Time Magic

This spell is a part of the Flashback spell chain and is found in the Flashback rune stone.

The praeteriamancer's first contact with Rumination is rarely comfortable. The dark symbol of past magic does not introduce itself gently. It surfaces, the way all things that have been pressed down too long eventually surface, with a force that is proportional to how long they were held under. Rumination has been holding a great many things under for a great many people. It is very good at it. And when the neophyte praeteriamancer first learns to reach for it, what they find is a symbol that was already reaching back.

Flashback is the most basic thing Rumination knows how to do. It takes a memory - something the target experienced, something real and specific and their own - and simply brings it forward. Not gradually, not with any warning or transition. One moment the target is here, present, engaged with whatever is happening around them. The next they are there, wherever that memory lives, experiencing it again with the full and undiluted clarity of something that feels entirely real because it was. The present disappears. The target is dazed (for the round...

This spell is a part of the Lost Memories spell chain and is found in the Lost Memories rune stone.

The dagger is a particular kind of knowledge. Not the broad sweeping knowledge of the warrior, not the disciplined defensive knowledge of the shield bearer, not the patient scholarly knowledge of the staff. The dagger knows things that none of those know; how to move through a space without being noticed, how to find what is hidden, how to navigate the places that polite society pretends don't exist. It is the knowledge of the quick and the quiet, of those who have learned that the most important skill in any situation is the ability to adapt to it.

The praeteriamancer reaches through Memory and finds someone who held that knowledge. Not a specific person for Memory does not always offer names, but someone whose skill with the dagger and the arts that go alongside it was thorough and complete. The praeteriamancer borrows everything they knew. For the spell's duration all thief and adventurer skills flow through the praeteriamancer as if they were their own, picked up not through years of training but through Memory's perfect recall of someone who did put in those years. Lockpicking. Stealth. The...

This spell is a part of the Lost Memories spell chain and is found in the Lost Memories rune stone.

The praeteriamancer has always learned differently than other mages. Where others study texts and practice techniques in isolation, the praeteriamancer has access to something no library can provide - the memories of the actual people who wrote those texts, preserved by Memory with perfect fidelity, available to be called forward and asked directly. Not read about. Spoken with. Learned from in the most immediate and personal sense possible. Memory's Teacher is the praeteriamancer doing exactly that, and sharing that experience with their friends.

When this spell is cast the praeteriamancer reaches through Memory  for knowledge, and Memory settles around the caster and their allies, recalling memories of experts and masters. The memories correct mistakes, give insight, and enhance the rate that the praeteriamancer and their allies learn and grow. There is no one physically there, no one to speak to or ask questions of. Instead it is Memory recalling the memories of the experts, and that memory for a brief time becoming one and the same with the praeteriamancer and their allies. This accelerates...

This spell is a part of the Flashback spell chain and can be found in the Flashback rune stone.

Memory holds every step ever taken. This is not a metaphor. Memory is precise, comprehensive, and entirely literal about what it preserves. The exact placement of every foot, the exact distance covered, the exact direction traveled. Every movement made by every person Memory has ever recorded, held with the same fidelity it brings to everything else.

Restep is the praeteriamancer reaching into that record for the simplest possible purpose - to let the target take their last movement again. Not an attack. Not a spell. Not any action that requires decision or intention beyond the physical act of moving through space. Just the steps. Memory knows exactly what they were;  the direction, the distance, the precise path the target's body traced a moment ago, and offers them back. The target moves twice in the round, covering ground that their last movement already covered once, Memory's recall of those steps making a second crossing as natural as the first.

When cast on oneself the praeteriamancer finds the battlefield opens up...

This spell is a part of the Lost Memories spell chain and is found in the Lost Memories rune stone.

The praeteriamancer knows better than anyone that the past is not empty. It is populated densely and richly with everyone who came before. Every ancestor who struggled and endured and learned and passed something of themselves forward through the long chain of generations that eventually produced the praeteriamancer standing here now. They are not gone. They are simply earlier. And Memory, which holds everything that was, knows exactly where to find them.

