Third Circle of SpellCraft

Under the Veil’s throttle, Third Circle is the highest tier most mages will ever legally touch.
It’s the “scar-maker” level — the point where you stop just shifting a fight in your favor and start leaving permanent changes in the scene.

You throw one of these in a crowd and the Umbra Bureau is going to feel it across town.
The Watchers track any repeat user.
ATO and Pendrake elders treat these like loaded artillery shells — too useful to ignore, too dangerous to hand out.

Third Circle (Scar-Maker Sorcery)

System Mapping (5e-style)

  • Equivalent: 3rd-level D&D spells.

  • Damage output: 4d6–5d10 baseline, or heavy control/battlefield shaping.

  • Veil Risk: Every Third Circle cast in a populated or thin zone area forces a Veil Stress check (d20). On a 1–3, local reality hiccups — shadows stretch wrong, gravity twitches, or the air hums with voices no one’s speaking.

  • World Impact: This is the highest tier most awakened mages can survive socially; anything above this is basically contraband ordnance.

Signature Third Circle Spells

Ashwake Surge — turn the ground into burning glass

  • School: evocation

  • Cast: 1 action

  • Range: 60 ft (20-ft radius)

  • Dur: Instant + lingering

  • Effect: All creatures in radius DEX save, 5d6 fire + 2d6 piercing (glass shards). Failed save also leaves movement halved for 1 min as glass clings to them.

  • Overcast: Radius expands to 30 ft, damage +1 die each type.

  • Tags: Loud, Veil-rip hazard.

  • Lore hook: Areas hit sometimes keep “phantom heat” for days — coffee boils without fire.

Veil Shear — tear the curtain wide enough to see

  • School: abjuration

  • Cast: 1 action

  • Range: 30 ft radius centered on you

  • Dur: Concentration, up to 1 minute

  • Effect: For duration, all glamours, concealments, and disguises within radius drop for everyone — mundane or magical.

  • Veil Risk: Automatic thin spot forms here for 24 hours after cast. GM rolls for possible entity intrusion.

  • Tags: Very Loud (to the Veil).

  • Lore hook: Considered “tantamount to a crime scene” by the Umbra Bureau.

Wraith Coil — strangle the air itself

  • School: necromancy

  • Cast: 1 action

  • Range: 60 ft

  • Dur: Concentration, 1 min

  • Effect: Choose up to 3 creatures. They must CON save or take 4d8 necrotic and be restrained as ghostly cords constrict them. They can use an action to retry save.

  • Overcast: 4 targets, 5d8 damage.

  • Tags: Medium-Loud, unsettling for mundanes (“smells like rot”).

  • Lore hook: Necrotic signature from this spell can be traced days later by Pendrake inquisitors.

Thunder Vein — crack a street wide open

  • School: evocation

  • Cast: 1 action

  • Range: 60 ft line, 10 ft wide

  • Dur: Instant

  • Effect: The line explodes with 5d10 thunder; creatures STR save or knocked prone. On fail, terrain becomes difficult as asphalt or stone buckles.

  • Overcast: Damage +1d10 and width increases to 15 ft.

  • Tags: Loud, structural damage risk.

  • Lore hook: Repeated use in the same place can create permanent Veil-thin cracks along the fault line.

Solar Lance — daylight, weaponized

  • School: evocation

  • Cast: 1 action

  • Range: 120 ft

  • Dur: Instant

  • Effect: Ranged spell attack: 6d6 radiant + target and adjacent 5 ft area are blinded until start of your next turn (CON save ends).

  • Overcast: +1d6 radiant.

  • Tags: Loud-lite (messes with cameras).

  • Lore hook: Used by ATO Elders to assassinate glamoured gods in public, glamours reframe it as “light glare.”

Gravity Knot — crush everything into one point

  • School: transmutation

  • Cast: 1 action

  • Range: 90 ft (10-ft radius)

  • Dur: Concentration, 1 min

  • Effect: Creatures in radius must STR save or be pulled to center, take 4d10 bludgeoning, and be restrained. Save halves damage and avoids restraint.

  • Overcast: Radius 15 ft, +1d10 damage.

  • Tags: Very Loud to the Veil.

  • Lore hook: Weakens structures — post-cast areas sometimes develop “phantom weight,” crushing floors days later.

Spectral Battalion — call allies from the other side

  • School: conjuration

  • Cast: 1 minute

  • Range: 30 ft

  • Dur: Concentration, 10 min

  • Effect: Summons 1d4 spectral soldiers (AC 15, HP 25, +5 to hit, 1d8+3 damage). They act on your initiative, follow simple commands.

  • Overcast: +1 soldier per extra circle push.

  • Tags: Medium-Loud, Veil distortion risk.

  • Lore hook: Believed to be fragments of Tournament-Born champions sacrificed to the Veil.

Deep Silence — cut sound, cut will

  • School: abjuration

  • Cast: 1 action

  • Range: 60 ft (20-ft radius)

  • Dur: 10 minutes

  • Effect: Magical silence. Creatures inside must WIS save or have disadvantage on attack rolls while inside.

  • Overcast: Radius +10 ft.

  • Tags: Subtle to mundanes, obvious to mages.

  • Lore hook: Used by the Vance family to isolate divine targets before closing in.

Using Third Circle in the World

  • Veil Tears: Anything over 5d10 damage, or effects altering reality in an area, can cause a temporary rip. The GM decides if something slips through.

  • Political Fallout: In Bellingham’s Columbia District, repeated Third Circle use will draw Umbra Bureau clean-up crews and maybe even a Watcher representative.

  • Veil-born Echoes: Thin zones formed by these spells can manifest belief. If a pop culture monster is trending and you drop a Third Circle here, guess what might step out?