What Is the Doctrine of Divination?

The Doctrine of Divination is a wizard subclass built around foresight as burden.

This is not prophecy that hands you answers. This is divination that tells you just enough to keep moving while everything gets worse. You do not escape the Ordeal. You arrive prepared to endure it.

This doctrine reframes divination magic as anticipation, intervention, and cost. You read intent before actions resolve, you step in when rolls are about to fail, and you shoulder Stress to force outcomes into survivable shapes. Knowledge here does not prevent disaster. It decides who is still standing when the path closes.

Set within the Forsaken Province and tied to the fractured Binding of Savanostros, this subclass treats foresight as a narrowing road. Every glimpse costs something. Every correction leaves a mark.

Why Play the Doctrine of Divination?

Play this class if you want to feel like the person who saw it coming and paid for that knowledge.

Mechanically, this doctrine lets you:
• Turn near failures into successes by taking on Stress
• Read enemy intent before they act
• Convert accumulated Stress into defense
• Intervene on crucial d20 rolls after they are rolled
• Shut down rerolls, resistances, and fate manipulation at the highest tiers

You are not the wizard who prevents bad things from happening. You are the wizard who steps forward when they already are.

This subclass thrives in tense, high stakes tables where choices matter and consequences stick. It rewards players who enjoy tactical foresight, reaction timing, and managing risk across an entire adventuring day. Stress is not a side mechanic here. It is your shield, your currency, and your eventual breaking point.

If you like divination that feels heavy, reactive, and narratively grounded, this doctrine gives you power without comfort. You will know enough to continue. That is the promise.

What Is the Wizard Doctrine of Necromancy?

The Doctrine of Necromancy is a wizard subclass about survival after ruin.

This is not necromancy that cheats the grave. This is necromancy that carries it. Practitioners of the Drowned Lantern do not command the dead, they gather what remains and give it the weight to continue. Every casting is a descent. Every victory returns heavier than before.

This doctrine treats undeath as proof, not power. Proof that something drowned. Proof that the Story broke. Proof that what came back did so changed. Rather than raising armies, these necromancers bind corpses into a single Lantern-Bound Amalgam, a stitched monument to loss that grows stronger as more is fed into it. The light they carry is not meant to guide others. It exists to remind them what survival costs.

Tied to Fosvino, the Binding of the Ordeal, this doctrine frames necromancy as obligation. To rise is not triumph. To rise is to bear what was lost and move forward anyway.

Why Play the Wizard Doctrine of Necromancy?

Play this class if you want necromancy to feel heavy, intimate, and personal.

Mechanically, this doctrine lets you:
• Gain defensive resilience through exposure to necrotic magic
• Sense the presence of the dead and the unfinished
• Bind multiple corpses into a single customizable undead Amalgam
• Upgrade that Amalgam into a massive, intelligent, spell-bearing entity
• Store and deploy necromancy spells through your creation

You are not a summoner managing a swarm. You are a caretaker of something that should not have endured.

This subclass rewards players who enjoy long term companions, battlefield control through positioning and presence, and moral weight baked directly into their mechanics. Your Amalgam is not disposable. It grows, it changes, and if it falls, everything that made it collapses with it.

If you want necromancy that asks whether survival alone is enough to justify what remains, this doctrine gives you the tools and forces you to live with the answer.

What Is the Wizard Doctrine of Abjuration?

The Doctrine of Abjuration is a wizard subclass about refusal as an active, exhausting act.

This is not passive protection. This is standing in the blast radius and deciding who the world is allowed to touch. Every ward is an argument. Every barrier is a door held shut by will alone. When you cast abjuration magic, you are not asking reality for safety, you are daring it to push harder.

Followers of the Closed Door understand that saying no has consequence. The Story notices resistance. Stress accumulates. Allies are spared catastrophe, enemies recoil from ruptured wards, and the abjurer absorbs the strain of every denied outcome. At their peak, they can carve companions out of disaster entirely, erasing them from harm as if they were never there. Each perfect refusal brings them closer to the moment when even they can no longer hold the door.

This doctrine is tied to Phroniso, the murdered Binding of refusal. His death proved that the right to stop, hesitate, and deny was the greatest threat the villains ever faced.

Why Play the Wizard Doctrine of Abjuration?

Play this class if you want protection to feel earned, costly, and absolute.

Mechanically, this doctrine lets you:
• Make abjuration spells impossible to counter or dispel by taking on Stress
• Read the intent behind magical effects and wards
• Force rerolls for allies when they would fail, at personal cost
• Turn broken or ended wards into violent recoil
• Completely exclude allies from devastating effects, as if they were never targeted

You are not a background defender. You are the line. When something horrible happens, you decide who it happens to.