When this spell is cast the praeteriamancer reaches back through Memory not to a historical event or a forgotten place but to something more intimate, their own lineage. The spirits of their ancestors answer willingly, drawn forward by the same blood that connects them across the distance of years. They do not appear visibly. They do not speak or gesture or make themselves known in any dramatic way. They simply arrive, their collective presence washing over the praeteriamancer like a warmth that has been waiting to be felt, and with it comes everything they carried in life.

This spell is a part of the Lost Memories spell chain and is found in the Lost Memories rune stone.

The shield is a different kind of knowledge than the dagger. Where the dagger taught quickness and concealment and the ability to move unseen through dangerous places, the shield teaches something that requires standing still - the disciplined, patient, deeply unglamorous art of not being hurt. It is the knowledge of those who have learned to put themselves between danger and the people behind them, who have mastered the particular skill of absorbing what the world throws rather than avoiding it.

The praeteriamancer reaches through Memory and finds someone who wore that knowledge the way they wore their armor, naturally, completely, as something inseparable from what they were. Every guard skill that person ever learned flows into the praeteriamancer for the duration, borrowed from Memory with the same fidelity that Memory brings to everything it holds. For the spell's duration all guard skills are available, fully functional, as if the praeteriamancer had spent years earning them. When it ends they return to whoever Memory borrowed them from, leaving the praeteriamancer once again without a shield...

This spell is a part of the Currents of Time spell chain and is found in the Currents of Time rune stone.

Memory does not forget what things were before they were changed. This is Memory's most fundamental quality - not just that it holds the past but that it holds it with complete precision, every detail preserved exactly as it was at every moment it has ever been. The room as it was before the fire. The document as it read before the revision. The body as it was before the blow landed.

When the praeteriamancer casts Past Restored, the praeteriamancer reaches through Memory to that last moment - the instant just before the attack struck, when the target's Vitality was what it was - and restores it. Not approximately. Not roughly. Exactly. Memory does not deal in approximations. When this spell is cast the target's Vitality is returned to precisely what it was before the most recent attack they suffered. Whatever number it held in that moment before impact is the number it holds now. The attack still happened. Memory is not rewriting events, it is simply restoring what was taken. Any status effects the attack inflicted remain, the evidence of what occurred still present in the body even as the...

This spell is a part of the Flashback spell chain and is found in the Flashback rune stone.

Rumination, as the dark and negative symbol of praeteriamancy, is a symbol of looking backward and never forward. It is a cruel symbol, an abusive power, a sinister desire - the desire for all things to remain the same, the inability to let go and move forward. Rumination never lets go. Rumination never moves forward. Rumination never lets one forget where they came from and what they did, especially of their failure and their transgressions. Rumination is the harbinger of guilt and the author of regret. 

Through the casting of Time's Regression, the praeteriamancer is allowing Rumination to remind the target of what it once was. The spell is the song of Rumination, telling the target this is what you are while briefly robbing the target of what they became. The strength they have built, the power they have cultivated, the vitality they carry into this moment - all of it recedes, briefly but unmistakably, to an earlier version of itself. Their body does not forget how to fight. Their mind does not forget what they know. But something fundamental has been walked back, and they feel it in every swing, every step, every attempt to summon what they had just a moment ago. Rumination does not erase. It simply insists, for a short while, that this person is not quite...

This spell is a part of the Flashback spell chain and is found in the Flashback rune stone.

For anyone who draws breath there was a time where their success or failure had effects that reached farther or affected more. Perhaps it was the spell to save a friend. Perhaps it was the jump they just couldn't make or the failed proposal. Maybe they simply failed to see what was right before them, missing the chance of a lifetime or locking themselves into a future of heartbreak and betrayal. It matters not, what matters is that these events happened and they are defining events in that person's life. Events that play over and over again in their minds when things are quiet and doubt has its way with them. Something from the past that they just simply cannot let go of.

Such is the way of Rumination. When the praeteriamancer casts Failure Recall they are unleashing the power of Rumination over the past memories of the target. Whatever check, whatever roll, whatever action that they failed from the past that still haunts them is brought to the surface and takes hold. The failure settles over the target like a shroud, and for the duration of the spell every successful check the target makes is treated as a failure. The dice may roll well. The target may have every ability and every advantage needed to succeed. It does not matter. Rumination has already decided...

This spell is a part of the Lost Memories spell chain and is found in the Lost Memories rune stone.

