How Workings Work
Every working — a formula performed, a work sealed, a spirit bound, a petition answered — resolves the same way. Learn the grammar and you can read any rite in this book.
The roll
When a working is executed, roll a d20:
d20 + Stat + Preparation + Grade + Dynamis (optional) − Miasma (theurgy only)
against a DC set by the GM. The stat is Wisdom for theurgy, Charisma for goetia, Intelligence for formula craft — the three abilities that drive the craft.
Preparation quality
How completely you met the working's requirements decides your Preparation bonus:
| Quality | What it means | Bonus |
|---|---|---|
| Complete | Every correspondence, right hour, clean, at leisure | +4 |
| Adequate | Most links, close enough hour, minor impurity | +2 |
| Rushed / skimped | Missing links, wrong day, polluted, interrupted | +0 (or −2 if reckless) |
The GM should tell you which quality you are working with before you roll — you are a practitioner, you can feel the difference between a proper rite and a rushed one.
When you don't roll
The roll exists for when it matters. You do not roll when:
- Your preparation is Complete and the working is performed at leisure with nothing interfering — it succeeds. A properly crafted work, properly consecrated, does what it was made to do.
- You deploy a prepared work for its normal use — break the phylakterion, spend the talisman's charge, invoke the periapton's blessing. That is the point of having prepared it.
You do roll when the working is improvised or composed on the spot, when it is contested (a hostile spirit, a resisting mind), when circumstances are hostile (interruption, urgency, miasma creeping in), or when the stakes are high and the GM calls for it.
DCs
| Working | DC |
|---|---|
| Minor working | 10 |
| Meaningful effect | 15 |
| Major working or hostile binding | 20 |
| The extraordinary — ensouling, a god's attention, defying fate | 25+ |
Dynamis
Dynamis is your day's spark, and it does one thing in resolution: spend points to add +1 each to your roll, up to +3 per working. A working also costs its grade in dynamis just to attempt — grade 1 costs 1, grade 3 costs 3. Run dry, and you can still prepare — but you cannot fire anything that requires the spark. That is the daily cap that keeps a magician from being an artillery piece, and it is why you hoard prepared works.
Contested workings — binding a spirit
Binding a daimon is a contest:
Your d20 + Charisma + Preparation + Grade + Miasma (goetia only) vs. the daimon's Resistance — minor 12, notable 16, great 20+.
Improve your odds with leverage:
| Leverage | Bonus |
|---|---|
| Its true name | +2 |
| Its weakness honored (running water, the pure name) | +2 to +4 |
| Its price paid in advance | +2 (and it cannot cry foul later) |
| Correct binding conditions (place, hour, knot) | +2 |
On success, the binding holds for its term. On failure, the daimon takes its price anyway — and it chooses how.
The failure ladder
| Fail by | What happens to you |
|---|---|
| 1–4 | Clean failure — the working fizzles, materials spent, nothing happens |
| 5–9 | Backlash — the working turns on you: a burn, a cracked vessel, a wound, usually 1 miasma |
| 10+ | Twisted result — the working works, but wrong. The blessing inverts, the ward marks you, the daimon takes a different price. Often 1–2 miasma |
| Natural 1 | Spiritual consequence — a power takes note: a god's displeasure, a daimon's grudge, an omen that follows you |
| Natural 20 | The gift — the working exceeds itself: quality up, a charge unspent, the daimon impressed. Take the gift |
Failures and their aftermath get their own chapter — Chapter 10 — because in this craft, how you fail is half the story.
No free casting
There is no casting. Your instant effects come only from prepared works. The closest thing to minor magick is the tier of small rituals — reading omens, simple blessings, warding gestures. They take minutes to hours, are weak and temporary, and never decide a fight. Anyone can learn a few, and they need no materials beyond a pinch of salt and a prayer. They are the folk-magick of the world, and they belong to everyone.