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Burst – ReWrite
Version 1.0 “Drunken Brawling” Edition
Forward
This is Fact’s rewrite of the Magical Burst Third Draft rules. It is not ‘official’ in any way, nor is it
related to Yaruki Zero Games’ project in any way except for being based off it. ReWrite includes numerous
changes from Third Draft, as well as a large amount of new content, rebalanced systems, overall tweaks and
improvements. ReWrite is intended to replace the Magical Burst Third Draft PDF in its entirety. The latest
version can always be found at the resources link below.
Resources:
There’s a page with character sheets / changelogs / general useful links located at:
http://tinyurl.com/MBReWrite
Our IRC channel is located at irc.rizon.net #BurstReWrite . Feel free to drop by if you have any
feedback, comments, questions, or even just want to discuss the game.
Credits:
● Yaruki Zero Games for making the original Magical Burst Third Draft PDF. As well as the Fourth
Draft PDF, which ReWrite takes inspiration from for a few Magical Effects.
● Karada for getting me into Magical Burst, having formatting I can steal, making a nice character
sheet, as well as good chunk of input on the earlier beta versions.
● Cray for listening to me talk/bitch about things I’m working on, as well as offering suggestions.
● Nacht for being tons of help with Beta4 Magical Effects. Dev team from Beta5 onwards.
● Cruxador for offering a number of helpful suggestions, including the raises system.
● Nephilm for pointing out numerous formatting and clarity errors back in the early betas, and telling
me what program to use to bookmark pdfs.
● A halffae catboy for being incredibly helpful with the Strain system, among other things.
● Appy and MeltingData, for contributing a bunch of changes and generally making #BurstReWrite a
livelier place.
● consilium for a number of significant suggestions, especially regarding NonCombat Actions.
● Lymia for thinking of the second Romantic relationship pointspend ability, after I’d been stumped on
it for days. Also for reading through the first draft for 1.0 and helping me check for mistakes.
● Everyone in #BurstReWrite that’s chipped in with helpful opinions or suggestions.
● The rare anonymous users who have provided useful ideas or suggestions.
● Google Docs, for being an excellent method of on the fly collaboration.
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Introduction
Monsters lurk in the shadows between sight, snapping up and devouring helpless passersby.
Abominations born of some unknown dark power, Youma. Creatures that warp the very reality around them
into a twisted, alien landscape... And there’s only one thing that can fight back these creatures of darkness.
You, a young girl imbued with magical powers from a contract with another type of creature, known as a
Tsukiama. Soon enough, you’ll discover that this isn’t anywhere near as easy as those TV shows make it
out to be...
Welcome to Magical Burst ReWrite, a game designed for running dark magical girls games. A
game where you struggle with the line between hope and despair. A game where you struggle with the
destructive backlash of your own powers, almost as much as you struggle with the monsters that lurk in the
shadows. But all is not lost. Even though the world is dark and your enemies terribly powerful, even though
your own powers are almost as harmful to you as the enemy... You have the power to fight back against
these things. And with that, comes at least a small shred of hope, the hope that one day you might be able
to find a way to make this all better, to set everything right with the world again...
Setting
Below is detailed the default setting in which the game takes place. Players should not
automatically assume all of this is true in any particular game, as game masters may wish to change things
about the setting to better fit their game.
Magical Girls
The protagonists of Magical Burst, young (typically 1316 year old) girls who’ve taken a contract
with a Tsukiama to become a Magical Girl, gaining magical powers in the process. Each Magical Girl has a
small pendant (often easy enough to hide under clothing), that always seems to return to them, and can
never truly be lost or destroyed. This pendant is the key to transforming into their magical form, which allows
them to do magic and fight youma. In addition, normal people do not know about the existence of magic,
Magical Girls, and Youma. Most Magical Girls go to lengths to hide the existence of their powers from the
world something entirely necessary if they wish to continue living a normal life.
Fallout
Fallout is the price of using magic and fighting Youma uncontrolled magical backlashes that range
from minor disruptions in a Magical Girl’s life, to things that are incredibly dangerous to both the Magical Girl
herself, as well as everyone else in the immediate area. As Magical Girls progress through life, they will
have to deal with (and try to hide) the disruptive consequences that Fallout brings to their lives.
Tsukaima
Tsukiama are the creatures that grant Magical Girls their powers. A common form for them is a
small animal that doesn’t look entirely natural, although they can appear in many different forms, depending
on the specific Tsukaima. They are all capable of speech, although they are typically either invisible to
normal people (with the exception of potential Magical Girls), or appear completely normal to them.
Youma
The main antagonists of the game, dark monsters that prey upon ordinary people. They come in all
sizes and shapes, a few of the constants being that they are hostile to humanity, and that they are utterly
immune to anything nonmagical (a trait other magic users tend to share), and in most cases, completely
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invisible to normal people. Another thing of note is that they drop an ‘Oblivion Seed’ upon being slain, a
small gem that can be stored in a Magical Girl’s pendant or weapon. It’s said that a Magical Girl that
manages to acquire thirteen of these Oblivion Seeds can make a wish...
Nightmares
The vast majority of Youma (perhaps all Youma) project what is known as a ‘Nightmare’ an area
of warped reality around them. A Nightmare is the Youma’s domain. Each Nightmare looks a little different...
From an alien landscape made of twisted metal, to a mirrored, distorted reflection of the real world, there are
as many different kinds of Nightmares as there are Youma.
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Character Creation
Besides the obvious (name, personality, appearance, history), when creating a Magical Girl you
need to decide on a few things. The first is the girl’s element. This can range from simple things like fire or
ice, to more esoteric elements like gravity or light. Your Magical Girl has the power to control and conjure
this element, using it to their bidding to strike down youma and defend themselves.
The next thing you’ll need to choose about your Magical Girl is her magical power. This is
something unique the girl can do with magic. These powers do not provide combat bonuses, and barring
unusual circumstances should not be useful in a fight. Powers can range from the useful to the mundane.
“Flight” and “Conjuring food” are both examples of valid powers. This should be distinct from your element,
you can already manipulate your element without a specific power.
Next, you should decide what your Magical Girl’s costume (that is, their outfit when they transform)
looks like. This can range from your standard frilly dress, to a long coat, to anything that you think would
look appropriate. The final part of the Magical Girl’s powers that you’ll need to think up is their magical
weapon (swords, bows, guns, staves, polearms and other real weapons being common choices.) After
you’ve got all that decided, you can move onto generating your Magical Girl’s statistics and abilities.
Archetypes
Every Magical Girl belongs to one of three archetypes. This defines what area of combat and magic
the girl is best at, providing bonuses in her area of specialization. There are three archetypes that Magical
Girls can choose from: Striker, Guardian and Tactician. Strikers specialize in bringing Youma down in the
most direct method possible, wielding powerful magical attacks. Guardians are reliable, resilient fighters,
skilled in protecting allies, as the name would suggest. Tacticians are flexible fighters, skilled in supporting
their allies, as well as adapting to the changing tides of battle by always having the right ability or attack for
the situation. Below are listed the innate bonuses granted by each Archetype (these do not count as
magical effects, and are simply inherent bonuses). The magical effects belonging to each Archetype are
detailed in the Magical Effects section.
Striker
Magical Girls that choose the Striker archetype gain the following benefits:
Enhanced Offense: You deal +1 damage with Magical Attacks.
Overwhelm: When rolling Overcharge dice on any Attack challenge, you may reroll any 1s once, but must
take the second roll.
Guardian
Magical Girls that choose the Guardian archetype gain the following benefits:
Tenacity: You gain a +2 bonus to your Base Resolve.
Resistance: You gain a +1 bonus to all Resist challenges.
Indomitable: Your passive defense is Defense+6 instead of Defense+4.
Tactician
Magical Girls that choose the Tactician archetype gain the following benefits:
Arcane Mastery: You gain a +1 bonus to all Support challenges.
Flexibility: You gain a second Signature Attack. However, you may only use one out of your two Signature
Attacks per battle. If you buy a third Signature Attack with XP, you will then be able to use two out of your
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three Signature Attacks per battle.
Integrity Scan: Once per battle you may learn whether your enemy is Uninjured (full Resolve), mildly
injured (over 2/3rds Resolve remaining), injured (between 2/3rds and 1/3rd Resolve remaining), or badly
injured (less than 1/3rd Resolve remaining.) In addition, if the enemy is a Youma, you also learn whether
they are above or below one half of their maximum Power Points. You may use this ability more than
once per battle by spending 1 Overcharge. This is a Free Action.
Magical Effects
Magical Girls start with one general Magical Effect, as well as one Magical Effect chosen from the
list specific to their Archetype. See the Magical Effects section for more details.
Normal Attributes
Normal attributes represent your magical girl’s abilities when it comes to dealing with nonmagical
matters. There are three of these: Physical, Finesse and Social. Physical is your physical strength, speed
and general endurance, Finesse is your ability with fine motor skills and noticing things and Social is your
ability to socialize and deal with people.
To determine your normal attributes, distribute 16 points between them. No normal attribute may be
below 3 or above 7.
Magical Attributes
Magical Girls’ powers are governed by three attributes: Magic, Heart, and Fury. Magic is your pure
magical power and finesse, Heart is your capacity for love, affection, camaraderie and other positive
emotions, and Fury is your ability to summon up anger and violence. These attributes are not supposed to
determine the character’s personality, though they may correlate with it. For example, someone with high
Fury is not necessarily angry a lot, but they may take a more aggressive approach to combat than other
people.
To generate your magical attributes, divide a total of 18 points among the three attributes. You may
not have any magical attributes below 3 or above 8. Keep in mind that some abilities and situations can
force you to roll against attributes you didn’t expect to use.
Overcharge
As your Magical Girl uses magic and fights youma, she will gain Overcharge. Overcharge
accumulates separately for each Magical Attribute (so you have separate pools of Magic, Heart, and Fury
overcharge).
Base Resolve
Magical Girls start with a Base Resolve of 18. This is your Magical Girl’s capacity for withstanding
damage in magical battles. After the end of every combat scene, your resolve returns to its maximum. Note
that losing resolve is not supposed to represent injuries outside of battle (See the ‘Lingering Wound’ and
‘Debilitating Wound’ fallout for that), simply how close any given entity is to defeat within a combat. Upon
reverting to normal form, Magical Girls typically find themselves unharmed.
Signature Attack
Each magical girl also starts with one special magical attack that is particularly powerful. To create
your Signature Attack, select one of the attack types below, and give it a name and associated fluff.
You may use each Signature Attack you know once per battle as a normal action, by taking 1 point
of Overcharge on Attack. However, if you have already used one Signature Attack this fight and are using
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your second one, you must take 2 points of Overcharge on Attack, as you strain your magical powers to the
breaking point.
Grand Barrage: Your attack acts as a special, unclashable Multiple Target Attack, with none of the
penalties normally applied. Alternately, you may focus your fire on one target, resulting in an attack that is
very difficult to defend against with anything but raw power. Make a single unclashable attack with a +4
bonus to damage. Your target may not use Reactions on the Defense challenge against this attack, though
they may use Reactions after the attack has succeeded and dealt damage (or failed.)
Arcane Prison: Your attack holds your target in place, imprisoning it in a manifestation of your element. If it
hits, the target has the Arcane Prison (Resist TN15 Support) condition applied to it. While this condition is
in effect, the target may not attack or use abilities that cause opposed Support challenges.
Disrupting Assault: Your attack disrupts the enemy’s magical powers, making them temporarily weaker. If
it hits, it inflicts an additional +1d6 damage and the target has the Disrupting Assault condition, which
causes a 2 penalty to its next Magical Challenge with each attribute.
Sundering Blow: Your attack is like an unstoppable force, even the strongest defense can only reduce it to
a glancing hit. If your attack hits, it deals an additional 1d6 damage, but if it misses or is successfully
Clashed, it still deals half of the damage a Normal Attack would have dealt (rounded down).
Final Impact: Your attack is especially potent, and inflicts an additional 1d6+3 damage.
Master Strike: Your attack is very accurate, allowing it to hit enemies that might normally be able to evade
your attacks. This attack gains a +3 bonus to hit, and inflicts an additional 1d6 damage.
Will of the Protector: Activating this Signature Attack puts Overcharge on Support instead of Attack. Will
of the Protector allows you to Revive another Magical Girl. The Physical challenge is automatically passed,
you roll the Support challenge and take the Overcharge for them, and they revive with 3 additional Resolve.
Alternately, you may cast your protective energy over all of your allies and yourself, which restores 4
Resolve to each ally, as well as grants them a +2 bonus on their next Defense challenge.
Riposte: This Signature Attack may be activated as a Reaction, after taking damage from an enemy’s
successful magical attack. Instead of making an attack as normal, roll an Attack challenge with the TN
being equal to the enemy’s result on the successful attack. On a success, halve the final damage that the
attack deals to you, and deal 2 damage to the attacker. Each raise (up to a maximum of 3) reduces the
attack’s damage by 1 (after halving), and deals an additional point of damage to the attacker.
Talents
Talents represent particular nonmagical knacks or skills that a Magical Girl possesses. Each
Magical Girl starts with 4 talents two ‘major’ and two ‘minor’ talents. Major talents give a +2 bonus on
applicable Normal Challenges, while minor talents give a +1 bonus. There is no premade list of talents to
select from, instead each player should create talents appropriate to their particular Magical Girl.
However, there are a few rules that you need to follow when thinking of a Talent. The first is that a
Talent can’t always add to any specific Normal Action. ‘Reading people’ is too broad of a talent (as it would
always apply to Read a Person), but something more specific like ‘Comforting friends’ could be appropriate.
The second rule is that talents should be useful. If you can’t think of any situation where you’d make a roll
using that Talent, you probably shouldn’t take it. It might even be worth it to think about the kind of
situations you could use that talent in. The final rule is that Talents have to be something you can do without
magic.
Generally, you can apply a Talent to any Normal Challenge, as long as you can reasonably justify
how it applies to the task at hand. Talents may also be added to Sorcery (if they reasonably apply), though
you should be careful with this like you would with Normal Actions a ‘Technology’ talent adding to all
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instances of a character’s ‘Technomancy’ power is dubious at best. Another thing to note is that you can’t
directly apply a talent to Combat actions or anything that’s only used for combat, such as having a talent in
Resist actions. If a NonCombat action ends up being useful inside a combat due to an advantageous
circumstance, such as having to test Physical to preemptively exit the area of a youma’s attack, you can
apply your Talent there.
Relationships
Consult the ‘Relationships’ section to determine your starting relationships.
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General Mechanics
Transforming
Magical Girls have two forms: normal and magical girl. In their normal form they are more or less
normal girls, the only unusual thing being that they have a special pendant that can never be stolen, lost, or
even discarded. When a magical girl transforms she may experience an elaborate “transformation sequence”
of her costume forming around her body, but to the outside world the transformation is virtually
instantaneous. If, for example, a youma launches an attack at a magical girl in her normal form, she can
transform in time to react to even the fastest of attacks. Transforming is necessary to use any of the
Combat Actions, as well as to use powerful magic.
If you are at 0 Resolve you lose access to your magical girl form and all your magical powers until
you use the Revive action or the current scene ends.
Normal Challenges
For a mundane challenge, the player rolls 2d6 and adds it to an appropriate Normal Attribute,
comparing the result with the TN of whatever they’re trying to accomplish.
Magical Challenges
For a magical challenge, you use one of the three Magical Attributes: Roll 2d6 and add the roll to
your attribute to get the result. In addition, you have the option of voluntarily taking Overcharge to get extra
dice. Add a point of Overcharge to the attribute you are using for the challenge, and roll an additional 1d6,
adding it to the total. You can do this before or after your roll, though if you’re facing a magical opponent
they can do the same you can both ‘take turns’ adding Overcharge to your roll to try to beat the other’s
result. No matter what, you may not gain more than three additional dice on any Magical Challenge due to
voluntarily taking Overcharge or using related abilities (Energy Storage, Final Strike, etc). Abilities that
modify a challenge in some way but do not directly add Overcharge dice do not affect this limit.
Unlike with normal challenges, if a die comes up a 6 (on either one of the original 2d6 or on a
voluntary overcharge die), you take ‘involuntary’ overcharge dice, which act similarly to voluntary overcharge
dice, with two exceptions: they do not count against the limit of three voluntary overcharge dice per
challenge, and they cannot explode further (rolling a 6 on an involuntary overcharge die has no additional
effects.)
If the magical challenge is an attack, you deal an additional point of damage for each Overcharge
die (voluntary or involuntary) rolled on the attack. Rolling a 6 on a damage die has no further effects. Any
time you get 6 or more Overcharge points on an attribute, you have to do Fallout to get rid of it as soon as
possible.
Target Numbers & Raises
A Target Number (TN) is the number you must meet or exceed to succeed on a specific challenge.
For example, to succeed on a Cover challenge (TN 13), you must roll at least a 13, after all modifiers have
been applied.
A ‘raise’ is a mechanic used in challenges and specific actions, wherein you gain extra benefits for
exceeding the TN. Every 3 points you exceed the TN by equals one raise. For example, someone who got a
16 on a Cover challenge would have one raise, and someone who got a 19 would have two raises. Raises
may also happen in opposed challenges, in which case you must beat the enemy’s roll by 3 points as if it
were the TN.
Opposed and Unopposed Challenges
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An “opposed” challenge is when the rules call for two characters to make rolls against each other.
For example, you might make a Physical vs. Finesse challenge, meaning you make a Physical challenge
and the other person makes a Finesse challenge, and whoever gets the higher result wins. Break ties first
by whoever has the higher base attribute, then by rolling an extra die.
In an unopposed challenge you’re just making a challenge and seeing if you got a high enough
result to beat the TN. Actions that use an unopposed challenge will list off what effect you get from success,
and any additional effects from raises. Typically failure means nothing happens.
Luck
Every Magical Girl starts with one to two points of Luck (as determined by the GM), which is a
resource that may be spent to enhance Normal Challenges it represents that particular girl’s luck, destiny,
unwillingness to give up, or whatever else is appropriate. A point of Luck may be spent to reroll a Normal
Challenge, or gain a +2 bonus to a Normal Challenge (which may be performed before or after seeing the
result, in the same manner as spending overcharge to enhance magical challenges.) Luck refreshes at the
start of each session.
A Note for GMs
In many other games, it is a common practice to roll dice out of sight of the players, so they cannot
see the result. While this method does have its advantages (and disadvantages), it is not recommended for
Magical Burst. The players need to know exactly what result the enemy has, so they can decide if they
wish to risk spending Overcharge (or Luck) to beat it.
NonCombat Actions and Other Rules
The following are actions performed outside of combat, but which require explicit rules for one
reason or another.
Normal Attributes and Difficulty
The following is intended to help players and GMs get an idea of what having a specific score in a
Normal Attribute means, and additionally provide a small guide to appropriate TNs on Normal Challenges.
Attributes:
Deficient (3): You’re quite noticeably subpar in that area, though not enough to be considered disabled. It’s
enough to interfere in your daily life, to some degree. For example, someone with 3 Social is likely to get
into regular arguments or trouble with other people, or otherwise be reclusive and illequipped to deal with
social situations.
Average (5): Average, run of the mill, normal. There’s nothing unusual about your ability in this area.
