Everything

Weather Control

In societies that relied heavily on agriculture or seafaring, those who could control the weather were prized, often being the difference between life and death in their communities. Famines have been prevented or ended, and the most powerful sorcerers have been known to dispel or divert natural disasters.

Weather control allows sorcerers to do what it says on the package — they can control the weather. While they can’t directly make enormous weather shifts such as El Niños, what they can affect creates ripples through larger areas. No weather pattern hap­ pens in a vacuum, and this remains true for magical tampering with the weather. Many weather workers have some dots in Science, to account for being able to discern upcoming weather patterns. Many weather workers also learn at least a small amount of Divination for this purpose, frequently scrying in pools of water and clouds as their practices for such.

Though rarely consulted in the modern era, weather workers still practice in secret. The power they command is dramatic and potentially life-altering. Like healers, weather workers would be constantly pestered to perform miracles if their abilities were commonly known. At the same time, they would have to contend with those claiming out of fear and jealousy that the weather workers gained their powers through evil means.

Weather workers rarely function alone. The amount of effort required to produce adequate ef­ fects often necessitates teamwork. Some form covens around the goal of group weather control.

System

Modifiers: Weather control uses no rituals. The large number of successes required to produce effects lends itself to extended rolls and teamwork.

• 1 or more additional successes required to stop a severe thunderstorm or worse once it’s started. Calm weather is easier to stir up than nasty weather is to allay.

• +1 difficulty to cause any effect indoors.

Aspects: Weather Control uses the Aspects Distance (treat the measurement on the chart as the radius of effect), Duration, and Intensity:

50 Sorcerer

Intensity

•

Small changes only. This includes warm or cold breezes, slight but noticeable changes in temperature, and causing fire to momentarily flicker and flare.

••

The weather worker can cause minor affects that do not cause direct damage. The sorcerer might call up a dense fog that imposes per­ ception penalties (see Mage 20 p. 435), clear a cloudy sky, or create winds in the direction they desire.

•••

A sorcerer may form and dispel simple rain­ storms. Strong winds can impose a penalty on ranged attacks by blowing the projectile off course and causing difficulties aiming. The weather worker may also change the temperature up to 30 degrees Fahrenheit in either direction. Depending on the starting temperature, this may impose or remove penalties from heat illness or hypothermia. Flash floods can also be deadly.

•••• A weather worker’s storm strength increases. They can now command gale-force winds, lightning, hail, and other damaging weather effects. They may now target individuals to take the brunt of the storm, and damaging effects do 4 + successes damage. Lightning causes lethal damage while bashing damage results from hail. Other effects may also cause damage, within reason. Weather effects can cause moderate penalties to those caught in the storms.

••••• The sorcerer can cause extreme effects. Thunderstorms are well within the weather worker’s grasp. Destructive tornadoes and other powerful meteorological activity can tear through a city. The sorcerer may cause 6 + successes bashing or lethal every 15 min­ utes to those in the storm’s path. Anyone caught in the storm also suffers maximum environmental penalties.

Price of Failure: Even intentional weather con­ trol effects might have unintended consequences on the environment both near and far. Weather pattern disruptions are no small matter. A botch, however, unleashes terrible effects depending on the nature of

the changes sought. Lightning might directly strike the sorcerer or their allies. An arid climate might be hit with a monsoon the ground can’t accommodate, leading to widespread flooding. The local climate and possibly the surrounding area suffers dramatic, perhaps long-lived, changes. This can cause a crisis

for the local fauna, plant life, and people who had no time to prepare and may not know how to cope with the new climate. Death, even if not immediate, is unfortunately a common risk when sorcerers play with the weather.

51 Chapter One: Hedge Magic