Magic Defenses using GURPS MAGIC
 

Hello All,
Having recently seen a thread on "GM defenses against invisibility and other spells" I thought to myself "Now would be an interesting to broach magical defenses for castles".

So, here is the premise. A real World Castle/Keep - that can be referenced by any means available to an enterprising individual, including by means of a SJGames product by Dan Howard...

Restormel castle.

All mages must be built using 150 point characters. NO Magery 3 mages allowed. All energy using ritual spell castings and extra energy from spectators will be quantified using "reaction rolls". Neutral reactions grant zero energy, Good+ reactions generate energy, and bad- reactions result in negative energy subtracted. Spell backfires affect EVERYONE in the ritual spell casting (this is why reaction rolls are used for the number of participants).

The idea here is to find the best defenses against magic that is possible given the limited resources. Later, we'll look at other ways of improving the castle defenses by contractors hired from other locations (including Magery 3 mages).

Anyone up for this discussion?


Possible changes to the original premise:

Builder of the castle hires specialist mages from nearby Cities, or perhap

Re: Magic Defenses using GURPS MAGIC
 

So, how many mages do we get to play with?

Assuming something like IQ 15 [100], Magery 2 [25], and 25 points in spells [25], [-75] points in negative traits and quirks would still leave a lot of room for other stuff, like Charisma 5 [25], 25 points in other skills (and maybe more spells) [25], Energy Reserve 5 [15], and a useful 10-point advantage [10].

Now, this really charming Mage has a base of 20 for social skills, and could easily have a group of nearly devoted ritual casting assistants available! Their worst reaction result is poor, and average is between good and very good.

Now, as for the spells...

Mystic Mist, requiring Shield and Magery 2. Basic Cost of 1 means you could get something like 50-yard radius easily, enough to cover a large keep or a small castle entirely in it. Casting time of 50 minutes for a ceremonial version is way too long for GURPS Combat time scale, but is pretty doable in time scales of a typical siege. Duration of 10 hours is great, meaning you should be able to manage maintenance easily.

Watchdog, pretty much the same deal, but only for warning. Requires Sense Danger and Sense Foes. Ceremonial casting takes only 100 seconds.

Teleport Shield, cheaper to cast but with a duration of only 1 hour, requires your circle to use energy more often to maintain it. Only useful if expecting to get opposition to Teleport in, though. Requires Watchdog (yay!) and Spell Shield, Scryguard, Magic Resistance, (1 spell from 7 different colleges - got 2 of those so 5 more).

Spell Shield is pretty costly (Base cost of 3), but you should be able to protect a small keep with it, duration of 1 minute is the killer here, though!

Scryguard - keep all of your important people protected from enemy scrying! Duration of 10 hours is great, and cost is only 3/2 per person!

Re: Magic Defenses using GURPS MAGIC
 

The real killer are the spells on -penalties. You could probably get 3 or 4 effects on before needing to spend more energy to negate the penalties.

Re: Magic Defenses using GURPS MAGIC
 

Make the castle a no-mana zone. No one can use magic to attack it, so in that sense it's a perfect defense against magic. Mundane attackers only. Of course, the cost is that you also can't use magic to defend, or (probably worse) in the majority of your day-to-day life when you're not fighting off sieges. But if the castle builder thought that the offensive magic had the advantage, it might be a rational military tradeoff.

Works even better as a surprise, so the attacker shows up having planned on their magical abilities, only to be unexpectedly deprived of them, while the defender has planned for a fully mundane defense. But of course that only works once.

Re: Magic Defenses using GURPS MAGIC
 

I wonder if anyone has a prepared example of a fantasy keep, house or physical plant of any kind with ongoing or emergency defensive procedures and plans incorporating magic from any of the GURPS systems.

Re: Magic Defenses using GURPS MAGIC
 

Restormel Castle/Keep is, per Dan Howard's COMPACT CASTLES pdf, some 38 meters in diamter, or roughly 41.55 yards. Its max population rating is listed as 80 people, so we'll with with a support ratio of about 9:1 or 720 people overall. Assuming "People" means adults as well as children, I'm going to simplify this as being a keep that is supported by 720 people, or roughly 144 families. Since that is a really large village, this would work out reasonably well. I have one example of a village with a population of 110 families, so 144 isn't all too bad.

What that really means is that we're looking at a total of about 14.4 mageborn out of the original village population. Of that, 1/3rd is under the age of 15, so we're looking at roughly 10 adults (9.6 rounded up). Of those 10, roughly 75% will be servile (serfs) and the remainder will be freeborn. So call it 8 serfs and 2 freeborn.

Mind you, this is modeled off of Medieval England circa 1200 AD, but if you want me to include slaves as would have been appropriate during 1100 AD, I could go that route as well. The Domesday Book does give a general listing of Slaves by each village, but it appears that Restormal was built shortly after the Domesday Book was compiled and completed.

On the basic premise that the castle was built with outside funding in response to rebellion - rather than with personal resources initially, the entirety of the fortification would have been wood initially, and then built as a stone fortification. Over time, the stone aspects would have been erected and its strength as a major strategic fortification would have been solidified.

Your task, is to take a hard look at defending the fortification with magics such that not only does it constitute a massive defensive work for the defenders, but protects them against incoming attacks that could be mounted against the defensive works.

Much of those spells that are listed in GURPS MAGIC for 4e also include spells that were introduced in GURPS GRIMOIRE (which is now available as GURPS CLASSIC GRIMOIRE). Many of the spells contained in Grimoire include such spells as the Acid rain and such - which makes things considerably harder for the defensive works. None the less - as this is intended to be a Rules as Written exercise, it may be wise to include everything in GURPS MAGIC for 4e rather than cherry picking only those spells found in GURPS CLASSIC MAGIC.

It is my hope that the more we discuss this here, the more we can answer Donny Brook's question on what it would take to have a Fantasy Keep with ongoing or emergency defensive procedures for use with GURPS MAGIC. People are more than welcome to open up a similiar thread to this exloring other magic systems.

As Anaraxes has pointed out, one could drain mana throughout the entirety of the defensive area - but despite it being only a Magery 1 spell, a critical failure risks the permanent removal of 1 level of Magery from the spell caster. What price would you as a spell caster demand, if you were going to risk your magery on this spell casting? Player character mage that earns a higher than normal income for spell casting, will be required to take comfortable or higher levels of wealth for their 150 point characters.

In addition, while many could build "purpose built" characters, I would like to take a moment to ask that when you build your mage characters, that they actively be able to function within society. The spell lists should reflect the ability for the mage to make a living from spell casting as a whole, rather than be super specialized for the task at hand unless one wants to take the mindset that working at double pay as a mage for 6 months is equivalent for working at normal pay for 12 months (an argument I'd accept accually - as castle builders who were specialists often got paid handsomely - even if not fully employed all the time).

So, we'll prime the pump by saying that we have 10 mageborn, about a 50/50 mix between genders, about 8 who would have been born into "Serf" families with obligations to their lord.

I'm also going to go with the idea that instead of one BIG village of 144 families, we'll have two villages, one of about 100 families, and a smaller one of about 44 within easy walking distance of the fortification. If instead, this group would prefer to discuss this as a single village, I'm amendable to the idea. Simply put, this "exercise" will be intended to explore the possibilities, and decide how things will likely work out. My next post will discuss some other elements - curveballs or not, that is worth exploring...

Re: Magic Defenses using GURPS MAGIC
 

As might be expected, castles/keeps are built for a reason. What that reason may be, is often forgotten as time progresses, but initially, they are built as a defense against an attack, one that likely is overwhelming and possibly spur of the moment.

If we take Restormel as an example, it was built to hold a strategic location not too far from the coast by means of a river, in response to not one, but two uprisings. England had been conquered and in the process of being pacified by the new owners of the realm.

This largely means that the population is NOT going to be entirely happy with the course of events where it comes to casting spells by magic via ceremonial magics. Those who would like to be able to COUNT on such a mechanism, are likely going to have to take into account, that they will need to bring in people whom they believe are loyal to the cause (ie outsiders who speak French and were born in France) rather than the locals.

A while back, I had privately broached the topic of reliable energy from ceremonial casting, and Kromm suggested the process of using Allies as part of the equation. If the Mage has ready access to such a group - they should be built as an Ally (Group). So, the calculations for that is a group built upon 25% of 150 points (37.5 rounded down) where the NPCs are available on a 9 or less. This is priced at 12 points. For a group that is always available, no roll required, we're looking at character point cost of 48 points. This group is loyal to ONE character, so don't plan on this being a "team resource" per se.

Note, per my original comments, anyone who wants to cast ceremonial castings using regular locals, will be subject to a -2 reaction penalty overall. If the spell casters want to try and figure out who is feeling less than thrilled with their activity, there are ways and means. ;)

If there are any criteria that this group prefers NOT to invoke, that's fine.

As a final comment for tonight, I'd like to point out that while the entirety of the spell lists for GURPS MAGIC is being left open for use and/or abuse - mageborn who do not have access to an academy style education where all spells are available, will be stuck with a more limited "common spells" pool that can only be taught by someone who actively KNOWS spells. Literacy is not common, and serf based mages will only know the spells that their immediate teacher will know. "Freeborn" mages will have the ability to travel more, and learn from multiple teachers (and thus, have an expanded spell list).

For the NPC mages? We're likely looking at spells that will be of immediate value to the locals, who, for many, will be struggling (wealth wise) and those who are "craftsmen" (about 25% of the 144 families) will have standard ordinary income. The Miller for instance, likely has a comfortable income.

So, line the questions up that you may have, and during down time, I'll try and detail the local population as needed (how many acres of land under cultivation, family sizes, ages of population, etc.) The idea is to give you all something to work with instead of a blank slate.

Again - this is an exercise to explore ideas, work within a framework and perhaps find answers that aren't present anywhere in published materials (such as a fortification protected by magic).

Also - any Story background you want to build for your character is entirely up to you in as far as the years following 1066 (invasion) and past 1100 when consolidation of England was under way. One could be an English native who has thrown in with the Conquerors. One could be French, etc.

Anyone who is interested in the spreadsheet that determines reaction rolls up to 100 people, is more than welcome to send me a private email and I will make it available. Also? I've a small VB.NET app that will generate random numbers based on a seed value. If you want to co-ordinate die rolling using a specific seed shared amongst yourselves - I can make that app available (it is NOT required - I created it for use between a buddy of mine and I when discussing events in several campaigns before I finally purchased Fantasy Grounds).

So, time for me to bring this to a close for now. As always, you can feel free to send emails to me for private conversation or questions.

Re: Magic Defenses using GURPS MAGIC
 

I think some clarifications and recognition of assumptions would help the process along.

Here, in no particular order are some questions/suggestions:

-what is the ratio of various Magery levels to total population?

-are we dealing with a traditional medieval environment with a strong church organization or something less historical?

-is it assumed that children born with magery will be left in their original birth social level, or will they be recruited into higher social levels?

-are we going to assume a socio-economic environment that doesn't try to account for differences that would have happened during prior generations of magic use?

Re: Magic Defenses using GURPS MAGIC
 

Ratio of Mageborn to population is 2%. Subsequent breakdowns is based on demographics, where mages are divided by sex, social status, and even by age (roughly 1/3rd will be under the age of 15).

The purpose of this exercise will be try and figure out how mageborn are educated, where they might be in the highest need for society in general. For example, if you want to double your food yields, you will need to have some means of enchanting the fields. As the spells are Circular in nature, and fields are plowed in the old ways (ie long relatively straight furrows) where people are allocated land based upon their father's social status and such - it is largely going to be a sort of "Medieval world with magic tacked on"

Rather than get into a discussion of "tech levels of spells" and such, I will be concentrating on giving whomever participates in this exercise - the background information they might require, any decisions based on "well, how should it REALLY be" and so forth. For example, in a world where literacy is not common - run by the church and so forth, we'd have to ask ourselves "who is writing the books, who is teaching the mageborn how to read, and ultimately, what kind of libraries will the mageborn have access to.

