The magic of the archipelago is tied to the natural world. Wizards in towers, poring over books of musty lore are unknown here – academia is not only unnecessary for magic user, it's counterproductive.
To understand magic, then, it is necessary to understand the natural world (and its mystical properties).
The residents of the archipelago understand the world to be broken up into six elements: Fire, Air, Water, Wood, Earth, and Metal. Animals and humans are regarded alternately as a mixture (in various quantities) of all the elements, or something outside the order of the elements entirely, depending on whom you talk to – islanders aren't much for dogma.
The elements are said to have various different relations, but two of the very common ways of grouping them are the formless elements (Fire, Air, and Water) versus the solid elements (Metal, Earth, and Wood), or the complementary pairs – Fire and Water, Earth and Air, Metal and Wood. The former progression (from Fire, the most formless, to Metal, the most solid) describes a bidirectional path in life, and the conflicts of the complementary pairs are said to drive change in life.
Arising out of the elements are spirits. Prominent features of a landscape, like streams (or rivers, on the larger islands), reefs, mountains, groves or even individual trees, currents in the ocean, and the like all have spirits associated with them. Spirits are nearly omnipresent in the archipelago.
All spirits are normally not physically incarnate – they infuse the feature/substance that they're bound to, and sense what happens to it, in it, and around it. However, if it so chooses, any spirit can create a visible, fairly material humanoid form. This form is mobile, and can move away from the spirit's native substance/feature, but most spirits are loathe to do so – it's not known exactly why.
The vast majority of spirits are rather shockingly unintelligent and uninterested in the world around them. The average spirit is as bright as a terribly dim human, has a world-view more solipsistic than a two year old child's, and is interested in interaction with the outside world only to the extent that a brief whim might incite it to mischief. However, a minority of spirits (generally those associated with big or impressive terrain features) have human level or above intelligence, and are not totally insensitive to the desires of other sapient beings around them.
As spirits are an omnipresent feature of the Archipelago, routines for dealing with spirits have long since become routine for the human residents of the islands. Most skills, particularly skills that involve interacting with the natural environment or crafting things out of it, involve a certain amount of interaction with the spirits.
In general, this sort of magic is not dramatic. For example, an expert fisherman, in addition to baiting his lines appropriately, casting nets in the right places, and knowing what fish make good eating, will have an encyclopedic knowledge of chants designed to engender the goodwill of ocean spirits. He'll bring along appropriate small sacrifices to cast overboard to the unseen spirits below, and know how to use each chant and each sacrifice (different ones are used when you come to a fishing site, when you catch a fish, when the fish aren't biting, etc). And these rituals do help him catch fish. But the effects are subtle – an ocean spirit will typically not manifest itself and dump a fish into the boat of a fisherman who pleases it. Rather, it will simply encourage the fish to take the bait, or swim into the nets. The fisherman will likely never know whether he caught a particular fish due to the mundane or the magical aspects of his skill.
It is important to note that though the magical component of normal skills is subtle, it is definitely present. Our expert fisherman above will have a great deal more luck in his fishing than would someone who had a purely mundane skill. So, while the effects of the magic are noticeable mostly in aggregate, and not in individual cases, Islanders enjoy a higher quality of life than would real-world humans of a comparable technology level, because they are able to compensate, to a certain extent, for poor technology with magic.
Certain Islanders, however, push past the routine interaction with spirits implicit in most skills, and rather than supplementing their personal abilities with help from spirits, instead demand that spirits accomplish the entirety of a given task. This form of learned magic is far rarer on the Isles, and is viewed with a certain amount of mistrust. This sort of magic is often relatively dramatic and immediate.
Whether used on their own recognizance or on behalf of humans, spirits have diverse ways of affecting the world around them.
Localities
All spirits are tied to some kind of natural object or environmental feature. There are spirits of beaches, of reefs, of currents, of bays and channels, of mountains, islands, tide-pools, lava flows, and copses of trees. However, there are not spirits of anything manmade (like houses or boats, though a fire might generate a spirit), nor are there spirits of animals.
Spirits tend to be aware of anything that happens around "their" feature. They can be caused physical harm by the harming or destruction of their feature.
