Arcana Rules

In Blue Rose, the arcane arts are called arcana. Arcana are divided into different talents or disciplines, and within each talent are individual arcana, applications of the essential discipline. The shadow side of arcana is sorcery, which promises power but at the price of corruption. Sorcery draws on fear, range, and hate or imposes the wielder’s will on another.

Learning Arcana

Arcana are primarily learned by adepts through the six arcana talents:

• Animism
• Healing
• Meditative
• Psychic
• Shaping
• Visionary

The Arcane Training talent grants access to additional arcana.

Non-adepts can acquire some arcana through the Arcane Potentialor Wild Arcane talents or specializations that include access to certain arcana.

Using Arcana

When it comes to actually using arcana, adepts and other classes use the exact same rules, only the learning differs. The arcana rules use “adept” and “user” interchangeably, and they both just refer to anybody who uses arcana, regardless of whether they are actually of the Adept class.

• Using an arcanum require focused concentration, but gesturing or speaking is purely optional. Each arcanum specifies in its description (and the table on pp. 92-93 of the rulebook) what type of action it takes to use the arcanum.
• Some arcana call for a test using the ability associated with the arcanum. The Outcome of the test sometimes determines how effective the arcanum is. Some arcana operate automatically, without any test.
• Some arcana require an attack roll to affect a target, which works like any other attack roll, involving the ability and focus specified in the arcanum’s description (usually Accuracy (Arcane)). Any arcanum requiring an attack roll will also take at least a major action and count as the user’s attack for that round, unless specified otherwise.
• Arcana that affect other creatures often allow the target to make a Resistance Test, usually with a target number equal to the adept’s test result.Each arcana will specify whether it can be resisted, and with what ability and focus. Subjects of arcana can choose not to resist, accepting the arcanum’s effects, but this decision happens before they find out what the arcanum in question is.
• By default, arcana have a range of line-of-sight: anything you can see you can target. Some arcana have different ranges, which are specified in their descriptions.

• Some arcana apply a Familiarity modifier to the TN for using them, making them easier to use and more effective on targets you know well. The arcanum description will note that the Familiarity modifiers apply. For those, use the table below to determine the Familiarity modifier to the TN.

  Familiarity

  Familiarity	Modifier	Definition
  Present	+0	A subject visible to the naked eye or in physical or psychic contact with the adept.
  Very Familiar	+2	A subject currently seen or sensed through another arcanum, a close friend or relative, an item made by the adept or owned and used for at least a year, a place where the adept spent at least a year.
  Familiar	+4	A subject the adept has been acquainted with for at least three months, a casual friend.
  Somewhat Familiar	+6	A subject the adept has been acquainted with for at least a week, reading someone else’s memory of a familiar subject.
  Casually Familiar	+8	A subject the adept has been acquainted with only briefly, reading someone else’s memory of a somewhat familiar subject.
  Slightly Familiar	+10	A subject the adept has only seen briefly or had described in detail.
  Unfamiliar	—	A subject totally unfamiliar and unknown to the adpet and out of the adept’s line of sight or physical contact. Arcana cannot be used on unfamiliar subjects.

• Some arcana rely on the user being in psychic contact (using the Psychic Contact arcanum) with the subject. Being in psychic contact does not substitute for line of sight for arcana specifically requiring it. It does count as being Present for Familiarity purposes, though.
• Most arcana affect a particular type of subject, noted in their description. If arcana specify a general “subject” or “target” instead, then it works on things in general.
• Characters may attempt to use an arcanum on multiple subjects of the same type at once. This increases the arcane and fatigue test target numbers by +1 for each additional target. An additional Activate action is also required before the arcanum’s use. All subjects must be in range. If the arcanum requires psychic contact, the user must be in psychic contact with all subjects. The Narrator has final say over whether an arcanum can affect more than one subject at a time and, if so, how many in a given situation.
• Some arcana are especially tiring. When using a fatiguing arcanum, the user must make a Willpower (Self-Discipline) test against a target number specified in the arcanum’s description. On a successful test, there’s no ill effect. A failed test results in the user suffering a level of fatigue. Using multiple fatiguing arcana in a single encounter gets increasingly tiring: each use of a fatiguing arcanum increases the target number of subsequent fatigue tests by +1 until the adept takes a breather.

• Any arcanum listed as sorcery in its description requires the user to make a Corruption test whenever it is used.

Maintaining Arcana

Some arcana can be maintained, continuing their effects at the same effectiveness achieved by the initial use. This requires a Concentrate minor action each turn.

An adept maintaining one or more arcana who is distracted must make a Willpower (Self-Discipline) test against TN 9 + 1 per maintained arcanum. On a failure, the adept stops maintaining all arcana. Optionally, the Narrator may rule that the adept instead stops maintaining one arcanum for each point the test missed the target number by.

Some arcana require total concentration. The adept must devote a major action each round to maintain the arcanum.