Warding Spells

What is a Warding spell?

  Warding spells are very different from other spells.   Most spells are cast on living creatures on inanimate objects or groups of related creatures or objects. Or else they conjure something on the scale of a creature or object.   Warding spells are cast on places, like persons or things.   Most warding spells are protective or defensive in nature, but this isn't a requirement. For instance some Illusion Warding spells are purely cosmetic.  

It IS the size that counts

  Warding spells do not have a uniform casting time or casting cost. The bigger an area being warded, the longer it takes and the more quintessence or mana is expended.   Warding spells require the caster to make a slow walk around the area in question (or a slow boat ride or swim if warding an island or a ship).   A normal spell's quintessence or mana cost is the level of the spell. For a warding spell, this is the base cost.      

Casting Rolls and Duration

  Most of the time, a caster does not need to make a dice roll to cast a Warding Spell, unless the caster is making the spell under durress like during storm or while evading enemies. In which case make one representative roll.   Under ideal conditions where a roll is not required, treat every dice in the casting pool as a success.   Successes Rolled   Lesser Warding spell: One hour per success   Common Warding Spell: one day per success   Greater Warding Spell: One week per success   Mighty Warding spell: One lunar month per success   The duration is only for a caster walking around a defined area. The Law of Sanctums can magnify this.   Soft and mostly symbolic boundaries like a tent or a rope fence double the duration.   Simple structures like wooden fences or wooden or sod houses quadruples the duration   Basic fortified structures like watchtowers or wooden stockades octuples the duration.   Fortresses, castles and stone city walls magnify the duration of a warding ten times over.  

Using a Locus

  Creating an Arcane Locus for a warding spell is optional. Arcane Loci have many advantages but they have one very drawback in that it makes the warding much easier for an enemy to dispel.   The Arcane Locus doesn't have to be in the dead center of a warded area, but it has to be near the center at least.  

The drawback

  Casting Dispel Magic against a warding normally does nothing though if they roll four or more successes will cause the aura of the ward to flicker, making it obvious and revealing what the schools of magic are.   Casting Dispel Magic at the locus will take away one "success" of warding away per success the dispel magic   Physically destroying the locus will cause the remaining duration of the Warding to decay at ten times the natural rate.   Arcane loci require anywhere between 10 and 100 drams of durable reagents though this is a one time fee.  

The upside

  Creating an arcane locus halves the cost of quintessence or mana to create the warding (round up). It also makes renewing the warding much easier. If a warding is down 25% of it's original duration or less, a caster can recast the ward to renew spell in a fraction of the time and without physically walking around the perimeter of the warded area.   Slowly walking around a castle to cast a ward during peacetime is fine, that is extremely dangerous to do during a siege.   Using an arcane focus also increases the duration of the warding by 20%.