There were a couple of interesting topics recently on the forums about Ritual Path magic and sacrifices for energy. Some were about how much energy you could give or how much you could gather from a stadium of people or my personal favorite: summoning a demon and then forcing it to give you energy or be […]
Continue readingCategory Archives: Boil and Bubble
Boil and Bubble: Words of Creation
Logos (sometimes referred to as “power words” or “prime words”) are the literal words of Creation itself. Logos are the selfsame words that were spoke in the making of the universe. Despite having such a divine provenance they can be learned by mortal men and women who have sufficient strength of will…. …if you’d like to read more, […]
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Boil and Bubble: Ritual Path Magic Mana Batteries
Ritual Path Magic is one of the more flexible magical systems GURPS 4th edition has yet to produce. It’s got its share of perceived woes (lack of “power stones” or an enchantment system that conforms to how the system itself functions), but it also can shine brilliantly in just about any genre with the right […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Air Spells for Sorcery
Jason “PK” Levine came up with this clever magic system in Pyramid #3/63: Infinite Worlds II. It garnered some attention when it came out, but hasn’t really seen much then. I think it comes as close as you possibly can to a working powers-based magic system that doesn’t feel like comic-book supers magic. It’s ranked […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: How to Build a Spell Thief
Recently, Shieldbunny from the Steve Jackson Games forums asked: I’ve been kicking around the idea of building a character based off of the spellthief class in That Other Game. For those of you that don’t know, the idea is a stealthy character that steals the spells from her enemies minds to cast herself. After some […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Latin Isn’t the Only Magical Language
During a recent character creation session, two of the three players choose a name based on a Latin word or phrase. One ended up discarding his choice later and the other mixed his up so it was a bit more different. But this made me think, “Why is Latin the first thing that pops up […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Spell Kits for Casters – Cryomancer
Fire tends to be the “go-to” element for spellwork that damages the target. But what of ice? Cold can kill just as easily as heat can. It’s the extremes of temperature that kills…so why don’t we see more “cryomancers” in fiction or RPGs? They can make the ground slippery, preserve a corpse, silence an alarm […]
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Boil and Bubble: I Put a Spell on You
Note: I commented on a forum thread about the Cursed disadvantage a while back and though I’m loathe to do a lot of cross-posting, I think this is one of the times I just swallow that bitter pill and do it. I’ve added a bit to my thoughts from there. “Soooo… you’re that brave bastard […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Magical Styles – Demonology
My last installment of magical styles was almost a year ago. The post did prove popular, but I didn’t get back to this until now. Mostly because I’ve been really busy and this sort of intense article requires a lot of research and precise planning – styles take time to make the right way and […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Spell Kits For Casters – Jack-of-All-Mages
Ritual Path magic is already pretty flexible. You can do just about any sort of spell you can visualize and it really doesn’t take that long to perform the spell itself. So what is a “jack-of-all-mages” in such a system? First, the Jack is less about being able to cast a specific group of spells […]
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