For Magic Mondays today we give you an array that will give you the time you need to defend yourself.

This week we show you the Second Wind array.

Notation: Slow, in an area in the shape of an Inverted Dome three times as wide as the array and ten times as long, Humans if Humans are present.

Class: Defence

Description: It seems that for every defensive array that exists, there are twenty or more offensive arrays. There are only so many ways you can stop something harming you, but a near infinite ways you can harm someone else. This array takes an interesting approach to defence, in that it doesn’t actually defend you per se, but gives you the time needed to defend yourself, or to strike before your opponent’s hit lands.

The Second Winds works quite simply: it slows the person attacking you, making them move at half normal speed, in the hopes that you can bring a weapon up in time to deflect the blow, or indeed it can give you the time to kill him before he lands his blow. It’s the how, rather than the what, that makes this array interesting.

The main focus around which this array works is the affecting rune (Slow) rather than the centrum as is the norm. This is because it is the shape of the effect the array creates which is all important. If you simply left out all the size and shape runes, then this array would slow all humans in front of it, with the more energy put into the array making the effect bigger and bigger. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but if you point the array the wrong way it can slow your allies or even part of your own body that is over the area of effect.

So instead, with the help of the Invert rune, this creates a dome (with the tip of the dome in the centre of the array) that stretches out away from you. This gives you some room to move around the edges of the array as the area of effect curves away from you towards your enemy. It also allows you to be specific in who you want to target and so if there are a few enemies you (and perhaps some allies) are fighting, you can pinpoint which enemy to target and help the battle speed along.

Also take note of how the Circle rune works here. Normally it creates a flat disk, and with the size runes attached to it, it would have created a cylinder three times as wide as the array and ten times as long, but because it is attached to the Contain rune, it actually stretches the dome to fit into that space. In effect, this conglomeration of size and shape runes creates a round cone with its top on the centrum.

It also should come as no surprise that this array should probably not be put on your clothing and armour your movement would invariably cause some part of your body to cross the field of the array’s effects. Keep this array to shields and bucklers that you can keep away from yourself. Or if you are feeling paranoid, keep this array on your back and you won’t have to worry about getting backstabbed anymore.

If you want to get more arrays and incantations, check out our Journal of Array Design over on DriveThruRPG, now also available as a deck of magic cards.

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