(Part II)

By ExistingPhantom (fxdlk@camelot.acf-lab.alaska.edu)

Dragons attributes are similar to human attributes, save that they have better strength, dexterity and stamina. Any dragon that is in its original form gets extra die rolls on these stats: 2 extra rolls on strength and stamina and one extra roll on dexterity. Most dragons will never change their forms because they lack the abilities to do so; however if a dragon's form get changed into something other than what it is used to, whether it be by vristra, magick or other means, it will lose these extra rolls.

Dragons have some specialized abilities that allow them to do some things other creatures are not able to do. They also have gain many more abilities due to their long lives. Below are some of their specialized abilities.

Breath weapon and use.

1	One minor breath weapon takes a day to replenish.
2	One breath weapon usually used once per scene.
3	One major breath weapon can be used at any time.
4	Two breath weapons one can be used anytime the other takes a day to replenish.
5	Two breath weapons one can be used anytime the other can be used once per scene.
6	Two major breath weapons can be used at any time.

The ability to change skin color to blend into surroundings. This is not invisibility.

1	Automatically change overall color to match surroundings while sitting still.
2	Automatically change color pattern to better match surrounding while sitting still.
3	Can change color patterns to any pattern at will regardless of surroundings.
4	Can match surrounding colors exactly to every detail while sitting still or automatically change overall color while moving.
5	Can match surrounding colors exactly at will regardless of surroundings and automatically change color patten to better match surroundings while moving.
6	Can match surrounding colors exactly even while moving full tilt.

The ability to travel through the air with wings.

1	Can glide through the air and make short hops.
2	Can sustain short flights.
3	Can fly long distances.
4	Can maneuver easily in aerial combat.
5	Highly skilled in Aerial combat.
6	Can easily out maneuver the best acrobatic planes.

Magick is the ability to instantly replace the natural laws and patterns of the multiverse through a unique external energy forces called quintessence.

1	You have a slight talent for magick.
2	You are practiced in the use of magick.
3	You are competent in the use of magick and know its ways.
4	You are skilled in the use of magick, and know if it's around.
5	You are an expert in its ways.You are very uncomfortable if there is no magick around.
6	Magick makes up your very being; you can't live without it, and what you can do with it boggles the mind.

The ability of the mind to manipulate internal and external forces. To control functions of the mind and body as well as manipulate the natural laws of the multiverse using internal self generated mental energy.

1	You know yourself and read others body language very well.
2	You can influence your own body to enhance your senses or ignore pain.
3	You can control your own thoughts easily and can read the surface feelings of others. If you have medical knowledge you can even directly influence your body's functions to varying degrees.
4	You have become a master of your physical and mental self. You generally guess what those around you are thinking and can influence the feelings of others.
5	If you have scientific knowledge, you can use it to manipulate the world about you. You can read the thoughts of others and communicate mentally with them.
6	You can feel the fabric of life as it breathes, and see into the spirit worlds at will. You can influence the actions and patterns of others about you.

The skill to dig and tunnel rapidly into the earth.

1	You're very good at digging holes and moving dirt.
2	You've dug a few burrows.
3	You're a pretty competent tunneler but it takes you a while.
4	You're a skilled tunneler and can dig anywhere.
5	You're an expert tunneler and know the rhythms of the earth and never get lost or misdirected even in darkness.
6	You can borrow through the earth as easily as many fish swim through water.

The skill to track, capture prey.

1	You can catch it as long as it doesn't move.
2	You know how to make simple traps for small things.
3	You can track most animals through the woods.
4	You can build a trap to capture almost any creature.
5	You instinctively know how others creatures move and hide.
6	If it exists somewhere, you can find it and trap it no matter how intelligent it is.

The skill to get to where you want to go using external and internal navigational cues.

1	If you only had a compass you could get home.
2	You can read external natural signs to see what direction you're going.
3	You can feel magnetic forces and tell which direction you're facing.
4	You have an innate sense of special orientation.
5	You can sense the forces that separate the veils. You can navigate through space with ease.
6	You can read the forces that separate the veils of the multiverse and can recognize each of them separately. Navigating from one realm to another is a snap.

The skills to swim in and under water.

1	You can dragon paddle.
2	You are a practiced swimmer.
3	You swim through water using your wings & tail as easily as most dragons fly with them.
4	You can hold your breath for 10 minutes without needing a breath of air.
5	You can hold your breath for 50 minutes. You have even developed echo location.
6	Water is your first home, you can stay under indefinitely using you wing membranes as gills. and dive to great depths. Dolphins envy you.

