The Great Bowl (Setting)

A setting post inspired by Sekiro, the Three Kingdoms, and Japanese and Chinese mythology.

Sit down, my son. You are now of age, and I must tell you what my mother told me, and her mother told her, and so on until the first days when we arrived in the great bowl. Your mother passed early defending our village, so it falls to me. I hope I will do her story justice, as she did for me so many times.

The world in which we live is the great bowl (太元). Our village elders believe it was an ancient lake created by the gods in their strife, which has dried up in the ages that have passed since the years of the wise emperors. In those days gods and men were not so different, and one could know the histories of things merely by asking the divinities within them. Now the gods are remote, and rule by onerous written laws and vast celestial courts. It is known that they define our fates by actuarial tables and arithmetic. It is hard to talk to them, and harder still to plead your case. The merciful listener goddess who keeps the west safe for the lotus-path followers has herself been placed under divine arrest. She cannot help us now.

So, what is in this great bowl? You have seen most of it. There are villages, built along the old Yi River (易江) which runs from west to east, starting above the rim of the bowl and running down into the cavernous courts of hell which pull the land into shadow around them. You would do well to stay away from those parts of the valley, for they are where the echoes come at night.

In this bowl the greatest monuments are four sacred cardinal temples (四象廟). They are larger than our houses and halls. They are larger than anything we could build today. The story goes that they were built by great emperor Shengzu of the Li dynasty (立聖祖), the last of the good and wise kings, who sought to leave the bowl and forge a great empire. He built them to honour the many gods and the cardinal divinities, and they in turn gave him four sacred treasures with which he killed his rivals and conquered the land. They are as follows, remember them well:

To the north, the Black Turtle-snake Xuanwu (玄武), who gave Shengzu his sword after Shengzu made the correct offerings. The pale snakeblade, it is said, grants the wielder invincibility in battle, but only while they are holding it.

To the east, the Azure dragon Qinglong (青龍), who gave Shengzu his crown after Shengzu presented a great speech. The dragon-blessed mianguan has sixteen braided cords made of dragon whispers and pearls from the sea-king's palace, and gives the bearer total knowledge of the past and future.

To the south, the Ruby phoenix Zhujue (朱雀), who wrote Shengzu's writ of kingship after Shengzu wooed them with song and archery. On the writ it is written that he who bears this scroll will claim all eight corners of the world under a single roof, and thereby make the whole realm his abode. For it is well known that beyond our bowl the realm is a square.

To the west, the White tiger Baihu (白虎), who never yielded to Shengzu's bribery, martial prowess, and flattering words. They say that the frustrated Shengzu used the pale snakeblade to slice off one of Baihu's marble paws, and crafted the first imperial seal out of it. This ancient wrong - and it is a wrong, even though Shengzu won the fight - is why the tigers in the west still hunt us.

The temples still stand today, protected by the divine laws and ancient rites, but they are old and out of repair. Perhaps in our time there will be a great storm, and then the final protections of Shengzu will fail and we too will die.

What did you say? Yes, we once were a mighty people, who ruled lands far beyond this tiny bowl. We had a great and mighty empire that united many tribes, and we marched across the desert to find rival empires which we engaged in trade and war. But our emperors were unwise and capricious, and in time they squandered the riches the generations past gave us. Our fertile fields they desecrated with war and famine, our great archives they desecrated with lies, our noble people they desecrated with rapacious taxes, and our great gods they desecrated with foul and unspeakable deeds. Till at last the heavens turned against us, and the last of the emperors was incinerated by lighting in a great storm, and the great lords arose in revolt. That was when we fled the royal city and returned to the bowl from whence we came. 

Alas... Yes, alas for fate, which brings time and decay. Still, my son, it is hard for a heart to escape the dictates of fate. And to speak the truth, I am sparing you many stories of the imperial days, and they are not glorious ones. Perhaps it was for the best that what was united by evil forces came to divide once more.