This subclass shines in brutal encounters, high lethality campaigns, and tables where defense matters as much as damage. Stress management is central. You will save lives, shut down enemy plays, and occasionally break yourself doing it. The power is real, but it is never free.

If you want abjuration to feel like defiance instead of maintenance, this doctrine gives you the authority to say no and the scars to prove it.

What Is the Wizard Doctrine of Transmutation?

The Doctrine of Transmutation is a wizard subclass about knowing where change breaks things.

Followers of the Gilded Hand obsess over thresholds. How much strength can a body carry before joints fail. How much speed before control slips. How long a spell can be stretched before it stops behaving like itself. Transmutation, to them, is not about transformation in the abstract, it is about limits, tolerances, and stress points.

These wizards do not trust clean upgrades. When they enhance a creature or object, they watch closely for the side effects, the hidden costs, the places where refinement creates instability. They learn to read those signs in others and exploit them, turning overstretched magic into weakness and polished perfection into something brittle. When necessary, they push spells past their intended boundaries by absorbing the strain personally, accepting that improvement always pulls a debt forward in time.

This doctrine is tied to Eudeimos, the corrupted Binding of Reward, whose fall taught a simple lesson. What you gain always asks to be paid for, even if the bill arrives late.

Why Play the Wizard Doctrine of Transmutation?

Play this subclass if you enjoy control that comes from precision, timing, and pressure rather than raw output.

Mechanically, this doctrine lets you:
• Enhance allies with powerful refinements that leave behind mechanical strain
• Identify hidden weaknesses, resistances, and structural flaws
• Convert failed saves into lingering penalties that shape later turns
• Extend transmutation spells beyond their normal duration at personal cost
• Engineer dramatic tempo shifts by collapsing effects like Haste and Slow into a single moment

This subclass rewards players who like planning several turns ahead, watching how spells ripple outward, and squeezing value out of situations that others would let pass. Stress is not a mistake here. It is the price of pushing systems harder than they were meant to go.

If you want transmutation to feel like engineering under fire rather than magical wish fulfillment, this doctrine gives you tools that work, and consequences that refuse to be ignored.

What Is the Doctrine of Wizard Illusion?

The Doctrine of Illusion is a wizard subclass about controlling attention over time.

Illusionists of the Kindly Mask are not interested in fooling someone once. They study how long an idea can be kept in place under stress. Their magic is built to remain present even when questioned, tested, or struck. An illusion that collapses at first contact has taught nothing. An illusion that endures becomes part of the fight.

These wizards design their spells to absorb scrutiny. Being disbelieved does not end the effect, it sharpens it. Every successful save, every attempt to see through the deception, every blow landed against an illusion feeds back into the caster’s control of the moment. The battlefield becomes a lesson that refuses to end early, forcing enemies to spend time, attention, and certainty just to move forward.

The doctrine is tied to Thalemene, the Kindly Mask, whose influence turns guidance into pressure. In the Forsaken Province, lessons linger longer than lies, and the most dangerous illusions are the ones that stay long enough to be understood.

Why Play the Wizard Doctrine of Illusion?

Play this subclass if you want illusion magic to matter after it has been “figured out.”

Mechanically, this doctrine lets you:
• Gain leverage when creatures see through or interact with your illusions
• Prepare illusion spells that resist scrutiny and correction
• Punish overconfidence when enemies succeed too easily
• Convert damage and attention into defensive momentum
• Sustain multiple illusion effects at once through endurance rather than trickery

This subclass rewards players who enjoy attrition, battlefield control through presence, and forcing enemies to waste actions and certainty. Your illusions shape pacing rather than delivering instant payoff. You win by staying in the scene and making every attempt to dismantle your magic cost more than it should.

If you want illusion to feel like pressure, persistence, and psychological weight instead of a vanishing act, this doctrine gives you the mask and teaches you how long to wear it.

What Is the Wizard Doctrine of Evocation?

The Doctrine of Evocation centers on ending things decisively and living with the aftermath.

Power here is direct, physical, and costly. Every spell carries momentum, and that momentum has to land somewhere. When you cast, you are part of the impact. The body matters. Your condition matters. The state you are in when the spell leaves your hands shapes how hard it hits and what it leaves behind.

This doctrine teaches control through proximity to consequence. You learn how pain sharpens output, how pressure clarifies timing, and how committing fully to a moment can reshape a fight. Evocation becomes less about volume and more about certainty. The right spell, at the right time, carried far enough to make retreat impossible.

Damage is not abstracted away from the caster. Stronger effects demand endurance. Overcommitment drains you, but it also opens access to power that cannot be reached safely. The battlefield becomes a place where you decide when to push past the threshold and accept what that costs.