The more impressive a natural feature, the more powerful and intelligent the spirit is. A spirit of a hurricane is going to be far more powerful than the spirit of a zephyr.
Some spirits appear to live and die by the existance of their feature, others do not. For example, though storms are a short-lived phenomenon, storm spirits often seem to have years or centuries of experience. Similarly, fire spirits do not appear to be newborn. Some humans speculate that these kind of seemingly transient spirits simply go dormant when there is no fire or storm or the like around for them to inhabit.
While it is possible for spirits to go far from their feature, they appear not to like to do so. It is not clear why this is.
Intelligence and Commmunication
Most spirits are at least as bright as a fairly dim human, and can speak and understand (if often with a limited vocabulary) one or more human languages. Spirits do not have any kind of magical understanding of human language, however – they simply tend to pick it up over the course of their long, long lifespans. As such, the dimmer spirits and those less interested in humanity will often speak fairly archaic, limited dialects, the remnants of what they picked up hundreds of years ago and didn't bother to update. Thus, many traditional chants are in versions of the language which are no longer broadly used.
It is important to remember that the Mainland and the Archipelago come from two different language traditions! Spirits from within the mainland tend to speak the mainland language (and archaic dialects thereof), while Spirits in the Archipelago speak the island language (and archaic dialects thereof). Thus, if one is trained as a sorcerer on the mainland, and one learns a bunch of chants in archaic mainlander, and then one comes to the Archipelago, one's magic will be far, far less effective. Naturally, in areas where there has been both heavy mainland and heavy Islander presence, many spirits will know how to respond in both languages.
If a new land is discovered where there are no humans, or only humans who speak an entirely different language from the Islanders or the Mainlanders, almost no magic will be possible.
However, spirits can communicate with each other in some way that bypasses human language entirely. Thus, even if a particular spirit does not speak your language, it is possible to use another spirit as a translator.
Spirits of larger and more impressive localities tend to be more intelligent, capable of communicating more clearly and fluently, and handling more complex tasks. Once we're talking things like the spirit of a largish bay, a mountain, or an entire island, the spirit is likely to be as smart as any human.
Elemental Control
Spirits can directly control one or more elements, depending on what their home locality is. Thus, a spirit of an ocean current could control water only, while a storm spirit might control air and water, and an island spirit on a volcanic island might control earth, water, fire, wood, and metal.
In general, a small spirit will have the equivalent of medium to strong Elemental Affinities (see below), while a significant spirit will have extremely strong (at the edge of human abilities) Elemental Affinities, and a titanic spirit (one of a mountain or an island, for example), will have control well off the normal human scale.
Spirits may also be able to affect the minds of animals within their localities, though this is harder than elemental control for them. Spirits can not posesses or control humans.
Physical Bodies
All spirits may manifest a physical body if they so choose. This ranges from small (one foot high or so) pixie-like bodies for zephyr spirits to towering colossi for hill spirits. The more powerful spirits may create bodies that appear human if they choose, while the less powerful ones will be obviously elemental in nature.
The most important thing to note for all spirit bodies is that killing the body, while possible, does nothing more than inconveniance the spirit for a few hours. It is impossible to kill a spirit by killing its body – only destroying the spirit's locality can kill a spirit, and even this is not guaranteed.
All humans possess, by the time they're out of childhood, a certain affinity for each of the six elements. People with strong affinities for an element find moving through, dealing with, or shaping that element to be easier than it would be for others. People with extremely strong affinities can perform noticeably supernatural magic, like holding a flame (fuelless) in their hands, or causing a tree to grow two feet in one night. However, that level of talent is rare.
Most inhabitants of the archipelago have a noticeable but unremarkable affinity to one or two elements. Perhaps one person in six has such weak affinities as to not have any particular talent for any element. One in twenty has an actual negative affinity, finding it harder than it "should" be to work with a particular element. On the other side of things, about one person in ten has better than average affinities.
Here are some examples of what you can do with innate magic:
People who have an affinity for Fire have an easy time lighting fires, gauging temperatures, and telling which way a fire will spread. They are also resistant to burning.
Some tasks that you could perform with a Fire affinity, if you had related skills where applicable.
