Herbal Magic

This elemental Path allows a magician to brew natural ingredients into potions, salves, oils, incense, poultices, stews and powders with real potency. It requires the Herbalism Knowledge to perform and usually involves dozens of harvested materials: plants, mosses, grains, moulds, earth and sometimes bodily fluids or remains.

Herbalists believe the magic they work comes through an affinity with the innate power of living things. Most dispute the concept of "magic," arguing that all things have powerful properties (or inner spirits): essences which must be respected. Herbal magic is not simple enchantment, it is a relationship between the magician and the Earth.

Like the Enchantment and Fetishism Paths, Herbal Ways demand a certain investment of time, effort and material. Only the right ingredients will do. The basic system for herbal magics is the same as Fetishism, but the concoctions take longer to prepare. Each level of effect takes two to four days of harvesting, sorting, mixing and aging before results can be achieved. This time can be reduced by a well-stocked pantry or ready garden, but will almost never drop below one day per level.

Herbal concoctions are usually good for a single use and a single purpose, most usually to heal or in some other way aid the target of the brew or salve. Victims of the darker variety of Herbal Ways should be allowed to resist the effect by rolling their stamina (or willpower) against the herbalist's successes.

Because of the slow and subtle nature of herbal and brewing magics, their exact effects are best left to stories than to systems. Players and characters are encouraged to devise their own recipes (rituals), with the samples below as guidelines. The discovery of some new brew might be the subplot of a whole story as the herbalist seeks the perfect materials to concoct a love potion or experiments with the flora of some foreign land.