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Letting wizards cast infinite spells with bizarre unpredictable costs made my game so much better and I need to tell you a bit about it before I start with the post proper.

The blessing that is my Eldritch Stonehell campaign keeps on delivering good vibes. For example last week the party sprung a home invasion on a Mummy on level 4 and… they all failed their save against paralysis. Even the cleric. Even the exorcist. I let the session fade to black, this week the rest of the team (we have about 9 players, but last week the party was just 4 of the regulars plus 2 guests) will go on a rescue/ransom mission.

Now, before you call me cruel for unleashing a mummy on a level 5 party, let me explain: the party knocked on her door and Morden the cleric slid under the door a leaflet of Saint Myriad of the Abundant Step, his patron saint. Then, through the closed door, the group had a conversation with the mummy, who was courteous if a bit cranky, and begged them to let her go back to her eternal slumber.

They did not.

They barged in and proceeded to get royally screwed.

This pattern of behaviour happens every time they do a home invasion or plunder a temple: the group collectively knows they are doing something really dumb, they do it anyway, and then they get cursed, or people die. Or, in this case, they are captured by a mummy who is asking for a princely ransom.

Anyway. Back to spells.

Something really valuable I learnt from this campaign is to give the gift of infinite spells to casters. I literally let casters cast as many spells as they want.

The gift is to them as they can cast more spells and they like more spells.

The gift is to the party as the wizards are more useful.

The gift is to me because I want the party to succeed.

The gift is for everyone at the table as the price wizards pay for casting so many spells turns the game in an eldritch horror fantasy that’s a true delight.

Let me explain a bit better how this works: casters have a number of spells per day as usual, using normal memorization, or Wonder & Wickedness rules, or Chthonic Codex rules. They can cast those spells normally: if they limit themselves and stick to the letter to the rules of magic everything will be under control.

And if that’s not enough they can break those rules. Every single one of those rules. And magic will probably come out.

Casting spells when out of slots? Make a wisdom check or collapse 1d6 turns.

Casting a spell of too high a level? Make an intelligence check to avoid things go completely out of control.

And then, since you broke the Rules of Reality, also make a Charisma check, to see if Fate & the Gods smile upon you. In case they do not smile, the spell does not work, and we roll on spell catastrophe tables in Wonder & Wickedness or Book of Gaub. Or on one of the many GURPS Magic Magic Critical Tables if I feel cheerful and whimsical.

(this is very similar to the Rules for Sorcery in the appendix of Book of Gaub)

A small sample of the catastrophes happened so far:

* The B/X elf soul left his body and joined the flame of his lantern. Now he’s kind of immortal is a strange way, but if the flame goes off he’s dead dead. (The elf is played by my cousin, who is craftily planning interesting ways to abuse this result while making sure he’s not annoying anyone at the table, because he’s kind. This catastrophe also retconned the souledness of elves in the game world)

* The auto-necromancer (imagine if a wizard had a Pharaoh’s Book of the Dead as a grimoire) is now completely useless with any kind of device more complex than a spoon. For example they cannot operate a butter churner. Or shoot a crossbow. Or open a door. Or un/fast a buckle. Or tie a knot.

* The ex-gnome* necromancer’s (the more normal necromancer) flesh turns into ashes if a human touches them.

So yeah those are sort of spicy and lead to interesting regretsies that are annoying but make the game so much more interesting. Interesting and weird. Very weird.

Buy but BUT before the spell comes out the caster takes 1d6 spell stress damage points on a random stat. That’s a meaner, less chill, more gambly version of Spellburn from DCC, that at the same time gives you higher chances of casting more, but also has a chance of utterly disabling the wizard if any of the stats goes to 0 or less, and even killing them if that stat happens to be Constitution and the caster’s Con is already compromised.

(Duny/Sparrowhawk took Charisma damage casting the ghostly mist spells that saved his village at the beginning of Earthsea, and was unable to speak and left sparkless until Ogien showed up and healed him)

Anyway, I found out that stat damage is great to hurt characters in a more disabling way that’s progressive and mostly non lethal, as opposed to hurting their HP which is unfortunately both lethal non-progressive (being at 1 HP is as good as being at 100). You can deal this kind of stress damage for other reasons, for example when players decide to push rolls; I do not recommend letting them push saves, attack, or damage rolls, but the stat rolls above are prime targets for being pushed. Yes, take more stat damage, greedy wizard.

