[WW] Magic! (Was [please, sir...])

[LoopyJason@aol.com]

We haven't had another playtesting session in awhile since Hopler is chained to his computer working on getting the book done in time.

However, I'll add a bit about how magic integrates into the world. (As of now, anyway.  I'm sure Hop's tweaking the rules as he goes...)

As it stands right now, there are two prestige classes that use magic - the Chaplain, and the Adept.  The chaplain works a lot like the blessed will in Deadlands D20, which is to say that they cannot sin, and they can cast miracles based on their faith.
John has developed a really neat system to integrate magic, though.  I know one of his goals was to tone down the effect of magic from AD&D, since that didn't really fit the setting.  If there are magic users tossing fireballs with abandon, you lose some of the "creepiness" associated with horror, and nobody wants to see that.
Anywho, it works kinda like this:  there are 24 germanic runes that have been found to have magical properties when you trace them in the air and utter their name.  If you combine those runes together, you can get certain effects.  So, for example, a simple light spell would require the rune 'kenaz', while mage armor would require 'algiz' and 'eihwaz' for health and positive change.  And so on - higher level spells will require more runes.
Adepts learn runes as they gain in levels, modified by intelligence, of course.
The other modification that fits the setting is that casting a spell does subdual damage each time.  So there's a tradeoff between the # of spells you can cast, and how healthy you want to be while bullets are flying... This way, there's no arbitrary slot limit for spells - you can cast as many as you'd like, but it hurts each time, and hurts more the higher the level spell.
Lastly, you really start to get the feeling of "tampering with things man wasn't meant to know".  The first time my character, the lieutenant, whipped out his brand spankin' new light spell, the men freaked. (This was just after we closed the door to Hell, after all.)  The list of available spells will help preserve the good vs. evil aspect, too.  Nobody's going to be summoning demons, I don't b'lieve.
So, there's a quick taste of the magic system.  Our next job is to make sure that everything stays balanced - we don't want to have just a couple god runes that a munchkin could take and know all the best spells, (And, being the resident munchkin, I should know! [Although Lee's beginning to give me a run for my money.] ;p ) and we don't want the magic system to detract from the setting.  We'll see how much changes while we're working through those issues...

Enjoy!
Jason. (Lt. Prillaman.)