Passing Strange Pt. 6 Magick
Hi! Remember I was writing a game of modern weirdness called Passing Strange? I almost did. Now I'm back at the keyboard, and what follows is a chapter on magick.
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| Your fingers weave quick minarets. |
Magick is the way by which one bends the world to one’s will. Magick knowledge is hidden among a lot of nonsense, half-truths and ego, but it is there to be sought out and learned by everyone.
The step that opens the conjurer up to magic is one that must transcend routine, or exaggerate some facet of it. This is by no means a safe or certain process. Many search, but few find, and few things in this world are as dangerous as the seekers after wisdom.
5 Strains of Magick
Magick is divided into five strains. Some call them traditions or schools, but whatever the name all true occult philosophers agree on this division. They are the basic components of the human condition (commonly called Heart, Soul, Mind, Flesh and Blood). It is not impossible to learn magick of several strains, but most practitioners focus on one or two.
In many rpgs there is a defense against magick, a saving throw or some other way to buck its influence. In Passing Strange there usually isn't one. Magick is extremely powerful, but it drains the caster. It is also often unreliable. There are many magick workings which affect and warp thoughts, emotions and behaviors, but it is never entirely predictable what a target of magick might do under its influence.
The Five Strains all deal with the human condition in some way, and their power is associated with humanity in some way. It utilizes human follies, human beliefs and human communities in various ways. Against non-human entities it is much less effective.
Trying to affect the thoughts, emotions and societies of mineral-creatures of the Deep Earth, extra-terrestrials, or threats from other dimensions (such as the Mime Police) is a wildly uncertain business. In game terms the GM has leave to mess with a player who attempts to exert power over non-humans. Magick coming from within the caster or somehow transforming the caster will usually work.
There is a Sixth Strain which deals with a new and alien world being born into ours. We’ll look into it in a future post. For now it is sufficient to say that it is considered nonsensical, dangerous, and a kind of ontological betrayal by practitioners of the Five, as far as they’re aware of it.
Luck is Magick
Each magical working has a cost in Luck points. If a player character pays the cost, the magick works (with the caveats mentioned above). A practitioner might find themselves in need of more magical oomph pretty quickly. There are two ways to cheat the universe into giving up a little more power:
Ritualized self-harm
Whether by cutting, starving, becoming a social pariah, or hanging upside-down from a tree, harming oneself does provide some mojo. Two points of SP harm translates to one point of Luck for the practitioner. Those without magical training cannot do this.
Besides the harmful act, some form of music is needed. It might be an ancient chant, a rude ditty or a re-purposed pop song, but the practitioner must make some sort of musical noise in order to facilitate the transformation.
Human sacrifice
This is exactly as grim as it sounds. Through a six-hour ritual culminating in the killing of a human being, the practitioner gains power. in crude terms the practitioner steals the victim’s Luck along with their life. It is possible to use a willing sacrifice, but they cannot have been tricked into being meat for the sacrificial dagger. It’s murder or martyrdom.
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| I'm SO NOT with you in Moloch! |
Here follows some magick workings grouped under each of the Five Strains. This is not an exhaustive list, and the players and GM are encouraged to come up with more.
sŭrtse (heart)
The magick of the Self. The knowledge that all that exist are changes within. Some might say the power of solipsism and hubris.
Strong As Samson
This working requires that the caster eats nothing but boar meat for a week. The caster bathes in blood of the same animal. For the next 25 hours there is no limit to the caster’s strength. Her Physique stays the same, but her ability at breaking or lifting things is only limited by her ability to grasp them and keep her footing. It often means that the caster will push their hands straight through whatever she’s lifting.
Luck cost: 6
For my flesh is meat indeed
The caster cuts meat off herself with a new knife. For each SP of damage they may feed 1D6 people. The wounds do not heal until all the meat is eaten, but the meat does not spoil.
Luck cost: 2
Blinder by the Hour
The power of the caster’s Self outshines the target utterly. For one hour the victim has lost all sense of their own identity. They will in effect be an amnesia, unable to take any action of their own other than avoiding obvious harm.
Luck cost: 5
Army of Me
The caster must use a blade that is older than she is. She cuts herself for 1 SP and her Prowess becomes a 10. Her Prowess isn’t diminished by fighting more than one enemy.