And for you? Well, if you wish to stay in the bowl, there is much for you to do. We hold back echoes and ghosts from the caverns of hell at night. By day we negotiate with the other villages for food and other necessities. Every now and then someone gets it in their head to become the next Shengzu, and we have to beat them back. Every year we must undertake a pilgrimage to all four of the cardinal temples, to complete annual rites and remember the past. But I sense that your heart lies beyond these walls.

The outside world is dangerous, my son. If you could find some vestige of the old blessings from the cardinal temples, perhaps you could leave. What is outside the bowl? To the west is a vast desert, beyond which they say strange and foreign peoples live. To the south is the ruins of our old capital, a vast and impenetrable maze of walls and gates. To the north a storm has raged for the last twenty years and more. And to the east after many miles of walking is the sea, where the mighty dragon they call the eastern sea-king sits.

It's best that you stay in the bowl. It is safer here. But if your heart is set, I have only one piece of advice for you: Forge your own path. Do not repeat the mistakes of the past.

The Herald of Woe (Enemy NPC)

They say that he rides in full black garb, even during the hazy midsummer months when the moon brings no coolness and the sun a baleful warmth. He is not armoured save his head, where he wears a dull grey helmet from some vanquished principality. He arrives always in public, during the day, when there are children playing in the town square and merchants hawking their wares in the market. None know where he retires once his work is done.

They say that his order is dead or dying, that no new initiate will replace him when he is gone, because his nation has been wiped from the earth and the adherents of his secret faith burned at the take. They say this and half-believe it, regardless of any evidence for or against these rumours, because they are terrified of him.

In the hidden isles they say that some mystics learned to commune with a nameless god. The domain of this god is most peculiar. The god does not rule over any element, or symbol, or land, or bequeath any form of magic. Instead, the domain of this god is the inner realm of a person's heart, their private moments, their whispered self-admonitions, the thoughts they think in the quiet hours of a very cold evening. The mystics called this god the Lord of Silence, and in communing with the Lord they learned to detect the innermost secrets of any whom they laid eyes on.

Wisely, these mystics kept to themselves, and mostly used their art to further their studies of the psyche. They did this in the hopes (some say) of ridding the world of shame and guilt, a noble goal indeed. Unfortunately, they came to admit a student to their ranks, who learned their arts and fled in the dead of night. The student, proud and cruel, used his skill to become a spymaster for a kingdom. Eventually he rose to absolute dominance within the kingdom, and became feared and loathed by the king and the nobles alike. Using his terrible knowledge he kept each angry party at bay, and spent their secrets to play them off against each other. His power was absolute... Till at last death, who accepts no gifts and fears no threats, came for him. 

But it was too late, death was too patient, the spymaster (whose name men swear never to speak) had already trained students of his own. These students learned lesser techniques, more crude approximations of the true mystic communion, but they were no less feared. They formed an inner cult to the Lord of Silence and kept a death-grip on power for four generations until the whole kingdom was annexed by the Empire in some war or another, and the flag suborned beneath the Cloth-and-standard Throne of His Revealed Excellency the Emperor at the Capitol Mount where He was borne. The cultists were scattered, the cult disbanded.

They say that he is one of the cultists, or someone who took on their mantle. He rides into town at midday and whispers secrets to men, secrets they would die rather than see revealed. No matter rich or poor, noble or citizen, each pays his dues to the herald of woe. Those who refuse to give in to blackmail are destroyed with a sentence, or a phrase, and often flee their homes never to be seen again. Sometimes he need not even say the phrase in public.

Some who hail from the isles themselves say that the Lord of Silence is not a figure of terror. They say that the Lord is a benevolent god, who sought to relieve the burden of torturous secrets and self-deceptions from those who had to live with them. How the Lord can then empower such agents of misery is unknown. Surely he would know the darkness of their innermost thoughts?

Then again, they say that after his death the king of that long-forgotten principality ordered the spymaster's head cut open to see what brain spawned such wickedness. They say that when he did so, he found his skull an empty shell.

Herald of Woe

2 HD, AC as leather, longsword (1d8)

After 1d4-1 rounds of observation he can whisper a secret to anyone in sight of him as an instantaneous action. Only they hear this secret. They must immediately make a morale save (or equivalent) or take 2d8 psychic damage. If he is allowed to speak in an uninterrupted manner for one round to a target, they must also make a morale save or enter a panicked fight-or-flight response. 