I’m also considering other ways to signify stress on characters. For example, Murkdice has a good post on stress and I’ll be sure to nick some of their ideas very soon. I’m writing this because Murkdice’s post gave me some bit of praxis discussion to participate in, but also because this kind of bullshit seems to make my game much more entertaining.

*: ex-gnome because after he died the Elf cast on the corpse the off-brand Reincarnation from Wonder & Wickedness. They asked me which table I’d use for determining the new form, and I foolishly/brilliantly asked “the random encounter table depending on where you cast the spell”. So they went to Stonehell level 4, and rolled an Ochre Jelly. This is not a huge problem if it wasn’t that jellies do not have eyes, so cannot read paper, but can only clay tablets or carved stone (by touching it). So the necromancer was carried around in a big metal pail for a few sessions, until the party bought a Potion of Girl (from the Oglaf strip about the Fountain of Girl) and poured it into the pail. And that’s how the necromancer is now an anime magical girl. With eyes!

Lee Reynoldson’s Wulfwald is available at the Bundle of Holding. It’s going at about 55% discount, and it will last only a few hours. You get the PDFs of all five booklets, plus the PDF of the map.

What you do not get is the physical five booklets, box, and map. You can get the Wulfwald boxed set from the Lost Pages shop.

As an aside: I know I ignored the blog for a while. I did some more long-form writing for Knock!, and it should appear in Knock! 5. I do not like writing much, but seem to distinctly prefer longer form. Once that comes out I’ll probably post that stuff here as well.

I’m also working on a few posts: one on what’s going on in my Stonehell campaign, one on running microconvention such as Lasagnacon (I ran Lasagnacon Seven last August), and one on… Dog Necromancy (also related to Stonehell). I’m also preparing a new kickstarter, which should appear fully formed pretty soon.

I’m posting this as an a reminder to my future self, a word of warning, a selfish act of self care:

Not creating is an expensive choice.

The cost of creation is often only the cheap momentary discomfort of staring in the eye your own creation.

And finding it wanting.

And that is ok.

Let the imperfect creation be, let yourself down, let yourself go so you can go do better, shinier things.

The expense of not creation is those weird niggling ideas, lack of expression, and the special regrets found in older souls.

Which one would you rather pay?

Caveat: this is not a post with 22 spells, one for each of the Major Arcana. This is a post about how I do things at the table, based on a few years of practice. Maybe a post with Major Arcana spells will eventually come (or maybe Major Arcana as Star Signs). Let’s begin!

If you happen to generate a spellcaster character at my table you’ll soon hear that question: “What kind of spells would you like?”

And some lucky people have an idea and tell me. In this case, my go-to handbooks to draw spells from are Brendan’s Wonder & Wickedness and my own Marvels & Malisons. I often throw in Chthonic Codex and Johnstone’s The Nameless Grimoire as their scopes are much wider.

Some other people do not know. And this is what this post is really about. In this case I ask them if they want to get random magic, or maximally random magic.

If they pick normally random, I ask them for what kind of vibes they’d like, make myself some suggestions, then pick the most matching vibey RPG spellbook from the shelf. My favourite is Mike Mason’s The Grand Grimoire of Chthulu Mythos Magic, because I am a horrible GM that wants to see the world on fire empowering GM who loves sharing great powers and great responsibilities with players. I normally open an index page at random, point at a random spot on the page with my eyes closed, and give them that spell. This approach requires a modicum of game mechanic bending, but treating all spells as level-less does 95% of the work.

However, they almost always pick maximally random. If they pick maximally random, we get to the heart of the post. My grimoire hoard.

Flexing a Past Shame: My Spellbook Hoard

Hi, I’m Paolo, and I’m a recovering hoarder. I used to say “collector”, but let’s face the truth: I was not seeking completeness, instead I was over-nesting as a coping strategy. Anyway, liking books and magic and games I ended up with a sizeable fantasy RPG collection, and now I have a few shelves devoted to esoterica, of both the real-world and gaming variety.