Gifted (7): You’re definitely above average, talented enough to set you above the crowd. You could turn a
few heads if you tried, but this level isn’t anything incredibly special. For example, someone with 7 Physical
is probably in the top few of their gym class or one of the stars of their club.
Prodigy (9): You’re very impressive, able to pull off things that most people have little chance at. Combined
with the right masteries and some luck, there’s little that can stop you. For example, someone with 9
Finesse is incredibly sharp you’re not going to be sneaking past them (and if they want to sneak past you,
they almost certainly can.)
Target Numbers:
Easy (TN10): A task that’s easy even for an average person, but isn’t quite guaranteed. Even someone
who’s deficient in the area can do this half the time, whereas a gifted person has almost no chance of
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failure.
Normal (TN12): A moderately, but not especially challenging task. Something that an average person can
do about half the time.
Hard (TN14): A task that’s solidly challenging. An average person doesn’t even have a one third chance to
pull this off, barring help from Luck or Talents. Gifted people can manage these actions about half the time,
though.
Very Hard (TN16): An extremely difficult task. Even a Prodigy only has a 50 percent chance of pulling this
off. Average people will find this difficulty nearly impossible without assistance from Luck or Talents.
Go Fast
Take this action to do something faster than someone else. This can be used to outrun or run away
from someone, but you can also use it for other contests of speed. Make an opposed Physical challenge,
the winner gets to accomplish what they were trying to do, and the loser is a bit too slow. If you’re trying to
catch up to someone running away and you get at least one raise, you can get ahead of them and stop
them from fleeing. If one person has a significant head start on the other, they gain a +2 bonus on the
Normal Challenge.
Awareness
Take this action to investigate your surroundings for clues. Make a TN12 Finesse challenge, and on
a success you find something that at least points you in the right direction. On a success with at least one
raise, you find a solid clue or hint. If something or someone’s deliberately tried to obscure any clues, then
you take a 2 penalty to the Normal Challenge. You have to be somewhere connected to what you’re
investigating to use this action you can’t just use it anywhere. It’s also possible to make a ‘passive’
Awareness challenge (which means you can pick up clues without having to specifically search for them), at
a 2 penalty.
Stealth
Make a Finesse challenge, opposed by anyone in a position to find you. If you succeed, they
suspect someone might be in the area but cannot pinpoint you (or similar). If you succeed with at least one
raise, they have no clue you’re there. You may even use this action on Youma, should the circumstances
allow it. If the conditions in the area aren’t very well suited to stealth (there’s little to hide behind, it’s very
well lit) then you take 2 penalty to the Normal Challenge.
Read a Person
The social version of Awareness. This is used to figure out things about other people in much the
same was as Awareness is used to find clues in the nearby area. Make a TN12 Social challenge. On a
success, you get an idea about what the person’s currently thinking or feeling. If the person is actively trying
to hide what they’re feeling, you take a 2 penalty on the Normal Challenge. Keep in mind that this isn’t
mind reading it allows your character to read the body language, tone of voice, and other actions of a
character, and make reasonable deductions based on it.
You may also use this action if you suspect someone is lying to you, in which case it comes down
to an opposed Social challenge. On a success, you get a feel for how truthful they’re being. On a failure,
you gain no further information.
Read the Situation
Take this action to figure out the best course of action to take in a social situation. Decide on what
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you’re trying to accomplish and roll a TN14 Social challenge. On a success, you get a hint that will help you
achieve what you’re trying to do and you can use that hint to your benefit. If you’re trying to influence
someone who you know nothing about or someone who’s actively hostile to you, you take a 2 penalty on
the Normal Challenge. If you’re trying to influence someone you have a Level 3 or higher relationship with,
you gain a +2 bonus on the Normal Challenge.
Esoteric Magic
Magic in Magical Burst is generally very broad players make up specific elements and powers and
are assumed to be able to control them with a fair degree of precision. One important decision that every
group needs to make is: How far are people allowed to go in justifying using unusual magic? One player
might insist it’s fine that having the ‘Fire’ element means their character can use it to magically grant people
inspiration, because fire represents passion. There is nothing inherently wrong with this kind of magic use,
but it’s not appropriate for all games and everyone needs to be on the same page regarding it. Thus, it’s
strongly recommended that you come to a consensus on this kind of magic use before the first session.
Magic and NonCombat Actions
It’s possible for a Magical Girl to use her powers to enhance her nonmagical capabilities. If you wish
to use magic to assist yourself on a NonCombat Action, there are two options. The first is using subtle
magic. Subtle magic isn’t immediately obvious and doesn’t require you to transform to use it someone
passing by probably wouldn’t notice anything unnatural about what you’re doing. For example, a ‘Time’ user
could increase her speed just enough to gain an edge, but not enough so that she’s speeding past in a blur.
Using subtle magic adds a +2 bonus to your Normal Challenge to perform a NonCombat Action. Keep in
mind that ‘subtle’ doesn’t mean ‘undetectable’. If it makes sense, people may be able to guess that
something supernatural was going on.
The other option is to use blatant magic, which requires you to transform and makes a visible aura
of magic around you while you’re using it. Using blatant magic means you automatically win the Normal
Challenge, but you’ve just revealed that you can use magic to everyone in the vicinity. To continue the above
example, maybe the Time user transforms, a blurred aura surrounding her as she runs fast enough to
outpace any normal person.
Regardless of if you’re using subtle magic or blatant magic, you need to be able to reasonably
justify what you’re doing. If you’re using magic to make you run faster, you need to be able to explain how
you can accomplish that. Keep in mind what your group decided about esoteric magic, as it’ll make a fair
difference in what you can and can’t justify.
However, cases where both participants are using blatant magic are a bit different. If both people
have justification to solve the problem with magic, then it turns into a simple opposed Sorcery challenge.
However, that’s not always the case in magical conflicts. Sometimes you may not be able to justify
opposing your enemy normally if you’re trying to reach the end of a room before someone else, it doesn’t
really matter how fast you are if they can teleport. But when this happens, all is not lost. You can still try a
Sorcery challenge to oppose them, at a 2 penalty. If you succeed, you manage to interfere with their power
long enough to overcome them and win the contest. The one exception is that if someone is using magic
that would directly affect you or something you’re holding or wearing, then you never suffer a penalty for
trying to stop them.
Sorcery
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Sorcery is a catch all term for magic that doesn’t directly relate to attack or defense. Whenever
you’re trying to accomplish something with magic that isn’t covered by the combat rules, you’re considered
to be performing Sorcery. Sorcery can be used in or out of combat if used in combat then it is considered
a Normal Action and must use your Support attribute. If used outside of combat, it may use any attribute
you desire.
1. Determine Intended Effect
First, decide what you’re going to do with magic. Obviously, you need to be able to justify how you’re using
your magic to achieve the intended effect. Make sure that the intended effect is something that it makes
sense for you to be able to do, given your character’s element and power. Keep in mind your group’s
decision on esoteric magic.
2. Determine Conflict
Next, you need to decide if your intended results are in conflict with the environment, in conflict with another
character (or youma), or not in conflict with anything. Take a look at what you’re trying to accomplish, and
see if it needs to overcome something in the scene to succeed. The following explains what happens during
various conflicts.
If your intended result doesn’t conflict with anything in the scene, it happens without you needing to roll.
Results that don’t conflict with anything are pretty simple they don’t have to overcome a significant part of
the environment and no one is actively trying to stop them. A fire user making a flame above their hand
would count as this kind of Sorcery. However, a fire user setting a pile of wood on fire (in dry conditions) or a
water user extinguishing a fireplace count as this kind of Sorcery too. These are simple and direct
applications of power that don’t really cause a conflict because there’s there’s no logical justification for
them failing.
If your intended result conflicts with something in the environment, then you’ll need to roll an unopposed
Magical Challenge to succeed (see the next step). Results that conflict with the environment are things that
logically have a chance to fail, such as a water user trying to stop an uncontrolled fire, or a fire user trying to
light a pile of wood in the middle of a thunderstorm.
If your intended result directly conflicts with something someone else is doing, then you should resolve the
conflict via the rules listed in the ‘Magic and NonCombat Actions’ section. Make sure that the effect isn’t
something that’s already covered by the combat rules if you’re trying to damage an enemy, defend against
something that’d hurt you, or directly inflict some kind of negative condition on the enemy, you should be
using the appropriate combat action, not Sorcery.
3. Determine Results
After you’ve got the conflict established, you’ll need to determine the results of your magic. In two out of
three cases this needs little explanation. If your intended result doesn’t conflict with anything or anyone, it
automatically succeeds without need for a roll. If your intended result conflicts with another character, then
you’ll need to resolve it with an opposed Magical Challenge (as detailed in Magic and NonCombat Actions.)
However, if your intended result conflicts with either the environment (or both the environment and another
character), then you’ll need to consult the rules below and make a Magical Challenge against a fixed TN .
By default, the TN for this challenge is 13. However, certain conditions can make your magic harder to do
say, trying to effect a particularly large area with it. The following list describes conditions that make
Sorcery harder to perform for every condition your intended effect meets, you need an additional raise to
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accomplish it. You’ll also need to transform if you’re trying to overcome any of these conditions (effectively
meaning you’re using blatant magic).
The magic affects a larger area than normal. This generally varies with the nature of what you’re trying to
do information gathering or scanning magic probably affects anything nearby by default, but a fire ability
would likely only affect a few objects normally. If you want to affect everything or almost everything in the
immediate area or scene (such as setting the entire building you’re currently in on fire or scanning half the
city at once), then you’ll need three raises instead of one.
The magic requires a high degree of precision. Magic is reasonably precise under normal circumstances,
but especially fine manipulations tend to present a challenge for Magical Girls. For example, if you’re trying
to cut through a safe without damaging anything inside, then this would apply.
The magic affects something significantly outside your immediate surroundings. Note that you need to be
able to perceive something to do magic on it.
Magic in the environment is interfering with what you’re trying to do. For example, if an area is
supernaturally cold this would apply to fire magic. This is just for ‘passive’ magic in the environment (such
as enchantments, areas that naturally prevent magic use, etc), if someone is actively trying to stop you then
you should be using the rules for conflicts with someone else, not the environment. If the magic in the
environment is powerful enough to all but prevent what you’re trying to do, then you’ll need two raises
instead of one.
Beyond conditions, there are a couple things that can affect your Magical Challenge. For one, if you’re both
opposing the environment and someone is actively trying to stop you, then you still only roll a single Magical
Challenge. However, you have to beat both the other person and the TN (plus required raises) separately to
accomplish your desired effect. Time also matters if you’re not at all pressured for time and nothing in
particular is distracting you, you can take your time casting the magic and gain a +2 bonus on the Magical
Challenge.
Once you’ve figured out what conditions apply, then you can roll the Magical Challenge. If you succeed on
the Magical Challenge with enough raises to cover all conditions, then you accomplish what you were trying
to do. If you fail on the magical challenge, then your magic fails to accomplish anything of importance. If you
succeed but don’t get enough raises to cover all the conditions, then your magic has some minor effect but
you don’t fully accomplish whatever you were trying to do.
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Combat
Unfortunately, life as a Magical Girl is not entirely peaceful and happy. Youma lurk in the darkness,
ready to devour anyone they can, and it’s not unheard of for Magical Girls to end up in fights with each
other. When this happens, the following rules come into play.
Basic Combat Flow & Initiative
There are two measurements of time in a battle ‘rounds’, and ‘turns’. Within each round, every
character in the battle gets one turn. Once everyone in the battle has taken their turn, the current round
ends and a new round begins.
At the start of each round, every participating character must select one Magical Attribute to be
their Attack attribute, and another to be their Defense attribute (these must be different, you cannot use the
same attribute for both). The remaining attribute is your Support attribute. Attack and Defense are self
explanatory, while Support allows you to perform actions outside attacking or defending. It’s also used to
help resist some special abilities. Note that anyone can change their attribute assignment at the start of any
round, which is often useful to help manage Overcharge or focus on different things from round to round.
To determine who goes first, everyone involved rolls a Physical challenge. The highest result goes
first, with the second highest result going second, so on and so forth. Initiative is not rerolled every round the
fight continues, future rounds use the same initiative order as the first round.
Action Types
Normal Actions are your ‘standard’ action. You may take one Normal Action on your turn each
round. If an action does not specify what kind of action it is, it is a Normal Action.
Special Actions are used in response to specific circumstances outside your turn, but count as
your action for the turn meaning you can’t take both a Special Action and a Normal Action in the same
round. Using a Special Action does not stop your turn from happening, it simply means you cannot take
another action on your turn (but you may do things such as deactivating Full Drive, or switching Twin Style
stances.)
Free Actions have no restrictions on them, you may take as many Free Actions per round as you
want, on anyone’s turn.
Reactions are the final type of action. They’re activated in response to specific circumstances
(similar to Special Actions, though not always outside your turn), but they don’t use up your action for the
turn. The important thing to remember about Reactions is that any single character may not use two
Reactions in response to the same event, or use a Reaction and a Special Action in response to the same
thing. Note that the opposed challenge for a Magical Attack is considered a separate event from the
success or failure of that attack. Or, in other words, an ‘attempted magical attack’ and a ‘successful/failed
magical attack’ are counted as separate events. For example, you can use Aegis to boost your defense
against an attack, and then when the attack succeeds you can trigger AutoHeal to restore your Resolve
but you couldn’t use both Aegis then Rapid Counter in response to the same attempted Magical Attack. The
same applies to the use of any ability that requires a challenge to succeed: The challenge counts as a
separate event from any effects it might cause.
Other Terminology
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Initial Damage is the damage dealt by a Magical Attack before applying any damage reduction
abilities to it. Final Damage is the damage dealt by a magical attack after applying damage reduction
abilities. Generally, whenever an ability asks you to halve damage, it will be to halve final damage. Bonuses
‘to hit’ add to the results of Magical Attacks, and bonuses ‘to damage’ add to the damage dealt by Magical
Attacks (and not to anything else, unless explicitly stated). Abilities that target ‘an ally’ may target yourself.
Conditions
Conditions are negative status effects that can be applied to a Magical Girl (or in some cases, a
Youma.) While their effects vary, they all share certain common rules. The first rule is that conditions do not
stack, applying the same condition more than one does not cause any additional effect (the most recently
applied condition takes precedence.) The second is that you may never apply more than one condition with
the same action. While this doesn’t matter much to Magical Girls, it’s an important limitation for Youma (for
example, a Youma cannot apply Infect and Poison with one attack.) All conditions may either be removed
by the Resist action, or have a set duration that they last for.
Legendary Attributes
Some rare Magical Girls may end up acquiring a ‘10’ in one of their Magical Attributes. These
attributes represent the peak of magical power that is possible to a Magical Girl, and as thus offer additional
bonuses depending on whether the 10 is assigned to Attack, Defense, or Support. Note that these bonuses
are not supposed to be applied to Youma, they are for Tier 4 or higher Magical Girls who have purchased the
advance to raise one of their Magical Attributes to 10.
Attack: Enemies take a 1 penalty when trying to Clash or Cover your attacks. Note that having a 10 in
Attack gives you a base damage of 1d6+5.
Defense: Reduce the damage taken from Magical Attacks by 1.
Support: Once per round, you may add a +1 bonus to any Magical Challenge made by yourself or an ally.
Combat Actions
Attack
This is a magical attack on an enemy, intended to cause harm. Make an Attack challenge. If your
result is equal to or under the enemy’s passive defense (Defense Attribute+4), then the attack is considered
to have failed. You may spend Overcharge at this point to improve your attack past the enemy’s passive
defense, if so desired. If the attack beats the enemy’s passive defense, then the defender may choose to
roll a Defense challenge to oppose the Attack challenge (note that they do not have to do this, they may
choose to simply take the attack and not risk gaining Overcharge on the Defense challenge.) If the attacker
wins the challenge, the defender takes 1d6 damage, plus half the attacker’s Attack attribute (round down),
plus 1 for each Overcharge die the attacker incurred during the attack roll.
There are three kinds of special Attack actions, as well as the standard Normal Attack detailed
above. All four of the Attack actions are considered Normal Actions. These are treated as separate actions
and may not be combined:
● Multiple Target Attack: Sometimes you’ll want to attack more than one target at once. To do this,
make an attack like usual, choosing how many targets you wish to attack. For each target after the
first you suffer a 2 penalty to hit and the attack deals 1 less damage. You take a penalty of 2 to
your defense attribute until the start of your next turn any time you use this action. Any enemy
attempting to Clash this attack gains a +2 bonus, but also suffers the same penalty to attack that
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you did. For the purposes of other abilities, Multiple Target Attack is only considered to have
missed if it misses every enemy though it only applies the effects of abilities (that activate on
successful hits) to the enemies it actually hits.
● Signature Attack: Each magical girl has one or two Signature Attacks. See the relevant section for
more details.
● Team Attack: Two magical girls can act together to deliver a more effective attack. One must Hold
(see below) so that they act at the same time, they must have a relationship, and they have to be
attacking with the same attribute. Once these conditions have been fulfilled, each Magical Girl may
roll an attack with a bonus of +2 to hit and damage. Each Magical Girl may only participate in one
Team Attack per battle.
Assist
As a Special Action, you may Assist an ally who is in the process of making a challenge. This
gives a +2 bonus to the roll in question. Multiple people may assist the same roll, but every Assist after the
first only adds an additional +1 bonus. Assist may never grant more than a +4 bonus to any roll. Assist may
be used in noncombat situations, should it make sense, however the person taking the Assist action forfeits
their ability to roll against the challenge in question. Assist may be used after the initial roll has been seen,
as long as the action has not been fully resolved yet.
Clash
Instead of attempting to defend against an attack, you may attempt to Clash it as a Special Action.
Instead of rolling Defense against the attack, roll your own Attack challenge. If the original attacker
succeeds, their attack goes through as normal. If you succeed, you deal damage as if you had hit with a
Normal Attack. You can also Clash on someone else’s behalf. You may only Clash once per battle. If, for
whatever reason, you would be unable to make an attack action, you may not Clash. Failing a Clash is not
the same as missing an attack, effects that operate off failed Clashes will state specifically that they do.
If both people end up with an equal result on the Clash challenge, instead of resolving the tie
normally, then both people take full damage as if each attack had hit.
Cover
If someone has been attacked and has failed to defend themselves, you can attempt to Cover for
them, as a Free Action. To protect someone else, make a TN13 Support challenge. On a success you take
the damage instead of them. You may only use this action once per round.
Guard
Before rolling a Defense challenge against an incoming attack, you may choose to Guard it as a
Special Action, trading your own action to defend yourself against the attack. This gives you a +2 bonus on
the Defense challenge. If the attack hits you despite this, you take 2 less damage.
Revive
If you’ve lost all your Resolve, you’re in serious trouble, and this action is the only way to get
yourself back up and into the fight. First, make a TN13 Physical challenge to see if you can gather the
strength to continue fighting. On a failure, this action fails and your turn ends. On a success, you proceed to
the next step with no bonuses or penalties, and on at least one raise you gain a +2 bonus to the next roll.
After you succeed on your Physical challenge, you make a TN14 Support challenge. On a failure
you take 2 Overcharge and go to 1d6 Resolve. On a success you take 1 Overcharge and go to 1d6+3
Resolve, and on a success with at least one raise you take 1 Overcharge and go to 1d6+6 Resolve.
