Magisters are members of various Heritor magical traditions, ones more rigid and specific than the broad scope of Academic practice. While less versatile, they have a much easier time bringing their abilities to bear and their specialties often far surpass what Academic magic can accomplish.
Magister Class Abilities
Magisters roll 1d6-1 for their hit points, modified by Constitution. This roll cannot be less than 1, even with the penalty.
Magisters have a base attack bonus equal to their level divided by five, rounded down. Thus, their bonus is +0 until it reaches +1 at fifth level and +2 at tenth.
Like Arcanists, Magisters must be able to move freely in order to cast. They cannot cast spells while wearing any kind of powered armor, or any other sort of armor with an Encumbrance value higher than zero.
Magisters may choose their foci from the General Arcane list on page 90. They get a bonus focus chosen from this list as an addition to their usual free pick at character creation.
Magisters get Cast Magic-0 as a bonus skill. If this would increase their skill level above level-1, they may instead pick any other non-psychic skill.
Magisters start play knowing two first-level spells from their class’s spell list. As they advance in character levels, they learn to master addition spells as given in the adjacent table. They do not require a trainer or a source for these spells; their secrets are implicit in the Magister’s basic training. Magisters cannot add additional spells to this allotment, though they can trade out their choices slowly as described on page 22.
Partial Magister Abilities
A Partial Magister uses the exact same rules as a Partial Arcanist, barring their special spellcasting methods.
A Partial Magister learns and casts spells as if they were a Magister of half their character level, rounded up. Thus, a third-level Partial Magister knows two first-level spells from their tradition and can cast them a total of four times a day.
When actually cast, however, these spells use the Partial Magister’s full character level. A fifth level Partial War Mage would thus cast an Ammo Drop spell as if they were a fifth level caster.
If a Partial Magister mixes with another class that has a penalty to their hit point rolls, such as a Partial War Mage/Partial Arcanist, or Partial Pacter/Partial Rectifier, this penalty is applied only once. Thus, the PC in question would roll 1d6-1 each level for their hit points.
Pacters
Bargainers with entities beyond human knowledge, the tradition of sorcerers known as the Pacters was perhaps an inevitable result of the discovery of the Shadows. Whether mere sentient-seeming automatons of metadimensional force, as the Nominalists would have them, or true natives of the Burning Void as the Realists would say, the Pacters are determined to make the most of the Shadows and their strange powers.
Pacter History
As soon as the existence of Shadows was confirmed by the early arcane researchers, it was predictable that certain scholars should become obsessed with summoning, categorizing, and studying these eldritch entities. These ur-Pacters were responsible for some of the earliest advances in arcane summoning technologies, and the fruits of their research can still be found in the limited but potent spells available to modern Academic mages.
Not all the researchers were satisfied by the limits of the standard SANIS interface and formal Academic sorcery. The chief difficulty they faced was the vast amount of cognitive processing that was necessary to control and maintain a Shadow. Conventional Academic practitioners simply could not easily manifest a Shadow in mundane reality without exerting burden-some amounts of arcane energy.
These researchers developed a modification of the standard SANIS interface, one studded with multiple metadimensional energy conduits that did not connect to conventional arcanoactive brain regions. Oth-er portions of the interface were adjusted to prioritize command and control operations rather than the direct instantiation of arbitrarily-defined energies.
The end result was a mage with virtually no ability to perform conventional Academic sorcery and no direct ability to manipulate traditional spell energies. The torrent of free metadimensional energy they could channel, however, was positively irresistible to a wide variety of Shadow entities. These “Pacters” could barter access to the energy currents they controlled in exchange for a Shadow’s cooperation, controlling it effectively with brain regions specialized for the work.
Customized spells were developed to exploit these capabilities, coding pre-designed Shadow formulae and manipulatory techniques into the mage’s repertoire. While the mage himself might be capable of very few effects not contingent on manipulating Shadows, the Shadows he commanded could do a great deal indeed. In the years since those early discoveries, Pacter orders spread throughout many magically-active sectors. Most saw their Shadow minions as convenient tools for mortal ends. Others had a more theological relationship with their constructs. In some cases, an imprudent order has found itself a servant to a master they raised up that they could not put down.
Pacter Abilities
Pacters are treated as Magisters with access to the Pacter spell list. They gain the same number of known spells per level and spell slots usable per day as any other Magister, as given on page 19.
Pacter abilities all revolve around the summoning, control, and augmentation of Shadows. While their minions are very versatile, they have no personal magical abilities unrelated to Shadow manipulation.
Pacters and Shadows
Pacters have unusual control over Shadows and fluency in summoning them, but this power comes at a price. All Pacter Shadow summoning is subject to two additional limits. These limits do not apply to Shadows they bind via ritual means.
Pacters cannot automatically dismiss their Shadows. Without use of the Put Down spell, a Shadow must be allowed to remain its full allotted span before returning to the Burning Void. Shadows may be destroyed prematurely, but that runs into the second limit of their particular discipline.