Negative Affinity: People with a negative affinity for Fire have a hard time getting fires started even under good conditions, and sunburn/burn easily.
An Air affinity is useful for sailors, both as an instinctive feel for how to catch the wind, as a weather predictor.
Some tasks that you could perform with an Air affinity, if you had the related skills where applicable.
Negative Affinity: People with a negative Air affinity have a very hard time sailing boats or predicting the weather.
Water is one of the most common affinities in the archipelago. It's useful for swimming, boating, holding your breath under water (but not above water), and the like.
Some tasks you could perform with a Water affinity, if you had the related skills where applicable.
Negative Affinity: No archipelago natives have negative Water affinities. It's that important. Mainlanders with negative Water affinities tend to sink like stones and be generally uncomfortable near the water.
People with a wood affinity have an intuitive understanding of the properties of plants of various kinds. It's a very useful – and potentially lucrative – affinity, considering how many necessities of archipelago life are made of wood or plants.
Some tasks you could perform with a Wood affinity, if you had the related skills where applicable.
Negative Affinity: Those with a negative affinity for Wood are generally incompetent gardeners and craftsmen.
Earth affinities are subtle, and usually not as directly useful as many of the other affinities. People with Earth affinity can predict seismic activity, and gauge the depth of deep water. It's also a useful affinity for any mountaineers.
Some tasks you could perform with an Earth affinity, if you had the related skills where applicable:
Negative Affinity: Someone with a negative affinity for Earth will tend to have a particularly difficult time in earthquakes, and should avoid rockclimbing.
People who have an affinity for Metal make excellent smiths, and are as such in high demand throughout the Archipelago.
Some tasks that you could perform with a Metal affinity if you had the appropriate skills where applicable.
Negative Affinity: Someone with a negative affinity for Metal will find that they're an incompetent smith, and also that all metal weapons will be treated as wounding as if they had hit by one level higher than normal.
If you use the default FATE system for Edge of the Sea, here is an implementation of the magic system in game mechanics. Even if you choose to use a different game system, you may wish to read through this section to get ideas for implementing the magic of the isles.
As was mentioned in the character generation section, elemental Affinities are rated in levels, which also indicate a skill rank, as follows:
| Level | Rank |
| 1 | Poor |
| 2 | Mediocre |
| 3 | Average |
| 4 | Fair |
| 5 | Good |
| 6 | Great |
These Affinities are purchased much like skills, but are outside the skill "pyramid," and do not need to be balanced.
Most Islanders will have only one or two Affinities, at levels 1 or 2. A sizable minority of Islanders have no noticeable Affinities. Having level 3+ in an Affinity is fairly rare. Having it in two Affinities is almost unknown.
Affinities can be used in two ways: When they're used to supplement skills (for example, using a Water Affinity to swim faster), the skill gets a bonus based on the level of the Affinity. If the Element in question is strongly tied to the task being attempted, the bonus is equal to the level of the Affinity. An example would be using a Water affinity to aid in swimming – there's nothing to that besides the character and the Water, so the Affinity is strongly tied. If the Element is a big part of the task, but there are other factors, add half of the Affinity instead. An example would be using a Water affinity to aid in boating – sure, having an intuitive sense for what the water's doing, and a measure of control over it, is helpful, but you also need to know how to do knots and gauge the wind and put your strength into the oars. If the Element is a small part of the task, add one quarter of the Affinity to the task. An example would be boiling a meal and trying to use a Water affinity. Sure, water's a part of it, but not the most important aspect.
The second way to use an Affinity is without a supporting skill, attempting to create a magical effect all on your own. This is very hard! When doing this, the Affinity's rank is used like a skill, against a difficulty which is usually Average or higher. The GM should set the difficulty of such a task based on the examples given in the descriptive section above – something noted above as an easy task will usually have a difficulty of Poor or Mediocre. An average task will usually have a difficulty of Average or Fair. A hard task will usually have a difficulty of Good or Great, and a nearly impossible task will have a difficulty of Superb or beyond.