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Any successful use of this action causes a 1 penalty to future revives, as the toll of the massive
damage you have suffered begins to overwhelm you. This penalty is cumulative for each revive.
Resist
Gather up your strength and throw off conditions that hamper your ability to fight. First, pick a
specific negative condition affecting you, and roll to remove it. Such conditions will specify what the TN and
applicable attribute (if more than one, you are free to choose between them) for Resist are. On a success,
you remove the condition, although raises may matter in some cases. Some abilities may force free action
Resist tests.
Hold
Sometimes you'll want to act to later than your turn would normally take place. When your turn
comes up, simply declare hold. You can decide to take your turn at any point after that, as long as it is not
during another person’s turn. If you hold your turn all the way to the end of the round, you have to use your
turn or lose it.
Interrupt
If you’re holding your turn, you may attempt to interrupt someone else after they have declared an
action but before they’ve begun resolving it. Make an opposed Physical challenge. If you succeed, you can
act before them. They can then either complete the action they had already declared, or change their action
in response to your interrupt, which lets them do something else at a 1 penalty. If you fail, you act directly
after the enemy.
Ambush
There’s no better way to attack someone than ‘when they’re not expecting it’. If you’ve made a
successful Stealth challenge against someone, you may then Ambush them. This means you immediately
enter combat with the target and make a Normal Attack with a +1 bonus to hit (this counts as a Special
Action.) The target may not use Reactions or Special Actions in response to this attack. If you succeeded
on your Stealth challenge with at least one raise, you gain an additional +1 bonus to hit and damage on this
attack, as you catch your target entirely off guard.
Read an Enemy
To read a magical foe, make a TN13 Support challenge. On a success choose one of the following,
and on at least one raise choose two. You can read other magical girls this way, but only while they’re
transformed. Options do not stack, you may not choose the same option twice even if you use this action
more than once. Use of this action on one member of a homogenous group (such as minions) grants you
the bonuses against all members of that group.
● Get a +1 to Attack challenges against the target for one battle, as well as +1 Damage to the first
successful attack against the target.
● Get +1 to Defense challenges against the target’s attacks for one battle, as well as a +1 to
opposed challenges to resist the target’s special abilities.
● Learn one of their special abilities. You may specify if you wish to learn about an offensive or
defensive ability, but do not have to. May be taken twice. If none, you may pick another option.
● Learn their immediate motivation (“This youma is heading for the school!”), beyond eating people or
winning the current battle. If it has little motivation beyond that, you may pick another option.
Effects of Damage
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A youma whose Resolve is totally depleted is destroyed and leaves behind one or more Oblivion
Seeds. If there are multiple Magical Girls present they will have to decide who gets it.
A Magical Girl who loses all of her Resolve is forced out of her Magical Girl form until she uses the
Revive action or the current scene ends. No method of recovering Resolve works on an untransformed
Magical Girl with zero Resolve, they must use the Revive action to continue fighting. If a youma (or another
Magical Girl) successfully attacks her in this state she will die.
Note that ‘damage’ and ‘resolve loss’ are two entirely separate things. Damage is dealt by all kinds
of attacks and sometimes by special abilities, and may be reduced or mitigated by abilities such as
Resilience. Resolve loss is typically only dealt by some special abilities, and cannot be mitigated or
reduced in any way. In addition, only damage can kill a magical girl at 0 Resolve or a normal person, resolve
loss does nothing to someone with 0 Resolve.
Normal People in Battles
Ordinary people caught up in magical battles are nonentities at best, and liabilities at worst. Any
successful (not Covered or Clashed) magical attack will kill them as if they were a Magical Girl at 0 Resolve,
and they may not make attacks of any kind on either Magical Girls or Youma. They may still roll initiative
and attempt to escape or hide using Normal Attributes, should the situation allow. Thankfully, Youma have a
strong tendency to deal with magical threats before they turn to devouring normal people.
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Relationships
Relationships are an important part of a Magical Girl’s life. Having connections with other people
can help a Magical Girl in numerous ways, from physical assistance to things like emotional support and
useful bits of information or advice. The following rules are intended to give Magical Girls ways to use their
relationships to help in their day to day life. Note that these rules are intended to represent relationships
between PCs and NPCs. They have not been designed with the intent of being used for relationships
between PCs.
Relationship Levels
Relationships are organized into levels a broad measure of how close you are to that person and
how important they are to you. Relationship levels range from 1 to level 4, and represent a positive
relationship with the person in question. As time goes on, relationships can go up as you become closer to
that person, but just like in real life, not all relationships end well. That said, the following levels represent
normal, positive relationships. They are written mainly from the perspective of people being friends, but keep
in mind that other types of relationships are possible as well.
Level 1:
Level 1 relationships are normal friends. They generally represent someone that you’ve met and get along
with, but don’t know all that well. This is a good level for people you only met recently, or people only have
occasional contact with.
Level 2:
Level 2 relationships represent closer bonds than Level 1. This is a good level for people you spend time with
regularly but aren’t extremely close to. This doesn’t mean you can’t discuss some serious or personal
things with them, but it’s more likely that you spend your time with them on lighter activities.
Level 3:
Level 3 relationships represent close friends the kind of people who form an important part of your life. You
may discuss very serious or personal things with them, spend large amounts of time with them or have
known them for a long time. This is a good level for an important friend you’ve known since childhood, or a
staunch ally that you’d trust to have your back any day.
Level 4:
Level 4 relationships represent people who are very important to you. At this level, you’re a significant force
in each other’s lives, possibly to the point of changing the course of each other’s lives. These kinds of
relationships are not common not everyone has this kind of connection, and those that do usually have few
friends of this level, often just one.
Relationship Levels and Characters
The above relationship levels are intentionally somewhat vague. This is to allow for individual
differences between characters. Not every Magical Girl approaches relationships in the same way. When
creating a Magical Girl, go through the relationship levels and make a few short notes about what each level
would look like for that character. You should also note down possible ways for someone to reach that level
of relationship with the character.
This isn’t something GMs should be particularly strict about, though. Characters change over time,
and how they approach relationships may well change too. Feel free to revise these notes whenever it feels
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appropriate. It might even be appropriate to hold off on making your relationship notes until you’ve played the
character for a few sessions and have a better handle on her. You should try to roughly stick to the
relationship levels, though. The system is balanced around each level holding mostly the same significance
between people.
When generating a character, you get 6 levels to distribute between up to four relationships. You
may not have Level 4 relationships at this time you’ll have to develop them through play. Pick any
Relationship Types you want. At this point it’s usually a good idea to briefly consult with the GM about
these relationships, and make sure you’re on the same page regarding them. Note that all new relationships
start with 1 Relationship Point.
Establishing and Increasing Relationships
Establishing a new relationship is simple: if the circumstances seem to warrant forming a new
relationship, then you can go and add it. All you need to do this is a small explanation of why you’re forming
a relationship with that person. This doesn’t need to be elaborate, but it should be more than ‘I like them’. It
could be as simple as ‘she saw me use magic and she still wants to be my friend’ for a Level 1 Ally
relationship. The majority of new relationships will start out at Level 1, but if the circumstances warrant it
and you have sufficient justification there’s no reason you can’t start a relationship out at Level 2. Level 3
and higher generally don’t make sense to start out at, though.
Increasing relationships works on a similar principle: if it seems like the relationship has changed
and is now more appropriately described by a higher level, then go ahead and bump it up to that level. You’ll
need an explanation for increasing relationships, too. To continue the above example: “we’ve been talking
about things more, and she’s helped me get past that last bit of fallout” would work for increasing an Ally
relationship to Level 2. A good thing to keep in mind here is the notes you made in the previous section,
along with the description of the levels themselves.
Relationship Types
Relationships are categorized into four types. These types are intended to serve as a very general
indicator of what the person means to you and how you might relate to them are they a friend? An ally who
understands your struggle against the youma? A mentor who you look up to? And so on. Naturally, not
every relationship will fit cleanly into one single type, and there’s nothing wrong with relationships having
some overlap. Just pick the type that best represents how your character feels about the person in question.
If you really need to change the relationship’s type later, you can, but doing so resets it to 0 Relationship
Points. The five types are listed below.
Friend:
Self explanatory you’re friends with the person in question. At low levels, you may just spend time doing
things with the person, while at high levels you’d be a lot more involved in each other’s lives. Generally, if a
relationship with a character doesn’t fall into any of the other types, you can just put them under friend and
change the category later if necessary.
Ally:
An ally is someone who knows about your magic and fight against the youma. This doesn’t necessarily
mean that they know magic or fight alongside you, though. As long as they know about your magical
powers and support you in some way, they can be an ally. A low level ally may be someone you’ve fought
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along once or twice, or someone who has helped you recover from battle. A high level ally is likely a highly
trusted comrade in arms, or someone who offers you regular support outside of battle.
Romantic:
A romantic relationship does not necessarily imply that you’re dating someone, simply that your relationship
is mainly characterized by romantic interest. A low level romantic relationship might be someone you’re
interested in or have recently started dating. A high level romantic relationship is likely someone that you
are involved in a serious relationship with, but it could also be someone you’re close to and are infatuated
with.
Mentor:
A mentor is very broadly someone that you look up to or receive advice or training from. This level is
appropriate for role models, teachers, parents (though not all parents will fall into this relationship type), or
upperclassmen, provided you respect them as a source of advice, wisdom or training. A low level mentor
could be someone that you look up to but aren’t very involved with, or someone who has taught you a couple
things. A high level mentor may be someone that’s passed down a considerable amount of wisdom, or
someone who you greatly respect and have a strong connection with.
Relationship Points
Relationship Points are a form of ‘currency’ that you can spend to gain various benefits. Each
relationship has its own pool of Relationship Points, with a maximum equal to the level of the relationship.
New relationships start with one Relationship Point, even if the relationship is above Level 1. Additionally,
increasing a Relationship by a level increases both the maximum and current points by one (so, if you had a
Level 3 relationship with two points and you increased it to Level 4, you would end up with three points and a
maximum of four.)
Relationship points are generally gained through positive interactions with the person you have the
relationship with. Whenever one of the triggers listed below is met, you regain one Relationship Point on that
person’s relationship. There are a few limitations on this, though. You may not regain points from a single
trigger more than once per scene (if a trigger applies to more than one person you have a relationship with
during a scene, you may choose which relationship regains the point). Combat actions (by themselves, at
least) do not count as triggers. Additionally, the triggers listed under relationship types only apply to those
types (‘General’ triggers apply to relationships of any type.)
You may also want to create your own custom triggers. When doing so, try to think of triggers that
aren’t too broad or or too narrow. If a trigger is coming up all the time (or inversely, almost never) you might
want to think about trying to change it to something more appropriate. You should also try to stick to one
custom trigger at most per relationship.
General:
Confide in them. This should be something new or out of the ordinary. New developments in topics you’ve
talked about before are generally okay, too.
Make a personal sacrifice for them. This doesn’t need to be a huge sacrifice, but it should be something
important to you on some level. This sacrifice doesn’t have to directly help the person in question (they may
not even know about it), but it should be clearly motivated by them.
Friend:
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Do something new with your friend. This shouldn’t be something that’s completely ordinary for both of you.
Ally:
Accomplish something related to magic along with your ally. This doesn’t have to be winning a fight, but it
can be. This accomplishment can be as simple as investigating something and gaining a lead, or having the
ally head off normal people so you can safely fight a youma, but it shouldn’t be anything too minor.
Romantic:
Share a romantic moment. This shouldn’t be anything too mundane, it should be at least a little special or
beyond the kind of things you do regularly. Moments filled with romantic tension work too, especially if
you’re not actually in a relationship with them.
Mentor:
Take advice from your mentor and successfully apply it. This should be used for advice that’s at least a
little bit specific, rather than advice that could apply to almost anything.
Using Relationship Points
Relationship Points may be spent to gain guaranteed benefits that immediately apply to the current
scene. They don’t replace your ability to go and ask people you have relationships with for favors normally.
What they do is give you the benefit now (in some cases, you can assume that you already arranged for the
benefit offscreen), and guarantee that it will be helpful to you. If there’s no plausible justification for one of
these abilities to work, then you can’t use it in the current scene. For example, if your friend is in the
hospital after an unfortunate accident, it probably wouldn’t make much sense to have them show up halfway
across town to help you with a Sudden Favor. Another thing to note is that you can’t recover Relationship
Points from using one of these abilities, even if they fit one of the triggers.
You may also want to create your own custom abilities, especially in the case of Level 4
relationships. When doing this, try to keep them similar to the current abilities things that give you
guaranteed, preferably immediate benefits. These should generally either require Level 4, or replace one of
the current abilities (either one of the General abilities, or one from the Relationship Types) for that
relationship.
General:
Why’d You Do That? (1 point):
Use this to get a hint on why someone you have a relationship with did something. This might not entirely
explain what’s going on, but at the least it should point you in the right direction. For example, if your friend
went missing, using this might give you a hint on why they disappeared.
Nothing To See Here (1 point, requires Level 2+)
Use this to get someone you have a relationship with to overlook something unusual. This can be something
magical, but it doesn’t have to be. Maybe they just didn’t notice or happened to be distracted at the time. Or
maybe they’re willing to accept a mundane explanation for whatever it is. This won’t work for blatant things
though if you transform and use obvious magic in front of someone, there’s no way they’re going to just
overlook it.
Friend:
I Heard About That (1 point):
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You recall something that one of your friends told you, a clue or hint that might help in the current situation.
You don’t have to stop and talk to people to use this benefit, instead it’s assumed that your friend said
something about it offscreen. This can be used to get a hint about a good amount of things, but it probably
won’t be overly specific, and they might not know about every problem.
Sudden Favor (2 points, requires Level 3+):
Turns out that one of your friends is nearby and can lend a helping hand. Maybe they just happened to be in
the area, or maybe you already arranged for them to be around. This can help out with a number of things,
but your friend might get curious if something strange is going on or you’re asking them to do something
sufficiently unusual (unless you use Nothing to See Here, of course).
Ally:
Cover For Me (1 point):
Your ally covers for you providing an alibi or other assistance to explain something that might have
otherwise caused trouble. If necessary, you can say that you already arranged for them to cover for you.
This is mostly intended to help with mundane trouble created thanks to magical problems like how you
were missing all night because you had to hunt Youma. Note that you do not need this ability to arrange an
alibi or for someone to cover for you normally this ability is intended to help you with things that you didn’t
explicitly plan for or unusual things you may not normally have been able to get help with.
You Can Handle It, Right? (2 points, requires Level 3+)
While your ally may not be able to help you out with magical problems, they can certainly deal with normal
problems so you can focus on taking down that Youma before it hurts anyone. Use this ability to have your
ally deal with a mundane problem that’s getting in the way of you dealing with a magical problem.
Depending on the nature of your problem, the ally may not be able to handle it completely, but at least they
can put it off so you don’t have to worry about it right now.
Romantic:
Fortunate Coincidence (1 point):
When you’ve found that special someone, it almost starts to feel like the world’s looking out for you. Use
this to help you out by causing a plausible coincidence to happen. For example, maybe the (normally
locked) door that you need to get into was left unlocked because the last person in the room needed to run
off in a hurry.
Synchronicity (2 points, requires Level 3+):
When you’re close enough to someone, you just tend to get these gut feelings about how they’re doing…
Maybe it’s a fortunate coincidence, or maybe it’s the power of love, but either way it’s helpful. Use this
ability to gain some kind of insight into your lover’s state. This tends to take the form of a ‘gut feeling’ or
maybe you remembering (or gaining insight) into something that they’ve said or something that’s happened
recently. It can also give you a hint where they’ve gone if you’re looking for them.
Mentor:
Head Off Trouble (1 point):
Your mentor shows up and helps you head off some trouble. This is intended to help with immediate and
mostly mundane situations things like one of your friends being hurt or some people harassing you. It
might not solve recurring problems, but at the least it can help stop the trouble you’re in right now.
Mentor’s Teachings (2 points, requires Level 3+)
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You might not always be able to call up your mentor and ask for advice on any situation, but by now you’ve
learned enough of their teachings to apply them yourself. Use this ability to get a hint on how you might
resolve a specific problem. This generally won’t directly tell you how to solve a situation, but it might
suggest something that you otherwise might not have thought of or rule out a bad option.
Broken Links
Not all relationships go well. People betray each other, die, or sometimes even just drift apart over
time. But these broken relationships hold power too if an entirely different kind of power. When a
relationship has reached the point where it can no longer be called a relationship anymore, it becomes a
Broken Link. Broken Links function differently from normal relationships. Keep track of the level the
relationship was at before it became a Broken Link. However, you may no longer gain Relationship Points
on a Broken Link, and neither can you use any that remain on it.
Instead, you may choose to cast away a Broken Link to gain a small amount of power. Doing this
gives you a benefit based on the level of the Broken Link. You may choose a lower level benefit if you so
wish in this case you reduce the Broken Link by the level of benefit taken. For example, if you have a Level
3 Broken Link and you take the Level 2 benefit, you’re left with a Level 1 Broken Link.
Level 1
Add a +1 bonus to any Magical Challenge. May only be used twice per challenge.
Level 2
Recover 1d3+2 Resolve. May only be used once per battle.
Level 3
Choose any Magical Attribute. Reduce the Overcharge on that attribute by 1.
Level 4
Recover 5 Resolve. Reduce your Overcharge by 1 on all Magical Attributes and gain a +1 bonus to all
Magical Challenges until the end of your next turn.
There are a few more things to mention about Broken Links. The first is that it’s possible to return a
Broken Link to a normal relationship, if you’ve reconciled with that person. The Broken Link turns into a
relationship equal to the current level of the Broken Link, and it starts with 0 Relationship Points. This
means that if you’ve sacrificed part of the Broken Link, you’ll end up with a lower relationship level after you
return it to normal.
Another thing worth mentioning is that you can’t sacrifice healthy relationships. Broken Links and
normal relationships hold different kinds of power discarding your feelings towards someone you care for
just won’t give you the same kind of benefit as leaving a broken relationship behind will. As well, you can’t
turn a healthy relationship into a Broken Link just so you can use it in combat something needs to drive
you and that person apart before you can turn a relationship into a Broken Link.
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Magical Effects
Every Magical Girl starts out knowing special abilities that go above and beyond her usual
capabilities. These are known as Magical Effects, and each Magical Girl starts with two of them one of
them from the General Magical Effects list, and one of them from the list appropriate to the girl’s Archetype.
When a Magical Girl goes up in Tier, she may pick a new effect from the list specific to her Archetype and
gain it for free. General Magical Effects may be purchased with XP (See Experience and Advancement.)
Magical Effects are formatted in the following manner:
Effect Name: (Action Type, Uses Per Battle, Cost)
Description
Action type states what kind of action the effect takes. Uses Per Battle (written as 1/Battle, 2/Battle, etc) is
the maximum amount of times you may use the effect within a single combat. Cost specifies the cost to
activate the effect (mostly Overcharge, though some effects may cost Resolve to activate). If the ability lists
an Overcharge cost and a Magical Attribute in brackets (ex: 1 Overcharge [Attack]), then you must take the
Overcharge to the specified attribute. If there is a * before the Overcharge cost, then it means that the ability
can modify its cost, see the text for details. Note that not all Magical Effects have usage per battle limits or
cost Overcharge, in which case those fields will be omitted from the effect description.
