WIZARDS OF XICARUS
[c. 2,182 words]

INTRODUCTION
Wizards of Xicarus is a story-telling game for three or more people. Two players take on the role of mages in an epic (EPIC!!!) duel. Other players pose as wizards watching the duel who interact with the duelists and adjudicate (in character) any departure from the correct “forms.” The goal of the duelist-players is to describe a fanciful and exciting duel, totally aggrandize their own characters, and demolish/humiliate their opponent (by depleting one of their opponent’s resource pools). The goal of the spectator-players is to spur the duelists on to ever more ridiculous narratives, settle disputes, and generally be a colorful audience.

THE WORLD OF XICARUS
The default setting is the ancient world of Xicarus.
	•	The sun of Xicarus is dim and cool. Only the incomprehensible devices of the ancients keep it warm enough to sustain life. It is believed these devices feed upon the planet’s core and the death of Xicarus will come when they consume the last of the earth’s molten center.
	•	The ‘civilized’ world consists of feudal wizard-lords who rule the land with magical iron fists from within their exotic fortresses, jealously guarding their territory and arcane secrets through duels. The aim of their duels is to eliminate, embarrass, obligate, or rob rivals of their secrets.
	•	Duels are elaborately staged but quickly resolved events resulting from ancient and volatile grudges. Spectator wizards transport themselves to the site of each duel to hear the adversaries say irretrievable and gloriously vicious things about each other. Sometimes the things said are even true. Also, every duel represents a potential shift in the balance of power.
	•	Duels occur in grotesquely flamboyant arenas or parks, the features of which often play an active role in the duels. Constructors labor for months to custom-build each venue according to the endless and petty requests of the duelists.
	•	Xicarus is populated by uplifted animals and monstrous aberrations that barely resemble the beasts of the planet’s past. The ancients were rather fond of experimentation. Additionally, Xicarus is a nexus of many planes and creatures from those other dimensions often slip or are summoned through the ether to Xicarus. Inhabitants of Xicarus often appear in duels as mounts or things summoned for their peculiar abilities/properties.

MAKING A WIZARD
This section is for the duelist-players only, though spectator-players are welcome to prepare their own wizards for future duels. In this section you will make your character sheet and assemble your dueling kit – a small bag of dice and tokens.
Draw three large circles on a sheet of paper. This is your character sheet and the circles are your resource pools; label them Face, Energy, and Lore. Divide 15 points between your pools (each must get at least 1 point) and record the number for each in the circles.
Choose two schools of wizardry and note them on your character sheet. Your schools give you a particular style in the arena; they both inform and limit the spells that you describe.
	•	Illusions - form phantasms that trick the senses
	•	Conjuring - fashion objects seemingly out of nothing
	•	Disintegration - break, burn, and blast
	•	Portals - open doors from one place/time to another, teleport yourself
	•	Summoning - call, bind, command, and banish creatures
	•	Necromancy - raise and command the dead
	•	Transfiguration - change the form and appearance of a subject
	•	Glamor - alter a subject’s attitudes and behaviors
	•	Shapeshifting - change your own shape and/or appearance

[Feel free to make up additional schools with your group, so long as they are focused. I could see an Elementalism school, maybe even four (differentiated by element) that would replace Disintegration. Stay away from broadly useful schools, i.e. Force.]
Each spell has five potential dimensions, write the names of these dimensions on your character sheet under or to the right of the school names. Draw a small check box next to each. You will check this box if you have a dimension impacted during the duel (see Dueling!).
	•	Corporeality - the spell has a tangible presence/effect, it can be measured, seen, felt, smelt, etc.
	•	Dynamism - the spell is animated, moves around, and maybe ‘tracks’ an enemy
	•	Control - the spell is subtle, precise, or especially potent
	•	Temporality - the spell has a lasting and evolving effect, or possibly slows or speeds up time
	•	Execution - the casting of the spell itself is impressive (flashy or an obvious display of skill)

[Here is a sample character sheet, yours may vary as long as it has the requisite components.]
Find a small bag and put two six-sided dice that you can tell apart in it, one is “positive” and one “negative,” representing the positively and negatively charged winds of magic. Throw in 21 tokens of three distinct styles. Your bag must contain enough tokens of each style to fill the resource pools based on the numbers assigned. The remaining 6 can be any mix of the three styles you like and can change from one duel to the next. Your opponent won’t know anything about these tokens until halfway through the duel. Just remember, you have to be able to tell at a glance which token belongs in which pool and you can’t start with more than 21 total. (Exception, see Veteran Wizards below.)
Example: Your wizards stats are Face=4, Energy=4, and Lore=7. You have assigned yellow poker chips to Face, green to Energy, and blue to Lore, so you must have 4 yellow, 4 green, and 7 blue in your bag. For your remaining six chips, you choose 5 yellow/Face and 1 green/Energy. Your hope is your opponent will waste time hitting your Face and then find out you are well-stocked in that pool.

POSTURING
The game begins with shorthanding the weeks leading up to the duel in which the venue is agreed upon and constructed. (Why the wizards are fighting will be revealed during the duel itself.) Each player, including any spectator-players, takes turns adding one descriptive element to the arena (or expanding on another’s element). The goal of this exercise is to seed the arena with some cool props that the duelists can use later. Record the group’s ideas as a bullet list on a separate piece of paper, thearena sheet, and keep it nearby during the game. Once there are at least 6 elements on the arena sheet, any player can say “pass” on their turn. As soon as any player passes, all the other players may (optionally) each add one more element. The game now moves to the Dueling! phase.

