Antimancy

 

a very rare and even more dangerous breed of sorcerer, antimancers are known as hunters (or synonyms to that effect; slayer, stalker, etc). dedicated to the tenets of order and freedom, the antimancers believe that attempting to control primal forces leads to an inevitable increase in entropy and evil (the analogy they use is that of a stagnant pool of water becoming infested by disease-carrying vermin). by liberating magick from the hands of mortals, they feel that this constant flow of magick will contribute to increase order and stability; not only through liberation of the magick itself, but also by removing the dangerous, chaotic wielders of magick.

 

antimancers are loners by nature and by necessity -- contact with another antimancer would drain both of their magickal reserves and possibly their life. when undergoing training, they're usually sought out by an adept who teaches them what they need to know, then goes her own way. hunters rely on their mundane skills to track and kill rogue magicians, preferring not to take on whole cabals. at last count, there are only a score of hunters in existence. rumor has it that both the new inquisition and the order of st. cecil each have a hunter in their ranks...

 

antimancy blast style: antimantic blasts ignite charges built up inside the victim's body, forcing them to erupt from the magician's eyes and mouth in a fiery blast of magickal energy. the damage done by these blasts is twofold; the stored charges are wiped out in the resultant explosion and those charges damage the victim relative to their strength. example: a dipsomancer is attacked by an antimantic blast. he has two minor charges and one significant charge. the attacking antimancer spends two minor charges and successfully casts a minor blast spell and rolls two minor blast attacks (one for each of the boozehound's minor charges). if the antimancer cast a significant blast, the boozehound's single significant charge would ignite, causing significant blast damage.

 

hunters must spend at least as many charges as their victims possess, else the spell will fail. they may spend more (to be on the safe side) but most antimancers rely on the appraise formula spell to gauge their target's capabilities before attacking.

 

generate a minor charge: physically destroy a minor magickal artifact or kill a magickally-active being in hand to hand combat who has built up at last one minor charge.

 

generate a significant charge: physically destroy a significant magickal artifact or kill a magickally-active being in hand to hand combat who has built up at last one significant charge.

 

generate a major charge: physically destroy a major magickal artifact or kill a magickally-active being in hand to hand combat who has built up at last one major charge.

 

taboo: physical contact with magickally charged individuals or items will cause the antimancer to lose all charges he is currently holding.

 

random magick domain: antimancers deal with a very specific area: the location and destruction of magickal items and magic-wielding individuals. as such, their spells most often deal with perception, stealth and tracking. except for their powerful blast spells, hunters employ few, if any combat spells.

 

starting charges: newly-created antimancers receive three minor charges.

 

Antimancy minor formula spells

 

go underground

cost: 1 minor charge

effect: go underground allows the antimancer to conceal his true nature from spells akin to early warning and appraise for twenty-four hours. underground also makes the hunter invisible to beings that can sense magick, such as astral parasites. this spell is one of the few beneficial antimancy spells that can be cast on others.

 

early warning

cost: 1 minor charge

effect: by casting this spell, the antimancer will "feel" when another magcian is present. the source of this "feeling" will not be readily apparent and only alerts the hunter to physical presences. this effect lasts for twenty-hour hours and will function even when the hunter is asleep (causing him to wake up).

 

appraise

cost: 1-3 minor charges

effect: when this spell is cast, any magickal item, creature or charged magician in the hunter's sight will appear surrounded by a halo of energy that only the hunter can see. by spending additional charges, the hunter can discern the strength of the charge and/or the number of charges present. hunters use this spell both for indentifying potential targets and as a precaution against touching magickal items.

 

mindburn

cost: 1+ minor charges

effect: the animantic minor blast is called mindburn. with it, the hunter can ignite minor charges stored within a magician's body. the blast is explained above in the blast description.

 

know thy enemy

cost: 2 minor charges

effect: to cast this spell, the hunter needs to hold a physical document that contains important details about his target's life (information on a computer screen must be printed out). this information can take many forms; from dental records to a tax return. when this information is in the hunter's possession and he casts the spell, he will be able to "see" a clear vision of the target's true appearance in his mind's eye. this spell is commonly used to see through disguises (both magickal and mundane) that the hunter's target might adopt in order to conceal his presence. if used on a target who has been altered through epideromancy, the target's current form and visage will be seen.

 

Antimancy significant formula spells

 

soulfire

cost: 1+ significant charges

effect: this spell is the antimantic significant blast. it works exactly like mindburn except that the damage, and pyrotechnics, are much greater.

 

replicate

cost: 1 significant charge

effect: this spell enables the antimancer to create an exact, non-magickal duplicate of any artifact in his possesion. antimancers employ this spell when stealing artifacts to destroy, leaving a mundane replica in its place as to not alert the item's owner. of course, they'll find out it's a fake when they try to use it, but...

 

fear of the dark

cost: 1 significant charge

effect: when cast on a target, the hunter and anything in his possesion will be totally invisible to that target for twenty-four hours, unless he wants to be seen. the spell will not mask noise or scent. this spell may be cast on multiple targets by spending additional significant charges.

 

blood trail

cost: 2 significant charges

effect: if the hunter's target had ever cast a spell in the hunter's presence (or on the hunter herself), every time that the target uses magick from that point on, the hunter will know where his location. the blood trail will end if the hunter ever loses all of her charges.

 

negation

cost: 3 significant charges

effect: quite simply, negation cancels the effects of any one spell cast (or being cast) on the antimancer. as long as the hunter is aware that the spell is being cast, a successfully cast spell is turned into a failed spell. cherries and OACOWA rolls are similarly changed to sour cherries and BOHICA rolls.

 

Antimancy major effects

 

with a major charge a hunter could conceivably destroy a sorcerer's ability to use magick, make any spell's effects permanent, destroy an item's ability to produce charges (or place's ability, when dealing with cliomancy) or utilize any antimantic spell on a global or cosmic level.

 

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