Additionally, effects may be split up into ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’. Primary and secondary abilities may
differ in action type, uses per battle and cost, though they are still part of the same Magical Effect. Uses per
battle are separate for secondary abilities. For example, if both are listed as having 1/Battle uses, you may
use each once per battle.
General Magical Effects
Healing Light: (Normal Action, 2/Battle, 1 Overcharge)
Restore 1d6+2 Resolve to an ally of your choice. A Magical Girl may only benefit from one use of Healing
Light per round.
Cleansing Light:
Primary: (Normal Action, 1 Overcharge, 1/Battle)
Remove one condition from an ally of your choice.
Secondary: (Normal Action, 1/Battle)
Make a Normal Attack or a Multiple Target Attack, using Support instead of Attack. If you hit, your enemy
takes a 1 penalty to hit and damage until the end of its next turn.
Energy Storage:
Primary: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
You may add a free voluntary Overcharge die to any Magical Challenge. This die may not generate
Involuntary Overcharge by rolling a ‘6’.
Secondary: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
Reduce the Overcharge cost of activating any ability by 1.
Special:
This effect may not be used on Signature Attacks. This effect may be used out of combat once per session.
Aegis: (Reaction, 2/Battle)
Activate this ability as a reaction to a Magical Attack aimed at an ally. When rolling the Defense challenge,
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the Magical Girl in question gains a +1 bonus, and may roll an extra 1d6 and drop the lowest die. This may
be performed after seeing the results of the roll, as long as it has not been fully resolved yet.
Impact: (Free Action, 1 Overcharge [Attack])
Activate this ability while rolling damage on a Magical Attack. Increase the attack’s damage by 1, and roll
an extra 1d6 and drop the lowest die. This may be performed after seeing the damage roll.
Resilience:
Primary: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
Activate this ability when you’re hit by a Magical Attack. Make a TN 12 Physical challenge. On a success,
you may either reduce the damage dealt by the attack by 2 (for a total of 3 with the secondary ability) or
you may ignore all effects of the attack other than the damage it deals (for example, if an enemy used an
ability to apply a condition on hit, you could ignore the condition.) However, you may not ignore effects that
are inherent to a Signature Attack.
Secondary: (Passive)
Reduce the damage taken from all sources by 1.
Regeneration:
Primary: (Passive)
At the start of each turn you regain one point of Resolve.
Secondary: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
Activate this ability when an enemy rolls damage against you. The enemy must roll an extra 1d6 and drop
the highest die. This may be performed after seeing the damage roll.
Strength From Adversity:
Primary: (Reaction, 1/Battle)
Activate this ability as a reaction to any ability or attack that reduces you to 0 Resolve. Make a Normal
Attack on any target of your choice.
Secondary: (Passive)
You gain a +1 bonus to hit and damage while at or under one third of your maximum resolve (round up).
Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained:
Primary: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
You may take up to 6 voluntary Overcharge dice on a single Magical Challenge, instead of the normal 3.
Secondary: (Free Action, 2/Battle, 2 Resolve)
Activate this ability to reroll any one Involuntary Overcharge die. You must take the second roll.
Knight’s Shield: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
Activate this ability to gain a shield until the end of your next turn. This shield grants you a +1 bonus to hit
and damage, as well as reducing all damage dealt to you by 2 points.
Assassinate:
Primary: (1/Battle, Normal Action)
You may perform the Assassinate attack action. Roll an attack with a +1 bonus to hit. Your enemies may
not use Reactions or Special Actions to defend against this attack or the damage dealt by it.
Secondary: (Passive)
Your first Normal or Multiple Target attack per battle gains a +2 bonus to hit and a +1 bonus to damage.
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Scaling Defiance:
Primary: (Passive)
Any time you would take 9 or more damage (before damage reduction) from any one source, reduce the
damage taken by two.
Secondary (Free Action, 1/Battle):
Activate this ability to gain a bonus on any opposed Magical Challenge equal to 1+your enemy’s current
raises.
Overburn: (Reaction, 1/Battle, 3 Resolve)
Activate this ability as a reaction to missing a Magical Attack or failing a Clash. You instead deal damage
equal to 2 plus double the amount of Overcharge dice taken on the attack. Maximum 8 Damage.
Vampiric Weapon: (Passive)
You deal +2 damage with all Magical Attacks. However, your weapon thirsts for blood and yours will suffice
if it can’t claim the enemy’s. Every time you miss on a Magical Attack, you lose 1 Resolve.
Twin Strike: (Normal Action, 1/Battle)
You may perform the Twin Strike Attack action. Roll and resolve two unclashable attacks against a single
target, opposed by Defense as normal. If both attacks hit, instead of rolling full damage for both, pick one of
the attacks and roll damage for it, with a +3 bonus. For the purposes of other abilities, Twin Strike is
considered one attack, and is only considered to have missed if both attacks miss.
Defy Fate: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
Activate this ability after seeing the result of any ally’s Magical Challenge. Replace the 2d6 roll for this
challenge with a result of 7, removing any Involuntary Overcharge (both the dice and the Overcharge) that
had been generated.
Backlash Curse: (Normal Action, 1/Battle)
Choose an enemy and make a Support vs Support challenge. On a success, the target has the ‘Backlash
Curse’ (Resist: TN 16 Support) condition placed upon it. If the target succeeds on a Magical Attack while
under the effects of this condition, the condition ends and the attacker takes damage equal to the initial
damage of the attack 3 (min 3).
Barrier: (Normal Action, 2/Battle, 1 Overcharge)
Activate this ability to place a barrier around an ally. This barrier grants a +3 to all Defense challenges made
to defend against Magical Attacks. If the attack hits despite this, then the attacker must roll an additional
1d6 for damage and drop the highest die. This barrier disappears the first time the recipient succeeds on a
Defense challenge with less than one raise. You may not use this ability a second time until the first barrier
has expired.
Taunt:
Primary: (Normal Action, 1/Battle)
Activate this ability to trick or otherwise force an enemy into attacking you. Pick an enemy and roll opposed
Finesse or Support. If you succeed, the target must use its next available action to make an attack on you.
This attack may not include any targets other than you, but may otherwise be anything the target desires. If
you succeed on the opposed challenge with at least 1 raise, you may use the secondary ability.
Secondary: (Reaction, Special)
Activate this ability as a reaction to a successfully taunted enemy attacking you. Gain a +2 bonus to
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Defense against that attack.
Striker Effects
Lightning Strike: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
Make a Normal Attack or a Multiple Target Attack with a +1 bonus to hit and damage. You may not use this
effect if you have already attacked or Clashed this round, and if you use this effect you may not attack or
Clash for the rest of the round.
Final Strike:
Primary: (Passive)
Whenever you use a Signature Attack, it gains a free voluntary Overcharge die. This die may not generate
Involuntary Overcharge by rolling a ‘6’.
Secondary: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
You may choose to enhance any nonSignature attack before rolling. This gives you a +1 bonus to hit, as
well as allowing you to roll an extra 1d6 and drop the lowest die.
Follow Up: (Reaction, 1/Battle, *1 Overcharge)
You may activate this ability as a reaction to missing a Magical Attack. If you incurred Overcharge for any
reason on the missed attack, you may instead activate this ability for free. You may immediately make
another attack on the enemy that the first attack failed to hit. This may be a Normal or Multiple Target
attack with a bonus of +2 to hit, or an unmodified Signature Attack.
Interception: (Special Action, 1/Battle)
Activate this ability when an enemy declares an action other than Revive or makes a Defense Challenge.
This ability may be used after the initial roll has been seen, as long as the action has not been fully resolved
yet. Make an unclashable, uncoverable Normal Attack on the enemy with a +2 bonus to damage. If this
attack is successful and deals damage, the enemy takes a 3 penalty to the action it was trying to perform.
Draining Assault: (Normal Action, 1/Battle)
Activate this ability to make a special Normal Attack with a +2 bonus to hit. If the attack hits, you recover
Resolve equal to half the final damage dealt.
Combo: (Requires Tier 2+)
Primary: (Reaction, 1/Battle)
You may activate this ability as a reaction after you succeed on any Magical Attack, as long as it does not
reduce the target to 0 Resolve. Make a Normal Attack against the same target with a +2 bonus to hit and
damage. After the damage bonus is applied, halve the attack’s final damage.
Secondary: (Passive)
Whenever you successfully hit an enemy with a magical attack, you gain a +1 bonus to hit on any any
Magical Attacks (other than the above primary ability) against that enemy until the end of your next turn.
Twin Style: (Special) (Requires Tier 2+)
At the beginning of the battle and each of your turns, you may choose to be in one of the two following
stances. The effects of the stance persist until you change it:
Focus Stance: You may add a +2 bonus to any Attack challenge where the initial 2d6 (before modifiers, but
after +1d6 drop lowest effects like Full Drive) are equal to or lower than 8.
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Counter Stance: You take 1 less damage from all sources. In addition, whenever you are hit by a magical
attack, the enemy takes 3 damage as you swiftly counterattack.
Full Drive: (Free Action, 1/Battle) (Requires Tier 2+)
At any time, you may choose to enter Full Drive mode. While in Full Drive mode, you gain a +2 bonus to all
Magical Challenges, a +1 bonus to damage, and must roll an additional 1d6 on every Magical Challenge,
dropping the lowest die. However, whenever you gain Overcharge by rolling a 6 on a Magical Challenge, you
lose 2 Resolve. You may end Full Drive mode at the beginning of any of your turns.
Striker Legendary Effects
Twin Fang: (Normal Action, 1/Battle) (Requires Tier 4+)
Make two Normal Attacks with a +1 bonus to hit. The first attack is made as normal, using your Attack
attribute, but the second must be made with one of your other Magical Attributes (though it is still treated as
an Attack challenge.) However, you may not use Reactions in response to these attacks hitting or missing.
Perfect Strike: (Normal Action, 1/Battle, 1 Overcharge [Attack]) (Requires Tier 4+)
One target of your choice loses 1d6+(half your Attack attribute, rounded down) Resolve. This is treated as
as if you had succeeded on a Magical Attack, but this ultimate technique must stand alone you may not
use any Reactions in response to this attack, and no ability may increase the resolve loss dealt by this
effect. Enemies may use Reactions or Special Actions in response to this, but keep in mind that it causes
resolve loss, not damage.
Guardian Effects
I Shall Never Fall:
Primary: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
Activate this ability upon being reduced to 0 Resolve. You do not revert to normal form until the end of your
next turn. Anything that would recover Resolve does not function while you are in this state, including
Revive.
Secondary: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
Activate this ability when you make a Defense or Support challenge. Ignore all penalties to that challenge
and gain a +2 bonus to it.
Praetorian: (Passive)
On any successful Cover challenge, reduce the damage you take by 1, plus one for each raise. You gain a
+1 bonus to Cover and Clash challenges.
Hero’s Will: (Requires Physical 5+)
Primary: (Free Action, 1/Battle, Cost Special)
Activate this ability when you are rolling a Magical Challenge and are at least one point under the TN or
enemy’s roll. You may then choose to lose up to your Physical in Resolve, and add that much to your
result. This ability may only bring you to one point above the TN or enemy’s roll, no matter how much
Resolve is sacrificed. If this ability is used to enhance a Signature Attack, the final cost in Resolve doubles.
If this ability reduces you to 0 Resolve, you revert to normal form once the challenge is resolved.
Secondary: (Passive)
You gain a +2 bonus to your Base Resolve.
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Rapid Counter: (Reaction, 1/Battle)
Activate this ability to perform a special Clash that does not count as your one Clash for the battle. You
may perform this Clash even after Defense has been rolled your Attack roll replaces the Defense roll, then
resolve the challenge as if you had Clashed normally. If successful, you only deal half final damage (round
down).
Defensive Conversion: (Reaction, 1/Battle)
Activate this ability when an ally takes damage from a Magical Attack. Reduce the damage taken by 2, +1
for each Overcharge die taken on the Defense challenge. Additionally, the recipient of this ability gains a +2
bonus to her next Defense challenge.
Brave Style: (Requires Tier 2+)
Primary: (Passive)
You deal an additional point of damage with Magical Attacks, and additionally recover a point of Resolve on
every successful Magical Attack or Clash.
Secondary: (Special, 1/Battle)
You may Guard and Attack in the same turn: You may use Guard as a Reaction if you have already
attacked, or you may Attack on your turn despite already having used Guard.
Crusader’s Aura: (Free Action, 1/Battle, *2 Overcharge) (Requires Tier 2+)
You may take 2 Overcharge at the start of your turn to activate this ability or you may activate it for free if
you do not attack in the same turn. Once this ability is active, if you take damage from an enemy’s attack,
you may immediately end this ability as a Reaction to make the attacker take damage equal to the initial
damage of the attack 2 (min 4).
AutoHeal: (Reaction) (Requires Healing Light, Tier 2+)
After taking damage from an enemy, you may activate Healing Light as a Reaction, however it must be
targeted on yourself. If the attack reduces you to 0 Resolve, you may not use this ability. This application of
Healing Light restores 1d3+3 Resolve, instead of the normal amount.
Guardian Legendary Effects
Perfect Counter: (Special Action, 1/Battle) (Requires Tier 4+)
Activate this ability as a Special Action when an ally is hit by a Magical Attack. Roll an opposed Attack
challenge against the original attacker, with a +2 bonus. If you win, the attack is negated and you deal
damage as if you had just succeeded on a Normal Attack, though it deals half final damage. You may even
attempt to use this effect against abilities that require opposed Support challenges, in which case the
challenge is your Attack (+2) vs the enemy’s Support, and you negate the ability on a success.
Legends Never Falter: (Free Action, 1/Battle) (Requires Tier 4+)
Activate this ability at the start of your turn. You recover 5 Resolve, and may make a free action Resist
against any condition currently affecting you. Additionally, you are wreathed in magical radiance that grants
you a +2 bonus to all Magical Challenges until the start of your next turn.
Tactician Effects
Arcane Analysis:
Primary: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
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Activate this ability to analyze all enemies on the battlefield. Treat this as the Read an Enemy action: roll
once, choose what effects you wish and then apply them to every enemy in the current battle.
Secondary: (Passive)
Whenever you perform the Read an Enemy action (including via the above primary ability), you may choose
an additional option. This applies even if you fail the challenge.
Feint: (Reaction, 1/Battle)
Activate this ability after you succeed or fail on a nonSignature attack (or successful Clash). That attack
was merely an elaborate distraction. Reduce the Overcharge taken on the attack by 1. You are now
considered free to act, as if you had not attacked. However, pulling off such a move does not leave you with
enough time to execute a Signature Attack that turn. If the attack was successful, it deals half final damage
(rounded up), but you may force your target into a disadvantageous position, giving it a 2 penalty to attack
one ally of your choice until the beginning of your next turn.
Adaptability:
Primary: (Free Action, 2/Battle)
Activate this ability to change what Magical Attributes are assigned to either your or an ally’s Attack,
Defense and Support as a free action. You may do this even while resolving a Magical Challenge, as long as
you have not yet accumulated any Overcharge during that challenge. If you have accumulated Overcharge
during that challenge, you may instead move one point of that Overcharge to a different attribute.
Secondary: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
While you are declaring your magical attributes for the round, you may activate this ability to raise any of
your Magical Attributes by 2. This increase lasts until the end of the round. However, any Signature Attacks
performed that round instead use your original attribute.
Power Seal: (Normal Action, 1/Battle, 1 Overcharge)
Activate this ability to apply the ‘Power Seal’ condition to an enemy. This reduces the total amount of extra
dice due to Overcharge or Power Points that the enemy can gain on Attack challenges by 2 (almost always
from 3 to 1). This also applies to any abilities the enemy uses that cause opposed Support challenges.
Lasts until the end of the enemy’s next turn.
Rapid Boost: (Reaction, 1/Battle) (Requires Tier 2+)
Activate this ability to Assist as a Reaction. This special Assist grants a +1 bonus over and above what
Assist would normally grant, and may be used on your own rolls if so desired.
Divine Light: (Requires Healing Light or Cleansing Light, Tier 2+)
Primary: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
You may use Healing Light or Cleansing Light’s primary option as a free action at the start of your turn.
Secondary: (Passive)
Your Healing Light restores 1d6+3 points of resolve instead of 1d6+2, and you may reroll any roll of ‘1’ until
they are no longer 1.
Arcane Rend: (Normal Action, 1/Battle) (Requires Tier 2+)
Pick a target and make a Support vs Support challenge. On a success, the target loses 1d6+(half your
Support attribute, rounded down) Resolve, and an ally of your choice recovers half of that number (round
down) in Resolve. Additionally, the target loses 1 Power Point (or suffers a 2 penalty to their next action, if
they do not use Power Points), and you gain the ability to add one free Voluntary Overcharge die to any one
of your Magical Challenges, until the end of the battle.
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Efficient Casting: (Requires Tier 2+)
Primary: (Reaction, 1/Battle)
Activate this ability when an ally takes Overcharge as a result of an action. Reduce the Overcharge taken by
half (round down). This ability may not be used on any roll that has had 4 or more voluntary Overcharge dice
added to it.
Secondary: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
You may reroll any roll of ‘6’ on any Magical Challenge (meaning you do not generate an Involuntary
Overcharge die), but must take the second result.
Tactician Legendary Effects
Haste: (Special, 1/Battle, 1 Overcharge) (Requires Tier 4+)
You may act twice on your turn, perform a Special Action as a Reaction, or perform a Normal Action as a
Reaction to any action. You may not use this effect to attack twice in the same turn. Clash is counted as
an attack in this instance. Applying Arcane Prison (or other action restricting abilities) while an enemy is
attacking does not negate the attack, though any penalties you apply take effect immediately.
Predictive Analysis: (Free Action, 2/Battle, *1 Overcharge) (Requires Tier 4+)
Activate this ability at any time during anyone’s turn. That turn never happened it was merely an elaborate
prediction of what might have been. Play that turn out again, ignoring anything that happened during the turn
the first time. If this ability was used on an enemy’s turn, they must take the same action and choose the
same target as the first time, though they may do things differently after the initial action (voluntary
overcharge use, other abilities, etc.) If a Signature Attack was used during the turn, this ability costs 2
Overcharge to activate, as the extra calculations required to predict such powerful attacks strains your
magic further. Note that this ability only affects a single combatant's turn, not the entire round.
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Fallout
In order to get rid of Overcharge, Magical Girls will have to suffer fallout. Fallout is the unwanted
consequences of using magic and fighting youma. You can voluntarily take fallout during free scenes, but if
you take 6 or more points of Overcharge in any one attribute you must resolve your fallout either right away,
or right after the current battle ends. This may be ignored (at GM discretion), should it serve the dramatic
tone of the game, though it is suggested to resolve the fallout as soon as possible in that case. However, a
Magical Girl may only take one Change or Burst per Magical Attribute within a single battle.
The effects of fallout depend on the attribute the Overcharge points were attached to and the number
of points you’re removing. You always have to take a type of fallout worth at least the same number of points
as you have to get rid of; you can’t take multiple instances of a less troublesome type of fallout. A single
point of overcharge does not incur any fallout, simply going away at the end of the current scene.