Depending on the number of secrets a person carries, he can keep doing this indefinitely. Those who are resistant to Fear take half damage and get advantage on such morale saves. The average person has 1d4-1 secrets. Add 1d4 per rank of nobility (knight, lord, duke, king...). For PCs, at character creation or when encountering the Herald each PC should roll 1d6 for any secrets they might have. If the Herald directs his attention at you, you take the damage, write down a secret, and give it to the GM. Secrets obtained in play or during adventures add to this total, rather than taking up an existing secret's place.

On death, drops a wooden idol. Attuning with the idol over a week allows a trained cleric or magic user to commune with the Lord of Silence. The Lord, of course, will not offer any response, but perhaps if he is made aware of how his gift has been misused something of this terror will end.

The Ones Who Pass Through the Fields (NPC and class)

You will find them at the edges of battlefields where the clouds of war have scattered briefly. They move amongst the bodies and step between fallen flags. To the still living they give water, light healing, and usually a hand to lay on their shoulder as they recover. From the dying and the dead, they collect last letters home, personal tokens, and sometimes final promises delivered out of ashen lips.

They do not have names, titles, or orders. Their clothes are those of peasants or monks, but they usually wear a white sash about them, which they keep clean with great effort. The armies of the living do not usually trouble them, even when they give succor to their enemies. They do not offend them, because they know that if they ever fall in battle these people may be their final mercy. From them come the stories of valkyries and battlefield saints, but these are not demigods. If you cut them, they will bleed.

If they must be referred to somehow, they are known as the ones who pass through the fields. Sometimes, one whom they heal elects to join their ranks. Sometimes, more rarely, someone joins their ranks of their own volition. Perhaps this will be you.

This group can serve as NPCs, a class, or as the basis for a campaign. There is no prohibition against violence for this class, because above all the ones who pass through the fields are practical and do what needs to be done. However, doing harm to others is contrary to their spirit.

One Who Passes Through the Fields (Δ)

Skills: Diplomacy, Observation, Medicine

Starting Equipment: Plain clothes, white sash, walking staff, waterskin, wrapped bundle of farm cheese and bread, dagger, rope, wing-charm. 

On Wing Charms

The more established groups of ones who step through the fields will give new initiates a small charm, a wooden carving in the shape of a wing pierced by an arrow. None know why or how this tradition started, but those who receive one guard it jealously. 

Display of the charm grants you safe passage in some civilised kingdoms (3-in-6), and may even stay the hand of bandits in rougher ones (1-in-6). 

In Widdernmark they call these feather-gifts (federgifter). Whose gifts they are is not known. And while the empire keeps records stretching back hundreds of years in an unbroken chain, it sees no need to record the lore of unimportant peasants who can neither fight nor rule.

Take My Hand

Δ: Spend a day comforting someone who is dying. If they recover, it does not count.

You always know what to say to calm down the dying and wounded. This means that you can often gain valuable information about who or what wounded them. They will often instinctively trust you, and tell you their dying wishes. You are compelled to complete them, even if they are impossible or extremely difficult.

A Word to Power

Δ: Stand up to an agent of violence, knowing that they can always kill you if they get too annoyed. If they weren't actually a threat to you, it does not count.

Once per day, when you stand tall and wield the moral high ground against a superior foe, you can force them to make a morale check at disadvantage.

Lay On Hands

Δ: Watch over someone as they recover from near death to full health. If they don't reach full health before you leave them, it does not count.

You can touch someone and grant them 1 HP. This will stabilise them if they are dying. You can do this X times per day, where X is the number of Δ templates you have in this class.

See Through Shadow

Δ: Live amongst the agents of a temporal power for a month, sharing in their cruelties and revelries. If they are not cruel to each other and those weaker than them in an ostentatious manner, it does not count.

You can detect the lies and superficial deceptions of power with ease. This includes lies told in speeches, proclamations, signs, archival records, and history books. Where you notice them, you become irrationally angry.