Luck cost: 4
The Solipsist’s Scalpel
What doctors and surgeons merely play at, this spell does for real. The caster must use a small knife with a blade made from sharpened human bone. As part of the working she must cut herself for 1D3 points of damage. While the spell is in effect the caster may do any of the following:
Learn the exact nature and history of the target's ailment (by cutting the target for one point of SP damage).
Luck cost: 1
Remove any natural disease from the target (by cutting the target for ¼ of their SP)
Luck cost: 1-6, depending on the severity of the disease.
Remove a supernatural affliction (such as lycanthropy) (By cutting the target for half her hit point total)
Luck cost: 5
Remove a curse (by cutting the target for damage equal to the number of Luck points the curse cost)
Luck Cost: 5
Remove a memory from the target's mind (this must be done with the target's consent. The target must specify the memory to be removed. She loses 1 point of Brains permanently from the procedure).
Luck cost: 2
Cause a possessor spirit or demon to manifest (This costs the target 1D6 hit points and doesn't banish the demon).
Luck cost: 3
dusha (soul)
The magick of that which is immaterial and immortal. The wisdom of collective thought-forms. Some might say the power of self-abnegation and relinquishing control.
Someone Knows Something
The caster may learn a piece of information, provided at least 100 people know it. In order to do so the caster must eat a hundred pages of writing she has not read. The answer comes in the way of a few sentences written on a blank piece of paper, on a wall or in the margin of a book.
Luck cost: 4
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| One man's prognostication is another man's pica. |
The Threefold Curse of the Hermit
This is three curses, but they are always learned together, and it seems to be impossible to transcribe the three parts separately.
Part the first: The target feels a great anxiety when leaving their home (or similar place of safety). If they do go out they must pass a Brains test or lose 1D6 points of SP. Being reduced to 0 only makes the target pass out.
Luck cost: 2 per day
Part the second: The target is no longer considered a part of whichever community, subculture, kith or kin means the most to their identity. Hey will not hate the target, but any sense of community, confidence and basic belonging is gone.
Luck cost: 3 per day
Part the third: The horrid third curse excludes the target from humanity. Other humans will react to their presence like they would an animal. They may be met with perfuncury kindness, disgust or they may simply be ignored, no matter their suffering or entreaties.
Luck cost: 7 per day
True Colors
With this working the caster may learn the target’s true allegiance. The target might not know themselves what greater entity they are part of, but they will find out along with the caster. It can be an unpleasant experience to realize that one’s tie to the serial killer fandom subreddit is stronger than that to one's family. It is possible to cast the working by touch or from afar (using a sympathetic link).
Luck cost (touch): 3
Luck cost (at distance): 6
The hole in their lives
The caster may become functionally invisible in a place they have been before. She must wear a loose blindfold or a pair of sunglasses on which the Mannaz (man) rune is painted in their own blood. The caster will still be seen, but will be considered to be a part of the in-group (Nomad bikers, country club, members, people with Top Secret clearance. It only works if the caster has been in the location before, and does not help the caster if she steps out of line.
Luck cost: 4 per hour
Egregore
According to Eliphas Levi “The least of the Egregores, with a breath, and by dilating suddenly the latent caloric of our earth, might shatter and reduce it into a cloud of dust.”
He was partly right, the appearance of an egregore is a terrifying occasion. It is a great unearthly energy given shape and direction by human communities. Unless it is the other way around.
The caster must be an active member of a defined body of people (it must consist of at least 1000 individuals and have existed for at least 10 years or vice versa). The caster must be aided by ten individuals from this group, or else kill a person belonging to it.
The day grows dark (or the night deepens) and the sky fills with intricate sigils and baroque designs. Then the egregore appears as an idealized individual belonging to the group in question. Multicolored light sweats from its pores and its features are in constant slow flux.
The egregore will want something in return for its service. The caster must make a Brains roll (and Luck cannot be substituted).
The egregore is capable of doing the following (among other things):
- Bring back a dead person, provided said person hasn't been dead more than a year.
- Transport ten named people anywhere between here and the Moon. A relation to the group which the egregore embodies must be stated for each.
- Cure a person of all diseases, wounds, infections, addictions, poisons, unwanted ideas and mental states.