At the end of every scene, you may remove 1 Overcharge from any attribute of your choice, as long
as that attribute has three or less overcharge on it. If this lowers something to 1, the 1 disappears at the end
of the next scene, not the current one (but this does not count as your 1 Overcharge removed for that
scene.)
When you incur Fallout, consult the appropriate section and choose an effect appropriate to the
amount of overcharge points you have. It is a very good idea to consult with your GM before taking any kind
of fallout, especially if it’s a large amount.
There are four major categories of Fallout: Distortions, Flares, Changes, and Bursts. Each are
entirely different for different types of Fallout, and are thus explained in the relevant sections. The exception
to this is the Temporary Change Flare, and what a Change is, which are detailed below:
Temporary Change
A Flare can produce a temporary Change; see below for more details on how Changes work. A
temporary Change lasts for one scene, or an hour or two of ingame time, though they don’t necessarily
have to take effect right away. Taking a Temporary Change removes up to 5 Overcharge points.
When you decide to take a temporary Change, consult your GM, and decide on if it would be more
appropriate to take the temporary Change to yourself or to someone you have a relationship with. This
should be someone with whom you have a relationship of the same attribute as the Overcharge that caused
the Fallout, but it can be of any attribute if you don’t have a relationship that matches.
If a Change that specifies something based off of a magical girl trait gets put on a normal person,
that part of it is based on the magical girl that the Fallout originated from.
Change (67 Overcharge)
A “Change” is a permanent detrimental effect of magic warping someone’s body or mind. When
Fallout calls for a Change, consult your GM and decide on an appropriate Change for your character. As a
general rule, changes taken to remove 7 overcharge should be more major than changes taken to remove 6
overcharge.
Some Changes are always in effect, or have a very specific trigger. Those that activate periodically
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or randomly will kick in whenever the Player/GM feel like it would be appropriate to. Unless stated
otherwise, your current form has no bearing on whether a Change will be in effect. Changes are permanent,
though a wish could remove them.
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Fallout and Dramatic Tension
The Overcharge and Fallout systems are arguably what make Magical Burst what it is. Together,
they define the consequences for using magic and fighting Youma, provide dramatic escalation to conflicts,
and interfere with the girls’ ability to lead normal lives. While this system is core to the game, it can be
difficult to roleplay correctly for new players. This section is an attempt to solve that problem, by providing
guidelines for how to properly handle Fallout to preserve the dramatic balance in your game.
The first rule of fallout is by far the most important important enough to override every single other
rule relating to it, even the hard mechanics laid out in this pdf. Fallout is supposed to be fun and engaging
for the players involved in it. This entire section is just a guideline to help players and GMs with Fallout, and
as such you should feel free to ignore it whenever it inhibits enjoyment, or whenever you have something
outside of it that will enhance the game. You are only doing Fallout correctly if everyone playing is having a
good time.
Fallout may be the punishment for using magic in an in character sense, but you should never view
it as such in an out of character sense.
The next rule of Fallout is that it should have some kind of impact on the Magical Girl or the world
around her (though this varies greatly with what level of Fallout is involved.) Any Fallout that truly has no
effect on the Magical Girl or the world around her is not worth removing Overcharge over. However,
overplaying Fallout is nearly as bad for the game as underplaying Fallout. The key is finding a balance
between the two extremes.
This brings us to another rule of Fallout: Generally, no more than one or two (and often, two is
pushing it) Fallout effects should be actively in play at once, especially if they are similar or the same. New
players will often want to begin discharging Fallout immediately after a battle, all at once. While discharging
Fallout immediately after a battle can be interesting, it needs to be limited to the point where individual
Fallouts don’t lose their impact. That said, there are interesting things that can happen by combining
individual instances of Fallout, you just need to make sure that nothing involved is losing the impact it
should have.
A point that extends from this is that Fallout under Change level should almost never be taken in the
midst of battles (or even directly before them, in most cases.) This is because basically anything unusual
that can happen in the middle of the battle is likely to get brushed aside by the vastly more imminent threat:
that being whatever is trying to kill you.
Of course, not all Fallout is created equal. Distortions, the lowest level of Fallout, are meant to be
minor quirks and annoyances in a Magical Girl’s life. They may surprise normal people, or cause oddities in
the Magical Girl’s life, but they’re generally not supposed to have a large impact. If a normal person’s
reaction to a Distortion is to scream in terror or be more than minorly concerned for you, then you are
almost certainly overplaying the distortion.
You may notice that Distortions rarely come up, due to the rule that allows you to vent overcharge
below three. This is entirely intentional Distortions are supposed to be a mostly optional mechanic for
players to add some small flavor here and there, when they have a good idea. Playing without this venting
rule is not encouraged, as it can very easily result in Distortions becoming far more of an obligation or
annoyance than something that enhances the game.
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Next up comes the Flare a significant step up from the minor annoyance that a Distortion
presents. These are events far out of the norm, either outright violations of reality or something severely
unusual happening to the Magical Girl suffering through them. Some of them even present some kind of
danger, though this can usually be minimized if the Magical Girl is cautious. If an average person’s reaction
to a Flare is less than being startled, frightened or disturbed (or perhaps worried), then it’s probably
something that’s being underplayed. However, if a Flare is causing destruction on more than a small scale,
it’s almost certainly being overplayed only Bursts are supposed to cause things like that. As a side note,
taking a temporary change on another Magical Girl is usually pointless and GMs are encouraged to disallow
it except in special circumstances it’s almost like handing off your Overcharge to another player to deal
with.
Temporary Changes are a special kind of flare, and require a little consideration in their use. The
idea behind these is to take an obvious change for a short duration. Some changes are not suitable to be
taken as temporary changes, and as such the GM should take some care in what temporary changes are
allowed. As a general rule of thumb, if the change isn’t going to have an impact at least above what a
distortion would, it generally shouldn’t be allowed. Some care should also be taken to pick a change that
will evoke an interesting reaction. As a general rule, if a temporary change is going to evoke the character
crying about ‘my life is ruined’, you should strongly consider taking something else.
After Flares, we progress to Changes, the first and only instances of permanent Fallout in the
game. It’s hard to provide guidelines for these, but thankfully they’re relatively straightforward in execution.
Effects that only happen occasionally should generally just happen whenever it would feel appropriate or
enhance the scene in question.
However, certain Changes are so outright magical, so visible on your character that they effectively
ruin her chances at holding a normal life, or sometimes even being around normal people. Taking one of
these Changes is an incredibly significant turning point for the character and the campaign at large, with the
potential to outright change the tone of the game. They render the character unable to participate in normal
life scenes, which necessitates a change in your game sessions so they can continue to be included. This
is something that both the player and the GM need to heavily consider before it enters their game (and the
GM should not be afraid to tell the player that they cannot take one of these changes if it does not currently
fit the game.) That said, don’t let this scare you off from ever including these changes in your game. They
can make for excellent drama and roleplay if used correctly, as the Magical Girl struggles with the fact that
she can no longer live a normal life.
Finally, we come to Bursts the pinnacle of Fallout, incredibly destructive and dangerous
backlashes of raw energy gone far out of control. These are incredibly significant events, almost certain to
affect the tone of your game. There’s little to say about what happens when a Burst is in play it’s
guaranteed to be significant, almost no matter what. However, there’s one thing you might have noticed
about Bursts it’s incredibly difficult to actually have one happen, as you can take Changes as soon as you
hit the 67 Overcharge range, dropping to 0 Overcharge and being nowhere near the danger of taking a Burst.
This means a player almost has to want to have a Burst happen to have one occur. This is entirely
intentional. Bursts have a very large impact on the game, and usually on the character generating them. As
such, they’re not something that should occur without at least some forethought, or something that should
occur anywhere near often. An entire game could pass with only a single Burst going off, or even without a
Burst going off at all. There’s nothing wrong with this, Bursts definitely aren’t something a game needs to be
successful.
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One question that you may be asking by this point is ‘well, when do I take Fallout?’ The answer is
that there are two main ways, one of which tends to be preferred. The first way is to have Fallout simply fit
into scenes that you’ve already got going on. This has to be appropriate (as usual, make sure to at least
check in quickly with your GM before taking Fallout), but it generally provides the most natural experience:
Fallout interrupting things your character would already be doing. The second way is to make up special
minisessions that exist entirely for the purposes of discharging Fallout. You should generally aim to use the
first method, as it tends to provide a better experience (as well as placing less burden on the GM), but it
may not always be possible or advisable to discharge all of your Fallout in this way and sometimes players
may come up with ideas that would just work better if given their own scenes.
Next is the GM’s role in Fallout. The GM’s role in Fallout is to guide the players through the system
and make sure everything’s running smoothly. In most cases, this just involves making sure that the Fallout
the players are taking is actually having an impact, rather than being pointless. This also involves helping
players with suggestions (when they express a desire for them) on what kind of Fallout to take, something
that new players can have trouble with. Another thing is making sure the Fallout going on fits the kind of
game you’re running. The biggest instance of this is ‘life ruining’ changes, but it may also come up with
different kinds of Fallout.
The GM is not here to ‘police’ Fallout. For example, a GM should never tell a player ‘that fallout
wasn’t good enough, it doesn’t count’ this is both unhelpful and frustrating. Instead, they should be giving
you suggestions on how you could have used the fallout to create a better scene. Be flexible with the
mechanics. If a player wants to go for something interesting that’s not in the PDF, then run with it. This isn’t
a ‘GMs vs players’ mechanic. Far from it. GMs and players are supposed to work together to create the
best experience possible.
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Magic Fallout
Distortion (23 Overcharge)
Reality Distortions
The excess magic you’ve accumulated leaks out into the world, making things around you become
strange and unsettling. They may or may not be related to your element, at your option.
A distortion that removes 2 points of Overcharge causes something strange and magical to happen
in the nearby area. This should be clearly out of the norm, something surprising enough for people to
comment on, but it’s more of a magical oddity or minor annoyance than anything serious happening.
A distortion that removes 3 points of Overcharge causes some unmistakeably magical distortion to
disrupt the lives of the people around you. This should be very hard to rationalize away as a normal event,
and generally somewhat larger in scale than the 2 point distortion (although as a distortion, neither of them
are required to be particularly large.) Normal people should be left wondering just what’s going on...
Flare (45 Overcharge)
Severe Distortion
Your magical power runs rampant, creating a severe distortion in the fabric of reality. This results in
a potentially dangerous magical event in the nearby area. Examples include things like the gravity in a room
inverting, the sky raining blood, the nearby area being temporarily warped into something that looks like a
Nightmare, and so on. This removes up to 5 points of Overcharge.
Elemental Flare
The power of your magical element goes out of control in a dramatic way, leaving you as a flaring
beacon, wreathed in the uncontrolled power of your element. What exactly happens will heavily depend on
what your element is, but it is unmistakably magical and potentially dangerous. A fire user could be
wreathed in flames, setting anything they touch ablaze. An earth user could temporarily turn into living
stone, multiplying their weight until the floor cracks underneath them, etc. It’s usually possible to avoid
hurting people with this by staying away from them, thankfully. This removes up to 5 points of Overcharge.
Twisted Enchantment
The buildup of your magical powers discharges in a rather permanent way, warping a nearby object
into something far from normal. The result doesn’t need to be dangerous, but it does need to be clearly
magical and readily apparent, at the least to anyone trying to use the object for its intended purpose. It also
shouldn’t improve the object, only hinder it magical backlash is never that kind. Examples include warping
a table so that it looks like something from a Nightmare, cursing a microwave so it warps the food into
something strange instead of microwaving it, etc. This removes up to 4 points of Overcharge.
Temporary Change
See Fallout (Pg XX).
Change (67 Overcharge)
See Fallout (Pg XX).
Burst (8+ Overcharge)
Magical Burst
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The excess magical power you’ve accumulated turns into an explosion of raw power that annihilates
anything and anyone nearby, excepting beings of considerable magical power.
Everyone within the area of effect loses 2 Resolve per point of Overcharge, and normal people are
disintegrated without a trace, though it is possible for magic users to escape unscathed by rolling a
Magicbased challenge and getting a result equal to or above twice the Overcharge points that went into the
Magical Burst. The size of the area affected depends on how many Overcharge points went into the Magical
Burst, as follows:
Overcharge Area Affected
8 Size of a house
9 Size of a larger building
10 Size of a skyscraper
11 A city block
12 Several city blocks
13+ GM discretion
At your GM’s option, if you have a Magical Burst form and you do not have any Relationships at all,
you will transform into a youma. Your magical girl becomes a monster under the control of the Game
Master.
Changes:
1. Discolored Skin
Your body takes on a strange color. When you’re transformed this coloration is extremely obvious, but when
you’re not transformed it’s more of a subtle tint to your skin color.
2. Molting
Every now and then you have to shed your skin. It looks like you’re pulling off a rubbery body suit, and each
time you molt you look just a little different. If you put off molting you start feeling progressively more
uncomfortable, until it becomes totally unbearable.
3. Third Eye
A third eye opens up in your forehead. It’s not too hard to hide if you’re careful, but… it’s a third eye in your
forehead.
4. Baldness
The hair on your head simply falls out and won’t grow back. Consider buying a good wig.
5. Candy Scent
Your body always smells of sweet candy. While not unpleasant, it is quite unusual.
6. Rococo Style
You have a sort of magical aura of garish ornateness. Your belongings subtly alter themselves to become
elaborate and lacy, your packed lunch seems to become all sweets, and so on.
7. Theme Music
Cute, peppy music just sort of forms in the air around you at times.
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8. Wings
You sprout a pair of wings, large enough to be conspicuous but not large enough to fly. They will be
extremely difficult to conceal. You could cut them off, but it would be astonishingly painful, and leave bloody
stumps on your back.
9. Doll Joints
Your body has joints like a wellmade doll. Although you are still made of flesh and blood, you must wear
clothes that cover most of your body if you want to hide the doll joints. Also, your limbs are removable, and
could even be swapped with those of someone else who has this mutation.
10. Pallor
Your skin becomes unnervingly pale, and your eyes become sunken, like you’re very sick.
11. Glowing
Your skin occasionally starts to glow.
12. Magic Voice
Your voice has magical power that cuts in and out at random. Every now and then people are magically
compelled to carry out something you say in the most literal manner they can manage, but you have no
control over what or when. Magical Girls are immune to this effect.
13. EM Phenomenon
Your body emits electromagnetic waves that disrupt electronics. Cell phones and other things that require
radio signals stop working within a city block of you, and you can no longer use cell phones, computers,
etc. yourself.
14. Magical Reflection
Your reflection in any given surface has a mind of its own.
15. Technicolor Yawn
You periodically feel sick to your stomach and throw up a strange rainbowcolored substance. Sometimes it
forms into cute little creatures that scurry off to never be seen again, sometimes it’s things thematically
linked to your element, such as a light element magical girl retching bright, harmless blasts of light (rainbow
or otherwise), or an earth element magical girl barfing up a tiny and very welldetailed (but garishly colored)
statue of someone she’s close to..
16. Heterochromia
One of your eyes is red, and the other is blue (or some other combination). Both are vivid, unnatural colors.
17. Maddening Costume Pattern
Your costume is covered by a strange pattern. People who look at it get headaches in short order, and if
someone were to stare at it for a long time they might go crazy.
18. Youma Allergy
You can no longer ignore youma, because being in the same general area as one causes debilitating
headaches and nausea.
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19. Magical Diet
You can no longer handle normal food, instead gaining sustenance from magical energy. Eating food always
gives you food poisoning type symptoms.
20. Always Transformed
You lose the ability to revert to your normal form. No matter what you do, you will always appear in your
outlandish costume. If someone other than a magical girl gets this mutation, their clothes always distort into
something outlandish.
21. Nightmare Vision
You experience the entire world as one colossal Nightmare. Everything is distorted and surreal, and while it
usually manages to follow the proper shape of reality, sometimes it’s dangerously off.
22. Undead
Your body seems to have died, yet keeps moving because of some kind of magic. You take on a number of
traits common to undead creatures, such as your skin being cold to the touch.
23. Tsukaima Form
When not transformed, you look like a tsukaima, a fanciful furry creature capable of human speech. Your
magical girl form is still human, but of course you can only maintain it for a short time.
24. Unstuck in Space
Some dimensional distortion has loosened your position in the spacetime continuum. As a result you
sometimes teleport short distances at random. The burning void you experience while between places is
terrifying too.
25. Speaking in Tongues
Every now and then you start spewing what sounds like gibberish. You don’t know where it comes from
yourself, but youma seem to understand you.
26. Forehead Gem
There is a colorful gem planted in your forehead.
27. Floating
Your magical power periodically causes you to hover. You might find yourself literally walking on air without
realizing it, or wake up floating above your bed.
28. Evil Eye
One of your eyes comes to contain dark magic. Sometimes someone you look at will suddenly fall ill.
29. Portal
A magical portal periodically opens up near you. Strange things come out, technicolor spirits or sometimes
tsukaima or youma.
30. Strange Element
Your Magical Element is suddenly changed to something bizarre and possibly alarming. Examples include:
blood, radiation, sickness, void, nightmare.
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31. Mundane Numbness
You are numb to most non magical stimuli, barring extreme things like massive wounds, and even that is
somewhat dulled. Anything magical (youma, things related to magical girls) still feels normal to you, though.
32. Youma Aesthetic
Your magical form takes on a number of traits similar to Youma, such as creepy Nightmare wings, a black,
twisted version of your weapon, etc. You’re still identifiable as a magical girl and your magic still works
normally, but this is unlikely to win you any friends.
33. Mad Eye
Your pupils are changed to a mysterious pattern. Any normal person who stares into them for more than a
few seconds will get nauseous. Magical girls aren't affected like normal people, but will instead find you
disquieting.
34. Choker
Every now and then you find yourself completely unable to breathe for a few seconds. While surprising and
unpleasant, it doesn’t seem to do any permanent harm.
35. Snakespeak
Your tongue forks and lengthens. You develop the habit of flicking your tongue out to taste the air and
holding your 's' when speaking.
36. Vampiric
Your skin becomes paler than it used to be, and you begin to prefer dark places, as well as the night. The
sun always seems a little too bright to you, and your canines sharpen a little.
37. Rough Around the Edges
In general, your skin attains the feel of somewhat coarse sandpaper, and while you can sand things down if
you try hard enough. This change doesn’t impair normal skin function. It’s pretty hard to get your skin to an
appreciable level of smoothness, and it never lasts that long.
38. Graphical Glitch
Every once in a while your body or the air around you becomes distorted, like a graphical glitch in a video
game.
39. Magical Blood
When you bleed, your blood glows and magical symbols waft up from it.
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Heart Fallout
Distortion (23 Overcharge)
Tainted Emotion
The stress of what you’ve experienced makes you have an emotional outburst near someone that’s
important to you. Choose someone you have a Relationship with and do one of the following. If you do not
have any remaining relationships, pick a Flare (see below) Fallout instead. These outbursts should go above
and beyond your character’s normal emotional expressions. For example, suddenly hugging someone is not
valid if your character already does that regularly.
You can remove 2 points of Overcharge with a small emotional outburst, such as a lingering hug,
blurting out personal stuff about yourself, abruptly inviting someone on a date, inappropriate rambling about
your emotions, etc.
