Mage
The Mage drew the same triangle thirteen times before the door answered. The Fighter asked whether the first twelve had been mistakes. The Mage said no. The first twelve had taught the room what the thirteenth meant. When the door opened, the air behind it smelled of hot dust and old arithmetic.
-- recovered fragment, cache-entry account, North Service Vault
What a Mage is
A Mage shapes the miasma through pattern. Geometry, recitation, diagram, rhythm, measure, hand-position, and remembered sequence become a reproducible interface. A Mage's power can be taught because it is technique. It can be stolen because it is written. It can be lost because paper burns and slates break.
The technique-codex is a real object: recovered data fragments, copied diagrams, marginal tests, correction marks, failures, warnings, and the accumulated work of anyone who owned it before. A Mage without a codex is still intelligent. A Mage with a codex has a door into repeatable power.
Mages are different from Cultivators. A Cultivator works the Lattice, the stable data-dimension beneath the Substrate. A Mage works the Winds, using pattern to compel volatile miasma effects into shape. Both may draw diagrams. Only one is tending the underlying infrastructure.
Androids can function as Mages. Their pattern-execution is internal rather than codex-mediated -- the geometric sequences run through fabricated cognition rather than a written record. An Android Mage does not need a codex because their codex is themselves. The settled world has not fully taxonomized this edge case; it simply knows that some Androids shape the Winds, and that correcting them is as difficult as correcting anyone else who has mastered the geometry.
Chassis
| Hit Die | d6 |
|---|---|
| Primary stat | INT (studied pattern and codex-learned geometry) |
| Saves | INT and WIS |
| Armor | None |
| Weapons | Simple weapons |
| Tools | None by default. One from background. |
| Subclass level | 3 (the pattern-school you commit to) |
Class features
The Mage's class features are the load-bearing infrastructure of every Mage, regardless of subclass. They are the mechanics of channeling through studied pattern: the technique-codex, Wind slot management, the recitation discipline, and the codex-study that lets the Mage recover expended channel-capacity between encounters. All of this is present before the subclass arrives at L3. The subclass refines what the chassis has already built. Every Mage feature is Substrate-powered; they shut off in dead zones and can be Counterspelled and Dispelled.
Feature ladder
| L | Features | Tricks | Prepared | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Psionic Channeling, Ritual Adept, Wind Recovery | 3 | 4 | 2 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 2 | Scholar | 3 | 5 | 3 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 3 | Subclass; Subclass features; Burn the Wind | 3 | 6 | 4 | 2 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 4 | ASI; Tricks (4) | 4 | 7 | 4 | 3 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 5 | Codex Study; 2-color Burn | 4 | 9 | 4 | 3 | 2 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 6 | Subclass feature | 4 | 10 | 4 | 3 | 3 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 7 | -- | 4 | 11 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 8 | ASI | 4 | 12 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 9 | -- | 4 | 14 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 10 | Subclass feature; Tricks (5) | 5 | 15 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 11 | 3-color Burn | 5 | 16 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | -- | -- | -- |
| 12 | ASI | 5 | 16 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | -- | -- | -- |
| 13 | -- | 5 | 17 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | -- | -- |
| 14 | Subclass feature | 5 | 18 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | -- | -- |
| 15 | -- | 5 | 19 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | -- |
| 16 | ASI | 5 | 21 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | -- |
| 17 | 4-color Burn | 5 | 22 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 18 | Protocol Mastery | 5 | 23 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 19 | Epic Boon | 5 | 24 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 20 | Signature Protocols | 5 | 25 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
Major class features
- Psionic Channeling (L1). INT governs the Mage's channel -- studied pattern, geometry, and recitation encoded in the technique-codex. Channel save DC: 8 + proficiency bonus + INT modifier. Attack modifier: proficiency bonus + INT modifier. Prepared protocols: INT modifier + Mage level. Preparing a new list requires 1 minute of codex review per tier of preparation. A resonance focus -- the codex itself, an engraved lens, a calibrated instrument -- serves as the channel focus. Wind slots recover on a long rest. At L1, the Mage knows three tricks (zero-tier protocols) and prepares four tier 1 or higher protocols from the codex. The tricks column on the feature ladder shows when the Mage gains additional tricks; extra tricks can be learned when gaining a Mage level, replacing one existing trick at the end of a long rest.