Pacters cannot betray their Shadows. Intentionally harming one’s own summoned Shadow, trying to force it to act in ways contrary to its Principles, or otherwise abusing their Shadow breaks their control over the entity. It then becomes a free Shadow, one very likely to be antagonistically disposed toward the Pacter. Most free Shadows will disappear by the end of the scene, but powerful or intelligent ones may last long enough to find a substitute source of metadimensional energy to consume. Note that this stricture is intimately wound up in the caster’s own psyche; betrayals that they don’t realize or foresee won’t break this stricture, but trying to sidestep the ban via schemes will trigger it.
Level 1 Pacter Spells | Level 2 Pacter Spells | Level 3 Pacter Spells | Level 4 Pacter Spells | Level 5 Pacter Spells |
| Analyze Shadow Call Lesser Servitor Call Manipulatory Manifestation Conjured Implement Put Down Shadow Nourishment Shadow Reinforcement Shadow Ward, Lesser | Afflictive Focus Pact Call Drudge Call Myrmidon Call Odalisque Shadow Cyst Shadow Displacement Shadow Impulse Telepathic Shadow Link | Call Minion Call Shadow Chariot Call Vigilant Prolong Pact Shadow Compulsion Shadow Puppetry Shadow Ward, Greater Substitutionary Focus Pact | Call Deceiver Call Render Directive Focus Pact Shadow Domination Summon Forth the Servant Sustaining Focus Pact | Blood Sacrifice Call Devourer Call Stellar Phoenix Shadow Enslavement Shadow Ward, Perfected Summoner's Font |
Rectifier
The power of the arcane is the power to control. This control extends not only the brute forces of the metadimensions, but also the more physical entanglements of sinew, bone, and skin. The Followers of the Doctrine of the Rectification of Names are of a Heritor school that wields tremendous control over flesh and bone.
Rectifier History
The Rectifiers are a heterogeneous school, one that includes many different groups motivated by the acquisition of their particular arts. The earliest known sect was a group of militantly Confucianist Arcanists who believed that their newfound magical abilities would assist them in rectifying the confusion of labels and identities that people adopted in the world. By means of magic, what the common people said they were would be the thing they would become, and what the world needed the Magister to be, the Magister could magically supply.
These early Rectifiers were soon joined by numerous groups of transhumanist researchers who eagerly exploited their Confucianist scholarship to learn magical means of approaching the physical perfection they sought. While most of these groups thought little of the Rectification of Names, they were desperately interested in techniques of imposing their own will on unruly human flesh.
Certain ascetic religious or philosophical groups also found benefit from the techniques of the Rectifiers, seeking to overcome the limits of mortal tissue and bone through magical reinforcement or transformation. While the transhumanists glorified the physical form, these ascetics held it in contempt. It was an obstacle to be overcome through magic rather than a tool for personal satisfaction.
In the latter years before the Scream, some Rectifier schools had all but entirely abandoned the early idealism of the tradition, seeking only to use its powers for purely pragmatic ends. Some were benevolent healers who used their abilities when biopsionic adepts were not available. Others were depraved voluptuaries who sold their magical services to the highest bidder. A few groups had no interest in anything but extending their own healthy lifespan as long as possible.
Since the chaos of the Scream, the Rectifier tradition has shown itself to be exceptionally resilient. While it may lack the ideological unification of some other Heritor traditions, its sorcerous arts are superbly suited for ensuring the survivability of its practitioners, and the gifts they can grant cooperative mundanes are the sort that find a market almost anywhere. Some Rectifier groups still cling to the principles and dreams of their ancient forebears, but most schools in this latter age have been forced to make compromises with the necessities of modern practicality.
Rectifier Abilities
Rectifiers are treated as Magisters with access to the Rectifier spell list. They gain the same number of known spells per level and spell slots usable per day as any other Magister.
Rectifier spells almost all revolve around physical transformation and augmentation. They have very limited ability to create new matter or manipulate unliving forces, but they are sublimely talented at the molding of living flesh.
As with most spells of transformation, Rectifier spells that alter a subject’s appearance can also alter the seeming of their clothing and equipment, making it match the newly-adopted face or form. Such trans-formation lasts as long as the spell does. When the new form has no clothing or gear, such as an animal transformation, the subject’s carried belongings are displaced into metadimensional space, reappearing on their person when they die or resume their real form.
Changes
For most mages, transformations and other lasting spells require either Light or Deep Focus to maintain. Rectifiers are so skilled at maintaining transformations, however, that they can do so without the need for Focus. Instead, Rectifiers can have a maximum number of “Changes” active at any one time.
A Rectifier can have one Change active per level, plus their Cast Magic skill level. The description for a given spell indicates whether or not it counts as a Change to be maintained by the caster. A Rectifier can drop a Change as an Instant action; the spell indicates how long it will last after this support is withdrawn.
