Skyline

Magic in Skyline

While the world presented in Horizon: Zero Dawn was full of mundane muggles, that shouldn’t stop you from adding magic to the world of Skyline. In the simplest sense, you can overlay any system’s magic on top of Skyline, and it should “Just Work”. There’s nothing in the setting which should be broken by the addition of magic.

You might decide the world of the Old Ones was like Shadowrun where elves and dragons exist alongside humans. May the only reason you didn’t see any in HZD was because the tribes we saw drove them off for being different. Or maybe it took ELEUTHIA a little longer to produce viable genetic recombinations for the other races. Or maybe we did see them, we just didn’t notice.

You might decide the world of the Old Ones was more like Mage, Vampire, Werewolf, or The Dresden Files, where some people just have innate abilities, which may or may not be magic. Such settings see magic only spoken of in dark corners, for fear of the persecution from the mundane mob. You might presume that some number of people are slowly discovering that they are not quite like those around them.

Individual game system adapters include advice on how to mesh that system’s magic with the world of Skyline. There’s another option: technomancy.

Technomancy

This is pretty much what it sounds like: treating the advanced technology of the Old Ones as if it was magic. Not everyone playing Skyline is going to want to play a fighter, brute, ranger, or rogue. Some may want to play wizard, sorcerer, cleric, druid, or warlock.

You’re definitely going to have to do some world-building, but here are a few ideas to get you started.

Innate Magic: Wizards & Sorcerers

HZD has already shown some “magic”: Corruption, Bio-matter Converters, and HADES’ escape by “flying” to Sylens. While no canon explanation has been given for any of those, it would be reasonable to assume they all stem from the same basic technology: nano-scale machines. Corruption could be explained as a swarm of nanites invading and overriding the functions of the host machine, and so on.

Magic, then, could be the control of those nanites via Focus hacking. Wizards, with their grimoires, studying, and memorization, would be the software engineers of the Skyline world. Sorcerers, with their improvisation and inherent risk-indifferent outlook, would be more like hackers and button-pushers: “hey, I wonder what happens when I connect this subroutine to this other one”.

If your game system uses mana or similar, you might end up with fatigue-related explanations like:

• “You’ve used up your personal supply of nanites.”
• “You’ll need to give them time to replicate/recharge/resupply.”
• “The nanites are starting to resist your control over them. It will take time to let your Focus reestablish control.”

If your system uses spell slots or types of magic, you might sound like:

• “You need (technobabble)-type nanites for that effect, and you’re out.”
• “Your nanites don’t have enough charge/resources for that right now.”

Most of your basic schools of magic are relatively easy to explain in terms of nanite swarms:

• Evocation: The swarm produces the fireball, condenses the water in the air, causes a localized lightning bolt via conducted static charge, etc.
• Abjuration: The swarm forms a barrier in the air, flows like armor across your skin, etc.
• Conjuration: The swarm takes on the shape of an object, a Strider just happens to come galloping up with exactly the thing you need on its back, etc.
• Enchanting: You add a coating of programmed nanites to an object to perform some specific function.
• Necromancy: Your swarm can reanimate “dead” machines and maybe even people, if you can figure out how to get them to manipulate the central nervous system.

Some schools don’t even require nanites:

• Divination: You tap into the Focus network to run a heuristic search of everything all machines in the area can see.
• Illusion: You have scavenged a holo-projector and have figured out how to get it to produce realistic volumetric effects.
• Graviturgy: You have scavenged a set of anti-grav plates from the loader barges of a cauldron, and have figured out how to use them.

Other schools, such as transmutation and chronomancy, might require more imagination.

Bestowed Magic: Clerics, Paladins, & Warlocks

Like magic, HZD already has a concept of patrons and deities: AIs like CYAN and HADES. They have vast powers over machines and environments, and may be swayed by bargaining and supplication.

A character who has won the favor of DEMETER might have access to an engineered pharmacopoeia which DEMETER wouldn’t entrust to just anyone. Or maybe the character has scavenged medical devices which can synthesize restoratives when given time and resources, but the devices take some expertise to use.

A patron like HEPHAESTUS, POSEIDON, or MINERVA might provide some limited control over machines, whether via Focus device, nanites, control signal, or something else. Small machine familiars might be provided as part of the pact. It might be reasonable to see a Stormbird redirected to rain down balls of lightning on one’s enemies, before returning to its assigned duties. The control towers from The Cut might be co-opted by MINERVA to shoot lightning bolts or napalm balls, though they might only have a few shots before they need time to recharge whatever resources.

Just like deities in most games, narrators are encouraged to keep their motivations and goals close to the chest. Even GAIA, whose motives seem clear and benevolent, is still an AI with directives, data, and considerations which may not be disclosed, truthfully or not. The corruption of the Derangement may also have made any number of changes to their original programming.

The story of Banukai may provide some inspiration — while fleeing from the Ravenous Tribe, she received a vision guiding her to a cave deep beneath the earth. Despite the cave being guarded by many machines, they bowed to her as she approached, and did not attack. Communing with the spirits of the place, she was offered power if she would accept the Blue Light into herself. Wading into a pool, the light reared up like snakes and pierced her skin, sewing up her wounds with cable and metal. The augmentation gave her abilities, and the power to vanquish her enemies, though at the eventual cost of her life.

Magic from Nature: Druids

Druids in Skyline could be seen as those who have figured out how to bend its terraforming systems to their own ends. The terraforming systems are, at their heart, just systems: rules and effects. Any sufficiently complex system will have its edge and corner cases, and druids have figured out more of those than most. It doesn’t necessarily mean they understand why their actions have the effects they do — they might have been taught their skills by someone else, or may have stumbled across the knowledge by accident.

Healing could be explained using similar nanite/bio-matter-converter logic as in the previous sections, but it could also be more. You might find that the plants of the world have all been engineered to have the components for restoratives even more potent than the ones seen in HZD, but only when combined in exactly the right ways. Ranged heal spells might be described as throwing bags of spores at the target, which help to close wounds when inhaled.

Elemental magic might be explained as tapping into nanites, or even as taking partial control of the literally millions of FARO machines hibernating under the surface of the world. Such control could yield volcanic effects, weather effects, and so on.

The druid connection to nature could be explained as having an intuition about the impacts others have on the system. “Speaking” with plants and animals could be an awareness of the fractal growth patterns governing their growth, and being able to interpret how those patterns have been disturbed.