The ability to use machines.

1	Machines don't bother you and you can use simple machines.
2	You think you can figure out how it works given time.
3	Your friends invite you over instead of reading the instructions.
4	You own all the latest technical publications.
5	Engineers come to you for suggestions.
6	Subspace merion particle racks with quantum range controls are a cake walk. Even ones with seven phase linkages.

Understanding plants.

1	Plants don't die when you touch them.
2	You know names of most plants.
3	If someone gave you a portion of a plant you could tell them exactly where it came from.
4	You know the inner workings and functions of all plants. You can grow anything.
5	You can gene splice plants and design them to perform specific and symbiotic functions with any creature in any environment.
6	You know how plants think, react and communicate with other organisms and amongst themselves. You can even interpret these signals.

Understanding business practices and the bottom line.

1	You can run a lemonade stand well.
2	Small business practices you know well.
3	You could easily manage a large chain of stores.
4	Investing is a piece of cake; you know the trends. You swim through the loopholes in business laws.
5	You know intuitively how supply and demand works and know what creatures want on the macro and micro scale.
6	Money and hoarding is an art form to you. You could cause whole world economics to sink or swim on a whim.

Understanding different customs, logics, and practices.

1	You hardly ever embarrass yourself on a first mating.
2	You understand local customs of those around you.
3	You never offend those around you no matter where you are and don't usually seem out of place.
4	You can easily blend into any culture anywhere with ease.
5	You understand the logic systems of other cultures and can switch the way you think to match their thought processes.
6	No matter how alien the creature you have an intuitive understanding of their culture when your first meet.

The ability to build objects and items.

1	Really!... you don't always need the instructions.
2	You are very mechanically inclined and tinker a bit.
3	You often spend time inventing interesting gadgets and they usually work.
4	You can make just about anything, and build it to last.
5	You can build wonder machines with tooth picks, duct tape and chewing gum.
6	If it can be conceived you'll have it ready in a second.

The ability to recognize and know landmarks and places.

1	You can read a map.
2	You know your states, capitals, providences and have memorized most of the town streets.
3	You know the world geography like the back of your hand.
4	You can tell which town or city your in by just looking around you.
5	If blindfolded, dragonnapped and taken to another world you would know which planet you were on.
6	If dropped randomly any where in the multiverse would intuitively know exactly where you were.

Understanding of various security systems an techniques.

1You know a good Masterlock ^TM lock when you see it.
2You can pick mechanical locks.
3Most home security systems are easy to set up and bypass.
4Complex security systems give you no problems. You were consulted when they built most of them.
5If stuck in a maximum security prison you would get out in 5 to 10 . . . seconds.
6You know there is really no such thing as security.

Dragon magick is limited to what spheres you know and what innate gifts you have. However under the guidance of a skilled dragon, magick can work wonders.
Dragon do not aspire to reach ascension, nor do they associate in cabals. Dragons are loners and seek out the forces of magick for their own reasons and applications. There are no special protocols among dragons who use magick. An elder dragon may teach its knowledge of the magick forces to its hatchings or other dragons just for the pride of having its wisdom passed on.

Dragon magick is different from that of mages. Dragons have have known for a long time that paradox is caused by the quintessence of the multiverse suddenly snapping like rubberband as it moves to a state of balance. And that once the quintessence has been released from its enforced patterns it can instantly revert to a stabler form. The resulting change of quintessence can have unusual effects on an area or pattern. This effect is often know as paradox.

Paradox does not affect most dragons directly when they use magick; it will, over time, affect the laws or patterns replaced by the dragon. So the area or pattern that the magick affects receives the paradox. The more complex the patch the greater the paradoxical stress on the area or pattern cast.

Vulgar magick will usually, but not always cause more paradox than magick mages refer to as coincidental. It depends on the stress placed on the Tellurian.

For ideas regarding the resulting outcomes of paradox, see Mage: The Ascension ^TM game manuals.

Dragon magick is not affected by the wills of the masses as mages' magick is. Because of a dragons unusual systems of belief, logic and knowledge of the multiverse, the quintessence and its pattens are held in the states that were around before the technomages influence.

Mages are often leery of dragon magick if they identify it. Mages that mess around with the magickal patches that dragons have created will often absorb great amounts of paradox. While attempting to impose their own changes on the patterns weaved by dragons, mages also impose their beliefs of how paradox works and cause all the built up paradox to backlash on themselves.

