Thaumatology and Workings
In the multitude conceptions of the SCP universe, thaumatology, like nearly every other concept shared between the differing canons, takes on a number of different rules and behaviors. Really, the only "shared" aspect between all of the different representations of thaumatology is that it represents a form of spellcraft. However, if we look at features which frequently occur between the body of representations, we can highlight a handful of other features common between them. In this section, we will do our best to represent a selection of these features which can be to some degree or another systematized and given concrete behavioral guidelines. To begin with, let's answer the question: "what is a working?".
What is a Working?
If thaumatology is the broad concept of enacting some material effect by way of careful anomalous manipulation, workings are the act of performing that manipulation. In a fantasy setting, you might call it a spell or a ritual. The exact mechanisms by which workings have to be "cast" are hard to pin down — in some cosmologies it may look like an occultic ritual, complete with sacrifices and carefully inscribed runes; in others it's more like sorcery, focussing energy through a channel while a spell is chanted or focussed. One relatively common element, however, is the concept of backlash. Think Newton's Third Law: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If it is assumed that any working requires an amount of thaumic energy to be enacted, an equal and opposite energy is "reverberated" back, to varying effect. For simpler workings, like levitating a light object or amplifying a person's voice, the backlash may be as simple as an equivalent toll on the caster's muscular energy reserves as would be experienced by simply picking up that object or shouting. With more complex, super-human acts this backlash becomes less predictable if uncontained.
Backlash
In systems which make use of thaumic backlash, a crucial element of performing thaumatology becomes the management of backlash more than anything. Without a mechanism to channel or redirect these thaumic reverberations, a working may result in unexpected and even severly dangerous side-effects. If a large amount of thaumic energy must be manipulated to accomplish a working, an equally large amount of energy is reflected back, causing effects ranging from living beings in an area becoming exhausted on the more benign end of the scale, to explosive destruction of physical objects and destabilization of a proportional area of reality at the more malignant. Due to the nature of the thaumic field, the best focuses for backlash tend to be organic, life-carrying material. This is one of the most common reasons for the use of sacrifices in occultic workings, although less brutal methods for containing thaumic backlash do exist. Specifically manufactured focuses can be created as a sort of "hollow space" for backlash to fill, and for the most trivial workings it is common to simply forgo a focus altogether, as the backlash is only as severe as simply doing the task manually.
It follows, therefore, that representing thaumatology in a tabletop system focusses more on a character's capacity for managing and channeling backlash than necessarily creating the right effect. At its most minimal, the system for thaumatology in Warped World can be reduced purely to the negative effects assosciated with failed or deliberately unbalanced workings. When a character fails a roll for casting a working without a pre-arranged focus, or explicitly performs a working without a suitable focus for containing the thaumic reverberation, a backlash proportional to the uncontained energy takes effect. Below, you will find a chart describing the relative required focus for a working's difficulty, as well as a second table describing potential backlashes based on the amount of uncontained energy.
Working Difficulty | Required Focus |
---|---|
D4 | Focus glyph, self |
D6 | Focus glyph, drop of blood, carton of milk, bouquet of flowers |
D8 | Small focus, vial of blood, medium-sized plant |
D12 | Medium focus, liter of blood, small creature, large plant |
D20 | Large focus, a human-sized creature |
For workings beyond the scope of a D20, sufficient focus may not be possible. As such, in cases where a working of this magnitude is performed it is more likely than not to have a backlash, generally proportional to the uncontained energy leftover after any and all focuses are expended. That is, if a working of DC30 is attempted, and only a focus capable of containing a relative D20 backlash is present, a backlash of roughly D8 is experienced (rounded down to the nearest full dice value, but no less than a backlash of D4).
Backlash Severity | Example Effects |
---|---|
D4 | Minimal muscle fatigue, brief dizziness, mildly increased hunger |
D6 | Muscle fatigue, bruising, hunger, nearby organic material deteriorates |
D8 | Exhaustion, severe confusion, spontaneous combustion of nearby organic material |
D12 | Severe injury and loss of consciousness, moderate destabilization of local reality, anomalous conflagrations |
D20 | Critical injury or death, severe destabilization of local reality, complete deterioration of local organic material |
You may tweak what these backlashes look like in your particular campaign setting, but try to keep the effects of backlash proportional to the established difficulty tables of the system.
Focus Sizes
Earlier in this section we referenced small, medium, and large focusses. For the purposes of gameplay and understanding what a player character could actually be expected to have on-hand, the relative sizes of these focuses are listed below.Small Focus: An amulet, charm, or wearable item
Medium Focus: A book-sized or larger object or other focus object which can fit in a backpack or otherwise be easily transported by a single person without significant encumberance.
Large Focus: A focus which would require multiple people or hauling equipment to move.
Relative Working Difficulties
As a quick reference in order to ease the determination of what difficulty a given working a character might attempt should be, feel free to refer to the following chart of examples at each dice check.
DC | Example Working |
---|---|
D4 | Moving a light object within throwing distance; Amplifying a character's speech to a yelling volume |
D6 | Conjuring a small flame in a character's hand; Augmenting a character's containment ability by +1 |
D8 | "Launching" a baseball-sized fireball within throwing distance; Pulverizing 1ft x 1ft block of concrete; Repairing a fractured bone |
D12 | Conjuring a "ray" of fire; Teleporting a human to a spot within line of sight; Anchoring reality against a reality bender's effects of equal level |
D20 | Conjuring a firestorm within a 10ft x 10ft space; Creating an anomalous force-field capable of blocking large firearm cartridges |