- Technique-Codex (L1). Your pattern practice culminated in a unique document: your technique-codex. It is a physical object -- a recovered data fragment, a bound sheaf, an engraved series of plates, whatever the Mage assembled -- that holds the protocols you know. It starts with six tier 1 protocols of your choice. Whenever you gain a Mage level after 1, add two Mage protocols of your choice to the codex; each must be a tier for which you have Wind slots. When you find a tier 1 or higher Mage protocol, you can copy it into your codex if you have the required slots and time: 2 hours and 50 GP per tier. Copying from your own codex to a backup requires 1 hour and 10 GP per tier. If you lose your codex, you may transcribe any protocols you currently have prepared into a new one using the same procedure; filling out the remainder requires finding new sources.
- Ritual Adept (L1). Any protocol in your codex that carries the Recitation tag can be executed as a recitation. You need not have it prepared, but you must read from the codex. Recitation takes 10 minutes longer than normal execution and requires no Wind slot. The Mage who recites is not improvising -- they are following the codex-entry precisely, taking the time the geometry requires when there is no emergency to abbreviate it.
- Wind Recovery (L1). Once per long rest, when you finish a short rest, you may review your codex and recover expended Wind slots. The recovered slots may have a combined tier equal to no more than half your Mage level (round up), and none of the recovered slots may be tier 6 or higher. The practice is not synthesis; it is review. Returning to the geometry of what you have already executed lets the channel settle back to a usable configuration.
- Scholar (L2). Your pattern practice required sustained study across adjacent fields. Choose one skill in which you have proficiency from: Investigation, History, Insight, Medicine, Nature. You gain Expertise in the chosen skill. The Mage's technique is not narrow -- the geometry that governs the Winds intersects with old engineering, ecology, and the deep logic of the world's surviving records.
- Burn the Wind (L3). When you execute a protocol, you may choose one color of the Wind that the protocol requires and Burn it. For the purposes of meeting that protocol's color requirement, treat the burned color's current level as twice its current value. After the execution resolves, the general Burn the Wind rule applies: the burned color drops to 1 in the local region and the World Master immediately rolls a Change of the Wind. You can Burn the Wind in this way a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest. At L5, a single Burn may encompass up to 2 colors simultaneously; each chosen color is doubled for the execution, then all chosen colors drop to 1 and a single Change is rolled. At L11, a single Burn may encompass up to 3 colors. At L17, up to 4. A multi-color Burn still counts as one use. If a color's current level is 0 when you try to Burn it, twice 0 is still 0 -- a Burn cannot draw power from an absent color.
- Codex Study (L5). Whenever you finish a short rest, you may review your codex and replace one of the tier 1 or higher protocols you have prepared with another tier 1 or higher protocol from the codex. The channel does not always require a full night's preparation to shift; a Mage who has studied the relevant passage can reload a single technique between engagements.
- Protocol Mastery (L18). You have achieved such depth with two protocols that they require no Wind slots at their baseline tier. Choose one tier 1 and one tier 2 protocol from your codex, each with a casting time of one action. You always have those protocols prepared, and you can execute each at its lowest tier without expending a Wind slot. To execute either at a higher tier, you must expend a Wind slot as normal. Whenever you finish a long rest, you may review your codex and replace one of these mastered protocols with another eligible protocol of the same tier from the codex.
- Epic Boon (L19). Choose one Epic Boon. The Mage at this level has not simply memorized more geometry. They have internalized enough of the Winds' structure that the patterns execute with less friction, less cost, and less margin for failure than the channel should theoretically permit.
- Signature Protocols (L20). Choose two tier 3 protocols from your codex. You always have these prepared, and you can execute each once at tier 3 without expending a Wind slot. When you do, you cannot use that protocol in this way again until you finish a short or long rest. To execute either at a higher tier, you must expend a Wind slot. These are not the Mage's most powerful protocols. They are the ones so thoroughly mapped that the execution has become something closer to reflex than recitation.
Subclasses
At L3 a Mage's practice takes a pattern-school: the Mage of the Weave who controls spatial shape and learns to sculpt where destructive force may and may not go, the Codex-Mender who preserves and repairs damaged technique, and the Glass Geometer who reads relic materials as mathematical instruments.
Mage of the Weave
The burst filled the room except where we stood. I saw it pass around us in curved panes, every edge bright and exact. The Mage had drawn the safe spaces before the fight began. We had mocked the chalk marks. We stood inside them and lived.
-- recovered fragment, expedition account, Chalk Room
Identity
The Mage of the Weave builds a geometric mental construct to hold space, force, and effect in relation. They do not merely release power. They shape where it is allowed to go.
