Card of the Week: Karma

Ah, yes. One of the original color hosers. So mean and so effective!

A Lesson Learned

I had just left the bogs when she found me. I had spent days there, exploring every treacherous pool and crossing every stretch of unstable ground. I left no plant unsampled, no animal untracked. I even drank of the foul waters of the place. Though unpleasant, those days of slogging through knee-deep water and nights spent huddling for warmth by smoky fitful campfires were worth it. I had bound the ley lines of the bogs to my soul and could now use them in the pursuit of black magic.

Black magic had, up until then, held little interest to me. While I recognized its power, I was unwilling to make the sacrifices required to use it—I would leave that to more foolish souls such as my sister, who succumbed to its corruption almost as soon as she first channeled its dread power. But my curiosity got the best of me when I learned to commune with Demons, whose Tutelage promised to enhance my power greatly. As far as I could tell, dealing with these Demons was relatively innocuous: they did not require a Vampiric blood sacrifice, nor did they demand an Infernal exchange of secrets in return for their knowledge. Perhaps my soul will be forfeit when I die, but I have managed to live for eons and I intend to stay that way for eons more.

She found me when my clothing was still caked with swampy mud, when my skin still itched with the welts of the bog’s biting insects. Looking back, I realize that she was waiting to waylay me or any other mage that emerged from the mire, for she had prepared for the battle. But at the time I thought myself fortunate. I was confident in my magic, especially now that I had the Tutoring of Demons to draw upon. She would be a good test of my ability, and perhaps I would take a new spell or ley line from her in victory. Laughing to myself, I drew upon my new ley lines as we prepared for in battle.

At first, the fight went according to plan. The Demonic whispers were indeed helpful to me, and I found myself with the advantage. But she showed no fear, even as she fended off my Lions. She merely drew upon her own ley lines, then cast a spell I had never seen before.

The agony was immediate and blinding in its intensity. It was as if thorny tendrils had wrapped around my limbs, my torso, even my face. With every breath, they seemed to wrap tighter, to choke more air from my lungs, to pull harder to wrench me limb from limb. And they followed the paths that my black ley lines took through my body so closely that there could be no doubt that my ties to the Swamps were the cause.

I tried to fight through the pain, but it was to no avail. To make matters worse, in order to summon greater entities, I needed more mana...and all I was able to bind was more Swamp lines. Each of those lines was another lash of agony across my mind and body. Inevitably, I soon knelt in defeat before my rival. The pain of her spell and the shame of defeat were bad enough, but her laughter as she stood over me made it worse. “There is a price to pay for your corruption, fool,” she sneered as she plucked the knowledge to call upon the Erhnam Djinn from my mind. “Karma ever returns the evil of your actions upon yourself.”

I have never forgotten that defeat. Though I still dabble in black magic from time to time, I do so knowing that my magic can be used against me in the most brutal of ways—even if I choose to disregard it, I have learned well of the risk. I have also learned to use this Karma myself, and it has proved exceedingly useful in my battles against those who dare use their black magic against me.

Cause and Effect

Karma is a concept far broader than the narrow punishment for drawing black mana from the swamps. It is the relationship between cause and effect of one’s actions: the deeds that one commits—whether good or evil—are returned by the multiverse upon oneself. Indeed, if we are to be reincarnated after death—as many believe—Karma persists after death, and the deeds of our current lives affect the circumstances of our future lives.

The lotus is a symbol of Karma to many traditions: the flower contains seeds even as it blooms, the present and the future in one place. It's not just a symbol of great power...

In common usage, though, the concept of Karma is usually applied as cosmic “justice”, or the multiverse’s punishment of one’s evil deeds. To put it simply, “what goes around comes around”. The weaponization of Karma into a spell that turns a mage’s devotion to black magic into mind-crushing pain certainly falls into this usage.

Dishing Out Karma

As it is restricted to punishing only those who bind themselves to Swamps, Karma is usually not universally applicable. White mages have for ages held it in reserve in case they should encounter an adept of black magic, but very few count it as one of their main spells. The chance of Karma being useful does not outweigh the guaranteed usefulness of other spells, and it is thus drawn upon only when it is certain to be useful. But when that certainty is there, it is as powerful as magic comes.

Not shown: Cyclopean Tomb. I'm just not cool enough to have one...yet.

Some mages, however, have found ways to expand the situations where Karma is effective. Through the devious use of blue magic, a mage can Phantasmally change a rival’s lands to Swamps or Hack Karma to affect other ley lines as easily as it normally affects Swamps. Likewise, an artificier can call upon the Cyclopean Tomb to corrupt a rival’s ley lines to the point that Karma affects them. But while these techniques can be effective against all rivals—not just those who employ black magic—they are usually not efficient enough to hold their own against more focused spellbooks.

Danatoth of Alsoor


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