So much for that idea

I'm mentally declaring my idea for a post-apocalypse/fantasy campaign setting dead.

As with most of my ideas, it was shiny while it was new, but it didn't hold my interest.

My next abandoned idea is a setting that is 50% cinematic Sherlock Holmes, 25% Charles de Lint, with the rest varying dashes of Steampunk, Harry Potter, Dark Materials, Van Helsing, Sleepy Hollow, Dresden Files and various folk/fairy tales from the British Isles.

The basic premise would be a an English secret society accidentally broke the Milesian Accords trying to influence the Revolutionary War. As a result magic and things unseen began leaking back into the world.

This of course means I would get to play with history. Or I will until I get bored.

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It's A Kind of Magic - for Cortex

These game design posts are as much a sounding board for me as anything else, something to help me put my thoughts in pixels. I've been mentally chewing on the magic system for Sundered Veil in Cortex.

I'd already decided I want three kinds of magic (available to players). Sticking with Arcane, Druidic and Spirit I considered how to approach them in Cortex.


If you aren't familiar with Cortex, skills and stats are measured by die type starting at d2 and progressing d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 then picking up additional dice so d12 + d2 and so forth.

Skills are basic through d6, then specialize past that so one might have Firearms d6 / Pistols d10. I had at first considered treating Magic as a general skill and having the three types be specializations, but that would reduce the distinctiveness of each kind. I decided to make each type of magic it's own skill, with specializations within them. I'm also intending on providing at least one spell per die step through d12 so now I'll have generic spells for that kind of magic at d2 through d6 then individual specializations.

Arcane is easy, the specializations are Fire, Earth, Water and Air. Druidic will have Primal (nature spirits and forces of nature), Ancestral (tapping into ancestral wisdom and tribal spirits) and Oether - that name may change - (dealing with the Otherworld and entities from the Otherworld). Spirit will break down into Healing, Empathy and Inspiration.

Casters will need to have the Channeling trait to use magic. Spells will have thresholds based on complex action difficulties, which means in most cases channeling the magic to cast a spell will be a multiple round endeavor. Once the caster reaches the threshold then they make an actual casting action to target and release the spell. Add some flavoring to reflect fatigue and it will be good to go.

Now I just have to create and write up 39 spells (at least).

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Sundered Veil - P39 or Cortex

So I picked up the Cortex Core Rules at GenCon. These are the rules used in the Serenity, Battlestar Galactica, and Supernatural role-playing games by Margaret Weis Productions. As I was looking through the book I realized the rules would be well suited to my ideas for the Sundered Veil campaign setting.

Crunch work would be tuning the magic system, coming up with the spells, tweaking advancement, and building my bestiary. Fluff work would be the same regardless of what rules I use.

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