Level 1 Rectifier Spells | Level 2 Rectifier Spells | Level 3 Rectifier Spells | Level 4 Rectifier Spells | Level 5 Rectifier Spells |
| Adaptive Modification Biometric Imposture Font of Persistent Life Reinforce Tissue Siphon Strain Superficial Tissue Sculpture Temporary Limb Truth of Flesh and Bone | Disjunctive Shift Feral Guise Flowing Form Means of Ascent Sanctity of Self Temporary Excellence Ten Thousand Senses Toxin Purge | Manifest Aspect Perpetual Molding Physical Perfection Proprioceptive Crash Resolve Strain Restore Organ Return to the Root Sensory Leech | Accelerando Arcane Cyst Balance of Power Mask of Passion Polymorphous Pervasity Sloughing Curse |
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War Mage
Given the potential utility of magic on the battlefield, it was inevitable that some traditions of military magic should be developed by aspiring galactic hegemons. While the details of these military orders vary from sector to sector, the universal requirements of the modern battlefield have given most of them a very similar set of capabilities.
War Mage History
After the development of the SANIS interface it was only a matter of time before governmental researchers throughout human space turned their attention to ways of making military use of this new capability. Persistent stories suggest that some of these research programs even predated the SANIS project, with certain breeds of “War Mages” coming into existence well before the spread of conventional Academic magic. Others insist that these supposed predecessors were simply conventional psychics using specialized techniques that have since been lost with the prevalence of more convenient arcane spells.
It was rapidly understood that a military spellcaster was most effective as a force multiplier for small groups of well-trained soldiers. A single skilled War Mage could provide a host of support functions that would normally require a much larger number of soldiers to provide, along with certain tactical options that were literally impossible to acquire without their help. A War Mage could change the terms of any engagement.
Military bureaucracies thrive on classification and predictability, and so the SANIS interface was restricted, focused, and keyed to Magister-type spell access. It was not necessary for each War Mage to have access to every possible spell in the corpus of their art, it was only necessary that they have flexible use of the abilities they did acquire, and that such abilities could be reliably deployed by their superiors. The right War Mage could be paired with the right mission, and their Magister-style spell access ensured that they could wield whatever spell was necessary to deal with the imme-diate situation.
These War Mages were all initially students of governmental organizations or particularly martial religious or business groups, but it was inevitable that their techniques should gradually bleed out into the wider world. Certain mercenary groups soon picked up similar capabilities, and their survivors and alumni spread the arts still further. Many War Mages in the modern day are simply affiliated with particular employers on a contract basis, relying on the reputations they’ve built or the fame of their training institution to win the trust of potential patrons. Governments still greatly prefer to use “in-house” talent trained by their own military forces, but such luxuries in loyalty are not always available.
War Mage Abilities
War Mages are treated as Magisters with access to the War Mage spell list. They gain the same number of known spells per level and spell slots usable per day as any other Magister, as given on page 19.
Unlike other Magisters, their martial training gives them a better attack bonus. They have a base attack bonus equal to half their character level, rounded down. Partial War Mages share this quality.
Contrary to popular imagination, War Mages do not particularly specialize in directly damaging spells. Their usual access to heavy artillery and a squad of elite soldiers makes most direct-damage spells superfluous. Instead, War Mages focus on support spells that are useful to small, highly-trained groups of military operatives. Emergency injury stabilization, carrying heavy burdens long distances, resupplying ammo, creating quick firing positions, getting messages through to headquarters, and getting damaged vehicles functioning long enough to get to a target destination are the sort of spells that absorb a War Mage’s focus.
They’re particularly known for using engram charges, described on page 145, to provide situational spells.
War Mage spells can often be theoretically duplicated by the effects of ordinary TL4 technology, but often only by shipping in vehicles or constructing weapon emplacements in ways that would be totally impractical in the kind of small-unit situations that War Mages usually find themselves in. Having access to an effective heavy weapons platform is not much of a miracle to an artillery battalion. It is a considerably greater advantage to an adventuring party pinned down in an alien tyrant’s palace gardens. War Mages can provide access to the kind of options that usually require a fully-supplied military unit to provide.
Level 1 War Mage Spells | Level 2 War Mage Spells | Level 3 War Mage Spells | Level 4 War Mage Spells | Level 5 War Mage Spells |
| Ammo Drop Combat Stabilization Consecrated Arms Field Report Force Shelter Meta-rations Ruck Platform This Is My Rifle | Commando Invocation Fighting Withdrawal Firing Position Ghost Soldiers Roof Instantiation Rookie Courage Salvage Gear Stifle Explosion | Artillery Strike Breaching Charge Double Tap High Road Invocation Tank Kill Team Liaison Terror of Battle Walking Wounded | Entrenchment Kinesis Forced March Metadimensional Minefield Radio Intercept Protocol Voice of Command War Gas Cloud | Air Cover Forlorn Hope's Charge Infectious Despair Murphy's Law Summon Fire Support Ten Thousand Bullets |