Example: Bulo has a Water Affinity of level 2 (Mediocre), and a Swimming skill of Fair. He wants to hold his breath for five minutes and then swim away as fast as he can. The GM sets the difficulty of holding his breath at Average, and, since there's no skill for holding your breath, Bulo rolls his Water Affinity straight. He gets a +1 on his dice, and that takes his Mediocre Affinity to Average, giving him a success. He can hold his breath for five minutes (as long as he stays underwater!). Now, he wants to swim away. His Fair Swimming skill is modified by +2 for his Affinity (since the activities are strongly tied), and that brings him up to Great. He rolls the dice and gets a -1, which drops him down to Good, but that's still enough for a pretty reasonable distance in five minutes, after which he has to come up to breath.
Negative Affinities
Having a Negative Affinity for an Element subtracts one rank from skill tasks closely tied to that Element.
As has been amply covered elsewhere in this section, most Islander skills have a magical component. This section, however, will describe the use of "pure" magical abilities, the ones that do not support, but replace, a mundane skill.
All learned magic involves communing with spirits, and most magic-users will wish to build up a friendly relationship with a set of spirits that they can "use" on an ongoing basis. Because spirits are tied to certain locations, this means that the most powerful magic-users will also stay in one spot.
These individuals who commune with spirits use a variety of physical props to get and hold the attention of the spirits that they talk with, and as an aid to the understanding of the stupider spirits. Sacrifices of various sorts are also very helpful, on an ongoing basis, to the task of keeping up a good relationship with the local spirits.
Two different types of skills are important for a would-be magic-user. The first is Fetish Creation. This is the (non-magical) skill of creating objects which attract and hold the attention of spirits. Fetishes range from ceremonial knives to necklaces to wands to circles inscribed in the ground. Fetishes are not themselves magical, nor are they necessary to work magic, but they greatly ease the task of explaining to spirits what is necessary. Fetishes may be made to be generic, attracting the attention of any old spirit, or specific, tailored to the tastes of one type of spirit or even one spirit in particular.
The second skill type is Commune with Spirit. There are six different versions of this skill, one for each element, though one can communicate (with more difficulty) with a spirit not of the appropriate element as well. Commune with Spirit is the skill rolled when the magic-user actually wants to talk to the spirit and try to convince it to do something. This skill is also used to determine what an appropriate sacrifice is for the spirit in question.
Fetishes are things which are fascinating to spirits. Spirits like fetishes, and are inclined to listen to someone who is holding one. The bigger the fetish, the better, and the more tailored to a particular spirit, the better.
Having a fetish, or not, modifies the roll to commune with spirits. In the worst case scenario (having no fetish at all), the roll will be at -3. In the best case scenario (having a large fetish specifically designed to the spirit in question), the roll will be at +1. Here are the axes on which it varies.
| Fetish Designed For | Modifier |
| Any spirit | -1 |
| Type of spirit (eg. Water spirits) | 0 |
| Specific spirit (eg. the spirit Buko) | +1 |
| Size
| Modifier
| Small (eg. jewelry, wand, dagger)
| -1
| Large (eg. 5' x 5')
| 0
| | |
A magic-user may use multiple fetishes, in which case she may mix-and-match the properties to determine overall bonus or penalties, taking the best properties of each. However, fetishes can't be used if their level of specificity doesn't include the target spirit – that is, you can't use a fetish for speaking to water spirits to commune with a Fire spirit, even if you're using it in combination with other types of fetishes.
Example: Eena is trying to ask a favor of the spirit of a copse of trees near her house. Looking through her collection of fetishes, she sees she has a necklace designed for dealing with Spirits of Wood, and also a largish rug (of mainland origin) designed for dealing with any kinds of spirits. Her necklace fetish would give her a total modifier of -1 (0 for "type of spirit," and -1 for "small"), as would the rugy (-1 for "any spirit," and 0 for "large."). If, however, she uses both the necklace and the rug, she can get a 0 bonus (0 for "type of spirit" from the necklace, and 0 for "large," from the rug). She goes with that.
Making a fetish is an involved task taking hours or day. Making a generic (any spirit) fetish is easiest, requiring only an Average success on the Fetish Creation skill. Making a "type of spirit" fetish requires a Fair result, and a fetish for a specific spirit requires a Good result. Making a Large version takes one higher level of success than normal.
