Spell Cubes
Appearance: A regular-sized Rubik’s Cube; while looking like a toy, it feels heavy in one’s hand, and metallic to the touch. Spell Cubes are not invulnerable, but they can take a battering and still function.
Use: typically, a miniature grimoire. Each Spell Cube can hold up to six basic spells. Traditionally, the spells are variants of the following:
Red: Heat
Orange: Move
Yellow: Glow
Green: Deflect
Blue: Cool
White: Heal
To activate, touch the center square on one side, concentrate, and spell whatever magic energy is required. The basic spells do not need to have the Spell Cube in a pattern to work, but they also have very mild effects, and the amount of energy that can be put into one is limited.
Creating a pattern with a Spell Cube can produce more blended (and powerful) effects (for example, combining Heat/Deflect to make a fiery shield), but the process is not instantaneous. At a minimum, the caster will have to make both magical skill rolls to define the effect, and a physical dexterity check to weave the spell together. On the other hand, magical failures involving Spell Cubes give much less dire results.
Spell Cubes are typically used in mages’ academies to give apprentices practice in both basic spellcraft and hand-eye coordination. Most mages graduate to direct magical manipulation, once they graduate, but a few do fiddle around with Spell Cubes for their entire careers. It gives them something to do with their hands, you see. And it’s useful when you don’t want to worry about generating a serious magical backlash over a simple spell.
And, yes: those mages do modify their Cubes. An Archmage’s Spell Cube could have all sorts of spells on it.