Succor for the Wicked

Δ: Save the life of someone whom you hate and revile, then let them go. If you don't actually revile them, it does not count.

You register as non-hostile to most intelligent creatures, unless you attack them. Unless supernaturally motivated, reaction rolls made by monsters against you and your party will never result in immediate hostility. They must see or otherwise sense you for this effect to work.

Power of the Powerless

Δ: Accomplish someone's dying wish at great cost or difficulty. If the wish is not difficult to complete, it does not count.

When you are acting to complete someone's last request, you can reroll dice (attack rolls, initiative, saving throws, ability checks etc.). You can do this X times per day, where X is the number of number of Δ templates you have in this class. You cannot reroll multiple times in a roll, and you must take the rerolled result.

Passthrough

Δ: After accomplishing all the other Δ templates, give your wing-charm to your successor, or make a new one to give them if the old one was destroyed. If you don't believe in them and their ability to carry on the work, it does not count.

A door opens in the side of reality. Someone walks through, someone you knew once. They take your hand, and lead you through the portal. One day the battles will end, they tell you. One day there will be no more tears. But your part, at least, is done. 

Did I do okay? You ask. 

You can't help yourself. It's been so long, and so hard.

You've fought well, they say. And that's all you can ask for.

The Hand's Neck Inn (Location)

The Hand's Neck Inn was once known as The Tower Pub, and before that the Four Lions Inn. You can find it on the crossroads between Madingley Road and Crossbones Lane. During the day it is a quiet throughfare, and the pavement stones gleam with a grey respectability that drains away at sunset. After the Cathedral-school rings Vespers the daylight ordinances of the church give way to more urbane night-laws. The solid oaken door is unbarred and the lanterns cast a fetching orange light, seeping out from the windows and the cracks in the walls.

Once a gambler feels that glow, it leeches onto him. He finds it hard to merely walk past-Everyone knows that the Hand's Neck has the best games and the best players. In the thrill of the bet or the swoon that comes with winning, it's almost possible to leave your life behind.

The Gamblers in the Hand's Neck Inn

Tonight there are six in the main room, muttering under a blown-up portrait of Lord Chamberley (Magister of the Night-Laws and himself a frequent patron during his more rowdy years). Two more are hunched by the bar, their faces obscured by the gleaming brass taps. If they're drinking at eight, they won't be playing for a while, so we can ignore them. 

It's still early-more gamblers will come by nine or ten, fat lawyers from the temples and grinning students from the colleges. Most are men, and almost all are poor, or headed that way. They are not here to win. They are here to play.

Sir Six-of-Knives

He was a knight, or says he was, anyhow. That wicked curled moustache and those fox-like eyes give him a shrewd look. His favourite games involve cards, shouting, and much staring across the table. He fancies that he's a noble strategist, but he always ends the night in arrears. When he loses, he makes a big show of reaching for his sabre, but he seldom draws. 

He's ill and he knows it. Maybe soon he'll convert, and leave the Hand's Neck for a monastery.

The Lizard

A student from the accounting school that they set up four winters ago. He has a frilled collar and a trendy rose petticoat. His eyes dart about behind heavy copper spectacles, and he mutters incessantly while betting on dice. They call him the lizard, because he never quite seems to lose everything. 

If you talk to him, he's convinced that he's beginning to spot numerical patterns in the dice. Patterns, he says, that will let him win big-any day now. He is eager to tell anyone about his discovery, because it pleases him greatly to be recognised for his intellect-not that anyone here cares. For now, he plays oddly and leaves by midnight to work on completing his patterns. He never drinks.

Miss Morning

A young countess, or someone with standing. Unable to force her way out of an arranged marriage, she plays to regain some sense of her dignity and choice. Her family do not know that after her lessons at the Women's College she puts on a shabby black shirt and hunches over the felt table while counting cards. Miss Morning, of course, isn't her real name, but her sharp eyes and face have a way of making people ask fewer questions.

Miss Morning won't show it, but she's observed the Lizard for several weeks now, and completed his half-finished work on her own. She plans to amass enough money to flee the city and start a new life. To that end she wins a little every other night, drawing from many houses of ill repute to mask her newfound skill. She won't be staying here for long.