DUELING!
At the start of a duel, if you are a duelist, set out your character sheet and place the correct number/type of tokens in each pool. The remaining 9 stay hidden in your bag for now. If any of your pools gets emptied during a duel, you must immediately empty your bag and put all the remaining tokens in their respective pools. (The exact count of your resources is unknown until your opponent wears you down some.)
The spectator players begin with a collective pool of 7 coins. These coins are used for Wagering (below) and should be distinctive from the player’s tokens. These are divided as equally as possible among the spectators and kept in hand. If they cannot be divided equally, leave any extras on the table and spectators can claim/use them as they like.
Take turns casting spells. The person with the most Face goes second.
Casting spells involves your knowledge (available schools and dimensions), creativity (spell descriptions), and ability to channel the chaotic winds of magic (the dice). At the beginning of your turn name a school and two dimensions, then roll your dice and subtract the negative one from the positive one. Read and act on the dice as follows:
On a 4 or 5 – 8% chance – describe your spell (see Describing Spells below) and discard one of your opponent’s tokens (your choice). If you choose Lore, impact one of your opponent’s dimensions. (Check it off; your opponent is at -1 to cast spells using that dimension for the rest of the duel. You can only do this once for each dimension. A dimension can’t be “double-impacted.”)
On a 1, 2, or 3 – 33% chance – describe your spell. Your opponent must discard a token (their choice).
On Doubles – 17% chance – there was a power surge, describe your spell. Discard one of your opponent’s tokens (your choice) and then your opponent chooses one of the following twists for you:
	•	Drained – you have taxed your powers; write “Drained” somewhere on your character sheet. The next time you roll a 0, erase the status from your character sheet and you lose the use of an entire school – the one named for that roll – for the rest of the duel. You may, instead, remain “Drained” and spend 2 Energy tokens to prevent the loss of a school, but you will face the same decision the next time you roll doubles. If you lose the use of both schools, you will lose the duel!
	•	Dazed – your opponent chooses and “impacts” one of your dimensions; you may discard 1 Lore token to prevent it, however.
	•	Fouled – you broke one of the complicated and unwritten rules of duels. Roll a single die; on a 1-3 the spectators noticed it and you discard 1 Face token.

On a -1 to -5 (negative die is higher) – 42% chance – Your opponent describes how your spell was a disaster, countered, or otherwise failed. Steel yourself; they may insert a healthy amount of gloating! After this, you must add a detail as to whyyou two are fighting. Either embellish/naysay something previously uttered by your opponent or respond to one of the following prompts based on your score.
	•	-1 – Your opponent dishonored/harmed one of your ancestors, how?
	•	-2 – Your opponent stole something of incalculable value from you, what was it?
	•	-3 – Your ancestor and your opponents were rivals, at (something other than spellslinging) …?
	•	-4 – Your opponent started a rumor that you …?
	•	-5 – You need to reduce your opponent’s status because …?

Doubles Rule!
Impacted dimensions and Wagering (below) can affect the dice. However, the dice may be modified into doubles, but they may not be modified out of doubles. In other words, if you rolled doubles you are stuck with them! And if you rolled a +1 while using an impacted dimension (or +2 while using two impacted dimensions), you will end up with doubles.
Describing Spells
Wizards should describe their spells using only the school and dimensions named. This is trickier than you might think because the goal is also to entertain the spectators. One additional resource is the arena sheet. You may use something from this sheet in your description. If it’s obvious that you destroyed or depleted the thing in using it, cross it off the sheet; it may not be used again.

SPECTATORS
This section explains how spectator-players get into the act, but duelist-players will want to read it too.
Adjudicating Appeals
At any time a wizard can appeal to the crowd of spectators, claiming that his opponent cheated. (Specifically, described a spell in a way that clearly used a school or dimension not named or a school that the duelist has lost the use of.) The spectators then vote and take two points of Fame from one of the wizards – the caster if they uphold the appeal or the complainer if they deny the appeal. Spectators are allowed to take into account eloquent phrasing of the appeal, in addition to whether they believe the spell description in error. In other words, the decision can be “unfair.” Deal with it.
Wagering
Spectators are also encouraged to hoot, holler, boo, or clap after a spell description. If a spectator feels strongly that the described spell was impressive and/or entertaining, or made great use of the arena itself, he can throw a coin at the casting wizard. This coin is placed in a wizard’s Face pool. It may later be discarded in place of a Face token or it may be spent to add one point to one of the wizard’s dice (not his opponent’s dice) in a future roll.

LOSING
You lose the duel if either of the following is true:
	•	One of your pools is empty and you have no tokens in the bag. You permanently lose 1 point of the depleted pool and your opponent permanently gains 1 point in the same pool.
	•	You forget both schools. You permanently lose 1 point of Lore. Your opponent permanently gains 1 point of Lore.

Then, your opponent describes how you lost, including your exit from the arena. You may not say anything unless your opponent grants you the space to do so!

VETERAN WIZARDS
Wizards that have had stat changes may have a number of tokens in their bags equal to the total of numbers written in their pools +6. So a wizard who has won a single duel and lost none would have 22 tokens.