The sword is the most studied knowledge in the history of Nor'Ova. More has been written about how to wield one, more generations have spent more hours practicing the art of it, more wars have been fought by people whose entire identity was organized around the mastery of it than any other single discipline. The warrior's knowledge is vast, well documented, and preserved in Memory with the particular richness of something that has been practiced and refined across centuries.

The praeteriamancer reaches through Memory and finds all of it, not one warrior's knowledge but the distilled essence of what warriors have always known, the accumulated expertise of countless lives spent in the study and practice of combat. Every warrior skill flows through them for the duration with the ease of something that has been done so many times by so many people that Memory can reproduce it without effort. The praeteriamancer moves differently while this spell is active. They carry themselves differently. They are, for the duration, someone who knows exactly what to do with a weapon in their hand. When the spell ends...

This spell is a part of the Currents of Time spell chain and is found in the Currents of Time rune stone.

When people think of Rumination and Memory, they often think of them as two completely different symbols, expressions of the runic element of time shown differently. Memory is cast as the positive symbol - the holder of perfect memory and chronicler of historical fact. Rumination is cast as the negative symbol - the judge of time who condemns and never lets one forget their past mistakes. The praeteriamancer however knows differently, they are both simply two sides of the same coin. Memory may indeed be the light symbol and Rumination the dark, however they both are two faces of one power - Past Time, Praeteriamancy expressed differently yet all coming from the same source. Where is Rumination if there is no memory, and where does perfect Memory come from if there is no Rumination to force it? 

Places Forgotten is the runic manipulation that best showcases the duality of praeteriamancy. It is the power of Rumination yes, but expressed through the withdrawal of Memory. When the praeteriamancer casts Places Forgotten, it is as if Memory and Rumination agree. Memory walks away, and Rumination lets go of the target. The target is suddenly, completely, without context. They know they are somewhere. They do not know where. They know they were doing...

This spell is a part of the Flashback spell chain and is found in the Flashback rune stone.

There is a particular kind of justice that the law cannot always deliver. It is not the justice of punishment, not the justice of consequence, but the justice of understanding. The understanding of what it actually felt like to be on the receiving end of what was done. Courts can assign sentences. Rumination can assign something considerably more direct. Suffering Returned was developed not as a weapon but as a reckoning. The praeteriamancers who created it had studied enough of what people do to each other to know that the most effective correction was never physical. Physical pain is endured and forgotten. What stays - what Rumination knows better than any symbol how to make stay - is the feeling. The terror. The helplessness. The particular quality of suffering that belongs specifically to those who had it inflicted upon them by someone who chose to do so.

When this spell is cast Rumination reaches into the past and finds every instance of suffering the target has caused - every person they harmed, frightened, broken, hurt, lied to - and returns it. Not to those people. To the target who originally caused...

This spell is a part of the Currents of Time spell chain and is found in the Currents of Time rune stone.

The body remembers what it felt like to be strong. Not in any abstract or sentimental sense - Memory holds the precise physical record of what the target's Power was at its fullest, the exact capability they carried before exhaustion and effort and the accumulated cost of the fight began drawing it down. That record does not fade. Memory does not allow things to fade.

When this spell is cast the praeteriamancer reaches through Memory toward that record and draws it forward, washing it over the target in a wave of restorative temporal energy - not healing in any conventional sense but restoration, the body being reminded by Memory of what it was capable of before any of this happened. The target's Power is restored by 20% of their maximum each round they remain under the spell's effect, Memory steadily returning what was spent. Should their Power already be full when a round of restoration arrives, the excess does not go to waste, Memory gives it as a bonus, Power exceeding the normal maximum by 20% per additional round, compounding for as long as the spell lasts. When the spell...

This spell is a part of the Lost Memories spell chain and is found in the Lost Memories rune stone.

The ancestors have been patient. They came when called, offered their strength, stood as shields. They have watched from wherever Memory holds them as the praeteriamancer has faced what they face, and they have endured it with the particular restraint of those who understand that not every threat requires their full attention. This time is different, however. This threat warrants their full attention.