Ladislaw the Younger

He had dreams once. What dreams he had, he's not exactly sure. Now his face is bloated and he has a beer belly, and his prim white shirt has stains that he can't afford to get cleaned off. With each cast of the dice or hand of cards he gets more enraged. Nobody knows whether this anger is directed at the life he is living, or the life he wishes he had. Either way, best not to win against him after ten thirty. 

He's a regular, but he's almost out of his share of the inheritance. In a few weeks he'll be broke, and the debtors will have their way with him. Ladislaw knows this, and is becoming desperate.

Magister Schole

A stern lecturer at the cathedral-school who prides himself on his strict obsesiance to rules and regulations. He sees the Hand's Neck as an escape, and will play to forget the shackles he has placed himself in. Drinks to excess, and often vomits. If you can collect evidence of his debt, he will pay handsomely to protect his reputation and his posting at the cathedral-school. On the other hand, you'll have made a power-hungry enemy.

Hans of the Gun

He's a mercenary from some land outside the empire. A long scar runs across his face, down into his neck, the sort of scar you see when someone's been tortured by a fine sabre. His clothes are some tattered mockery of a captain's uniform, and his gun and knife are not for show.

If he is provoked, he'll end your life in a heartbeat. He has a strong sense of fairness, however, and always pays his debts. It's best not to ask where he got his money from.

What are they playing?

A new game, it seems, called the First Flush. Everyone buys in first, and gets two cards which they keep to themselves. Three cards are dealt onto the table from a shuffled deck. One by one, the house flips them over. At any time someone can call and take all three cards. They are then placed in front of him and turned over. If all three are turned over and nobody takes them, the cards are discarded. Then three new cards are laid. 

This continues until someone collects five of a suit. If someone ever gets six or more of a suit, however, they are bust and out of the game. People can continue to up their bets between deals. The winner is the last player standing and takes everyone's bets, unless there is no winner, in which case the house takes everything. The Lizard is busy trying to understand the chances involved here.

Addendum

The hand's neck refers to the wrist, which is of course essential to flicking cards, shuffling decks, or casting dice. The proprietor, John of Somers, is a wily man, and this is his device.

GLAUGUST: Gardener (Class)

This is a class created for the GLAUGUST challenge Paladin of an unorthodox law. Westu hal, ðu gehalgod gardin-haþel.

The GarΔener

+1 to Bond per template

A - Tradeworker, Cultivator
B - Warden
C - Producer
D - Resident

Introduction

They are sometimes called gardeners, although that is not always what they do. Some of them are blacksmiths, librarians, tenders of small huts in the desert. But always they are distinguished by their common love of a place. Not a grand place, not a great palace or noble temple, no place of public honour or mighty treasure, but a small place. A garden, perhaps. Or a tomb.

To become a gardener, you must first have a garden. Over a year, pay continuous attention to some small location, no larger than a house a commoner in your land would live in. Remove the weeds, tend to the flowers, polish the worn statuettes and keep the ancestral shrine well-tended. You must not spend more than a month in this time away from the garden. Come to know it as you know yourself, and in coming to know it, come to know yourself.

The only way to level up in this class is to spend more years tending to your garden. There is no shortcut for true devotion. If your garden is destroyed, you lose all templates of Gardener immediately, no matter where you are or what you are doing.

Bond

After one year tending to your garden, you are bonded to it. Each template of Gardener you take increases your bond to your garden by 1. Gain +bond *2 to your AC, to-hit, perception, and initiative (or any relevant statistics in your home system) while you are in your garden. You gain half this bonus when you are in a place that is similar to your garden.

Tradeworker

After one year tending to your garden, you come to know its use. Your garden is the source of some trade or product, which you have learned to harvest or produce. This can be as simple as flowers from the grass or water from a well, or as complex as swords from a forge, or even blessings from a shrine. The important thing is that you are now considered proficient in that craft, even if you are away from the garden. However, being in your garden gives you +bond to that crafting activity.

