Since the beginning of time, many try to harness the supernatural energies to create mystical love potions, divine the future, thwart enemies, bring fortune, or consolidate power. Through arcane knowledge and faithful devotion, one cultivates a key to unlock the gateway into the unknown. For magicians and priests, it begins with weaving incantations and conjuring miracles. In the Iconic Adventuring System , magic relies on mana. With the appropriate talent, either chosen at creation or through advancement, characters have access to mana cards. Mana, when gathered, is placed in a reservoir within the play area of a player. Once used, mana is then discarded to the fatigue pile (discard pile) of the character deck. It becomes available again when drawn into hand from the character deck and prepared, placing it back into the reservoir. There are two ways to use mana. One is instantaneous, performing hedge magic, and the other is invoking a ritual. Hedge magic is simple. Spend mana during a task and create an effect appropriate for the mana used. In this manner, mana act as wild cards, similar to using an experience card. If you use fire mana in an attack, are you launching a fire bolt or manifesting a blade of fire? Combining earth and fire mana, is it instead a blade of volcanic glass? When climbing a wall, do you invoke earth mana to create temporary handholds from the stone or instead, invoke air mana to provide an uplifting gust of wind to reach the top? Using mana in this way, also causes fatigue depending on the amount of mana invoked, which can lead to gaining stress cards. The second is to perform a ritual. Magic from rituals have longer lasting effects or require concentration. If you know the ritual, just discard the required mana from your reservoir to harness its effect. If you don’t know the ritual, you must first spend the mana and then perform a task to see if you successfully cast the spell. Furthermore, you do not need to wait for mana to recycle through your deck. You have the option of evoking more mana. However, this poses a risk. If you have more mana in your reservoir than your body can handle, you could suffer from a mana surge, which can result in gaining one or more wound cards. It’s a little more involved than that, but those are the basics. For instance, rituals requiring concentration go back into your hand, making future task more difficult by reducing your hand size. Also, you can channel and use mana from another player’s reservoir to cast higher level rituals. It's a new and exciting system. We can't wait for you to experience for yourselves. Want to hear more about Iconic ? Be on the lookout for our upcoming Kickstarter Campaign and The Fundamentals, a free guide to get acquainted with the system.
