Wember

Wember Magic is a slow but powerful magic strongly associated with cloth. The magic originates in the hands of the weavers (who are minor mages), but the true benefactors are those who can afford their prices. Most wember items are clothing, and the effects apply to the one who wears it -- or the thing wrapped in it, as some effects are useful for objects or creatures.

Skills and Advantages

Wember is best priced on a character sheet as a piece of technology, much as access to guns, cars, or computers would be priced. In most settings it will be part of the campaign default. Those without it should purchase the appropriate level of low tech. In some settings, access to it may be limited. Those with it should then buy the appropriate level of high tech.


Wember is purchased as a professional skill (wember). Individual weaves are average techniques at skill-1 that max out at +1. Inventing new weaves is done with Thaumology (wember).  Wembarists don't pay any more points for being able to make wember cloth, much as a gunsmith doesn't pay extra points for the ability to make and modify guns. They may belong to a guild, with its own advantages and disadvantages, and will need to pay points for access to wember, as will anyone with access to it.

Wember is meant to be commonly available to society: it functions as a technology, not as a power. In many cases, it raises the tech level of those who use it. TL0 becomes TL0+2^, Tech levels 1-5 gain +1^, and higher TL's get the ^ on them (charge a perk). Wember raises TL0 so much because it is particularly suited to an unsettled lifestyle of hunting and gathering, and because it will become much easier to implement a large variety of TL1 innovations. At TL 6, technology is able to replace many of the functions of wembar, and while its nice, it doesn't dramatically improve transportation or logistics. 

Magical Cloth

Wember garments take about 5 days to make. They are made by hand, with special looms and chanting. The workers use mystic chanting and motions to channel and create the magic. Anyone can learn to do this, but it requires a human to do it.  Technology can only speed it up the process so much. The cost of purchasing wember is directly related to the living standards of the weavers. for a garment, use (monthly pay)/4. If your wembarists have a wealthy standard of living (likely, as they are skilled artisans of an in demand good with no particularly stringent entrance requirements) during TL 3 a single piece of cloth will cost about $350.

Wember cloth requires a good amount to have any magical effect at all: a working piece has at least two square yards of fabric. The fabric can sustain minor cuts, but if more than 25% of it is cut off, the magic ceases to work. A working piece of cloth weighs 2 lbs. Some of these effects can be avoided by having the effect be centred on the fabric rather than what's inside of it, but not all of them, and while a robe that resists fire is nice, sleeping in a furnace probably works best if you have cloth that protects you from the heat, not just itself. During the resting period the user may be more susceptible to the effect -- in particular, bodily functions such as eating and breathing have increased intake.

Wember has the quirk of working once for the full length of the effect. A fire-proofing robe will let you sleep in a furnace, but will fail the second time you walk through a fire. You can go for a year without eating, but the instant you consume food, the magic stops. That specific Wember effect won't work on a subject who has recently had an effect expire. For example, one who went without eating 8 months through a robe of sustenance can't use a robe of sustenance for another 8 months -- and will have additional effects during this 'recharge' time. These effects make wember better suited for travellers and nomads than for those who will stay in an environment for long periods of time. Specific pieces of fabric do have their limits though -- the effects generally have a limit of a year (but see section on TL). After its effect has expired, the cloth becomes fragile and will come apart in the hands.

Each wember garment can only have one enchantment on it at a time, but the subjects will often wear multiple items, even layering them. This does not interfere with the magic, but order can matter -- its a good idea to wear your fire-proofing robe on the outside so your sustenance robe doesn't burn up.

As an optional rule for GM's not afraid of book keeping, wember garments may expire if left for too long make a HT+2 roll for the garment every year or so. On a failure, the spell and the garment fail and disintegrate. GM's may want to make this gradual and alter the timing by 10% or so-- the expiration is a matter of wearing out, not of a set spell duration ending. optionally, alter the time in areas of low or high mana: perhaps in low mana areas the garments roll every 3 months rather than every 12.

Wembar is at its best in hostile environments. The inspiration was people who walk through huge trackless deserts alone, relying on magic to keep them alive. TL 0 users typically use wembar to survive inhospitable seasons and retrieve food from unlikely sources, such as underwater. A wember eskimo can spend a week collecting food underwater without fear of the cold. Or he can try to sit it out and wait for the plenty of spring (he probably spends a good portion of this dead time weaving). Of course, he needs to time things so when he takes off his wember, he can survive his susceptibility to cold and increased appetite. Higher TL users use wember to conquer the desert and the ocean, delaying feeding their men and animals until their destination has been reached. Smiths can use wembar to work in their forges, improving the quality of their work. Experimental flight ends with people crashing to the ground and using up an expensive enchantment, not dying. Catapulting messengers can actually work. Wember lends itself to feats of exploration: climbing Everest isn't easy, but its quite doable and not nearly as dangerous. The same goes for reaching poles or wide ranging voyages.

