Magical energy can be concentrated into a number of physical forms. The best known of these is Warpstone, composed of pure Dark energy. Less well-known is the ability of other colors of magic to be similarly concentrated. The actual physical form need not be crystalline and the quantity of energy may vary as well, but "crystal" has come to be used to refer to a standard unit of energy, sufficient to temporarily add one level of Ambient Power of the appropriate color. For instance, a treeman's corpse might be the equivalent of 3 Jade crystals (and even be spoken of as being or containing these crystals) despite being composed purely of vegetable matter and a chunk of Warpstone could be referred to as 4 Dark crystals even though it is a single rock. Note that there are no High crystals, as High magic draws upon all 8 of the non-Dark colors and is not a distinct color itself.
Crystals may be used in a number of ways, but are only effective when used in conjunction with Arts associated with them, including Attune, Attract, and the college's unique Art. If a single item contains multiple crystals of energy, they must all be used simultaneously and cannot be subdivided except by alchemical means.
Transporting crystals can be rather hazardous to your health. For each 10 crystals carried by a character, he will gain 1 Taint per day. This will usually be Magical Taint, but there is a 10% chance (rolled separately each day) that it will be Chaos Taint. For this calculation, Warpstone/Dark crystals count as five times their actual number. Fractions are resolved probabalistically - a character carrying 14 (non-Dark) crystals will, each day, have a 60% chance of gaining 1 Taint and a 40% chance of gaining 2 Taint.
The most basic use of crystals in spellcasting is to boost the power of a spell. When used in this way, each crystal is considered to add one to the Ambient Power of its color. This increase only affects the character using the crystals and lasts only long enough to cast one spell.
Crystals may also be used to make a spell's effects permanent; this is the only way to do so. (Healers take note!) To make a spell permanent, a number of appropriate crystals equal to one-half of the spell's Power must be consumed. The chance of extreme critical failure is increased as if they had been used to increase Ambient Power but, for determining Taint, the number of crystals used is added to the spell's Power rather than subtracted (as it would be if used to boost Ambient Power). The number of crystals required is not modified in any way by the character's ability to handle Ambient Power of their color.
Any non-ritual spell may only be affected by a single crystal-bearing object unless the caster first spends a round preparing (locating the desired items, placing them all together, etc.).
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