Dragons can be affected by paradox, and gain it when ever magick is used directly on their patterns. For dragons, quintessence and paradox are separate and not circular. Quintessence is the energies of magick. Paradox is the result of the multiverse laws rebalancing. The Paradox bar on a dragon character sheet indicates how much stress is being placed on their own patterns by themselves or other mages. A dragon can use up 2 points quintessence to remove 1 point of paradox. Such a feat takes an hour to accomplish.

All other aspects of dragon magick are handled similar to the Mage The Ascension^TM game. For simplification it is suggested that GM give out one to two points of paradox for coincidental dragon magick to a specific Pattern or area and three to six points of paradox for vulgar dragon magick to a specific pattern or area.

When a pattern receives 5 paradox points, minor paradoxical things begin to happen and at 10 paradox points major paradoxes occur. Mages using magick on or near where dragon magick have already been set can cause the dragon magick to go into paradox. Mages trying to directly change or remove dragon magick instantly absorb the pattern's paradox.

GMs are not obligated to use these magick rules in the Dragons!: The Scorching ^TM manual with other White Wolf games. These are just suggested alternate system to use with Dragons!: The Scorching^TM characters.

See the Mage The Ascension^TM manual by White Wolf for more detailed information on the Modern Magick^TM system.

Correspondence	The study of multidimensional space, position and location.
Entropy	The study of progressive disorder, chaotic systems and destabilization.
Forces	The study of natural physical energy in its forms and states throughout the multiverse.
Life	The study of biological and self renewing systems, active patterns.
Matter	The study of physical non-living substances, passive patterns.
Mind	The study of sentients, thought and logic systems. (different than the study of vristra)
Prime	The study of magickal energies and quintessence's effect on reality.
Spirit	The study of the ethereal and metaphysical planes and entities.
Time	The study of linear and nonlinear temporal perceptions, and exact copy parallel but temporal skewed multiverses.

From early times dragons have delved into the inner workings of mind and body. They have called such studies the vristral arts. Some dragons have developed special mental abilities that allow them to affect change in themselves and their environment.

Using vristra dragons first learn control and mastery over their own minds and bodies. Some have also continued deeper into such studies and began to apply their knowledge and control to the external forces. Vristra engages dragons in meditation, inner strength, balance and control to accomplish given goals. It is an art that has achieved mastery through practice and the natural longevity of dragons. These powers of the mind work much differently than magick. The manipulation of forces of vristra require much more concentration than magick and also take longer to complete.

Dragons first strive for internal control using vristra. They are able to recognize their own thought and biological processes. Through practice and understanding they are able to modify them. Blocking pain, heightening senses speed memorization, speeding cell regeneration, blocking mind probes, and regrowing missing body parts are just some of the skills of vristra.

Using vristral skill on one's self does not require gnosis. To accomplish a feet of vristra a dragon must roll using several skills.

Attribute + Vristra + Skill or Knowledge - Empty Willpower = Number of die to roll. The GM sets the difficulty level.

If a dragon is attempting to generate an extra set of arms it would be possible, but but such a task would take a long time. The dragon would need a large food source and a place to work uninterrupted for several weeks.

The dragon would first have to restructure its skeletal system to accommodate extra limbs. Perception(4) + Vristra(3) + Design/Const(2) - Empty Willpower Circles (5) Say the dragon has a willpower of 5 out of a total of 10 so 5 empty willpower circles. This gives the player the number of die to roll. The GM could also vary the number of successes to achieve the task.

4 + 3 + 2 - 5 = 4

The player would roll 4 dice at a difficulty of 7 or 8 which would be set by the GM. Restructuring a skeletal system is a difficult task. It would then need to grow the bone, muscles and hide.

Perception(1) + Vristra(1) + Medical(1) - Empty Willpower(9) = -6 roll Dif: 5

This would be an average task, however the dragon above would needed abilities or willpower to preform the task. And then to make such biological additions permanent, it would need to alter its genetic code.

Intelligent(6) + Vristra(5) + Medical(2) - Empty Willpower(4) = 9 roll Dif: 9

This would be a very difficult and dangerous task. If a dragon were to eventually succeed in all three tasks, it would have a new permanent set of arms. It would need to learn how to use its new appendages. That knowledge would not come automatically.