Example: Eena thinks that she's got a good thing going with this tree spirit, and she decides to make a specialized fetish for it. She decides that a feathered headdress is appropriate, making the fetish Small. It will be targeted towards this particular spirit, meaning that her required level of success is Good. She rolls on her Fetish Creation skill, which is Fair, and gets a -1, which would be a Failure. She rerolls under her Sorceress Aspect and gets a +1, for success. Using her new headdress, she can get a +0 on Communing rolls for the Tree Spirit, or +1 in combination with her rug.
After a magic-user has selected the appropriate fetishes, he must make two Communing rolls: the first to attract the spirit's attention, and the second to convince it to do what he wants.
Important Note: Communing with a particular Element type of spirit is considered a task "loosely related" to that Element. Thus, any Affinity you have for that Element gives you a +1 bonus to your Commune roll for every 2 levels of that Affinity.
If the magic user has the appropriate Commune skill (for example, Commune with Water Spirits when he wants to talk to a spirit of the reef), then he rolls that skill. Otherwise, he rolls another Commune skill at a penalty. There is no default for Commune skills, so you can never default to Mediocre instead.
Each Element is defined as Formed or Formless, and is opposed by one other element. Fire, Air, and Water are Formless, Earth, Wood, and Metal are Formed. Fire opposes Water, Metal opposes Wood, Earth opposes Air. You can't use a Commune skill on the opposing element (so, no using Commune with Fire Spirit to talk to a Water Spirit). Otherwise, you can use another skill at a -1 penalty if they're in the same class (Formed vs. Formless) or a -2 penalty if they aren't.
Even Spirits which have control over multiple Elements are considered primarily in a single class – for example, the Spirit of a tree-covered hill might have both Earth and Wood powers, but it would be considered primarily an Earth spirit.
Getting the attention of a spirit is based on how close you are to the spirit's locality. If you're right at the locality (or within it), the difficulty of the Commune roll to get the spirit's attention is Poor. If you're within eyeshot of the locality (which could be a quite a ways for big localities), the difficulty is Average. Farther than that, the difficulty is Great.
Once you've lured the spirit over to you, you have the opportunity to give it sacrifices or, in the case of the more rational spirits explain to it why it ought to do what you ask, before telling it what to do. Sacrifices are usually foodstuffs of some kind, flowers, or animals that you kill on the spot. Sacrifice of some of your own blood is also possible, as is human sacrifice of another. Ideally, sacrifices should be made to spirits on a regular basis (you can summon a spirit, just give it a sacrifice, and then let it depart without asking it for anything), rather than only when the spirit's services are required. Sacrifices (and the pattern of doing them) affect the final Commune roll to get the spirit to do what you want it to do as follows:
| Sacrifice | Modifier |
| None | -3 |
| Flowers, Plants, or unprepared food | -2 |
| A meal's worth of prepared food | -1 |
| A feast (at least three meals of fancily prepared food) | 0 |
| Small sacrificed animal (chicken or the like) | -1 |
| Large sacrificed animal (goat or the like) | 0 |
| Human blood (a scratch's worth) | -2 |
| Human blood (a wound's worth) | -1 |
| Human sacrifice | +1 |
| A pattern of similar sacrifices | An add'l +1 |
Note that to get the extra +1 from a pattern of regular sacrifices, it must be a sacrifice in kind with what you're offering today. Thus, if you repeatedly sacrifice flowers to the spirit, and then offer it more sacrificed flowers at the time of the favor request, your sacrifice penalty is reduced from -2 to -1. But if you sacrifice a goat on the day of the favor request, your history of flowers doesn't help you get from 0 to +1 – you'd have to repeatedly sacrifice goats to get that bonus.
GM's are encouraged to come up with particular tastes for a given important spirit, giving them a pattern of wanting particular sacrifices, to add to the flavour of the game.
Sacrifices are consumed in a display of the spirit's element during the ritual.
After any sacrifices are offered, the magic-user explains to the spirit what is to be done, and, if he wishes, why the spirit should want to do so. If the player offers compelling, well-roleplayed reasons for why the spirit should do what is suggested, the GM is encouraged to offer a +1 or higher bonus on his final roll. Note that spirits are threatenable – a plausible threat to the spirit's locality (not its physical form!) will motivate most spirits, though the magic-user should be aware that spirits are also quite capable of seeking revenge for being coerced.
