Ritual Magic in Savage Worlds

I stole an idea from Dungeon World and created ritual magic for my Savage Worlds fantasy campaign. In Dungeon World, a wizard may try to create any magical effect by casting a ritual. In my fantasy campaign, a character can take an Edge to achieve similar results.

Ritual Casting

• Requirements: Novice, Smarts d6, Spirit d6

This Edge allows for any magical effect: from the creation of magic items, cloud fortresses, or demi-planes; to the awakening of a long sleeping god, to invoking terrible curses. Etc. Etc.

There are always conditions that must be met:

• It must be cast at, on, or during ____

• It’s going to take days/weeks/months

• You must sacrifice/offer up/destroy/disenchant ____

• First you must ____

• You’ll need help from ____

• It requires the following material components ____

• The best you can do is a lesser version, unreliable and limited

• You and your allies will risk danger from ____

There is a new skill associated with this Edge: Ritualism (Smarts).

Casting a Ritual is a Dramatic Task. Each turn is at least one minute but could be significantly longer. Failure results in something catastrophic happening.

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I plan for this Edge to be mostly used by NPCs to help explain the world. For example, the Hellmouth exists due to a Ritual, whether a successful one or one that went awry is still to be determined. 

For powerful rituals, there would be a corresponding penalty to the Dramatic Task. In Realms of Cthulhu, there is a spell to awaken Cthulhu with a -36 penalty. Knowledge of the Mythos, as well as taking extra time to cast reduces the penalty. More importantly, for my purposes, having others assist you also reduces the penalty. The need for others to assist helps explains the existence of cults and wizard schools.

There is not an Arcane Background Edge requirement for the Ritual Casting Edge. Anyone is capable of taking it. The relatively easy requirements to take the Edge as well as the need for multiple casters means that different groups of NPCs can use rituals for particular purposes. So a band of knights might have a ritual to protect one of their own when they are on a dragon slaying quest. A local thieves guild might have a ritual to keep their headquarters hidden from prying eyes.

Rituals in Dungeon World are free form and are created on the fly as needed. That certainly works, but I am thinking of something more formal. In the game world, a Ritual must be written down. A Ritual might be found scribbled in an eldritch grimoire or carved on a cliff face. 

Rituals also offer adventure hooks. There may be quests to find or steal a scroll with a particular Ritual written on it. Currently, the PCs are trying to stop followers of a wolf god from casting a Ritual that will turn the cultists into werewolves.

The open ended nature of Rituals allows for a dynamic game world. I will continue to explore possibilities as the campaign progresses.