When the praeteriamancer casts Ancestral Wrath they do not ask. They release. Every ancestor who has been present, every spirit that answered the call and stayed, turns its attention to a single target with the concentrated fury of generations that have had enough. They do not simply strike from where they are. The ancestors exist not in the present but in Memory, which means they exist across all the moments they ever inhabited, and what descends upon the target comes from all of those moments simultaneously.

The target is struck for 4d12 magical damage as ancestral fury crashes into them from multiple points in time at...

This spell is a part of the Currents of Time spell chain and is found in the Currents of Time rune stone.

A praeteriamancer is first and foremost a scholar of history. There is little wonder why most archeologists end up being born under the runic element of time, and a praeteriamancer is an archeologist and genealogist further defined. What sets the praeteriamancer apart is that they do not study the past by studying old relics and ancient ruins - though they do enjoy doing that as well. They study by sitting in such places in quiet meditation with Memory. The praeteriamancer is the avatar of Memory, the medium through which the past speaks. To know the past and how to utilize it is the power of the praeteriamancer. 

One spell that the praeteriamancer has which illustrates this most effectively is Memory's Recall. Memory's Recall isn't a simple manipulation that recalls a memory. It is far more. Through Memory's Recall, the praeteriamancer is calling forth the holder of past knowledge, Memory itself, and seeing through Memory as if Memory were their very eyes. Hearing through Memory as if Memory were their ears. Through Memory, the praeteriamancer is recalling the memory of the area - be it room, battlefield, or rolling plains, or of the person before them as if the praeteriamancer were there experiencing it themselves. They can see everything Memory...

This spell is a part of the Flashback spell chain and is found in the Flashback rune stone.

Rumination has been building toward this. The Flashback chain began with a sudden involuntary memory, escalated through physical pain and never ending suffering, reached into the target's worst experiences with Tortured Past, and stripped away their most recent learning with Rumination's Confusion. Each spell in the chain has taken something from the target - a moment of focus, a measure of health, a piece of capability. Rumination's Dislocation takes something more fundamental than any of those. It takes their ability to locate themselves in the world.

When this spell is cast Rumination reaches into the target's spatial memory - the part of their mind that knows where things are, that maps the environment and tracks the positions of those within it - and twists it until nothing corresponds to anything. Everyone in the target's perception appears to be somewhere they are not. The ally standing to the left is perceived as standing somewhere impossible. The enemy directly ahead seems to be elsewhere entirely. Every time the target moves, a pit seems to open before them - not a real pit, but a memory of falling...

This spell is a part of the Currents of Time spell chain and is found in the Currents of Time rune stone.

The soul remembers what it felt like to be whole. Memory holds not only the physical record of what people were but the spiritual one - the exact state of the runic soul before spellcasting and effort and the sustained demands of magic began drawing it thin. Every point of Soul spent in the pursuit of power has a counterpart in Memory, a record of what was there before the spending began.

When this spell is cast the praeteriamancer reaches through Memory toward that record and draws it forward, washing it over the target as a wave of restorative temporal energy that speaks directly to the runic soul rather than the body. The target's Soul is restored by 20% of their maximum each round they remain under the spell's effect, Memory steadily returning what was given in the service of casting. Should their Soul already be full when a round of restoration arrives, the excess compounds as a bonus, Soul exceeding the normal maximum by 20% per additional round, the runic soul briefly carrying more than it normally holds. When the spell ends any bonus Soul above the normal maximum...

This spell is a part of the Currents of Time spell chain and is found in the Currents of Time rune stone.

Memory does not lie. This is perhaps the most fundamental truth about the symbol that the praeteriamancer has built their entire craft around - that Memory holds what was, faithfully, completely, without revision or agenda. Every other spell in this chain has worked within that truth. Currents of Time drew from what genuinely flowed. Legacy Released lifted burdens that genuinely existed. Breaking the Chain severed connections that were genuinely there. Absolution released what had genuinely been held.

Memory's Illusion asks Memory to do something it was never meant to do. The praeteriamancer reaches through Memory and requests not preservation but fabrication. They ask for a memory shaped not by what happened but by what would cause the most profound and complete disorientation in the target. Memory complies, but not without cost. The praeteriamancer feels it immediately, 2d10 Vitality draining away as the price of asking the symbol of truth to produce something that isn't entirely true. Memory gives what was asked. It simply makes certain the one who asked understands what that...