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GM Notes on Stoburu
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Rather than learning to cast static Spells, Stoburu (STOW-BURR-OOH) practitioners
instead learn to craft powerful magical Wands, Rods, Staffs, or other objects, into
which they invest all of their Magical abilities. They are able to work terrible
and mighty Magic in this fashion, but are woefully vulnerable to having their Foci
taken or destroyed.
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CASTING MODEL
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Stoburu practitioners invest Magical abilities into objects and then activate them
at need.
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Each Stoburu practitioner buys one or more abilities to which they apply the Focus
Limitation. The Focus can be either Inaccessible or Accessible but the Focus must
be Personal (Universal is not allowed).
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Some Stoburu practitioners have a single item, but many prefer to split their Powers
across multiple items. There are pros and cons involved with either approach; with
all the Stoburu practitioner's abilities locked into one item they are more vulnerable
to being deprived of the item, but with their abilities spread across multiple items
they are left with the inconvenience of switching between them in circumstances
where each second might count.
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This is a very "superheroic" style of Magic Use. Unlike some "Item
Based" Magic Systems where practitioners create independent Magic Items that
are usable by others and can be taken away permanently, Stoburu practitioners items
are just personal devices only usable by their creator. They are merely a conduit
through which a Stoburu practitioner works Magic.
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FRAMEWORKS
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Stoburu practitioners can use Frameworks for various Powers using the normal rules
for Power Frameworks, with only one caveat; the entire Framework must also take
the Focus Limitation and the Framework and all Powers in it must represent a single
item.
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EXAMPLE: The Stoburu practitioner Mardok has two Wands and a Staff. The first
Wand is represented by a Multipower (MP), the second wand is represented by a Variable
Power Pool (VPP), and the Staff holds both an MP and a VPP, as well as a few Powers
bought directly without the benefit of a Framework. The two MP's and VPP's involved
must all be taken as separate frameworks.
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STOBURAN LORE
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Stoburu practitioners must have an EGO based Power Skill called Stoburu Lore which
they use when they create a new or replacement item, or improve an existing item.
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STOBURAN LORE: Power Skill (EGO); Real Cost: 3/2
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ACTIVE POINTS
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Since Stoburu practitioners pay the Real Cost of their Powers, the primary limiter
of raw potency is the character point costs involved and there are no Active Point
caps in place by default. However a GM that prefers to enforce some equanimity can
easily impose an Active Point cap.
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Check with your GM to determine if any Active Point caps are in place for this type
of Magic prior to making a Stoburu practitioner character.
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Restrictions
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There are a number of restrictions which apply to this type of Magic Use, as follows.
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Stoburu Power Design Restrictions
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- All Powers must take the Focus Limitation
- All Stoburu Foci are Personal Foci
- All Stoburu Foci may be considered "Durable" Foci unless the GM rules otherwise
- No Power can take the Independent Limitation
- No Power can take Non-Recoverable Charges
- No Power can take the No Conscious Control Limitation, typically
- No Power can Require a Skill Roll to be activated *
- A Power may Require a Skill Roll to take effect
- such as a Power requiring a Persuasion skill roll
- Any other Limitation is allowable in principle, though the GM exercises final veto
over appropriateness
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FOCI
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As noted all Stoburu items must be Personal Foci. Additionally, they may all be
considered Durable unless a player deliberately takes the Fragile modifier for an
item. Aside from those caveats, all the other options available for Foci can be
used to define a particular Stoburu item.
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REPLACING A FOCUS
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Stoburu practitioners pay character points equal to the Real Cost of their items;
however as noted under Power Design Restrictions above, items cannot be bought with
the Independent Limitation. Thus if a Focus is stolen, destroyed, or otherwise lost
a Stoburu practitioner can replace the item with a little time and effort. The details
for how this is done are given later under Creating
Stoburu Items.
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INDEPENDENT
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As Stoburu items are Personal Foci, Independent is neither appropriate or allowed.
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CHARGES
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Stoburu items can be used as long as the practitioner that created them still lives
or they are destroyed; thus Non-Recoverable Charges is not allowed. However, at
the discretion of the player and GM normal Charges are allowed on individual effects
and on Frameworks, representing a finite number of times per day an effect may used.
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NO CONSCIOUS CONTROL
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Stoburu effects are deliberate and controlled acts of magical power usage. NCC is
not typically appropriate, though a GM might make allowances on a case by case basis
if it were necessary to model a particularly interesting effect or in special cases
(to serve as a check on Pre or Retro-cognition abilities for instance).
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NO SKILL ROLL TO CAST / ACTIVATE
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The Skill impact to Stoburu practitioners is in creating their items, not
in using them. Thus, RSR to activate their powers is not allowed by default.