Play is a creative process, let it run

Back to maximally random spell selection: I ask the player to roll 1d30, and pick the corresponding book from the top shelf. That is their spell discipline, and we randomize spell selections from the book contents: if there are spells or spell-like (like the lists of demons from Ars Goetia), we pick at random from those.

If not, I open pages at random and turn the contents into a spell. Some of those books have very adaptable content (for example tarots can be easily turned into spells). Some of those books, however, resist. The answer is to read the page until the inspiration strikes, and work that precious passage into a spell. There are many ways, these are simple suggestions:

• Use the passage as the spell name.
• Based on the passage, build the spell effect
• The passage is just a metaphor, girl! The true nature of power is hidden!
• Use a thesaurus to replace words until it it clicks.
• Pick a few spells that sound related and mash them.
• Exquisite corpse for spell effect: each player pics a fragment of spell effect, which are then composed: a player pics verb, another object, another adverb, another adjective.
• And so on.

And now you have your spell.

I understand that this might not be easy. It requires a willingness to play half-baked stuff. Maybe this will make some completely broken spells. Maybe you are afraid letting this magic into you game will let people down, if the spells are garbage or if they need to be toned down for game design reasons.

That’s ok. Grant yourself the luxury of, essentially, do some seat of the pants game design. Play test it with players straight away. Be explicit about the process with your players, and please let them contribute to the process: do not let the shared creation limit to their PCs.

Paolo, you mentioned Tarot Magic

I could have written 22 spells, one for each Major Arcanum. I even started doing so. But I do not feel that is what this post should be about. Instead, we are going for “how to make things up”. Also, this is actually what happened at the table last time, and what prompted me to share this process.

Major Arcana have strong vibes and meanings. If you want a list, Waite’s The Pictorial Key to the Tarot is a good place to start from, but skip the most of it and go straight to the Greater Arcana Divinatory Meaning list. My idea is: each Arcanum can be cast for a spell effect tied to its Meanings: as always, if you need a yardstick for spell power, match it with other spells that a caster of the same level could cast.

However: Major Arcana have a lot of meanings, especially if you are in for card “reversal” (I am normally not). This give Arcana a lot of what I call utility: an Arcanum can be used in many more situations with great effect compared to ordinary spells. I feel this might make Arcana too handy, so maybe they could have some complication to both even it out and make things more interesting (a win-win). Here are some improvised examples:

• Cost: each Arcana has its card as spell focus: they are a material component that is not consumed. Drawing a card costs 50gp multiplied by the square of the card casting level, and takes a day per card level. So if you are level 10 and have only a level 5 Chariot, you’ll be able to cast Chariot only as if you were level 5, or you can spend 10 days and 5000GP to make a fancier, level 10 Chariot card. Level 1 Wizards start with three level 1 cards from their Arcana selection, and if they know more (because of high intelligence, for example) they need to find or draw up more cards. This is a good money sink for wizards, and also lets the GM place cards as treasure. Maybe you can even cast the Arcana as scrolls, but that would be really expensive.
• Lack of Control: as each Arcanum has different meanings, we could lean on the random nature of card divination. When you cast an Arcanum, decide which Meaning you wish to bring forth, then try a Reaction Roll to see if the Gods favour you:
  • 10 or more: the Meaning of the chosen Arcanum takes effect.
  • 7, 8, 9: the GM picks a different Meaning from the same Arcanaum and applies it to the situation in a way that benefits the wizard. Good stuff, but not what you expected.
  • 5, 6: pick a Meaning from the same Arcana at random, and the GM applies it in a way that either benefits of impairs everybody, or in some snidey borderline inoffensive, random-ironic way.
  • 4 or less: pick a Meaning from the same Arcana at random, then the GM applies it in a way that incoveniences the Wizard. Be painful, but do not be too mean: Unless cast in the direst of circumstances this should not doom the wizard by itself.
• Random selection: rather than learning specific Arcana, the wizard learns a number of Arcana slots, filled at random. Decide with the players if the Arcana selection changes every day, or the single slot changes when it’s cast. If you want to be extra fancy, and stick to the concept of the Fool’s Errand, the wizard will need to go through the whole Major Arcana before cast arcana are available again.