Cultivator

After one year tending to your garden, you are instinctively aware of the needs of your garden, and how best to meet them. You can tell when the weather will be too warm or the currents of the aether too cold. You know how to keep plants alive, how to repair the workshop table, and how to restock the correct kind of birdfeed. This is tacit knowledge which would take you a day or more to write down, and even then cannot be perfectly recorded.

Warden

After two years tending to your garden, you become fiercely protective of it. You can sense instinctively if someone means harm to you or your garden, even if they come with fancy robes and seemingly bearing gifts. While in the garden, you are capable of identifying magic items and sensing if illusions, charms, magic effects, or lies are present. You are not able to pinpoint the source directly, but you will know. You also find it very hard to not get angry when visitors disrupt the peace and order of your garden.

Producer 

After five years tending to your garden, your attunement to your garden and your craft has grown to mastery. This leads to the things you produce being of superior, nearly magical quality. A meal from your garden is equivalent to a day's worth of rations. Weapons and armour from your forge count as +1 weapons or armour. Draughts from your cellar can help with illness or curses. This is only true if you hand-produce each item, giving it the care and attention it deserves. You cannot make this a commercial operation.

If you wish, you can take a student, teaching them how to tend to the garden. This allows you to take leave from the garden for up to three months, while keeping it well managed. While you are gone they count as a Gardener with 1 bond. If you mistreat them, they may destroy your garden, or abscond with its secrets.

Resident

After ten years tending to your garden, your fame and the fame of your garden have grown. Some start to call you "The sage of such-and-such grove" or "the hermit of such-and-such village". Visitors will seek you out for your wisdom and expertise. Gain 3 points distributed between Wisdom and Intelligence, or equivalent. This can raise your Wisdom or Intelligence above 18.

While in your garden you are immune to charm, deception, fear, and illusion. While outside the garden, you are resistant (but not immune) to such effects. You are never surprised and recover at twice the normal rate in your garden. All attempts to persuade you to leave the garden are made at automatic disadvantage. The produce of your garden are now renowned for their magical properties.

Learning magic the hard way

You want to, what now? To learn the ways to make spells? To become a wizard? Pfah!

Ah, you see, the fools who call themselves "wizards" in the Isen School, they'll tell you that it's all an exact technique, they think the formulas and the rituals they stole from the ruins of the empire are all they need. In quadrata numerus primus de ordo Averrinae, in triangulus numerus secundus de ordo Academae - fools, all of them! Do they not realise that the imperial scripts and codicils they so treasure are themselves bastardised copies of the originals from the Hidden Isles, forged when the empire marched over and burned the mystery cults to the ground? 

Of course not. You won't find a single one of their so-called high wizards or lore-masters who can even tell you the history of practical magic. Theirs is not curiosity, but a lust for power. They do not seek to understand, but rather to master, and in doing so ensure that they will fail at both. A child given a toy does not ask where it comes from, after all. Their so-called metrics and laws have limits, limits that the mystics taught and respected, limits even the imperial mages understood, limits that they have forgotten. Yea, with every forced spell they channel the fabric of the weave wears a little thinner, I shouldn't be surprised if their entire sky-fortress disappears into nullspace one day or the other in the near future.

Still want to learn magic, eh? Fine. But don't call me a wizard. I'm not fool enough to misuse the old names like that. You know, the word wizard used to mean someone too smart for their own good. Wizards disappear, wizards are cast out, wizards get burned at the stake, and for good reason. When a wizard goes bad, they take entire nations and islands with them. Me, I'm in no hurry to go any time soon.

A spell is like a pot, you see. How big is a pot? Should it be clay, or copper, or steel? Should it have handles, decorations, ridges to mark the water level? The answer is, it depends. Do you want your pot for water? For wine? For cooking? All of this is your decision - except, of course, when it is not. If the pot is too thin it will shatter, if the pot is made of copper and placed in a furnace it will melt, if the pot has holes it will leak. The making of a pot is a negotiation, one that occurs silently between yourself, your needs, and the elder laws of the universe. So too the making of a spell. And remember, if it ever comes to choosing between your wishes and the elder laws, the elder laws always win. You cannot negotiate with a hurricane.