However, a GM may prefer to lift this restriction and allow individual abilities
to take RSR to limit their activation. In fact, a GM could go the opposite direction
and require it; however this would place a much greater restriction on this
type of Magic Use than is really intended and could make the System undesireable
to players.
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OTHER LIMITATIONS
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Any other limitation not specifically denied above is of possible use to limit effects
in Stoburu items. It is left to the GM's discretion as to what is thematically appropriate
and makes sense on a case by case basis.
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Common Limitations taken include the typical "magic" Limitations of Incantations,
Gestures, Extra Time, Concentration and Increased Endurance. It is important to
note that such Limitations are not required as they are in many other Magic Systems;
they serve primarily to reduce the Real Cost of effects rather than as a required
check on the Magic System itself. The only Limitation that is actually required
for Stoburu effects is Focus.
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SPECIAL EFFECTS (SFX)
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Stoburu abilities have very generic Special Effects. Each Power must have an appropriately
defined SFXbased upon the type of effect it is (a fireball effect would have the
SFX of fire, for instance). Additionally all Stoburu effects also automatically
have the additional SFX of Stoburu Arcane Magic. Finally, each Power also
includes a recognizable signature unique to the Stoburu practitioner. These mandatory
SFX cannot be altered by any means, including Variable Special Effects, though they
can be hidden with appropriate use of Invisible Power Effects or Sensory Affecting
Powers.
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EXAMPLE: When Mardok activates a Mystic Blast Power contained in one of his
Wands it has the SFX of Stoburu Arcane Magic, and it is recognizable as originating
from him in addition to whatever SFX is defined for the underlying Mystic Blast
Power Construct.
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ARMOR
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Stoburu practitioners are able to wear Armor and suffer no penalties to their Magic
usage for doing so. However, they must still be Familiar with a particular type
of Armor or else suffer non-familiarity penalties.
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SPELLCRAFT
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If Spellcraft or an ability like it is in use in a campaign, it is recommended that
Stoburu not interact with it for purposes of creating Stoburu items.
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Creating Stoburu Items
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Since they must pay character points for all of their abilities, the process of
creating Stoburu items is fairly straightforward. The following guidelines dictate
the means of creating and improving Stoburu items (foci), which is referred to as
"enchanting" an item henceforth.
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BASE ITEM CONSTRUCTION
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By default there is nothing particularly special or notable about the base items
used by Stoburu practitioners to create their items with; a Stoburu practitioner
could pick up a mundane item and over time infuse it until it is usable as a conduit
for their Magic. For instance, a Stoburu Staff starts off as nothing more exotic
than a nice solid staff prior to being enchanted.
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However, if a GM prefers the items used might need to be distinguished in some way.
This could take many forms, ranging from requiring items to be made from exotic
or high-quality materials, or a more hermetic approach of requiring special preparations
or rituals to be applied to the item. If the GM imposes this requirement it might
take a bit of doing to acquire just the right elements with which to enchant a Stoburu
item. On the otherhand the finished product should be properly impressive.
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Alternately, even if such special materials or procedures are not required, a GM
might grant bonuses to the Stoburu Lore Skill Roll that must be made as part of
enchanting a Stoburu item (discussed below) if a practitioner goes out of their
way to acquire thematically appropriate and / or exotic elements for their item.
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EXAMPLE: Mardok sets out to make a new Staff. Pursuant to this he seeks out
a length of wood cut from the heart of a sablewood tree, banded and capped with
meteoric iron, and set with studs of polished sapphire. He treats the Staff with
special oils and leaves it to soak under a full moon for three nights in a handcrafted
bower of ash and willow, and then finally enchants the Staff with various effects.
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If this level of detail is not required by the GM, then it might deserve a bonus
to Mardok's eventual Stoburu Lore Skill Roll when he is finished enchanting the
Staff (a +2 bonus, or higher, would be appropriate). Correspondingly, the monetary
costs involved in making this item would be higher than simply acquiring a mundane
item, obviously.
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ENCHANTING A NEW OR REPLACEMENT ITEM
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To enchant a Stoburu item, a player or GM designs all of the effects that are going
to be in the item. In game the Stoburu practitioner must spend one hour "enchanting"
the item per Active Points in the item (including all Powers and Frameworks; see
below for guidelines on calculating the Active Points for Frameworks). The process
of enchanting an item can be broken up across as many days as it takes and does
not need to be consecutive.