Weave Mages are prized in parties because their discipline makes dangerous protocols usable near allies. Their practice is also exhausting: every safe pocket is a promise made to the geometry and paid for in attention. The Mage of the Weave specializes in protocols that compress, direct, and concentrate Wind-energy: force-dense effects, shaped discharges, area patterns that can be bent around a chosen target. To a witness, the Weave Mage's working looks as though certain people are simply outside the pattern. They are. The Mage put them there.
The discipline aligns with force and directed destruction more than any other Mage school. A Weave Mage in a combat role is not the Mage who stands at the edge and hopes for good positioning. They are the one who decides the geometry of the fight before it begins.
Subclass features
L3: Protocol Archive. Choose two Mage protocols from the force-damage or directed-discharge pattern-class, each of which must be tier 2 or lower, and add them to your codex for free. In addition, whenever you gain access to a new tier of Wind slots in this class, you can add one Mage protocol from the same pattern-class to your codex for free; it must be of a tier for which you have slots. The Weave Mage's discipline is the geometry of directed force; patterns in this domain copy faster because the Mage already understands the grammar of where energy goes.
L3: Sculpt Protocols. When you execute a protocol that forces other creatures to make a saving throw, you can choose a number of them equal to 1 + the protocol's tier. The chosen creatures automatically succeed on their saving throws against the protocol and take no damage if they would normally take half damage on a successful save. The safe space inside a Weave Mage's working is a precision object, not a margin of error. The geometry was decided when the pattern was laid; the chosen creatures are simply outside the force-surface.
L6: Potent Trick. When you execute a trick (zero-tier protocol) that requires a creature to make a saving throw, add your Intelligence modifier to the damage the trick deals to the target, even on a successful save. A shaped channel carries force even when the target holds. The trick does not disappear because the geometry was resisted; it deposits what it was carrying regardless.
L10: Empowered Protocol. Whenever you execute a Mage protocol, you can add your Intelligence modifier to one damage roll of that protocol. The geometric construct gives the released force more surface area, more density, more direction than an unsculpted discharge would carry. This is not intuition. The Mage has mapped the protocol's force-surface precisely enough to know which point to amplify.
L14: Wind Overchannel. When you execute a Mage protocol of tier 1 through 5 that deals damage, you can choose to deal maximum damage with that protocol rather than rolling. The first time you use this feature between long rests, you suffer no adverse effect. If you use it again before finishing a long rest, you take 2d12 force damage per tier of the Wind slot immediately after executing the protocol, and this damage increases by 1d12 per tier for each subsequent use before a long rest; this damage ignores resistance and immunity. The Winds will let the Mage take more than the channel should carry. The body pays the overage. The geometry permits it. The geometry does not excuse it.
Codex-Mender
The page had three holes burned through it and one line copied backward by a dead apprentice. The Codex-Mender cried when she saw it. Then she spent four days rebuilding the missing proof from the scorch marks. On the fifth day the pattern worked and she cried again, this time with witnesses.
-- recovered fragment, school ledger, West Annex
Identity
The Codex-Mender treats technique as inheritance. They repair damaged patterns, reconcile contradictory copies, annotate failures, and keep dangerous knowledge from decaying into superstition.
A Codex-Mender is the Mage most likely to become a teacher, archivist, or obsessive ruin-reader. They know that a single copied error can kill a student generations later. Their discipline is not primarily destructive -- it is preservatory. They fight when they must, and they fight well, but the work they consider important is the work that survives them. A codex is not a weapon. A codex is a promise to the next person who finds it that the pattern inside it is true.
Glass Geometer
He held the Warm Glass to the sun and turned it until the shadow became a diagram. Then he put the diagram on paper and the paper on the floor and told us not to step over any line that seemed too straight. That warning saved three of us.
-- recovered fragment, salvage testimony, Bright Shard field
Identity
The Glass Geometer studies relic materials whose structure already remembers pattern: Warm Glass, Vril-touched fragments, optical lattices, broken lenses, and Lattice-responsive minerals. They do not cultivate these things. They read how the shapes bend the Winds.
Glass Geometers are useful whenever the old world left geometry behind as tool, trap, or language. They can be brilliant, brittle, and dangerously tempted to believe every beautiful structure was meant to be understood. Their practice is archaeological as much as psionic: the Glass Geometer's codex is as full of diagrams, tracings, and transferred impressions as it is of executable protocols. The technique came from somewhere. The Glass Geometer is trying to go back there and find what else was left.