This doctrine is bound to Thanarete, the Broken Blade, whose influence teaches that conflict only resolves when someone is willing to bear its weight. Endings achieved without sacrifice do not last.

Why Play the WizardDoctrine of Evocation?

Play this subclass if you want damage to feel intentional, tense, and earned.

Mechanically, this doctrine lets you:
• Convert area damage into focused executions
• Scale spell output based on your current condition
• Trade health for spell recovery and sustained pressure
• Push spells beyond safe limits to bypass resistance
• Lock in moments of vulnerability that reshape encounters

Every major turn is a choice about how much you are willing to spend to close the fight.

This subclass rewards players who enjoy managing risk in real time, watching the fight tighten around them, and deciding when the cost becomes worth paying. You succeed by committing at the moment others hesitate and carrying the consequences long enough for the ending to hold.

If you want evocation that feels like crossing a line you cannot step back from, this doctrine hands you the power and lets you decide when to draw blood.

What Is the Wizard Doctrine of Enchantment?

The Doctrine of Enchantment is built around influence that accumulates rather than resolves.

Change does not happen in a single moment here. It happens as attention is held, as resistance is repeated, and as certainty begins to wear thin. Enchantment magic under this doctrine focuses on what follows a decision instead of the decision itself. Each choice a creature makes leaves a trace, and those traces can be gathered, measured, and eventually turned back on them.

These wizards study hesitation, self justification, and the effort it takes to keep saying no. A resisted spell is not wasted. It becomes pressure. A successful save does not end the exchange. It extends it. Over time, the weight of defending one’s will builds until even confidence begins to falter.

Enchantment here is patient and invasive. Control is achieved not by removing agency, but by making agency expensive to maintain.

This doctrine is tied to Aporipe, the Turning Shadow, whose influence governs the long road back from action to consequence. The Story does not end when a choice is made. It follows the chooser home.

Why Play the Wizard Doctrine of Enchantment?

Play this subclass if you enjoy long games and delayed payoff.

Mechanically, this doctrine lets you:
• Apply lasting pressure even when creatures resist your spells
• Turn repeated saves into mounting Stress and mechanical strain
• Extract weaknesses from resolved effects
• Punish certainty rather than chasing domination
• Exhaust enemies by forcing them to defend their decisions

Your influence grows quietly. You do not win by overwhelming someone in a single turn. You win by making every turn cost more than the last.

This subclass rewards players who enjoy psychological warfare, social leverage, and watching situations tip slowly in their favor. Resistance is expected. It simply becomes part of the engine.

If you want enchantment that feels like gravity rather than command, this doctrine gives you patience, leverage, and the inevitability that follows those who keep choosing to stand their ground.

What Is the Wizard Doctrine of Conjuration?

The Doctrine of Conjuration is concerned with moments that cannot be rewound.

Movement is not treated as convenience. Arrival changes the field. Departure leaves absence behind. Every crossing marks the space it touches, and conjuration magic remembers those marks even when the caster does not.

Through this doctrine, summoning and teleportation become commitments. Creatures arrive ready to act, not waiting for instruction. Displacement creates vulnerability rather than relief. Space itself becomes something you negotiate with, learning how thresholds strain, how sudden presence destabilizes plans, and how the wrong position at the wrong time can end a fight before it fully begins.

The conjurer learns to lean into momentum. When something enters the scene, it matters immediately. When something is moved, it does not simply relocate, it loses footing, orientation, or protection. The spell is only part of the effect. The timing is the rest.

This doctrine is bound to Theiaxen, the Opened Gate, whose influence defines the moment of crossing as irreversible. Once the gate opens, the world moves forward whether anyone is ready or not.

Why Play the Wizard Doctrine of Conjuration?

Play this subclass if you want positioning, tempo, and commitment to drive combat.

Mechanically, this doctrine lets you:
• Trigger immediate impact when allies or summons arrive
• Turn forced movement into openings and penalties
• Navigate planar distortion and spatial instability with confidence
• Protect conjured creatures from premature removal
• Reshape the battlefield through decisive, mass relocation

Your power comes from deciding when the scene changes and who is ready for it.

This subclass rewards players who enjoy reading the field, setting up irreversible moments, and collapsing plans through timing alone. Once you act, the board is different. Enemies recover or they do not.

If you want conjuration to feel like opening a door that locks behind you, this doctrine gives you the threshold and asks whether you are willing to cross it.

Heroes Bleed, Too.

A Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition Supplement for the Nova City Setting.

You can shrug off a bullet. You can outrun a lightning bolt. You can trade blows with a cosmic god. But eventually, the adrenaline fades, the costume tears, and the bill for your heroism comes due. Can you survive the emergency room?