You can remove 3 points of Overcharge with a more moderate emotional outburst, such as bursting
into tears, blurting out a secret you really should keep hidden, kissing someone out of nowhere, etc.
Flare (45 Overcharge)
Breakdown
When the emotional strain of everything you’ve been through becomes too much, you could have a
breakdown and stop being able to properly function.
You can remove 4 points of Overcharge with a moderate breakdown. For the next scene or two you
can barely contain yourself and keep bursting into tears or having panic attacks.
You can remove 5 points of Overcharge with a major breakdown. For the next scene or two, you’re
reduced to an emotional wreck. Hiding this borders on impossible, and it’s extremely unlikely that you’re
feeling well enough to even care to try.
Infatuation
Your use of magic based on forming bonds with others causes you form an unnatural attachment to
someone. You will do whatever you can to be near them at all times, and to try to both protect them and
become closer to them. This does not have to be romantic in nature, although it can be. This should usually
last for longer than a single scene, especially if it’s taken to remove 5 points of Overcharge.
Temporary Change
See Fallout (Pg XX).
Change (67 Overcharge)
See Fallout (Pg XX).
Burst (8+ Overcharge)
Heartspawn
The intense magical power within you, although derived from warm human emotions, becomes
intensely twisted, and breaks off into a new being a youma, or at least something close to one. While this
may not be as immediately destructive as the other two bursts, it represents an entirely new threat, and like
all youma, will begin seeking out and killing humans.
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One option for this Burst is to have the youma formed out of the magical girl’s feelings towards
someone (ideally someone that they have a Heart relationship with), which means they youma will try to
stalk and kill the person in question if not dealt with soon. This can be interesting, however it is also not for
all games, and should never be used as an excuse to kill off an NPC without letting the party do something
about it. It is also highly suggested that the GM talk to the player beforehand about the possibility of using
this option.
It is highly recommended that this youma not be fought immediately, both to give the GM time to
prepare a proper encounter and to give the Magical Girls some time to recover from whatever pushed them
hard enough to cause a Burst in the first place.
At your GM’s option, if you do not have any relationships when you get this kind of Fallout, your
loneliness combined with the excessive magical power will turn you into a youma made of hate and
resentment. Your magical girl becomes a monster under the control of the Game Master.
Changes:
1. Vivid Eyes
Your eyes take on an unnaturally vibrant hue.
2. Weak Aura
Your aura has become destabilized, making your “presence” periodically slip away. When this happens,
people simply lose the ability to perceive you, even your best friends, unless you do something really
extreme to catch their attention, and even then you’ll quickly slip out of their perception.
3. Acute Anxiety
Every now and then you are overcome with anxiety. The whole world seems to be closing in around you,
making it hard to breathe.
4. Gender Phobia
You develop an intense fear of the opposite sex.
5. Hug Reaction
A certain trigger, such as a word you heard around the time this Change took effect, causes you to hug
whoever made the trigger.
6. Crybaby
Whatever your personality might be normally, sometimes you just uncontrollably break into tears with little
to no provocation.
7. Miniaturization
You periodically shrink down to the size of a small doll and revert back at random. While shrunk you
become hard to catch, but dealing with the world in general is a challenge. Your magic is unaffected.
8. Crystal Rash
Translucent crystals start growing out of your skin. They can easily break off.
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9. Clone Form
You are transformed to look like someone you have a relationship with.
10. Amnesia
You lose access to significant parts of your memory. The specifics of this change should be discussed with
the GM.
11. New Identity
You become convinced that you’re someone else. You can keep your existing Relationships (they still care
about you, and you’ll feel an instinctual connection), though if you alienate people you may put Strain on a
relationship.
12. Always Smiling
Regardless of what you’re actually feeling, you find yourself smiling constantly.
13. Euphoria
Occasionally your brain crosses its wires and you get a sense of intense elation at the most awkward
times. These warm and fuzzy attacks are disruptive, but not debilitating. It's hard not to crack a smile or
sigh contentedly even in the face of extreme tragedy or tension.
14. Babble
Sometimes you feel overcome with strange words and start babbling as though speaking in tongues.
15. Never Alone
You can’t stand to be alone for any length of time or for any reason.
16. Adult Self
You are transformed into an adult version of yourself, of age 17+2d6.
17. Random Girl
You look like some other random girl. No one knows who you are.
18. Rainbows
Wherever you go, light tends to somehow form a prismatic effect, such that you always seem to be
surrounded by rainbows.
19. Memory Leech
Something about you makes people around you periodically forget small things.
20. Imaginary Friend
You have an imaginary friend who is perfect and loving and always wants what she thinks is best for you.
You might understand she’s not real on some level, but you take her very seriously all the same.
21. Your Things
You periodically have an uncontrollable need to take an item that belongs to someone you have a
relationship with. If you succeed in taking such an item, you will hoard it and try to keep it close.
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22. Through the Looking Glass
Every now and then your reflection will reach through a mirror and pull you in, depositing you next to a mirror
in a random part of the city.
23. Relationship Delusion
You become completely convinced that you have a deeper and more significant connection with someone
then you actually do in real life.
24. Baby Doll
You become convinced that an inanimate object is a baby that you must take care of.
25. Heartless
There is a circular hole in the middle of your chest where your heart should be. This doesn’t actually
inconvenience you per se, but it looks horrifying.
26. Elasticity
Your body acquires an odd elasticity, such that your limbs can be stretched out up to around 10 feet. You
can’t really use this to your advantage much, but it’ll be a freaky sight if someone tries to pull you by your
hand.
27. Prismatic Hair
Your hair is made of transparent strands that display countless different colors when they catch the light.
28. Constant Cold
You always have cold symptoms; they never go away.
29. Uncontrollable Empathy
You have a habit of picking up strong emotions in those around you. Someone next to you being incredibly
angry would make you angrier, someone being very sad would make you sadder, etc. You can’t control this
in any way, and it can be distracting, sometimes even disturbing, although it might let you know something
that you’d otherwise fail to notice…
30. Revolting Sight
You become disgusting to look at. Any sentient being that looks at you (youma possibly included) will be
forcefully subjected to disturbing images, disgusting smells, or just an immense sense of unease enough
to shock anyone unprepared, and perhaps people who are prepared as well. After someone's been around
you for long enough, they can eventually get used to it, though. This effect lasts for only an instant, and
typically only applies the first time you meet someone in a day.
31. Strange Pupils
Your pupils become like that of a cat's, or rectangular like a goat's. Or it may be something else entirely
strange and nothuman, or they’ll disappear entirely, leaving nothing but sclera. If this happens, you’ll retain
sight, though it looks creepy as heck. Either way, it’s there to stay.
32. Unlucky
You are prone to suspiciously large amounts of minor bad luck. You seem to always be the one getting
nailed by stray baseballs, or getting caught in the rain, or misplacing small objects you swore you put right
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there. It’s never anything that really hurts you (and it doesn’t show up in combat), but that doesn’t make it
any less annoying.
33. Antennae
Two antennae of some kind sprout from your head. They have a life of their own and are more than happy to
show it (usually by twitching around). They are however, typically easy to hide, usually by flattening them
down with only mild initial discomfort.
34. Lizard's Tongue
Pick a lizard, any lizard. Got one? That's your tongue now, scaled proportionately to your size. The space of
your mouth grows on the inside to accommodate it if it happens to be too large to fit in your mouth scaled
up, though you'll have to open your mouth sometime...
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Fury Fallout
Distortion (23 Overcharge)
Lingering Wound
The accumulated ragetainted magical energy in you manifests in a rather direct way, impairing your
normal ability to shrug off injuries. This can either manifest as a wound gained in a fight, or spontaneous
damage to your body generated by your overuse of fury magic.
You can remove 2 points of Overcharge by suffering a minor wound. Until the end of the session,
you will bear a somewhat painful wound somewhere on your body. This does not significantly impair you in
normal life, but it hurts and it may not be easy to hide. It’s not out of line with the kind of damage you could
get from a normal life accident, however.
You can remove 3 points of Overcharge by suffering a more severe wound. Until the end of the
session, you will bear a painful wound that may cause some trouble to you in normal life, although it does
not impair your ability to fight. It’s also likely to raise questions if anyone finds out about it.
Destructive Backlash
The accumulated ragetainted magical energy in you lashes out in the most direct way possible,
damaging parts of the environment.
You can remove 2 points of Overcharge by destroying or damaging something noticeable, but not
particularly large or important. A crack in a wall that can be patched over with some work, a broken mailbox,
or a torn piece of clothing are all appropriate.
You can remove 3 points of Overcharge by destroying or damaging something larger or more
important (alternately, several smaller objects). A school desk or chair snapped completely in half, a broken
door, or a hole in a wall are all appropriate
Tainted Anger
Your use of ragefueled magic temporarily clouds and warps your mind, resulting in uncharacteristic
anger. These outbursts should go above and beyond your character’s normal emotional expressions. For
example, suddenly cursing someone out is not valid if your character already does that regularly.
You can remove 2 points of Overcharge with a small angry outburst, such as insulting someone,
being rude or abrupt, going on an angry rant, etc.
You can remove 3 points of Overcharge with a larger angry outburst, such as storming out of the
room, slapping someone, breaking a nearby object,
Flare (45 Overcharge)
Angry Aura
The accumulated ragetainted magical energy in you exerts its influence on people and other beings
in the area. A slight spark—or nothing at all—makes people and perhaps animals become consumed by
anger and aggression. A brawl can break out, and a brawl can lead to a riot. People are going to get hurt.
This removes up to 5 Overcharge points.
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Rampage
The power of the rage you’ve channeled goes completely out of control, temporarily turning you into
a crazed berserker. For a full scene, you attack anyone and anything that gets in your way. You must use
your Fury attribute to attack, but you get a +2 bonus to your Results for Attack Challenges made in battle.
However, you take a 1 to your Results for Defense Challenges, as your reckless fighting puts you at risk.
You can damage property, hurt people, fight youma, etc, but you must do violence as much as you possibly
can for an entire scene. This removes up to 5 Overcharge points.
Debilitating Wound
The accumulated ragetainted magical energy in you manifests in a severe way, resulting in a
debilitating wound. This can either manifest through a raw burst of furious energy, tearing your body and
wounding you seriously, or by a wound gained in battle refusing to vanish when you revert to normal.
You can remove 4 points of Overcharge by suffering a moderate wound. Until the end of the session,
you will bear some kind of physical injury on your body. In addition to being painful, this is bad enough to
impair you in your normal life. While this is in effect you take a –1 penalty to any Normal Challenges.
You can remove 5 points of Overcharge by suffering an even worse wound. Trying to hide this would
probably be quite the challenge you’re probably better off just resting and healing. While this is in effect
you take a –1 penalty to any challenges.
Temporary Change
See Fallout (Pg XX).
Change (67 Overcharge)
See Fallout (Pg XX).
Burst (8+ Overcharge)
Rage Storm
Your intense, ragetainted magical energy explodes into a psychic maelstrom of hate and fury that
fills the air with a baleful red glow. Everyone in the area (use the same table as Magical Burst to get the size
of the area) will be overcome with violent urges. Magical girls can make a Heart or Magic challenge against
a difficulty equal to two times the number of Overcharge points that went into this Fallout in order to resist
its effects, but otherwise everyone (except tsukaima) must attack someone at random every turn for 2 turns,
plus an additional turn for every 3 Overcharge that went into the Rage Storm above 8.
At your GM’s option, if you have a Rage Storm form and you do not have any Relationships at all,
you will transform into a youma. Your magical girl becomes a monster under the control of the Game
Master.
Changes:
1. Bloody Eyes
Your eyes take on a creepy bloodred color.
2. Blood Smell
Your body smells of fresh blood. It is a coppery, unnerving smell.
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3. Canine Animosity
Dogs just seem to find you unsettling. Dogs near you freak out and bark, whine, and howl. Even a dog
you’ve known all your life would bark its head off around you.
4. War Cry
In battle, you have an unnatural tendency to scream war cries and other things at your enemies. This tends
to make being subtle rather challenging.
5. Aura of Death
You acquire an invisible aura of death. Smaller creatures around you and larger creatures that are
particularly sickly (including people) will tend to die off unexpectedly. The more a given weak organism is
around you, the more likely it is to die.
6. Elemental Hair
Your hair takes on an aspect of whatever your element is. Fire hair becomes reddishorange and sometimes
flicks around on its own, that kind of thing.
7. Elemental Resonance
Instances of your magical element have a way of behaving abnormally when you’re around. If your element is
water, the water in the school’s pool might take on a life of its own for example.
8. Exhaustion
Although it doesn’t hinder you during battle, you occasionally find yourself completely overcome by fatigue
for no apparent reason.
9. Kleptomania
You periodically feel the need to steal things, regardless of whether there’s any benefit to doing so.
10. Agony
Every now and then your nervous system just malfunctions, subjecting you to abject agony.
11. Scarred
You acquire a rather nastylooking scar somewhere on your body. It’s not unnatural per se, but people will
wonder what a girl like you could’ve done to get such a thing.
12. Windmill Syndrome
You become convinced that a certain class of objects is your enemy. You will periodically attempt to attack
such items, and expect others to thank you for doing so.
13. Night Terrors
Most nights you are troubled by terrible nightmares that have you waking up crying or screaming.
14. Self Harm
Every now and then you have an overpowering need to hurt yourself in painful, disturbing, but nonlethal
ways.
15. Exertion Impulse
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You sometimes get a weird impulse to intensely exercise your body. You can run, do situps, climb, etc.,
as long as you move your body.
16. FastGrowing Hair
Your hair grows unnaturally fast, such that you would need a haircut every few days just to have it be
remotely manageable.
17. Evil Twin
You spawn a precise copy of yourself. She is not a magical girl, but she knows everything you do about
magic at the time this Change takes effect. She also hates you, and will try to screw up your life however
she can.
18. Property Damage
You acquire a tendency to casually damage inanimate objects at times.
19. Weather Phenomenon
The weather sometimes changes unexpectedly to reflect your mood, up to and including somewhat nasty
thunderstorms, though it cannot cause things like tornadoes or hurricanes.
20. Manic Depressive
You occasionally have periods of either intense energy or deep depression. Your manic phase can be
happy, sad, or angry, but it’s always intense.
21. Pyromania
Every now and then you have an irresistible need to set fire to something just to watch it burn.
22. Fleshy Costume
Your costume looks like a living creature made of flesh. It’s really damn creepy.
23. ColdBlooded
You become coldblooded. Your skin feels unnaturally cold at time, and you become very sluggish when it’s
cold.
24. Magic Fever
You periodically break out in an unnaturally intense fever. It makes your head fuzzy like an ordinary fever,
but otherwise doesn’t harm you. On the other hand to other people you’re hot enough to be painful to touch.
25. Maw
Somewhere on your body is a large mouth with many sharp teeth. You can conceal it with normal clothing,
but it gets hungry and restless sometimes.
26. Violence Trigger
Some trigger, such as a word uttered around the time you acquired this change, causes you to violently
lash out and strike whoever repeats it.
27. Distorted Shadow
Your shadow takes on strange shapes, and sometimes moves on its own.
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28. Heavy Metal Costume
Your costume becomes an over the top heavy metal getup, with lots of skulls and spikes. It might well
intimidate more timid people.
29. Camera Eyes
It's subtle, but your eyes are in fact cameras. They make a very faint motor sound when changing focus to
look at things at different distances; other people won't notice unless they're very close to you, but you can
always hear very clearly. Also, to you the world takes on a surreal quality, as though you're watching a TV
show rather than living through events.
30. Shifting Tattoos
You have a number of tattoos on your arms and torso that seem to shift and change.
31. Bionic Limbs
Your arms and legs are apparently artificial on the inside, because when you exert yourself they make a
motor whining noise.
32. Bully
You are periodically overcome with a need to intimidate and bully someone weaker than yourself.
33. Knife Nut
You develop a small, somewhat disturbing obsession with bladed weaponry. It doesn’t actually impair your
ability to fight with other weapons or live day to day, but it’s certainly unusual and worrying in a girl your age.
34. Blood Knight
You enjoy fights, far more than normal, whether it's magical or mundane. It's very easy to get caught up in
the thrill of battle, fully enjoying this moment of bloodshed. You still retain control of yourself, as much as
you've always had, but there's always the feeling that you want to find more fights to fight.
35. Elven
Your ears change to that of an elf. Typically, it'll be the elf that your character is most familiar with, in Japan
you'll probably have the humongous pointed ears, but in America, you'll have the much smaller, but still
pointed kind.
36. Alluring
People seem to move close to you more often, without even noticing themselves doing it.
37. WideEyed
You constantly have a surprised look on your face.
38. PokerFace
You are unable to make facial expressions for longer than about a second. Has strange results when taken
with Always Smiling.
39. Never Grew Up
You feel the need to always carry some small memento around, either something from your childhood or
another appropriate object. You will resist attempts to have it taken from you (not necessarily violently), and
you feel restless without it. If you permanently lose the object, you eventually fixate on a different memento.
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40. Ahoge
Idiot hair. A bit of your hair sticks up like an antenna, always with some kind of curve to it. Your ahoge will
fight all attempts to flatten it, usually comedically if possible. If it's cut off, more will take its place. If you end
up bald, it'll just grow back stronger than ever. Your ahoge will also occasionally react to your emotions. For
instance, when shocked (emotionally!) it will stand up straight and stiffen up, or droop when you're
depressed.
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Experience and Advancement
Magical Girls who survive enough battles will become better at what they do. That isn’t to say that the rest
of their lives will become easier, but they can at least become more proficient at fighting youma. When the
GM feels it is appropriate, he may give out Experience Points (XP), which allow magical girls to advance and
become stronger. This should generally be 1 XP per normal Youma defeated, 2 XP per ‘Boss’ Youma
defeated, with additional XP for story or plot advancement whenever the GM feels appropriate.
For 1 XP you can buy an Advance. Pick an Advance from those below, but you can only take a given
Advance once per Tier. None of these advances may raise a stat above 9 unless explicitly stated. There are
also 2 and 3 XP advances, which work the same as the 1 XP advances, except you may never take them
more than once unless otherwise stated.
Tier is determined based on experience spent. All Magical Girls start at Tier 1. Upon spending 5 XP, a
Magical Girl advances to the next tier (so a Magical Girl with 5 XP spent is Tier 2, a Magical Girl with 10 XP
spent is Tier 3, etc.) Upon advancing a Tier, the Magical Girl immediately gains access to a new Magical
Effect chosen from the list specific to her archetype at no cost. In addition, certain things may only be able
to be purchased at Tier 2 or higher. Upon reaching Tier 4, a Magical Girl may choose a Legendary Magical
Effect from the list specific to her archetype at no cost. This counts as her Archetype Magical Effect for that
tier. Under no circumstances may a Magical Girl possess more than one Legendary Magical Effect.
1 XP Advances:
● +1 to a Magical Attribute (may be taken twice per tier, but only on different attributes)
● +1 to a Normal Attribute (may be taken twice per tier, but only on different attributes)
● +2 to Base Resolve
● Gain a new General Magical Effect
2 XP Advances:
● Gain a new Signature Attack.
● +1 Luck.
3 XP Advances:
● Raise a Magical Attribute to 10. Prerequisites: Tier 4+. The attribute to be raised must be at 9.