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FRAMEWORK ACTIVE POINTS
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To determine how many Active Points are in a Framework for purposes of creating
a Stoburu item, use the following guidelines:
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- Multipower (MP): Consider a MP as a single Power Construct with Active Points
equal to the Reserve, +10 Active Point for every slot in the Multipower
- Elemental Control (EC): Consider an EC as a single Power Construct with Active
Points equal to the largest Power in the EC, +5 Active Points for each additional
Power in the EC
- Variable Power Pool (VPP): Consider it a single Power Construct with Active
Points equal to the Pool plus the Control Cost
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COMPLETION
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After all enchanting has been completed, the Stoburu practitioner makes a single
Stoburu Lore Skill Roll. There are no penalties to this Skill Roll by default, but
the GM can apply any penalties they think appropriate to represent any difficulty
they think applicable.
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If the Skill Roll is successful the Stoburu practitioner pays the Real Cost of their
new item (aka focus), and the various Powers involved are added to their character
sheet. If the Skill Roll is failed the Stoburu practitioner must start over again
from the beginning if they still wish to learn the ability; the character points
are not spent in the case of failure.
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BONUSES
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Bonuses are applicable to the Stoburu Lore Skill Roll as follows.
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REPLACING
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A Stoburu practitioner that is replacing an item that they previously had that was
lost, stolen, destroyed, etc benefits from a +2 bonus to their Stoburu Lore Skill
Roll.
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EXTRA ENCHANTING TIME
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A Stoburu practitioner can take extra time enchanting an item; for each cumulative
doubling of time taken they gain a cumulative +1 bonus.
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Example: Mardok is enchanting an item with a total of 80 Active Points. Normally
he would have to spend 80 hours enchanting the item, but if he took 160 hours to
do it he would gain a +1 bonus to his eventual Stoburu Lore Skill Roll. If he took
320 hours to enchant the item he would gain a +2 bonus, and so on.
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Improving Stoburu Items
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Improving existing abilities is relatively easy for Stoburu practitioners.
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EXISTING ITEM
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A Stoburu practitioner may improve an existing item by either adding a new effect
to the Focus, or by increasing the Active Points in an existing effect already in
the Focus. Either way, the Stoburu practitioner must spend one hour enchanting the
item per Active Point being added, after which they make a Stoburu Lore Skill Roll
exactly as described above for creating a new item.
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In the case of an improved effect, the Active Points being added are what is considered,
not the total Active Points of the Power. Thus if a Stoburu practitioner had an
effect with 50 Active Points and the improved version has 60 Active Points, then
it takes 10 hours to enchant the item to gain the improvement (the difference between
60 and 50 in Active Points per hour).
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This process is done one effect at a time. So for instance if a Stoburu practitioner
wished to add three new effects and boost an existing effect, they would go through
this process once for each Power involved for a total of four times.
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However, if a GM allows it, a Stoburu practitioner could be working on enchanting
multiple effects simultaneously, spending an hour on one or the other. There's not
really any benefit to this, and in fact it is slightly inefficient since it is better
to add one effect sooner had have it available and then add the next, but if a player
wants to do it there's no reason not to allow it.
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Example: Mardok wishes to improve an existing item by adding a new effect
to it. The new effect has 30 Active Points, so Mardok must spend 30 hours enchanting
the item, after which time he makes a Stoburu Lore Skill Roll. If the roll is
successful the item gains the new effect and the Real Cost of the new effect is
paid; if the roll is failed no points are paid and the item does not gain the new
effect.
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Mardok also wishes to improve an existing item by increasing the power of one of
its effect. The improved Power has 10 more Active Points than it did previously,
so Mardok must spend 10 hours enchanting the improved Power into the item, after
which time he makes a Stoburu Lore Skill Roll.
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Creating New Effects
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By default Stoburu practitioners can "enchant" their foci with effects based on
whatever Powers they want into an item and then use it at will (or according to
any initialization Limitations taken on the Power). However, individual GM's might
wish to curb this broad freedom in Power design either at the base Power level (sc.:
no EDM), the Category level (sc.: no Special Powers), or by some other criteria
(sc.: no Stop Sign Powers).
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As always, check with your GM prior to making a Stoburu practitioner character to
determine if they are placing any such restrictions on what Powers are legal in
their campaign.
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NOTE: It is recommended that effects built using "Yield Sign" or "Stop Sign"
Powers should require GM's permission. This is in effect in Killer Shrike's campaigns.
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INABILITY TO CREATE NEW ITEMS OR EFFECTS
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Stoburu is a highly creative Magic System that lacks "Spells" or other static, shareable
Magic effects. Each Stoburu practitioner's collection of items (foci) and the effects
contained therein are essentially unique to them and are created by them using the
guidelines given for enchanting Stoburu items. Thus, by definition, a Stoburu practitioner
cannot be unable to create new abilities.
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