Magical Studies - Brining magic to the crew

Development Feature Requests
1

Magic, folks love it! but right now its much too strong to just hand out to crew a Wizard crew member would be far too strong if it worked like the chaotic Wiz-Fed Wizards. So I have a sugestion I call magical studies. Though maintiners may have other ways to give crew access to spells this is my personal idea for it.

This would be the job of the Librarian giving folks more motivation to play this under used job.

The Librarian would be given a new machine the book binder. New books are made with 10 paper and space glue (finally giving it a use outside clowning) and the machine will keep track of glue units and paper units. existing books can also be inserted and customised using it changing the front cover and title.

Spells! Spells are made with runes, runes are randomized at the start of each shift so the player never knows what spell they are crafting at first.

Runes come in three types:

Effect runes: determines the effect of the spell taken from all possible wizard spell effects
Target runes: this determines things like area, range, and shape
Modifaction runes: these modfiy spells you’ve made Modifcation runes can either boost or reduce spell properties Boosting spell properties makes scribing them have a failure chance, should a spell fail to scribe you know you have an postive modifacation on your runes. Reducing a spells properties makes it more stable.

The Libarain would be given a way to scribe runes by inserting the rune scriber into the binder book machine it would add the ability to scribe runes either onto paper to make scrolls or wands. the rune scriber could be a steal target, or taken by Sec if they are causing trouble.

With no way to tell what rune does what the player will need to experiment to unlock the secerts of the arcane. a successful spell will have only one area and effect rune and any number of mondifaction runes. if they make an invalid spell (Effect+Effect, Area+Area, Effect+Mod, Mod+Mod, Area+Mod) the spell will do nothing. Some Area runes work differently than the wizard notably ‘Mass’ that effects everyone will only effect them for a limited duration. this is to prevent them accidently turning everyone antag and crew alike into something like bread or a carp. The spell to gib will not work with a range other than touch.

Scolls are made with 1 sheet of paper and are a one time spell use the paper burning to ash after use. When experimenting with runes this is your best choice.
Spell tomes are made with 10 indentical scrolls and book, they hold 10 uses of a spell but can be recharged quickly by the libarain by placing paper and the tome into the book binder and choosing repair.
Wands are made with wood and gold. they have a limited number of charges but can be recharged with the recharge wand rune.

The random and hidden nature of magic is to make the player feel like they are trying to unlock forbidden arcane secerts that hold great power and advantages for fellow crew members at the risk of harm.

Effect rune list: Fire, Ice, Earth, Shock, Air, Etherial jaunt, Access, Healing, Bread, Carp, Smite, Polymorph, Blink, Recharge wand, Rod, Slippery, Smoke, repulse, Force wall, Void Applause, Blink, item recall, mind swap, Animate, Create weapon, create magic, locker, spectral sight. Light (flashes targets).

Area rune list: Self, Touch, Centred (area around self), Cone, Line, Projectile, Projected blast (explodes when it hits something) Mass(effects everyone effects much weakened.), wall

Modifiers: Area up, Area down (makes blasts bigger or smaller makes or makes spells travel more or less distant) Projectile speed up/down (makes spells more faster or slower), Power up or down (makes the spell more or less powerful) Duration up/down, Delayed (goes off after a minute) Echoing (casting the spell will auto cast the spelle every minute until the item is out of charges)

More crew-mov runes should be added… but the runes was based off wizard and anoms so… its mostly offensive spells.

2

I do not think this has much of a place as an intended role feature. It sounds more like something a tider could find in maints very rarely. I mean, why would random people be getting magic spells in a space station where they are meant to be working?
Some servers have psionics, but they are kinda shoved onto science as bloat and are not readily accessible to crew for obvious shittery potential. It really doesn’t work too well.

Librarian needs a rework for sure, but this is kinda weird to just tack onto them. Maybe the chaplain could have some minor magics like he already has with his healing bible. But this is part of a different design discussion involving chap’s role in fighting supernatural stuff.

This may be fun for a fork. But official servers?

3

well in media its often dipicted that wizards get spells by studying for years and years and we only have one job connected to books and it so happens that job has little to no interaction with the station.

4

I do get that. But the first question is “why should the crew have spells?”. And i do not say that as if they do not deserve it, but rather asking, what purpose would they fulfill?

Maybe the librarian could prepare spells for departments, like “Fire shield” for science and the like. But it feels like it would just be doing a bit of everything for the sake of it? It would also mean librarian would need a more secure work place where no one else can just come along and make spells as well as more standards for the role and everything else that comes with that kind of power, including having their higher ups keep tabs on their work.

Also, that idea of “this area has little content, lets just cram this new idea there” is a bit… dissapointing in a way.
The librarian is meant to be a calm role where you organize or talk about books. There are some proposals to make them lean more into a more paperwork-oriented role that can benefit the station while also being allowed to go at their own pace.

5

I mean… why should borgs have defib module or engi get experimental weilders? Spells are fun. People like magic, Lets give crew a way to get magic in a way thats balanced. I like the idea of having to study and research spells as it fits the wizard studying magic archatype.

But you are right that they might be better with a magical study room like how chaplin has there own room. it dont matter too much if someone breaks in as same as the round start they wont have any clue what ᚠ + ᛒ would do or any other rune combination. If someone can break in an learn a useful spell without being noticed good on them.

6

Just look at it like this: should crew have access to artifacts even if they do not have the tools to decipher them? No, because they CAN decipher them, and it would be an obvious case of self antag to try to do so.

Now, should crew have access to potential weapons and powers? This is a grey area with the existance of craftable weapons, but as an intended department mechanic? Nope.

The crew should not be allowed to just get powers at leisure. In SS13 you have genetics, but those must be handed out, RESPONSIBLY, by a geneticist. There is also episthemics in forks, but that is handled by science. Which has proper restricted access and safety measures.

There is simply no precedent or good reason to let the average crew member have access to stuff like this as the feature of a department. By the mere fact that you cannot (nor are supposed to) trust random crew members with things like these.

7

I dunno, being able to make healing spells for Medical, being able to make reduced power fireballs for sec, protective wards for sci researchers maybe transmuation spells for cargo to change materials into more valuable matierals, I could see many posative station uses for magic if we invested into more crewmov, magic.

8

I mean, if there is a department for it, and that does it securely and without just letting anyone try to make spells. Then sure. It would be no different from cargo ordering stuff for the crew or engi remodelling a department at request.

You just can’t be letting anyone come by and play with spells. Nor make it as carelessly insecure as placing it in a library. You also can’t just have a single, low standards, and defenseless role be in charge of such a thing.
It would be a case like sec, you have access to guns and the like, but you are also held to a higher rule standard and also need someone to be responsible for the choices made in the department.