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Youma
Detailed below are the rules for creating the game’s main antagonists. This section is aimed at
games with three players, though it includes rules to adjust enemy power for either lower or higher player
counts. However, five or more players is generally not recommended, and fights intended for a single player
will almost certainly have to be custom made. This section does not cover antagonistic Magical Girls,
instead it is suggested that you generate them as normal and have them use higher XP totals, fight in
groups and possibly use tactics to even the odds with the PCs. It is generally considered poor form to give a
single enemy Magical Girl (or equivalent) enough power to take on an entire party of PCs at the same time.
This section is mostly intended for games that run up until Tier 4 or less. Tier 4 is considered the
‘endgame’ it’s when Magical Girls gain their most powerful abilities. While there’s nothing about the game
that immediately breaks when you enter Tier 5 or higher, the further you go beyond it the more likely you will
have to come up with things on your own.
New Mechanics
Youma operate similarly to Magical Girls, and thus use the same rules as Magical Girls when not
otherwise stated. However, youma have their own generation method (detailed below), and several special
rules.
Power Points
Instead of Overcharge, Youma have Power Points. Power Points represent the malign magical
energy that a Youma can call on to fight with. Unlike Overcharge, Power Points are not associated with any
specific statistic. A youma simply has a set number of them that it can spend as it wishes. Youma also
have a limit on how many power points they can spend total per round. Once they have spent power points
equal to this limit, they may no longer spend power points until the end of the round. Note that Youma may
still only spend three power points on any given Magical Challenge. Aside from these exceptions, Power
Points function the same as Overcharge, and may be spent for all the same purposes.
Magical Challenges
Magical Challenges function slightly differently for Youma than they do for Magical Girls. For one,
Youma do not roll 2d6 for Magical Challenges: they are assumed to have a result of 7+the relevant magical
attribute. This rule ensures that a Youma presents a consistent threat, which both makes it easier for a GM
to run and helps prevent the fight from becoming mainly about luck. It is possible to ignore this rule, but it is
generally not recommended otherwise your Youma are far more likely to be neutered by a series of bad
rolls or made nearly impossible by a string of good ones.
However, Youma still roll as normal when spending Power Points to boost a Magical Challenge.
This works the same as a Magical Girl taking Voluntary Overcharge dice, with one exception. Rolling a 6 on
a Power Point die has no further effects Youma may not generate Involuntary Overcharge dice.
Base Attribute Generation
This section details rules for determining a Youma’s base statistics. A Youma’s Tier is considered
to be the same as the players’ current Tier.
Magical Attributes
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Each Youma starts with a stat array of 8/7/4, distributing these values between its statistics as it
desires. At each Tier beyond 1, the Youma may distribute an additional 2 points between these statistics.
These points may raise a statistic to 10, however doing so takes 2 points instead of 1.
Normal Attributes
Each Youma starts with 11 points to distribute between Physical and Finesse. Social is rarely
useful for Youma, but if for some reason you need to have them roll Social you can either assign whatever
score you feel is appropriate, or default to a score of 5. Youma do not start with any Luck.
Resolve
Each Youma starts with a Base Resolve of 35, +5 for each Tier beyond the first.
Power Points
Each Youma starts with 12 Power Points, and the ability to spend 4 Power Points per round. For
each Tier beyond the first, add 2 Power Points and 1 Power Point per round.
Youma Abilities
Youma Abilities and Magical Effects are one of the most important parts of building a Youma. They
are what give the Youma its offensive and defensive power raw statistics won’t get a Youma far. The proper
choice of abilities is critical to building a good Youma. With that said, each Youma starts with 4 abilities, +1
for each Tier beyond the first. See the ‘Youma Abilities List’ section at the end of this chapter for more
information.
Magical Effects & Signature Attacks
Youma don’t only have access to Youma Abilities they may purchase Magical Effects if they so
wish. A youma may spend one or more of its Youma Ability slots to acquire Magical Effects. When doing
so, Youma may purchase any effect that it meets the requirements for, including Archetype Effects.
However, there are a number of effects that are not viable for Youma use. In some cases, this is because
the effect manipulates mechanics that are not relevant for youma. For example, Aegis manipulates the 2d6
roll a Magical Girl makes for a Defense challenge this does not apply to Youma because they do not roll
for Magical Challenges. Other Magical Effects may be unsuitable because they create undesired effects on
the game. For example, Scaling Defiance punishes players for dealing good damage and Cruasder’s Aura
unpreventably punishes Strikers for doing their job. The Magical Effects List at the end of this chapter
contains a list of Magical Effects that are either disallowed to Youma or must be modified for them. If a
Magical Effect is not present in this list, assume that it may be used normally. Additionally, Youma may
never purchase Legendary Magical Effects.
Youma do not start with Signature Attacks. However, they may purchase Signature Attacks via
using Customize Points (see below). Youma generally use Signature Attacks the same way Magical Girls
do, but there are a few things you need to keep in mind while making Youma with Signature Attacks. For
one, when your Youma uses a Signature Attack, you need to clearly declare that the Youma is doing so
before you roll the dice. State the Signature Attack by name, as well. When dealing with such powerful
abilities, Magical Girls need to know what they’re dealing with.
With that said, not every Youma needs access to Signature Attacks to be threatening. They can be
an excellent ace in the hole for a Youma, but make sure you consider carefully before giving it the Signature
Attack. Especially if it’s a damage boosting finisher. Damage boosting finishers can deal especially high
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damage on a good roll, and Magical Girls have far less Resolve than Youma do. At the least, Final Impact is
generally unsuitable for Youma use. Grand Barrage is also very powerful in the hands of a Youma you may
want to consider having the Youma make a Magical Challenge for each target it attacks with the ability
instead of just having it roll once (as it would be easy for the Youma to drop three power points into the
single Challenge, and thus throw a massively powerful attack at every Magical Girl for a low cost.)
Perks
Perks are small abilites that either give the Youma a passive benefit, enhance other abilities that
the Youma knows, or do other things that are desirable to have on a youma but not powerful enough for a full
Youma Ability. Each Youma starts with 1 Perk, +1 for each Tier beyond the first.
Customization
Each Youma has access to 4 Customize Points. For each Tier beyond the first, add 2 points.
These points may be distributed to gain a number of bonuses.
Attribute Boost: +1 to a Magical Attribute. This may not increase a Magical Attribute to 10 or above.
High Attribute Boost (Cost: 2): +1 to a Magical Attribute. This may increase a Magical Attribute to 10 or
above, maximum 12. This may only be taken once per Tier.
Normal Attribute Boost: +1 to a Normal Attribute. This may not increase a Normal Attribute to 10 or above.
Resolve Boost: +3 Resolve.
Additional Power Points: +1 Power Point.
Increase Power Point Limit: +1 Power Point/Round. This may only be taken twice.
Additional Youma Ability (Cost: 2): Gain a new Youma Ability or Magical Effect.
Additional Perk: Gain a new Perk.
Signature Attack (Cost: 3): Gain a Signature Attack. This may only be taken twice.
Luck (Cost: 2): Gain 1 point of Luck. This may only be taken once.
Adjusting Youma for Different Party Sizes
The above rules assume that you’re creating a youma for a three player party. If you’re creating a
youma for more or less players, then you’ll need to adjust it as listed below. Keep in mind that five or more
players is not recommended, and fights with only a single player may need to be heavily or fully
customized.
For each additional Magical Girl, a Youma gains:
+8 Resolve
+3 Power Points
+1 Power Point/Round
+1 Youma Ability
+1 Perk
+2 Customize Points (+3 at Tier 3 or higher)
For a party of 2 Magical Girls, a Youma takes:
8 Resolve
3 Power Points
1 Power Point/Round
1 Youma Ability
1 Customize Point
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Youma Design
One of the first considerations when designing a Youma is: how do you want to even the action gap
between the Youma and the players? By default, your Youma has one action, as opposed to the one action
per player that the PCs have. To make a fight challenging, you will have to add some abilities that let it
close this gap. The first and simplest way is to simply give the youma the ‘Celerity’ ability. This powerful
ability directly evens the odds, by allowing the youma to take a second action on its turn. Celerity should be
considered a necessity for any battle involving four or more Magical Girls. Barring very specialized youma,
you will need the extra action to keep up with the sheer power and versatility that having 4 players provides.
However, there are other ways to even things out between the Magical Girls and the Youma.
Abilities that allow the Youma to take extra actions or attack multiple targets at once (for example, Rapid
Counter or Grand Barrage) can also go a long way to making the Youma properly threatening. Another
method is to disrupt the Magical Girls’ actions, by using abilities that force them to spend turns doing other
things than combatting the Youma. It is generally recommended that you use this strategy somewhat
sparingly though as it can become quite frustrating for the players if they’re spending long portions of the
battle unable to fight. As a quick rule of thumb, you shouldn’t be forcing players into situations where any
one Magical Girl cannot act for more than one round in a row (due to losing their action, having to use Resist
to survive, etc.) If you’re using this kind of strategy, it’s important that you spread the disabling abilities out
instead of stacking them on one player. As far as direct offense goes, you’ll need to give the Youma the
ability to do more than throw out singular Normal Attacks. There are a number of Magical Effects and
Youma abilities that can improve the Youma’s offense, which you should be using regularly. Though there is
some balance to this a Youma that has a >10 Magical Attribute to put into Attack and can throw out
multiple actions per round thanks to Celerity needs a lot less to threaten a party than a Youma that’ll be
attacking with an 8 or 9 and lacks Celerity.
Another thing that you’ll probably want to consider is the Youma’s defensive prowess. If a Youma
has no way to defend itself other than its base statistics, you may find it dying too fast to provide a good
challenge. Thankfully, defense is relatively simple to boost: additional Resolve, additional Defense and
abilities that help it avoid or resist damage are all ways to make a Youma last longer. That said, it’s
generally best to rely on more than gigantic Resolve pools for survivability. Too much Resolve can make a
battle feel like an unsatisfying slog, while using other methods helps vary up the battle and keep things
interesting. It’s best to give your Youma some defensive or interference abilities and have it use those to
stay alive longer. Though as stated previously, it’s best not to overuse interference abilities. It’s also worth
noting that not every Youma has to survive for a long time it’s perfectly fine to have a shorter fight if the
Youma is dangerous enough to warrant it. Keep in mind that long fights tend to be more dangerous even if
simply because they give the players more chances to accumulate Overcharge.
Custom Ability Creation
GMs are not expected to stick purely to the abilities provided in this book. It is expected, and to
some degree encouraged, that you will create your own custom abilities for Youma. This section is here to
help you avoid common pitfalls in ability creation. The following advice consists of rules of thumb and
generalizations that may not apply to absolutely everything. This section is not intended to be exhaustive.
Use your best judgement when creating custom abilities.
Abilities with no or extremely little counterplay:
Example: Any Magical Girl attacking the Youma loses 1d6 Resolve.
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Abilities should generally allow the players some way to deal with them, especially if they inflict
significant penalties or damage. Abilites like this may initially seem appealing as a way to make a Youma
more difficult, but they are a very quick road to frustrating your players. The above example is particularly
bad, causing unpreventable Resolve Loss on every single attack the PCs try on the Youma. As a result,
anyone attacking the Youma is automatically punished, and there are very little alternatives provided (only a
small handful of Magical Effects can inflict significant damage without attacking). Unless the fight includes
an alternate win condition, you will have to attack the Youma multiple times to defeat it.
However, this example ability can be salvaged. “Whenever the Youma successfully defends against
an attack with at least 1 Raise, the attacker takes 1d6 damage.” Now the players can avoid or resist the
ability’s effect by either using damage reduction abilities or simply getting a high enough score to avoid the
enemy defending with 1 Raise.
Abilities that directly inflict Overcharge:
Example: At the end of any encounter with the Youma, each Magical Girl takes 1d6 Overcharge on the
Youma’s highest attribute.
Directly inflicting Overcharge on the players is very punishing. Abilities that increase the players’
Overcharge scores can often inflict permanent changes, or even push someone into a Burst, depending on
how strong the ability is. Overcharge is also an important source of the players’ power, and for both of these
reasons attacking it directly can very easily feel unfair. The above example is particularly unsuitable for the
game, as it inflicts a potentially very large amount of Overcharge at once (and violates the above rule as well,
as there is absolutely no way to deal with it and you will always take the Overcharge.) As a result, a player
could end up with a Change or Burst even despite playing well and taking down the youma handily.
While avoiding these abilities entirely is certainly the safe option, if you find yourself wanting to
include them anyway, there are ways to do it properly. Unfortunately, the above ability is unsalvageable, but
if you want an ability that inflicts Overcharge, something like the following would be more suitable:
“Whenever the Youma succeeds on a Magical Attack, the target takes 1 point of Overcharge to whichever of
their Magical Attributes has the lowest Overcharge.” The important parts here are that it only inflicts 1
Overcharge, and that it targets the lowest attribute. This way it can’t push someone into a Change or Burst
unless they’re really pushing their Overcharge in general.
Abilities that invalidate player choices:
Example: Whenever the Youma would inflict Damage, it instead inflicts Resolve Loss.
When a Youma outright disallows a player from doing the things they’ve built their character for, the
player will almost always feel cheated. While you’re not expected to let all of the players’ plans go off
without a hitch, you should refrain from outright denying people the ability to use their character’s
capabilities. The above example is unsuitable for the game because it invalidates defensive players who’ve
spent a lot of their choices on building up their character’s damage reduction values.
While the above example is hard to salvage, there are ways to make a defensive player’s job harder
without outright ignoring their abilities. The following ability would do the job in a far more acceptable
manner: “Magical Girls take a 2 penalty to Clash or Cover this Youma’s attacks.” This way the player can
enjoy their full damage reduction, but will have some difficulty covering allies from the Youma’s attacks.
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Abilities that undermine core game mechanics:
Example: Activate this ability to remove all Overcharge dice from a Magical Girl’s challenge. Overcharge
gained is not changed. (2/Battle, Reaction)
This is perhaps the hardest section to sum up, both because these abilities can be very different
from each other and because if done well these abilities can create a memorable and interesting fight. First,
let’s look into what not to do, starting with the example above. Said example is particularly unsuitable
because it breaks the rules in a way that will result in the player almost certainly feeling cheated.
Overcharge ‘gambling’ is one of the core mechanics of the game, and it’s one that players generally expect
will work as stated in the PDF. When the benefits from it are cut out while at the same time leaving the
player with the drawbacks, it can easily make the players feel that the fight is not running on a set of rules
that is fair to them. Having a Youma undermine a mechanic purely for its own benefit should generally be
avoided.
The better way to use these abilities is to use them to change the fight, not simply to benefit the
Youma at the player’s expense. Here’s an example of a situation that breaks the rules to a far better effect:
“There is a magical dampening field in the room with this Youma. While it is active, the Youma may not add
Power Point dice to its rolls and the Magical Girls may not add Voluntary Overcharge dice to their
challenges (and they do not take Involuntary Overcharge dice.) The crystal generating the dampening field
may be destroyed (thus ending the effects), but the Youma seems to want to protect it…” If executed
properly, a situation like this could result in a very interesting battle, as the Magical Girls use other methods
to overcome their foe and make the decision between dealing with the Youma now and trying to take out the
crystal.
One thing can be said for certain about these kind of abilities and situations, though. It is critical
that you understand the game mechanics very well before you create them. If you’re creating a fight where
Magical Girls and Youma cannot gain Overcharge/Power Point dice, you need to be well aware of how that
will change the battle. Do not try to make these kinds of abilities until you are certain that you’ve got the
hang of the game and that you understand the mechanics well.
Youma Ability List
Counterattack: (Passive)
Whenever the Youma successfully defends against an attack, the person that attacked them takes 2
Damage.
Usage Notes: The more staying power (and in specific, Defense) that a Youma has, the more dangerous
this ability is. It might not seem like a lot, but when combined with other abilities the damage can quickly
stack up.
Celerity: (Passive)
The Youma may act twice on its turn, taking two Normal Actions, two Special Actions or one of each. Note
that it is not considered to have two turns, both actions take place on the same turn.
Usage Notes: An absolute necessity for fights with four or more players, often useful for fights with three,
and almost never appropriate for fights with less. Don’t hesitate to give this out if you think the Youma
needs it, but be wary of overwhelming the players if the Youma can put out high amounts of damage.
Infect: (Condition, Free Action, 2/Battle)
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The Youma may activate this ability after succeeding on an attack against a Magical Girl. That Magical Girl
suffers 2 to all challenges while this condition lasts. May be removed by Resist (TN 12, Support), though
keep in mind that the 2 applies to said Resist challenge.
Usage Notes: An excellent interference ability that forces a player to make one of two choices: eat the
penalty and keep fighting or stop and try to get rid of it. Be wary of throwing this on something that’s already
an offensive or defensive powerhouse, as the penalty can make it very difficult to succeed at all if the
Youma already has a significant advantage over the players.
Poison: (Condition, Free Action, 2/Battle)
The Youma may activate this ability after succeeding on an attack against a Magical Girl. That Magical Girl
is now considered poisoned. At the beginning of every turn a Magical Girl remains poisoned they lose 2
resolve. This may be removed by Resist (TN 13, Physical)
Usage Notes: A pressure ability that can turn even a weak hit into a much more threatening one. Try to
apply poison before the end of the battle, otherwise this ability likely won’t have much impact. There’s no
need to use it as soon as possible, though. If applied early on, this will probably end up eating turns as the
Magical Girls scramble to remove it.
Stun Strike: (Reaction, 1/Battle)
The Youma may activate this ability after succeeding on an attack against a Magical Girl. The Magical Girl
must roll a special Resist challenge (TN12, Physical), as a free action. On a success, the Magical Girl
takes a 2 penalty to all Magical Challenges until the end of their next turn. On a success with at least one
raise, they’re fine. On a failure, the Magical Girl may not take an action on her next turn.
Usage Notes: A very direct interference ability. Following this up with additional attacks (on the same round)
to the same target is a rather brutal strategy. Note that this ability becomes exceptionally dangerous if its
target is under the effects of something that gives it a penalty to challenges.
Grand Malus: (Normal Action, 1/Battle)
Apply the effects of Infect to every Magical Girl in the battle. Grand Malus may only be used once per battle,
regardless of any abilities the Youma has that may allow it to use abilities additional times.
Usage Notes: One of the most powerful of the interference abilities, Grand Malus automatically applies the
effects of Infect to the whole party without having to land a single attack. Note that this takes a Normal
Action to pull off, so it’s best paired with something that will let the Youma follow this up. Combining this
with Grand Barrage (or other unpenalized full party attacks) can be exceedingly brutal, so be careful.
Bindings of Shadow: (Condition, Normal Action, 2/Battle)
Pick a Magical Girl and make an opposed Support challenge. If the Youma beats the Magical Girl, the
Magical Girl is considered bound, and may not take actions except to Resist the binding (TN15, Support).
At the beginning of every turn a Magical Girl remains bound, they take 1d6+1 points of damage. Keep in
mind that Conditions end when the Magical Girl is reduced to 0 Resolve.