Larger, more powerful spirits will be more difficult to convince to do things, particularly if they feel that they are being bothered over trivialities. Casters are encouraged to summon the appropriate "grade" of spirit for the appropriate task, and the GM should enforce that with a -1 to -2 penalty for bothering big spirits over small things (small spirits will be flatly incapable of performing big things).
Finally, the caster rolls his Commune with Spirit skill again, and adds all modifiers together to determine the spirit's willingness to help him. Consider this chart:
| Skill Result | Outcome |
| Mediocre or less | The spirit is generally unwilling to help the magic-user. |
| Average or Fair | The spirit is willing to grant a minor boon. Requests for information are usually granted, translating for another spirit is possible, as is keeping an eye out for smething in the future. Small things like starting a fire in the rain are possible, and the spirit will generally spare the caster from any global destruction it's committing. |
| Good to Great | The spirit is willing to grant a significant boon. It will attack a mortal (who isn't guarded by another spirit or in obvious position to destroy the spirit's locality), build a house in one day for the caster, or perform a more minor service on a long-term basis. |
| Superb and Beyond | The spirit is willing to try anything within it's power that's not obviously suicidal. |
Note that no matter how willing, spirits have their limits, and some things are simply not possible.
Examples of Spirit Magic
Eena has Fetish Creation at Fair, Commune with Wood Spirits at Good, and Commune with Fire Spirits at Fair. She has a Sorceress Aspect, and a Fey Child Aspect. She has Water Affinity at level 2. She has a large rug (mainland origin) that is a fetish designed for any Spirit, a necklace designed for wood spirits, a headdress designed for the Wood Spirit near her house, a dagger designed for fire spirits, and a wand designed for water spirits.
Example 1: Eeena wants the Wood Spirit beside her house to bless her boat, making it resistant to damage and capsizing. As a matter of policy, she makes weekly sacrifices of a well-prepared meal to this spirit, and she can drag her boat right up the copse of trees. She spreads out her blanket and wears her headdress to begin the ritual, and she has another cooked meal on-hand. Her fetishes count for Large (the blanket) and Specific (the headdress), so she has a +1 to her Commune rolls. She begins by attracting the Spirit's attention. Since she's right there at her house, she just needs a Poor, and her skill is modified up to Great, so she succeed automatically. She feeds the spirit her sacrificial meal, which, with a pattern of such meals, gives her a Sacrifice-based no bonus, no penalty. She then makes her roll for the boon, and gets a -1. That cancels with the +1 for her fetish, and gives her a Good result – a significant boon. The GM rules that the spirit is willing to help her.
Example 2: Eena is adrift at sea, and she wants a water spirit to push her boat towards an island. She has her water-spirit wand, but no room to use her rug, so her fetish is at -1. However, the Water Affinity is worth a +1 to her rolls. She doesn't have the Commune with Water Spirits skill, and she can't use her Commune with Fire Spirits skill, because Fire and Water are opposed, so she uses her Commune with Wood Spirits skill at -2, because Water is Formless and Wood is Formed. That gives her a base skill of Average. She's broadcasting a general call to Water spirits, and the GM determines that the nearest locality of a Water spirit is within eyeshot, so she needs an Average difficulty roll to get its attention. She rolls +3, to Great, and gets the attention of the Water Spirit. Once it's there, she takes her dagger and cuts herself deeply, inflicting a wound on herself and letting the blood flow into the ocean, as her sacrifice. That's a -1 to her roll. Eena's player tries for a big speech about how it would be great for the Water Spirit to help her, but the GM isn't buying it, so no bonus there. Eena's player decides to use a Fudge Point to counteract the -1, and rolls against her Average skill. Her roll comes up -2, and she rerolls under her Sorceress Aspect. The reroll comes up -1, and she rerolls again under her Fey Child Aspect (after some negotiation with the GM). The new roll is +1, to Fair, which the GM rules is enough for the spirit to push her to the nearest island, but it's sulky enough not to offer her any information about the island in the process.
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