Spell:Stormwind Rider

Source: Book of the Emerald Circle by Brian Hon/Limited Reagent

Cost: 15m, 1wp

Circle: Emerald

Type: Simple

Keywords: Obvious, Sustain, War

Duration: Until no longer Sustained

The sorcerer calls up a mighty wind and wraps herself in it. The result is a dust devil — a tornado-like vortex that is smaller and less devastating to the landscape. The dust devil flies low, usually just touching the ground. The stormwind vortex can jump obstacles (Essence x 5) yards wide or (Essence x 3) yards high but cannot actually fly. It can survive falls of (Essence x 3) yards and completely protects the sorcerer and any other contents during such short falls. If the vortex falls any farther, it dissipates on impact. Treat longer falls as (Essence x 6) yards shorter, with a minimum of a 0-yard fall, for the purposes of determining damage.

The dust devil carries the sorcerer and (Essence x 200) pounds of passengers or cargo at an overland movement speed of 100 miles per hour. It is immensely maneuverable. The vortex treats Difficult terrain as Open and Extreme terrain as Difficult. In combat, the dust devil is treated as a Control Rating 0 mount large enough for a howdah (which it does not need; the passengers and cargo are lifted to that height by the spell's winds), although it is not compatible with Charms or other powers that affect mounts. It can take 48-yards-per-tick Dash actions and 10-yards-per-tick Move actions, and can change direction as quickly as a man can on foot. It is controlled via thought. The stormwind vortex lasts as long as the sorcerer Sustains it or until the sorcerer touches the ground.

The roaring winds impose a -(Essence - 1) external penalty (which counts as cover) on physical ranged attacks into or out of the vortex, a -(Essence) external penalty on Awareness rolls to recognize those inside and to hear others' words when within (Willpower x 3) yards of the sorcerer. It also protects those within the vortex from outside winds, but no other environmental effects. Those within the dust devil also cannot make Stealth rolls to hide, as the vortex is quite loud and very obvious. It's considered polite, when using a stormwind to visit an associate, to land a fair distance away and approach on foot.

If the sorcerer casts this spell with long ticks, he can produce a vortex that can carry a unit up to Magnitude (Essence) in size, along with (Essence x 200) pounds of well-organized and well-packed unit supplies. The sorcerer must be attached to this unit. Mass combat movement speed multipliers for formation do apply.