Usage Notes: A hard interference ability that is certain to eat a Magical Girl’s turn and deal some damage if
it lands. Don’t expect the binding to last more than one round the real threat behind this thing is the lost
turn and the Overcharge that the Magical Girl may have to take to break out. It’s also a rather nasty surprise
for anyone who’s stuck a 3 in Support. Don’t be overly mean in picking on people with terrible Support
though it’s best to leave them with some chance to resist instead of just flattening them with a maxed out
Support statistic. You can also have the Youma swap its Support to a higher attribute to try to land this
against a Tactician or other high Support target.
Miasma: (Condition, Normal Action, 2/Battle)
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Pick a Magical Girl and make an opposed Support challenge. If the Youma succeeds, that Magical Girl is
now considered poisoned. At the beginning of every turn a Magical Girl remains poisoned they lose 3
resolve. This may be removed by Resist (TN 14, Support). Miasma overrides Posion, the two do not stack.
Usage Notes: A powerful pressure ability. Be wary of applying it at the start of a long fight, as you leave the
player with no choice but to try to Resist it. The same advice given for Bindings of Shadow and opposed
Support challenges applies here as well.
Last Dance: (Passive)
Upon being reduced to 0 Resolve, the Youma is not immediately defeated, it is instead defeated on the next
successful magical attack. Instead, it gains a +2 bonus to all Defense and Support challenges, as well as
an additional +1 to hit and damage on all magical attacks and a free Power Point per round. While this
ability is active, the Youma may not be healed above 0 Resolve to any means, may not gain bonuses to
Defense from other abilities, and may not take the Guard action.
Usage Notes: Your obligatory ‘dramatic final stand’ ability. This is a great way to inject some excitement
into the end of a battle, and extend a Youma’s lifetime by a turn (or perhaps two). This ability is best suited
for Youma that don’t run heavy interference abilities as the +2 Defense combined with other penalties or
interference can turn the end of the fight into something frustrating rather than tense. Note that you don’t
have to use this ability if you think the fight’s been hard enough so far. Feel free to just let the Youma die if
you don’t feel like it needs this. Also note that combining this with Strength From Adversity is particularly
nasty.
Furious Overwhelm: (Passive)
Whenever the Youma makes an unsuccessful Magical Attack, the target takes 1 Damage, plus one for
every Power Point spent on the attack.
Usage Notes: An attrition ability that allows the youma to chip away at the PCs even if it fails attacks. Note
that this becomes increasingly deadly as the fight drags on, especially if the Youma has access to a large
Power Point pool. Even more so if the Youma has access to other attrition based abilities, such as
Counterattack.
Power Well: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
The Youma may ignore the power point per round limit until the end of the round. Keep in mind that it is still
bound by the three power point per challenge limit.
Usage Notes: A powerful tool that can save the Youma from being overwhelmed by attacks past its Power
Point per round limit. You might want to consider buying some additional Power Points for use with this
ability, as well. Try not to go overboard, though it’s often best to use this when necessary to bolster a
Youma’s defenses, instead of pulling it at the start of the round and going all out. Note that having this
active doesn’t mean you need to or should put 3 Power Points into every challenge.
Nightmare Burst: (Normal Action, 1/Battle)
Once per battle, the Youma may irradiate its Nightmare with harmful energy. All enemies must test
Defense, TN18. On a failure, they take 1d6+3 damage. Although this does not count as an attack, the Cover
action may be used against it as if it was one.
Usage Notes: The most important thing to remember about Nightmare Burst is that it is not an attack.
None of the rules, actions or abilities that apply to Magical Attacks apply to a Nightmare Burst. It also does
not depend on any one Magical Attribute of the Youma, instead having its own fixed TN that cannot be
boosted. It doesn’t do amazing damage, but this ability is good to apply pressure to a party none the less.
Life Drain: (Normal Action, 1/Battle)
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Pick a Magical Girl and make an opposed Support challenge. If the Youma beats the magical girl, it deals
damage as if it had attacked, and recovers half of the final damage in Resolve.
Usage Notes: Arcane Rend’s little brother, this both provides the Youma some potential survivability and
the ability to directly attack Support. The same advice given for Bindings of Shadow and opposed Support
challenges applies here as well. You may want to consider using Draining Assault instead of this if you’re
not looking to attack Support.
Area Strike Mastery: (Passive)
The Youma gains a +1 bonus to hit when making a Multiple Target Attack. The Youma only suffers a 1
penalty to Defense when making a Multiple Target Attack, and enemies attempting to clash its Multiple
Target Attack only gain a +1 bonus.
Usage Notes: A necessity on anything that will be making Multiple Target Attacks, this ability both gives
the Youma a better chance of hitting with them and makes it far less of a suicide tactic. Note that any on
hit abilities you trigger only affect one of the people hit by the attack, not everyone. Using this and Celerity
(or other abilities) to make more than one Multiple Target Attack per round is not recommended.
Defense Boost: (Reaction, 2/Battle)
The Youma gains a +2 bonus to a Defense challenge. Must be used before adding any Power Points to the
Defense challenge.
Usage Notes: The Youma’s answer to Aegis. Be very careful using this on Youma with Defense attributes of
10 and above, as a result of 19+ on a Defense challenge can be all but impossible to crack without both
good rolls and Attack bonuses.
Attack Boost: (Reaction, 2/Battle)
The Youma gains a +2 bonus to an Attack challenge. Must be used before adding any Power Points to the
Attack challenge.
Usage Notes: A rather direct way of boosting a Youma’s offensive capabilities. Be very careful using this on
Youma with Attack attributes of 10 and above, as a result of 19+ on a Magical Attack can be all but
impossible to avoid without both good rolls and bonuses.
Arcane Haste: (Free Action, 1/Battle)
The Youma may use its other abilities (or Magical Effects) more quickly than normal. This ability allows
Normal Action abilities or effects to be used as a Free Action during the Youma’s turn.
Usage Notes: A good addition to a Youma that relies heavily on Normal Action abilities, especially if it lacks
Celerity. Using this to stack multiple conditions on one Magical Girl in the same round is often overly brutal.
Perk List
Damage Boost: (Passive)
The Youma deals +1 damage with all Magical Attacks. May be taken twice for +2 damage.
Usage Notes: The Youma’s alternative to things like Assassinate and Vampiric Weapon. This shouldn’t be
combined with other damage boosting abilities unless facing a very tough late game party. Resist the urge
to throw this on a Youma unless you’re certain they’ll need the increased damage to pose a decent threat.
Luck: (1/Battle, Free Action)
The Youma may reroll one Power Point die, but must take the second roll. May be taken twice for two uses
per battle.
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Usage Notes: This is best used to break up strings of terrible rolls and give the Youma a fighting chance
when the dice don’t seem willing to. It’s a good ability to have around almost regardless of the youma, but
keep in mind that you don’t have to use it if you don’t feel the Youma needs it.
Additional Ability Usage: (Passive)
Pick one of the Youma’s 2/Battle abilities or effects. The Youma may instead use that ability 3 times per
battle. Alternately, you may pay 2 points for this ability and turn a 1/Battle ability into a 2/Battle ability.
Usage Notes: For when you need your Youma to be able to use its special trick more than the ability would
normally allow.
Power Snap: (1/Battle, Free Action)
The Youma may ignore the power point per round limit for one Magical Challenge. Any Power Points spent
on this challenge do not count towards the limit for that round, and the Youma may spend Power Points
even if it has reached the limit for the round.
Usage Notes: Power Well’s little brother. Good for when you want the Youma to be able to pull out extra
power in in a pinch, but don’t want to go all the way and give it Power Well.
Stealth Mastery: (Passive)
The Youma gains a +2 bonus to Stealth challenges.
Usage Notes: Good for helping a Youma pull off an Ambush. Refrain from having Youma use stealth very
frequently, as starting out fights with Ambushes quickly wears thin if overused.
Condition Mastery: (Passive)
Pick a specific condition that the Youma can inflict. Increase the TN to Resist it by 1. If the ability uses
Support for Resist, instead increase the TN by 2. May be purchased separately for each condition inflicting
ability the Youma has.
Usage Notes: Useful for making conditions more likely to stick against tough parties. If you really want to
make a specific condition threatening, you can consider allowing a Youma to purchase this perk twice to
double its effects, but this is best done with caution. Note that this makes Grand Malus an even bigger
threat than it already is.
Ignore Costs: (Passive)
Pick a specific Magical Effect that the Youma has that costs Overcharge (or, in the Youma’s case, Power
Points) to activate. Reduce the cost of activating that ability by 1, to a minimum of 0. If the ability in
question has no usage per battle limit, it gains a 2/Battle limit. May be taken multiple times for different
Magical Effects.
Usage Notes: Slightly more useful than just buying another Power Point, as this means using the ability
doesn’t cost towards the Youma’s Power Point per round limit.
Magical Effects List
Aegis:
Youma may not take Aegis.
Reasoning: Youma don’t roll for Magical Challenges. Take Defense Boost instead.
Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained:
The secondary ability is removed.
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Reasoning: Youma do not roll Involuntary Overcharge. Also, it is worth noting that this effect is very powerful
on Youma and should be used with caution.
Scaling Defiance:
Youma may not take Scaling Defiance.
Reasoning: Scaling Defiance punishes people for doing high damage. It is not desirable to punish damage
dealers for doing their job. However, if you want the secondary ability on a Youma feel free to assign it as a
Perk.
Defy Fate:
Youma may not take Defy Fate.
Reasoning: Youma do not roll for Magical Challenges. If you want to manipulate Power Point dice, take the
Luck Perk.
Final Strike:
Youma may not take Final Strike.
Reasoning: Youma using Signature Attacks is strong enough already, even without a specific effect to
boost them. Plus, the secondary ability does not apply to Youma as they do not roll Magical Challenges.
Take Attack Boost instead.
Twin Style:
Youma may not take Twin Style.
Reasoning: Focus Stance does not apply to Youma as they do not roll Magical Challenges. Counter Stance
punishes damage dealers for doing their job.
Full Drive:
Youma may not take Full Drive.
Reasoning: Youma do not roll for Magical Challenges. See Last Dance for a ‘super mode’ with a different
purpose.
Crusader’s Aura:
Youma may not take Crusader’s Aura.
Reasoning: The worst offender of the ‘punishing damage dealers for doing their job’ group.
Arcane Rend:
It is advised that you have Arcane Rend deal damage instead of Resolve Loss.
Reasoning: Outright ignoring a defensive player’s investment in damage reduction abilities can be frustrating
for that player, especially when thrown on an ability that can’t be covered or clashed.
Conclusion
This Youma generation system is intended to serve as a baseline to assist GMs in creating
balanced encounters. It is intended to be used as an introduction to making enemies, not as a strict set of
rules that the GM should adhere to. If you have a good reason to deviate from anything written in here,
then do it. If you take nothing out of this section but some tips on how to create your own Youma, then it
will have served its purpose well enough.
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This generation system is intentionally simple. It is made for fights with a single enemy facing 24
Magical Girls, with the rather simple goal of taking the Youma down. There are far more things that you can
do with a fight than just this. Minions, alternate win conditions, enemies other than Youma, so on and so
forth. If you stick strictly to this generator, you may find your fights becoming too repetitive or simple. Once
you’ve run a few fights and know the system, deviate from it. Strike out, use this generator as a baseline
then develop something new, with new abilities and situations not contained in here. Not every fight has to
be some grand, elaborate creation, but introducing well thought out new abilities into your youma is a good
way to spice up your next combat session.
Finally, it’s important to remember that fights are not just soulless combat statistics and dice
rolling. There are any number of things that matter to a combat session beyond what is contained in this
section. Balance may be important, but beyond that is atmosphere, plot significance, description,
thematics, pacing, and any other number of important things. Combat balance is important to a good game,
but you shouldn’t focus on it to the point that you start forgetting other things. And there’s a whole world out
there that has nothing to do with the insides of a Youma’s Nightmare...
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Variant Rules and Additional Content
Placed here are special variant rules and additional content that may or may not be suitable for all
games. Players should check with their GM before assuming any of these can be used.
Experienced Magical Girls
The character generation section assumes that you are playing someone who recently became a
Magical Girl. In some situations, players may find it interesting or desirable to create more experienced
characters. The following rule is recommended to handle more experienced Magical Girls in a normal party:
Start with 2 XP and 1d6–1 Oblivion Seeds. However, you must take one Change as worked out with your
GM.
Additional Magical Powers
As they go along, some Magical Girls find a reason or desire to acquire a new Magical Power. The
recommended method of handling this is allowing Tier 2+ Magical Girls to purchase a second power for 1
XP. This should only be used for solidly useful powers powers that are minor should simply be granted
without any XP expenditure. This is listed as a variant rule because, unlike all other expenditures of EXP, it
does not directly boost your combat capabilities.
Stable Involuntary Overcharge
While Involuntary Overcharge is in some ways a core part of the Magical Burst experience, some
GMs and players find its ability to produce massive variance within a single roll to be aggravating. This
option does decrease the power of Magical Girls across the board, as they no longer have the chance of
rolling high on Involuntary Overcharge dice. The following rules are presented as an optional change to how
Involuntary Overcharge works.
Instead of adding 1d6 to the result any time you would generate involuntary overcharge, add 2 points
to the result. Additionally, the following abilities are changed to work correctly with this rule:
Overwhelm: When rolling Overcharge dice on any Attack challenge, you may reroll any 1s once, but must
take the second roll. Involuntary Overcharge adds 3 to the result of Attack challenges, instead of 2.
Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained: Once per session you may take up to 6 voluntary overcharge dice on
a single Magical Challenge, instead of the normal 3. Additionally, twice per battle you may pay 2 Resolve to
add an additional +2 to a roll that you’ve gained Involuntary Overcharge on.
Fortitude
‘Physical’ is an abstraction representing physical strength and speed as well as general resilience
and tenacity. However, some people may find themselves wanting to play a character that may not be all
that physically strong, yet has a high degree of resilience. To do so, a Magical Girl may treat her Physical
score as 1 higher for all purposes related to resilience or toughness, and 1 lower for all purposes related to
strength or speed. You can’t use this variant rule if you have a Physical of 9, or otherwise increase your
Physical to 9.
Magical Effects
Some Magical Effects, while not necessarily imbalanced, may be unsuitable for new players or for
some games. Below is detailed a list of such Magical Effects, along with the reason they are not included in
the Magical Effects section.
Presented below is the old version of Knight’s Charge an unusual effect that was redesigned not
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due to being overpowered, but due to combining two somewhat niche mechanics.
Knight’s Charge (old): Only a fool would charge in recklessly. Once per battle, you may take two points of
Overcharge to activate this ability as a Special Action, and act immediately (or after the current action is
resolved), regardless of initiative order. You may also attempt to Interrupt an enemy’s action with this ability.
Upon activating this ability, you gain a shield that may absorb up to four total points of damage, two from the
first attack that lands on you, and two from the next. This shield vanishes at the end of your next turn.
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Strain
As interesting as Fallout can be, it isn’t appropriate for every game. The following rules are
presented for those who wish to run games without using the Fallout system.
‘Strain’ replaces ‘Overcharge’, and is accumulated via the same methods as Overcharge is. Magical
Girls have separate Strain scores for each Magical Attribute. However, unlike Overcharge, Strain has fixed
penalties in and out of battle, and is removed by in character rest, rather than by taking Fallout. Strain is
intended to represent the increasing exhaustion and stress placed on a Magical Girl’s body and mind as
she pushes her power further and further.
Magical Penalties
Below are listed the immediate effects of having Strain the penalties that impair you in the middle
of combat, or whatever other circumstance requires you to call upon your powers. All penalties are applied
the first time you reach that tier for that attribute and are not cumulative. So reaching 4 Fury gives you a 1
penalty to your next roll with that attribute, but if you reach 5 Fury afterwards, you do not suffer any
additional penalty.
13: No penalty.
45: You suffer a 1 penalty to your next roll with this attribute.
67: You suffer a 1 penalty to all rolls with this attribute.
810: You suffer a 2 penalty to all rolls with this attribute.
11+: If it is currently your turn, you fall unconscious at the end of it. If it is not, you fall unconscious at
the end your next turn.
Non Combat Penalties
Below are listed the non magical effects of having Strain. These penalties only apply when outside
of combat circumstances while in the heat of battle, your magic protects you and keeps you able to move
freely and shrug off hostile effects, at least as well as you could originally. These penalties do not stack,
even if you have Strain in multiple attributes. Only the highest penalty applies.
1: No penalty. At this level you can barely (if at all) feel the effects of the strain.
23: No penalty. However, at this level you are tired, though not badly enough to raise any unusual
questions. You can still power through it and keep yourself fully functional, though.
45: 1 to all Normal Challenges. You’re tired enough to impair you, but given a good night’s sleep you’ll
be fine.
67: 2 to all Normal Challenges. At this point you’re likely to get people insisting you stay home from
school and most other things. You’re pretty debilitated by now.
810: 3 to all Normal Challenges. Rest is no longer an option, it’s a necessity.
11+: 4 to all Normal Challenges. You may not transform into Magical Girl form until your strain drops
below 11. Have you considered a trip to the hospital?
Recovering From Strain
Recovering from Strain is a far simpler affair than recovering from Overcharge. All you need to do is
take the appropriate time to rest. To fully recover from Strain, consult the list below for the amount of Strain
you currently possess.
However, sometimes you may only wish to rest long enough to partially recover from your strain.
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Pick a level of strain from the list and perform the requirements listed. You lose that many strain points.
However, you may not take multiple instances of low level strain reduction and reap the full benefit only the
highest reduction between any two given combats applies. For example, if you have 6 points of strain and
take a brief nap, you can reduce yourself to 3 points of strain. If you then take a good night’s sleep (which
would normally reduce your Strain by 5), you only lose 1 more point of strain, for a total of 2 remaining.
Note that resting recovers strain to all attributes at once: If you take a 15 minute breather, you
subtract one Strain from all attributes.
1: A 15minute breather.
2: An hour of relaxation.
3: A brief nap, or multiple hours of relaxation.
4: A long nap, or an afternoon of relaxation.
5: A good night's sleep.
6: A full day and night’s rest. You may not do anything more than mildly stressful or exhausting during
this time, including attending school.
78: A couple days of rest with some assistance from a helpful individual, or double that without.
910: Half a week of regular rest with at least some care from a helpful individual. You may not do
anything stressful or exhausting during this time, including attending school.
11+: All day rest with regular care from a helpful individual. This takes a week, plus one day for every two
points of strain above 11.
Mid Battle Strain Recovery
In games that use the standard Overcharge mechanics, Magical Girls can take Changes mid battle
lowering their Overcharge in that attribute to 0, allowing them to continue fighting unimpeded. The following
action is intended to help bridge this gap. If you find this to be insufficient, another option is to allow
Changes to work alongside the Strain system allowing Magical Girls with at least 6 Strain on a Magical
Attribute to take a Change and reduce the Strain on that attribute by 7.
Second Wind
When you take this action, choose a Magical Attribute that you have at least 6 points of Strain in.
Reduce the amount of strain on that attribute by 7 (to a minimum of 0), but keep track of how many points of
Strain the attribute had before this reduction, in addition to the new postreduction Strain count. At the end
of the battle, you end up with whichever of the two numbers is higher. Second Wind may only be performed
once per battle, and grants you a +2 to all Defense challenges (and Support challenges to resist enemy
abilities) until the start of your next turn.
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