To understand the elder laws, you must first observe what you wish to manipulate. To summon fire, first light a candle. In time you will understand the comings and goings of the fire spirits, the ways in which the lamplighter makes his benediction known. Then you must meditate upon them, and find the secret language by which all things are described. No, I can't tell you the language. If you're of the right talent, they will come to you. Once you see it you will realise that magic runes and elven script and even the bastardised imperial longhand of the Isen wizards are all the same thing. You may find some other notation easier, I don't know. Do what suits you. Do what feels natural.

The next step is to understand the distance between what is and what you wish to be. Where there is no light, you wish for light. Where there is stone, you wish for flesh. Where there is a lock, you wish for a key. The difference is what you must bridge with your art. Aye, it's easiest to just do the thing by hand first until you find out what the difference is. It's harder than you think. The first time you make a pebble shatter with magic will feel like a triumph. 

But it's still not over yet. the spell now lives half in your head and half in this mess of observations and notes that you've built up. Then you must refine your words, over and over, until they cease to be symbols and the higher thing, the spell-construct, descends from the Theoretic plane and enters your mind. This will be brutally uncomfortable, mind. Many a magic user-to-be has died trying to intuit their first six-hundred dimensional eigenconstruct. I never said learning magic was easy.

After all that, if you still have your wits about you, I'd say you have a spell.

One last piece of advice. Magic, well, the more you learn about it, the less you want to use it. Even if you're a first rate talent, especially if you're a first rate talent, you'll know how strange a thing magic is. The mystery cults allowed themselves to be wiped out by brutes with spears and bows, rather than fight back with fireballs and lightning bolts. Think on that, if you want to keep your skull intact and your family safe.

The Great Song of the Universe (Mechanic)

This mechanic is intended to be used in systems where death is common, life is short, and greed explicitly rewarded. In some sense this is not a mechanic at all. The players should not see it, and they should definitely not be optimising for it. However, if your players are trying, despite the will of the dice and the laws of the power, to be decent people, this may be a good way of reminding them of certain things which were once known in the great world of A'Tuin, but forgotten in the cruel and harsh times that have passed since that golden age.

Every time the players go out of their way to help someone, take on a responsibility at a great personal cost, or turn down power in the name of goodness, make a roll with 2d6. If they have a habit of doing this, add 1. If they are doing this for selfish reasons, subtract 1.

9-: Nothing happens. 

10-11: Roll on the Odd Happenings chart.

12+: Roll on the Odder Happenings chart.

Make any adjustments to your notes as necessary. Do not tell the players that you have made these adjustments.

Odd Happenings (1d8)

1. The weather is nice for the next 1d4 days.
2. They run into an old NPC that they have since forgotten. They are helpful.
3. Their next reaction roll is made more favourable by one tier.
4. There is fresh food and water left behind at the next camp they find, or supplies they sorely need.
5. A grudge they have acquired is lessened, without their knowledge.
6. The difficulty of their next save or check is lowered.
7. The next fight they are in, their enemies automatically fail their next morale check.
8. Skip a random encounter roll.

Odder Happenings (1d8)

1. An NPC decides to do something to help the players without their knowledge.
2. An acquired debt, grudge, or enmity is forgiven.
3. Their next desperate scheme or action with a one-in-a-million chance somehow works.
4. The villains are hindered in some way the players are not involved in, or a piece of good news reaches the players that they are not involved in.
5. The next massive enemy force they fight is wounded already and fails their next morale check.
6. Someone who could hinder the players does not.
7. In a place of danger, the players find respite from an unlikely source.
8. Do something nice for them.

'Now Théoden son of Thengel, will you hearken to me?' said Gandalf. 'Do you ask for help?' 

He lifted his staff and pointed to a high window. There the darkness seemed to clear, and through the opening could be seen, high and far, a patch of shining sky. 

'Not all is dark. Take courage, Lord of the Mark; for better help you will not find. No counsel have I to give to those that despair. Yet counsel I could give, and words I could speak to you. Will you hear them? They are not for all ears. I bid you come out before your doors and look abroad. Too long have you sat in shadows and trusted to twisted tales and crooked promptings.' 

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers