orc magic

Burning Wheel First Reading
1

I was looking into Orc magic and fail to see full picture.

  • Do “Void embrace” is needed to make Rituals of Blood and night?

  • How Void embrace is rolled or not when performing them and what’s result of failure?

  • it seems that orc magic analogous to sorcery, if that true - what are main differences?

Thanks,
Martin

2

I was referring the Void Embrace tax tests. What’s get taxed and consequences.

3

Orcs need Void Embrace to recover from Tax. You can have an Orc sorcerer without Void Embrace, but he won’t last very long. One or two rituals and he’ll tax himself into unconsciousness or death.

The primary difference between human sorcery and Orc sorcery is in the spell lists. Orc sorcery is not as expansive and flexible as human sorcery. It encompasses both Summoning (Rituals of Blood) and Sorcery (Rituals of Night). The other difference is that Orc magic is a gift of the God of Blood and Darkness. The magic is controlled by the Servants, the cult of that terrible god.

4

Example of taxing?

Void Embrace substitute Forte for casting?

5

I’m playing an Orc Whisperer as we speak. Here are the main things you need to know:

-Rituals of Night is used to cast one of the spells listed under Rituals of Night (your character must purchase these spells during character creation or learn them during play)

-Rituals of Blood is used to generate one of the effects on the Rituals of Blood table

-In either case, you must test for tax after casting

-Roll Void Embrace for this test

-If successful, yay no tax

-If you fail, subtract the margin of failure from forte

6

O! I See. Thank you both for the answers.

I understand that without Void Embrace I will tax every Ob as margin of failure to Forte.

7

Yes. If you don’t have Void Embrace, whatever the Ob of the spell is gets subtracted from Forte automatically. Hit 0 and your Orc is dead.

Edit: Nope, I was wrong.

8

Is it somewhere in BWG? If I have Void Embrace, it’s like taxing in Sorcery, page 504-505?

9

Ah, I got that wrong. It is exactly like Sorcery on those pages. However, because you can’t resist tax without Void Embrace, you lose your Spell Ob in Forte and test for the sickness as usual. However, as per the overtax rules, for each point you would be reduced below 0 you take a BX wound where X = the spell Ob, and it’s cumulative. So Let’s say you have Forte 4 and you cast Death’s Howl. You are automatically taxed three points. Then let’s say that you cast it again, you’re now at two points below 0. You fall unconscious and take a B6 Wound.

Does that make sense?

10

It makes sense.

thank you.