- Turn a single person into a bodiless entity of pure intellect.
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| Or a pony. |
um (mind)
The magick of creation. Making that which Is Not into that which Is. Some might say the power of lies.
Tailor of Light
The caster pierces her palms and each of her fingers with a silver needle This working allows the caster to:
1: Copy a color perfectly from nature and apply it to a material.
2: Sew together smoke, insects, dust, or tears. Anything but living human flesh.
3: Copy a sound perfectly from nature to accompany a garment (whether a natural one, or one created in (2)). You could have a silk gown sounding like a skylark.
4: Return color to a substance which has been drained of same.
5: Create a length of fabric from sunlight.
After 25 hours any changes are reversed
Luck cost: 1 for each type. 2 further points maintains the change
Foundational creation
The caster sings a song in a language which seems to be all harsh consonants. She then creates an element (from the periodic table, not that classical nonsense). Not a lot, just enough to fill her cupped hands. The wise conjurer uses gloves.
The created material is impermanent.
Luck cost:
1 point: the material lasts 1 hour
5 points: the material lasts a day.
10 points: the material lasts a week.
Crystalline Thought
The caster may externalize a thought or idea in the form of a brittle white crystal. The caster must be able to express the thought in as many words as her Intelligence stat (or fewer). The thought crystal is sugar-sweet, and may be dissolved in drink, hidden in food, or just left behind. A person who ingests a thought will experience it, and will not usually be able to distinguish between it and their own thoughts.
Luck cost: 1 (bound into the crystal until it is introduced into a human system)
Baptismal Portal
For a moment the area in front of the caster becomes a birth canal spewing for undifferentiated tissue, biological potential. It will rapidly take the form of a new-born entity.
The spawn will regard the sorcerer as its parent, but is incapable of genuine affection. It will mature at an alarming rate. As it is basically a lie given physical existence, it with try to wrest control from the caster as soon as it thinks it can get away with it.
Day 1: The spawn is a wide-eyed infant. It sleeps,eats and makes unwholesome animal noises. It does as the caster commands , but quickly gets peevish when it encounters opposition.
Day 2: The spawn is a toddler. Everything is done with great energy, but little precision. The caster is viewed as a near-divine being, but everyone else is treated with childish cruelty.
Day 3: The spawn is a child. It pesters the caster with questions about how the world works, why things are the way they are, and why humans are so weak. It follows commands, but an unpleasant creativity sneaks into its execution of the tasks it is given.
Day 4: The spawn is an adolescent. It will carry out tasks with greater intelligence, but is frighteningly moody and will occasionally challenge the orders it is given, or 'forget' to carry them out in favor of pleasure. Physical discipline may be needed.
Day 5: The spawn is almost mature. It will openly challenge the caster, but will be amenable to bribery and credible threats. When it obeys the results are impressive. It enjoys inflicting harm, often in unexpected ways.
Day 6: The spawn is a monster, a horrible being in full control of its faculties. One of the following things will happen:
1: It attacks its caster-parent without hesitation.
2: It disappears in a puff of brimstone. It WILL return to exact its revenge.
3: It runs off, but is likely to leave suffering in its wake, and may possibly return later.
4: It tries to strike a bargain with the caster.
5: It dissolves back into chaos-tissue, defiling the area for years to come. Plants and animals are still-born or subtly wrong.
6: It stays as a truculent and sadistic servant for another six days.
Luck cost: 3
The Mahakali Pact
They say that Shiva without the active force of Mahakali is a corpse. This mighty working infuses a person who would otherwise be dead with the force of Mahakali.
A person infused with this divine energy remains alive for 2D6 hours. They can be immobilized, blown to smithereens or shot into orbit, but they will not die before the time is up. They cannot be kept alive beyond this span of hours though. All leases run out.
The magick can only be cast on a willing target with 1 or fewer SP.
Luck cost: 10
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| Borrowed time is all anybody ever gets. |
tyalo (flesh)
The magick of desire. The valiant attempt at filling the Void. Some might say the power of voracity and blind yearning.
The Wisdom of Innana
This most basic tyalo-magick lets the caster divine a person’s fondest desire. It requires the caster to study the target for 6 hours straight. Even in this age of social media, it requires proximity to the target, or else obsessive scrutiny of the target’s medical journals, bank statements and interviews with their loved ones.