After exploring the inner self dragons found they could apply vristral skills to external forces. Vristral acts on external forces require the spending of gnosis to achieve. Dragons using vristral talents affect change through the the slow manipulation of the already existing natural laws and energy of the multiverse, by constantly rebalancing the forces of the multiverse as they change. Since the multiverse is kept in balance, changes affected will remain for a very long time as long as the natural laws of an area don't shift. Because balance is kept while using vristral talents, dragons do not need to worry about paradoxes unless they deliberately attempt to create one. And that would be a difficult task to engineer, since the universe is in a constant state of trying to achieve a balance.

Unlike mages, dragons using Vristra talents do not replace the natural laws with raw powerful energies of magick. Instead the use the internally generated fields of energy of their body and spirit (gnosis) and manipulate the natural laws and patterns with the combination of willpower and knowledge of the mind. Each small change in multiverse is set in balance before the next small change is attempted. Dragons using vristra are not able to make changes fast enough to cause paradox. They have to make sure a balance is achieved for each task or the change would return to its former state. This doesn't mean they can't run into problems; it just means they usually don't appear with the same force and severity as happens with paradox.

Because vristral changes in the multiverse don't use magickal energy, they are not actively noticed by mages and other beings who use magick. Creatures with the ability to detect magick would have to make a natural perception roll to noticed such changes. Mages consider the vristral arts of dragons to be just secretive aspect of dragon magick. Mages have made many attempts to understand and duplicate the vristral arts using magick and have failed. The vristra talent of dragons is a completely different type of energy manipulation from magickal sphere of the mind. Different training and knowledge is required for each of them.

Events manipulated with the vristra are not instantaneous. Vristral changes may take hours, days or years to accomplish depending upon the event that is trying to be achieved, the environment it is being done in, and the skills of the dragon who is trying to make it happen. For instance, if a dragon is attempting the event of opening a gateway into the umbral plane of the multiverse it will have to accomplish many different mental feats before the entire event will occur.

First it would have to try to locate correct the boundary(s) of the multiverse that separates the umbral plane from the place that it currently resides. Perception(3) + Vristra(5) + Navigation(1) - Empty Willpower Circles (6) The player would roll 3 dice at a GM set difficulty of 5 since the umbral plane is so close to the physical plane and is fairly easy to find.

The next step would be to determine how stable the veil between the planes are. Heavy traffic between boundaries causes the forces that keep them separated to be in a shifting state Especially if the use of magick has occurred recently, which can make the boundaries very turbulent as the energy and universal laws of Tellurian shift to regain a balanced state.

Perception(4) + Vristra(2) + Investigation(1) - Empty Willpower(6) = 1 roll Dif: 4

If there were a large amount of turbulence the dragon would first need reduce the turbulence to a workable state,

Intelligence(3) + Vristra(1) + Repair(3) - Empty Willpower(2) = 2 roll Dif: 6 or 7

then create a controlled and balanced opening between the boundaries.

Intelligence(1) + Vristra(2) + Science(1) - Empty Willpower(7) = (-3) roll Dif: 6 or 7.

This would mean the feat could not be attempted because the dragon lacked the necessary Attributes and Abilities. Then after everyone has come through you would need to close the portal again after it's no longer needed. But it could be left open permanently. However most dragons with vristral training usually would not leave such a portal open unless they had some intended purpose for it.

Intelligence(2) + Vristra(5) + Science(4) - Empty Willpower(2) = 9 roll Dif: 4

A Critical failure for all vristral acts would result in something going seriously wrong with the attempted feat and a loss of 1 willpower and the initial gnosis for the dragon attempting the feat. If this process seems too complex for the players or slows down the game the GM could also simplify the process by only using Vristra + another skill or knowledge. The GM could also reduce the number of tasks needed to accomplish a vristral feat. Use what works best for the story.

Each task may take 15 minutes or longer to complete depending upon the difficulty. Multiple tasks may take much longer to accomplish. Below is a rough chart for determining tasks times.

Difficulty	Time
1	instantaneous
2	1 turn
3	5 minutes
4	10 minutes
5	15 minutes
6	1 scene
7	1 hour
8	4 hours - 24 hours
9	24 hours - 1 week
10	1 week - 1 month

The time required to complete an external vristra feat can be reduced by one difficulty level for each dragon with vristral skills that combines its skill to help out. But they must first spend 15 minutes in order to prepare for the task together. Most dragons do not combine vristral skills for tasks involving self; the difficulty level of balancing ones own mental state increases by 2 with each dragon that helps out. The more random and unpredictable thoughts flowing through the mind of the dragon attempting a personal vristral feat decreases its ability to concentrate on its own body's feedback.