There are guilds where alchemists fabricate gold and living things are born and stir in glass cylinders. There are cults of assassins with the very shadows themselves stir to turn on their masters. There are viziers who summon the spirits of the wind that hear all and speak with the serpents of the earth that have lived for millennia. There are colleges where the wisest and sagest of men and women go forth to share their wisdom with the regents of the world. Magic is a force unto itself.

Magic is an optional Quality which functions as a wild card for Company Actions. It represents the priests in their temples, the mages and their colleges, the shadowy network of necromancers, or the songsmiths or druids of the deep woods.

Magic is employed as a substitute for another Quality. When a Company Action is carried out, the Company can employ its magical resources instead of the more conventional Qualities. In any given Company Action, Magic can be used as a substitute for one of the two Qualities. However, Magic is not an exact substitute and the value of the Magic Quality can not be higher than the other Quality. So if during an Attack with a Might of 3 and a Treasure of 2 and the Magic of 4 is employed as a substitute for the Treasure, the Magic caps out at “3” as it cannot exceed the other Quality being rolled.

The Magic Quality is not intended to simulate a few hedgewizards in a region or even some wizards attached to the army, it is designed to simulate large institutions rich in knowledge and power.

Quality: Example
1: Powerful & established guild of spell casters in a town or a regional branch of a powerful religion, or a small but powerful cabal of spell casters with access to terrible magics.
2: Powerful and influential guild of spell casters in a large city who conduct original research or the core of a priesthood for a country.
3: A state-sponsored college where the brightest are trained in magic to serve the nation or a wildly popular and evangelistic religion headed by a prophet capable of miracles.
4: An ancient order controlling the secret of magic or an isolated but powerful group of oracles or seers with the power to see the future, even the end of the world.
5: A world-wide guild of mages with a sole monopoly on the use of magic, a large and entrenched religion able to call upon demons or angels.
6: A sprawling Empire ruled by a Magocracy, a dead continent ruled by Lich-Kings millennia old, powerful monotheistic religions where the One God walks the earth.

Temporary Raises for Magic:

• Recovery or the destruction of ancient artifacts
• Manufacturing of an artifact
• Performing ancient rituals or rites such as stopping the sun or time
• Summoning of Angels, Demons, or Demi-Gods
• Breaking open of ancient seals and portals to allow access to magic
• Sacrificing a person for the temporary appearance of an avatar of an arcane or divine being
• Mass Ritual Sacrifices of sentient beings or the parasitic draining of energy from the area itself
• Attempting a special pilgrimage or undergoing a rite of ritual stigmata
• Releasing hundreds of monstrosities grown in vats
  

Optional Rule: The Unpredictable Nature of Magic
Magic is power, a power that can be used and misued, gathered and lost, but seldom mastered. Wielding immense power in a great ritual can stop hearts, burn minds, and leave behind lifeless husks. Calling upon the gods is the height of desperation or hubris and might result in damnation and punishment rather than miracles. To represent the unpredictable and unreliable nature of magic, the following rule can be used when Magic is available as a Quality.

Magic is used to replace another Quality in an action and the value of the Magic score being used cannot exceed the original value of the Quality being replaced.

When Magic is used and rolled in the pool, a different color set of dice are used to represent Magic.

When the dice are rolled, if none of the magic dice contribute to any sets (regardless of whether or not the sets are “gobbled” up), the Magic Quality is exhausted and cannot be used any more this month for any Company Actions.

In the event that there were no sets at all and the Action is a failure something catastrophic has happened: a gate opened and demons ran amok among the ritual practitioners, the priests were struck blind and dumb or the Thaumaturgical College burned in an alchemical conflagration. When the result is a failure and no sets were rolled at all, the Magic Quality is permanently reduced by 1.