Magic

When you’re making a magic system, the preliminary discussion is extremely important, because you need to establish some firm expectations for what is and isn’t possible, and how far-reaching the effects can be. No two fan tasy worlds in popular media have similar properties for their magic, and often, defining the arcane also defines a vital facet of how the world oper ates. Therefore, these examples are pretty detailed, using the full range of character elements.

Lucas the Magic Cop is a PC in the Fate game Ancestral Affairs, inspired by Hong Kong gunplay movies, where the characters are a special supernatural crimes task force operating in the fictional city of San Jian, California. In the setting, you have to channel magical power from ancestral, semi-divine spirits. Powers are specific and portfolio-based, so a spirit of water will confer different benefits than a spirit of luck. Also, people have karmic stress tracks, reflecting the resilience of their soul.

extra : Lucas’s Arts

Permissions: None, anyone can commune with a spirit for power Costs: Aspect slots, skill ranks, stress / consequences At creation, characters get an extra three slots for aspects that they can assign to describe their relationship with an ancestor spirit. The aspect should include context, so something like Sujan Has It In For Me or Dammar and I Share Respect is appropriate. To use ancestral powers, you must take a new skill called Commune.
Commune This is the skill for becoming one with and manipulating the energy of ancestral spirits.
o Overcome: Use Commune to negate the energy of unformed, minor spirits (read: unnamed NPCs) or to impose your will on an ancestral spirit with whom you are not currently bound. Failing one of these rolls is likely to cause you karmic stress or consequences. c Create an Advantage: Use Commune to stack free invokes on your spirit aspects , or to retune the spiritual energy in an area to your favor. a Attack: Use Commune to temporarily dispel hostile spirits and demons. (Note: You cannot attack humans or other corporeal entities directly with this action.) d Defend: Use Commune to defend against hostile super natural influences. Failing to defend from these attacks deals karmic stress . (Note: You cannot defend against supernatu rally enhanced attacks from humans or other corporeal entities directly with this action.)
Special: Commune adds stress and consequence slots to your karmic stress track, using the same rules for Physique and Will. consequences from a karmic attack literally retune the universe around your character, so things like Poor Luck or Surrounded by Sadness are good candidates

Each of the ancestral spirits also gets a writeup, which describes their portfolio, general philosophy, and the benefits they can confer. You gain these benefits by expending a free invoke gained with the Commune skill (as in, only the Commune skill ), or by spending two of your fate point. One benefit should always allow you to simply say that something happens in the story without a roll .
Sujan, the Spirit of Warding Portfolio: Defense and protection Philosophy: All life is worth guarding and preserving, even in the face of great adversity Benefits: • You may prevent any mundane calamity of fate once per scene— avert that car accident, stop someone just short of going over the cliff, or put someone just out of the reach of that explosion. There is no roll for this; it just happens. You can’t use this to retcon an action, only change its outcome. • You can raise a Great (+4) shield of energy to protect you and anyone you name. This can stack with any other active opposition you or your chosen target can bring forth. As soon as someone bypasses the opposition, your shield goes away and you must re-establish it. (Yes, you can stack your free invokes for this and make titanic shields. Presumably, there are other spirits whose powers can rip your shield down.)
Here’s a build for a fantasy game with rigid schools of magic.

extra : Schools of Power

Permissions: One aspect that names which order you belong to Costs: Aspect slot (for the permission), skill ranks (kind of), refresh Your aspect allows you to take membership in one of several arcane orders. Those orders have a mini-sheet of their own, with aspects , skills , and stunts. Having a membership in an order lets you “adopt” part of the order’s character sheet as your own. You can only belong to one order at a time, and leaving an order to join another is practically unheard of (read: interesting option for PCs to pursue over the course of a campaign).
The Black League Aspects: Deception Is The Only Truth, The Dead Heed Us, Kill Your Betters Before They Kill You skills : Great (+4) Learn Good (+3) Create Fair (+2) Destroy Average (+1) Change
stunts: Necromancy. +2 to any use of the Black League’s skills to affect corpses. Keeping Secrets. Once per scene, you may reroll any Deceive skill roll and keep the best result. Shadow Play. When using the Create skill , add an additional free invoke to any situation aspects you make involv ing darkness.
The magical skills are Create, Destroy, Learn, and Change. Each order prioritizes them from Great to Average. Use the lower of the order’s skill rank or your Lore skill rank when you’re performing magical actions. You get one free stunt from among those possessed by your order, and you can get more by spending refresh. You can invoke or be compelled by the order’s aspects as though they were your own. You call on your magical skill when something makes the use of your mundane skills impossible. For example, if you can no longer interrogate a suspect because the torture has killed him, you’d make an overcome roll with Learn to discover what you need to know through magic. If someone is suffering a deep, dark depression that no normal care can address, create an advantage with Change to alter their mood.