In the wake of The Vanishing, Nova City’s medical infrastructure is at a breaking point. The world’s greatest healers and "miracle-workers" disappeared along with the Paragons, leaving behind a city of wounded survivors and a "New Wave" of vigilantes who leave broken streets in their wake. In a world where a trip to the hospital can reveal a secret identity or a biological anomaly, the needle is as dangerous as the sword.

CRITICAL CONDITION is the definitive guide to the healers, the stitchers, and the bio-engineers of the front lines. It transforms medical recovery from a simple downtime roll into a high-stakes narrative battlefield where every scar tells a story and every heartbeat is a ticking clock.

WHAT’S INSIDE:

THE FIRST RESPONDERS (DETAILED NPCs)
Meet the men and women holding the line between recovery and collapse. Full stat blocks, roleplaying guides, and adventure hooks for:

• Dr. Elena Varga: The exhausted Chief of Trauma who demands accountability from every "Cape" who enters her ward.

• Jax Jackson: The street-smart paramedic with a modified ambulance and a knack for being in the middle of the crossfire.

• Silas "The Butcher" Graves: The disgraced neurosurgeon who patches up the underworld—for a price you might not want to pay.

• Kira "Pulse" Mori: The technopath bio-hacker who treats DNA like source code from her mobile "Med-Sled."

• O-Negative: The mutant hematologist running a secret blood-bank for those the city refuses to treat.

• Nurse: The silent, cybernetic powerhouse who proves that sometimes the best medicine is a heavy-duty bodyguard.

NEW MECHANICS: THE TRAUMA CYCLE

Stop treating health as a binary state. This book introduces systems to make the cost of heroism feel real:

• The Triage Encounter: A high-pressure skill challenge system for mass-casualty events where players must decide who lives, who waits, and who is beyond help.

• Trauma Debt: A lingering injury mechanic that translates "bruises" into narrative complications, affecting your stats and your story until properly treated.

• Medical Boons: Unlock specialized doctors as assets to gain access to illegal cyber-tech, power-stabilizing serums, and "Safe Harbor" clinics.

THE OPPOSITION: VANGUARD MEDICAL

Not every monster hides in a sewer. Meet Sterling Thorne and the board of Vanguard Medical Group. They don't see patients; they see intellectual property.

• The Optimization Contract: A seductive trap for heroes to receive "Platinum Tier" care in exchange for their biological data—and their autonomy.

• The Ambrosia Crisis: Details on the street-drug giving civilians unstable powers, and the corporate sociopaths at Bio-Synthetics Inc. who are using the city as a petri dish.

A LIVING CITY

Explore the fractured anatomy of the Nova City healthcare landscape, from the frantic, overstretched halls of Nova General and the cold corporate luxury of Vanguard, to the hidden, pulse-pounding clinics of the Sanguine Network.

READY-TO-RUN ADVENTURE HOOKS

Three complete scenario hooks, plus random tables for Breaking Medical News, Emergency Complications, and The Spin Doctor to generate instant drama when the heroes finally stop punching and start bleeding.

The villains know that to break a hero, they don't have to defeat them in the sky; they just have to wait for them to fail on the operating table.

Who will stitch you back together? Find out in CRITICAL CONDITION.

Requires the Mutants & Masterminds Hero’s Handbook. Set in the Nova City Universe but compatible with any modern street-level superhero campaign.

CATWALK - ANIMATED FVTT BATTLE MAP PACK

What is this, some kind of walk for cats? Deep in the beating heart of a factory, the ventilation ducts of a highly protected research installation, or the bowels of some massive helicarrier, these passages and their (required) safety railings protect any who would walk upon them from the precipitous drop down below. Hopefully no-one happens to slip, or get pushed off! Fully animated and available in a chaotic variant where things aren’t going quite so well, and one where a red alert has been triggered, perhaps by a band of careless infiltrators, this map will have your players doing their little turn on the catwalk!

All are hooked up and ready to play in FVTT.

What's Included:

• 3 .jpg maps 30×40 (3000 x 4000)
• 3 .webm animated maps
• Direct link to install the Foundry VTT file (from within foundry)

FAQ:

Do these maps work with Roll20/Fantasy Grounds/XXX virtual tabletop?

You can import the JPG and WEBM files into any system you use to play your games online that allows them, however, the LoS I have setup only works with FVTT.  If you use FGU, look for me on DMsGuild!

Five dice for Geoffquest's Boldly Go! role-playing game. Space Fleet's Sun and Rocket logo indicate a successful roll, while the blank blue background (perhaps reminiscent of the emptiness of space), indicates a failure. Their usefulness is somewhat limited for other games, unless you desperately need a way to roll for a 33% chance of success on something.