It may be desirable to vary the output of a wembar in accordance with the local tech level. If you want to do this, its suggested that TL0 takes 14 days for an item, TL1 takes 10, TL2 takes 7, TL3 takes 5, and higher TL's take 4 -- the human component of the magic cannot be mechanized further. This will, of course, effect the cost of making these items. Its also quite reasonable to alter the recovery time of the magic based on TL.

The Magic

Wember primarily protects and preserves. Many effects are possible, and GM's are encouraged to come up with their own designs along these lines -- or even let players use the invention rules to come up with something new. Effects should be centered around preservation of things. A short list of the classics is provided here:

Weave Of Sustenance: Allows the wearer to go without eating. During recharge, the user must eat twice as much as normal -- the effect can't reduce overall food requirements, but it may be of use to hold out during a famine. This weave is often used to reduce supplies expended over a long journey, and is often used on animals -- though more fabric is required and you should make good and sure the beast can't eat anything!

Weave of Breath: Allows the wearer to go without breathing. As soon as they take a breath, the spell ends -- this condition includes talking! It does not have to cover the face, but it often does, as a cue to others that the wearer isn't breathing and can't speak at the moment. The weave also removes the urge to breathe. Sleeping can be a problem, but most long term users can use a weave of rest as well. Halves FP expenditures due to movement while on, but doubles them during recovery.  Useful for travelling underwater, holding out during sandstorms, or dealing with noxious gasses. Variations on this weave allow one to deal with the dangers of vacuum or high pressure, but these are variations designed to do so! many settings won't have invented those variations, and you need to specify that the weave will also deal with pressure.

Weave of Shelter: Maintains the wearer's internal body temperature. They do not suffer from environmental heat or cold, though they have a general idea that it is hot or cold around them. All cold temperatures can be resisted, but temperatures that cause water to boil, fat to fry, and so on require the weave of fire. During recharge the subject has a lowered tolerance for changes in temperature, and have a -2 to all HT rolls to resist such effects. Weaves that merely improves the insulation quality or the garment or make it cool exist, and do not have the recharge effects, but they should be treated as higher tech clothing, merely boosting resistance to environmental effects rather than providing immunity. The weave of shelter is more durable than other weaves: it takes very even external temperatures to stop the effect. Typically, the effect is connected to warm blooded creatures, and starts and ends when its put on or taken off.

Weave of Fire: As the weave of shelter, but for high levels of heat. The recharge effect is similar, but only applies to resting heat, and damage from fire gets +1/die. While it does stop any amount of damage from heat, it maintains the resistance only until it has cooled off, at which point its useless. A weave that merely resists heat transfer and catching fire is available, but provides a limited amount of DR vs heat damage, as some heat will get through, and once again, relies on constant heat to maintain its resilience: great for walking on coals, not so good for blocking repeated globs of Greek fire.

Armour Weave: stops a single kinetic blow. This can be quite expensive, but it can also be worth it. While this has utility in war, it has as much if not more utility in safety, where blows aren't repeated. And there are the rich nuts who use it to survive jumps off of cliffs for fun -- though if you bounce, you may still have a problem. This weave can be used several times in succession, because the protective effect lasts for so little time.

Magic Weave: Not appropriate for all settings, as it requires other magic systems to be in play, this weave blocks a single magic spell. Most of the time the spell merely bounces off and both effects dissipate, acting in many ways like the armour weave. It can also block long term magical effects, such as an ongoing and permanent curse. An already afflicted spell will be suppressed, not blocked. The user will gain magic susceptibility 2 during recharge.

Weave of Health: The user will resist physical infirmities, such as disease, cancers, and allergies, and heal twice as fast (with +2 to healing rolls). During the recharge period they get -3 to resist aliments, and anything they had when they put the cloth on will return with a vengeance. This weave lasts less than other weaves: a month is typical. While it can be used in an attempt to cure, its more often used to give a month of health to put your affairs in order before dying, to help a person past a critical time in their wounds, or with those struggling with fertility (which may or may not work, GM call).

The weaves can be used in general materials science as well: containers that won't corrode, thin string that will bear enormous weight, perfect waterproofing, elasticity, and so on. These do have the limit that they can only be used 'once' and that they will degrade and fall apart after a set amount of time.

Some items don't fit into this magic system but feel like they might: the two that come to my mind are flying carpets and cloaks of invisibility. GM's who wish to push this magic system farther are welcome to. However, these items ought to be more expensive. Also of note are times when the GM wishes to break the rules for the sake of the plot. Normal balancing considerations should help there. For example, A GM may wish to have players stumble across a lost city that has used wember to preserve its inhabitants for 600 years. Wember doesn't normally last that long -- but stasis is cool, and not a particularly abusable effect, so the GM can allow this without fear of turning his campaign upside down.