual.

The full rules for crafting and upgrading thralls can be found in Urban Adventure, pp. 70-75.

Memento [Thrall Upgrade]

Restriction : The total rune points of a Memento thrall upgrade cannot be greater than the thrall type’s basic rune point value +1 or 5, whichever is lower

Rune Points : +2 to +5 (see Special Rules)

Special Rules: A character with the Inscribe Thrall Rune ability (see IKUA, p. 68) can create one or more temporary thrall upgrade runes in place of the Memento rune, and later erase them at will to free up the Memento rune again, making thralls upgraded with this rune very versatile.
In order to create temporary thrall upgrade runes, the character controlling the thrall must touch the thrall, use a full action and make a successful ARC+Thrall Crafting skill roll against a target number of 12 plus the total rune point value of the temporary runes they want to add to the thrall. A Memento rune can hold a total value of temporary thrall upgrade rune points equal to its rune points minus 1 (so a 3-point Memento rune can hold up to 2 rune points’ worth of temporary thrall upgrade runes, for example).
If the character attempting to create a temporary thrall rune fails the ARC+Thrall Crafting skill roll, nothing happens, and the character can either choose to try again in the next round or abandon the attempt to inscribe a temporary thrall upgrade rune.
In order to erase one or more runes from the Memento rune, the character controlling the thrall must touch it and can then simply will the temporary runes to fade by using a full action, without the need for a roll. Temporary thrall runes must be erased from the Memento rune before new runes can be inscribed on it.
Once successfully created, temporary thrall runes inscribed on a Memento rune remain until they are erased.

Comments welcome, as usual.

Kinetic Containment

Spell Lists: Arcanist (Ios), Cephalyx, Force Sorcerer, Warcaster (Cyriss, Ios)

Cost: 3
RNG: 8
AOE: -
POW: -
Upkeep: Yes
Offensive: Yes

The character under the effect of this spell suffers -2 SPD and -2 to melee and ranged attack rolls and damage rolls (This damage roll penalty does not apply to blast damage rolls).

Comments welcome, as usual.

High-Pressure Environment

Spell Lists: Arcanist (requires Connections: Order of the Golden Crucible), Warcaster (Order of the Golden Crucible)
Cost: 3
Range: Self
AoE: CTRL
Power: -
Upkeep: No
Offensive: No

All AOE sizes in this spell’s area of effect are reduced by one (from 5” to 4” or from 4” to 3”. Attacks and effects with AOE 3” no longer have AOEs). High-Pressure Environment lasts for one round.

Comments welcome, as usual.

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It is a niche spell but does have an interesting use

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The niche is indeed intended to be a faction that’s all about alchemicals, including explosives and laboratories that can go boom if you’re not careful (i.e. avoid blasts or be able to contain them when they happen).

And its more interesting than just granting blast imunity to all under effect

There’s also common attacks that don’t deal blast damage and would thus not be hindered by granting immunity to blasts, like acid grenades, fire grenades, and concussion grenades, to name a few. High-Pressure Environment also affects both your enemies’ and your allies’ attacks, so timing is crucial.

Good point , even though those are rarer(at least in my tables), it is still situational, wich is a good thing