These are only examples, and can be further developed and refined. Remember to check in with players, especially the caster. Also, very important, treat this as a work in process: before the next session you can discuss how things went and adjust, and eventually the rulings you make during resolution might become more codified, and the effects from those spells start to coalesce into road-tested game mechanics.

This is, after all, a learning experience.

Conclusion

Regardless of what happens, the outcome is this: I get the appropriate book out of the shelf, discuss a spell selection with the wizardling, they pick 3 + intelligence bonus spells, plus the spells that all magic users know how to do: Maleficence and Arcane Bulwark and Open thyne Third Eye. I then explain Empower, and we are ready to go.

The next post might be about starting inventory. Which is kind of funny, because it’s also the topic of my first blog post here, about a million years ago.

What’s on the Altar? (1d12, based on my altar, somewhat redacted)

1. a small journal filled with the tribulations of the soul. A collection of shames and pains, going from heart-rending to seemingly-innocuous-yet-causing-hangups.
2. a pomegranate, a symbol of abundance and fertility.
3. poppies, a symbol of dreaming, the subconscious, and letting go of pain.
4. an ammonite, a squid who was alive and doing its own things 240 millions years ago, which is a good amount of time to meditate about.
5. a conker.
6. CDB oil, to ease mild issues of anxiety and hypermobility both.
7. a candle, for light, fire, focus in flame meditation, and many other uses.
8. a nazar, to catch the evil eye.
9. a singing bowl, with mallet and pillow, for focusing meditation.
10. thimble and needle, at the same time meaningful symbols of needing preparation before dangerous tasks, focus for binding and healing, and the ultimate tool for the mundane sorcery that is bookbinding.
11. a tarot deck.
12. a monster hunting kit in a jute pouch.

TL;DR: Yochai wrote a book. I’m producing it. It has sick art. The kickstarter goes live tomorrow. Day one backers get a free iron-on patch.

Need some convincing? We have a video!

Look at some pretty mockups to whet your need for beautiful books.

Ok, we can all make a cute cover, but this book is pretty also on the inside.

Yes, one of the dungeons is shaped like the Tree of Life. We also have a really powerful angel-summoning book detailed inside, with sigils, and powerful powerful magic requiring a heavy heavy price.

We need your help, so if you like pretty books please back the project. I hate to say this, but Beyond the Pale is a pretty book, and to make it we need to pay our fancy Estonian printer and swanky Swedish paper mill. Also, and the all-Jewish team has bills to pay too (I’m the only gentile that worked on the book).

Now, let’s take some time to discuss how this bad boi of a book came to be. Let’s begin from the beginning.

Last spring I was doomscrolling on twitter, when I see Yochai posting memes.

I’m a basic girl as there are many and I love my esoteric/dungeon/silly intersectional memes. Also, yes, the writing and art was almost done, but there is done, and done-done.

Then I see this:

Then I look at the images and… is this the most majestic goat I’ve ever seen?

Yeah, it’s Azazel. Yeah, it’s hella majestic. Yeah, it’s a goat.

Guess who slid immediately into Yochai’s DMs, half-drunk, at the local trans bar karaoke night?

Yes, me.

(Come to think about it, it might have been Lady Gaga night. I might have been tipsy at queeraoke doomscrolling while singing VENUS by Lady Gaga. Sometimes I really need to stim).

So, yeah, we are doing this thing. It’s a pretty pretty book with some pretty grim things inside. Not the same kind of grim as Gaub: different grim, different themes, and overall not only a horror book.

Somewhat related: we’ll be at Dragonmeet! All hardcover backers that come to our table at Dragonmeet will get a small freebie (while supply last). How to find us? With the map!

For a change, this year we’ll be at the Upper Trade Hall.

Should you lose the map, you can find the Lost Pages table because we have a 4.5 metres tall banner. That’s 15 feet for my metrically-impaired readers: I bough by mistake an outdoors banner, and it’s HUGE.

It does not even fit in selfies. In photo it might look big, but in person it looks positively stonking huge. I’ve been forbidden to put it up at UKGE for health and safety reasons. I’m not even kidding.

It’s also black and has a giant eye, yes 🙂

Anyway, see you at Dragonmeet. And, maybe, consider helping us with making Beyond the Pale a real book?