Now for the "Church". If this is somewhere in the vicinity of 1100 AD, it will be such that the Conquest by William the Conqueror will be a recent history kind of thing. I largely suspect that while the church is powerful, it hasn't reached the nadir of its strength in England prior to the time of the Anglican founding some 400 years later.

As for children being socially mobile in these times - the answer is largely no. However, it should be noted that in those days, a family who held any amount of land at all, was obligated to pay certain fees to their Lord, or owe him days of labor based upon the land they held. A serf with 30 acres (or more) owed his lord 3 days of labor per week on the Lord's lands, and 3 days labor was left to him for his own holding. Nothing says that the labor has to be strictly manual labor, and even "plowmen" were such that they provided plowing labor in lieu of other duties to their lord. If there is a Serf mageborn practicing magic - the question would be, what would he owe his lord? Labor to enchant the Lord's fields? Labor to provide fire for the Lord's hearth? That is what this exercise in imagination will hopefully provide for you.

Now for the fun question - can a Strictly Christian faith permit unfettered use of Magic? If you want to have it that Christianity was disapproving of Magic, then it would appear that the Mageborn have to work covertly or at least, discretely. On the flip side, much of the disapproval of magic seems to stem from the idea that it is Satanic or superstition. In a GURPS universe where Magic does in fact work, it would not assume the mantle of "supersition", but actually - a pseudo-science at the very least.

So, flip a coin - call it what you want and take it from there. Alternatively, we can go with the idea that Christianity in an alternate universe - fails to take as strong a hold as it did in this timeline. Gut call on this - for magic to be openly practiced, I'd suggest that Christianity's Church is not as all powerful as it became later in time. I suggest you look up Christian Views on Magic in Wikipedia (never really to be trusted as wholely pure in researched information perhaps, but at least a start!)

Now your last question... *evil grin*

Let's speculate for a moment. Let's presume that initially, say, in the Year 1, magic is just starting to become reliable. Where did the first spells come into being using the rules as written? Frankly, we have a chicken and the egg situation where researching spells is concerned. One needs a MAGICAL library in which to research spells. But if there is no magic, how does one have a magical library? Perhaps the first spells were simply shamanisic like spells - and a mageborn reverse engineered it from the shamans. Perhaps the Devil gave mankind the first spell books, and once mageborn spotted a demon assisted spell, they began to research spells that were not Demonically assisted. Net result however, is that it would take a Long LONG time for the full 800+ spells in GURPS MAGIC to be researched, written down, and disseminated throughout the land

So, 6 of one, half a dozen of another. You can theorize that there was an EARLY era of spell casting being done, but then you'd have to start digging into the durations of how long it takes to research spells in general.

Toss in the issue of Magery as a requisite for being able to cast certain spells, and there will be mageborn who lack the requisite magery - trying to research spells that is just beyond their reach.

My suggestion? Take the easy out and simply assume that the bulk of spells being available from GURPS MAGIC for 4e took hundreds of years to accumulate, and that the full capabilities of enchantments, etc - did not come into being until perhaps the last 100 years. When you start actively "Spending" mageborn on certain tasks by finalizing their spell lists and skill levels - you will find that it will be VERY difficult to have mages who have both Enchantment at a given skill level as well as the spell to be enchanted at a given spell level - AND be highly capable of producing said magic item in large quantities.

Re: Magic Defenses using GURPS MAGIC
 

It was always my intention to begin to detail the village by this hypothetical castle, so here it is:

Due to the number of character constraints per post, these only have 90 families. This was Generated using a modified rules set from HARNMANOR from Columbia Games. Next post will contain families #90 on up.