Luck cost: 1
What you seek is seeking you
The caster enters a brief trance. When she emerges a manifestation of her desire is making its way towards her. If the caster wishes to use it to find some specific object or person she must first quell all her other natural yearnings. This requires a Brains check. Otherwise she is likely to be approached by some manifestation of food, sex, or status.
The wise caster will realize that ‘a manifestation’ is a weaselly expression.
Luck cost: 2
Justified Ennui
Anyone can say that they believe life to be meaningless. Being forced to live it is another matter. This working robs the target of all things which distracts them from the Void.
How this affects a person is impossible to predict. Some people go on out of sheer force of habit, while others go mad in spectacular ways. If the target succeeds at a Brains roll, they realize who has done this to them.
The working requires a two-hour long ritual in which the caster must draw a sigil over her heart with acid.
Luck cost: 2 per day.
Painted Fire
For an hour the spell’s target loses their desire for one the caster supplies. It cannot be something suicidal, but otherwise there are no limits. Once the target has been subjected to this spell once, it no longer works on them.
The spell requires a sympathetic link to the target. A lock of hair, blood, or at least a meaningful item.
Luck cost: 5
Meaning
This spell gives the target the feeling that the world makes sense and is in balance. Nothing is pointless and deeper meaning continues to reveal itself like fractal blossoms. Some might call this Satori or beatitude. It also makes the target lose their stats at a rate of 2 per day from each. The target will not die, but will descend into a deep dream-state from which they cannot emerge under their own power. Before this happens they will have great oracular powers, but will be increasingly difficult to understand. The spell is often cast to gain insight otherwise impossible.
The target must ingest a black lotus for the magick to take effect. They cannot be forced to do so, but can be tricked. The black lotus is generally considered extinct or fictional.
Luck cost: 10
kruv (blood)
The magick of raw emotion. The belief that all must endure your pain. Some might say the power of unbridled aggression and destruction.
Rage spread thin
The caster’s anger is contagious. They caster must repeat a litany of slights against her (real or imagined) starting with a whisper and ending with a scream of primal rage. After about ten minutes a number of people that the caster can see will have contracted her rage. It lasts for at least an hour, but how long it lasts beyond that, or what the targets will do while under the influence of this new hatred, is highly individual.
Luck cost: 1 per target
A Draught of Bile
The caster manifests the wrath she constantly feel as an acid within the body of a person she is pointing at. The caster must be able to see the target in the flesh and the target must be able to see the caster (at least in theory). The caster utters an ancient Elemite term of loathing and the target starts coughing up vivid green bile and deep red blood.
Luck cost: 2 per D6 of damage.
Lyssa’s horse
The caster invite the spirit of maddened rage to possess her. The ritual takes an hour and involves a chant in ancient Greek and drinking a concoction of wine, opium and dog’s blood. During the possession the caster will have the following stats:
Prowess: 10
Physique: 9
Brains: 2
Luck: Unchanged
SP: +5
Unarmed attacks do 1D6 damage
The caster’s eyes turn a solid red, and her voice becomes guttural and pained. The transformation lasts until sunrise or -set, whichever comes first.
Luck cost: 5
The rabid curse
Rage makes weak as well as strong. With a touch and the word “rabiosa” the caster curses a target with the curse of sickening rage. It takes effect in stages.
Approximately 1 hour: The target’s eyes become sensitive to light. Their mouth becomes dry, and they often have to search for words other than accusations and threats.
Approx. 2-3 hours: As above, and the target’s Brains is lowered by 3 points (to a minimum of 1).
Approx. 4-5 hours: The target can only react with rage. They develop severe hydrophobia, insomnia and hallucinations.
Approx. 6-8 hours: The curse usually end. A very few become paralytic, slip into a coma and die.
Luck cost: 5
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| Show me my rival. |
Did your mother give birth to murder?
A simple divination which may lead the caster to her enemies. It requires spilling a few drops of her own blood along with honey into a pot of boiling water. As it cools the blood and honey will congeal into a sign related to an enemy. Depending on what the caster most wants to know, it might indicate the enemy’s whereabouts, numbers, strength, intentions or the full extent of their misdeeds. The answers will be somewhat symbolic, but accurate.
Luck cost: 1
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