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One thing I was thinking of exploring was “spirits”. A lot of spells in Superno state that the mage must “trace a circle, and write the names of three spirits” or “he must write the name of a special spirit on the object” etc… I think it is obviously good to assume that a mage would have knowledge of perhaps “generic spirit names” usable in their spells, and not complicate things further. Having said this, it could be fun to actually create a library of spirit names and sigils which a mage could learn and add to spells. Adding one of these more “advanced” spirits names to a spell would require a roll, perhaps mnemonics, or calligraphy etc…, with success allowing a bonus on the actual spell roll, or some minor benefit. It could also be possible to create a system by which a mage could call on a spirit for protection at any given moment, perhaps under the form of a memorized first level spell (“Invoke spirit”?), and correctly calling the spirit and tracing his sigil would provide some minor protection.
Learning the name of one such spirit would require some time, perhaps as a function of the power of the spirit in question, vs. the level of the Mage, and of course, it would be contingent on having either a teacher capable of teaching it or a book containing the information. Learning the name/sigil would involve memorizing the name and the correct invocation words, as well as memorizing and being able to correctly mentally visualize the sigil.
There is a lot of material to plunder… erh… get inspiration from and establish a list or library of such spirits with minor info on each so the player and DM can decide on which spells or rituals they may be used. And this list could be connected with specific books. The Mage might make it a goal to find copies, etc… to learn specific names. Many spirits are connected to the planets, for example, and could be used, with their sigils correctly traced, as a substitute for a talisman.
Yes, Aquelarre is a cool game. It got a kind of legendary cult aura in Europe for many years, I actually have the first edition in Spanish in black and white, it had a very graphic, stylized type of illustrations. The more recent editions are gorgeous, too. As a book, it never minced its words, LOL, in a very spanish way! They had some problems with conservative traditionalist media accusing them of Satan-worshipping, though not as bad as they would have had in the US, of course (I think).
You can see some of the black and white illustrations here:
https://roldelos90.blogspot.com/2020/02/sobre-las-ilustraciones-de-aquelarre.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-69273-8
This part is amazing:
“…believe it is the effect of the recipe rather than one single ingredient…”
“She said this could suggest people were carrying out detailed scientific studies centuries before bacteria were discovered.”Hahahahaha!! No shit, Sherlock!
As for this being “pure nonsense” or not: I have a VERY healthy respect for all of these – let’s put it this way, for want of a better term – “spiritual technologies”. I doubt they subsisted for thousands of years (and still do…) if they didn’t have some utility, whatever it might be. Even if you do not subscribe to any supernatural explanation (and I would be hesitant to completely dismiss the supernatural as a legitimate path of inquiry), we know enough about persuasion, hypnosis, neuro-linguistic programming, conditioning, brain-washing etc… to suspect that much was at stake in all those methods of magic. I have extensive knowledge of “techniques of transformation of the self” from the East, and particularly the Daoist (and to a lesser degree the Buddhist) tradition, and I can recognize a lot of the same “analogical similarities”.
It wouldn’t cross my mind to actually reproduce some spell or summoning technique in an RPG book. Plus, they are widely available on the internet without us having to take responsibility for its dissemination.
[ edit: YES!! I did see the thread of Al Barqan’s advice on a … water problem resolution! 🙂 ]
Please, don’t think I don’t love Codex Superno just because it doesn’t have an explicit demonology section, I think it’s great, actually, it’s SUPER, NO? 🙂
Seriously, I think it’s one the most interesting game supplements on magic I have seen these last few years, and since it’s meant for D&D, quite helpful for me. And it’s not like there aren’t other games that do the demonology thing and can easily be used and mined for info and inspiration (like Aquelarre, which even has “demonic” in it’s name). It’s always interesting for me to see how different players and game designers approach a given subject, in this case, how to create a nice low-magic system that reflects and is inspired by medieval practices of magic. Like I had mentioned, Lion & Dragon went a completely different direction, towards a system that doesn’t even have spells, just specific skills the mage uses, and it’s interesting that the fundamental, not subject to choices like the others, skill, is summoning used to summon demons and force them to do things for the mage (give information, perform divination, cast some spell on a third party, provide a familiar or a lesser demon to serve the mage for a while, provide the mage with a temporary talisman that could be used to do some magic operation, etc…). Clearly, the author felt that this was the most common of skills for a medieval mage (or the one that best suited his style of play of course). In later supplements, there is plenty on summoning other spirits, of the hours, decans, etc… But I think it’s maybe too simple (he is in the OSR movement, though, so…) and I do like the idea of there being spells. Maybe a mix of the two concepts would be great.
I have that book “Unlocked Books” (in PDF), but haven’t read it yet. I am no specialist, just well-read and most of what I know and interests me in magic is because of RPGs. I have been trying to find as many of those books in the “Magic in History” series, and have a bunch of them. I never even dabbled in magic!! 🙂 I have dabbled in Daoist systems of meditation/inner alchemy, and some of them include plenty of (quite cool and interesting) star magic rituals, invocations of various divinities, etc… (this because of my martial arts practice), but outside of meditation and some breathing training etc… don’t do it anymore. My father was a big specialist on the Hermetic Tradition and Alchemy, and I know quite a few practicing alchemists (both Portuguese and French).
I just like the idea of a high risk/high reward practice like demon summoning!
I have some ideas about stuff that might be interesting for Codex Superno, will post them later (not about demonology).
Regarding the demonology and Goetic manuals, it is clear to me that by the early 15th century most of what is the standard later contraptions of seals, diagrams, etc… was in place, so I think it is perfectly adequate. Note that I think also that since these manuals were more “transgressive” and possibly the ones concerned with non-demonic spirits (like spirits of the hours, directions, zodiac, angels et. al.) were more acceptable to the church in general, we may have a distorted view of the actual prevalence of these practices. For example, it is possible to do some statistics and compare, for example indexes of various medieval libraries, and note how many books included were (or might be) concerned with spirit/theurgic magic, and compare to the number of actual known surviving manuals and then extrapolate the number of nigromantic/demonological manuals by comparing the know surviving ones and multiplying by the ratio. I have a doctorate thesis on ars notoria by a french specialist that does just that, and posits that demonological treatises were probably as numerous as theurgic ones, they probably were just more the victims of book burnings and so on.
This is L’Ars notoria au Moyen Âge et à l’époque moderne. Étude d’une tradition de magie théurgique (XIIe-XVIIe siècle), by Julien VÉRONÈSE, 2004 – if you read french I can send the PDF to you if you wish. Also, I recommend Religion, Science, and the Transformations of Magic: Manuscripts of Magic 1300-1600, by Frank Klaassen, and I can’t resist quoting it (it took me a while to remember where this was, LOL): “The third section demonstrates that there is a higher level of continuity between medieval and sixteenth-century magic than has been previously recognized. But the continuity should not be traced to scholastic image magic, which practically vanishes from the collections of practising occultists. Rather, medieval ritual magic deserves our attention as it forms the overwhelming bulk of the magical texts in Sixteenth-century co11ections. (…) In all these senses practicing sixteenth-ceahiry occultists may be seen as extensions of the medieval ritual magic tradition…” (this is also available as a free PDF)
So I don’t think it would be out of order to have demonology et. al. as a part of 15th century “real” magic. If I have one criticism of Codex Superno, it is exactly that, that it seems to have this glaring missing part of the book, though I perfectly understand your points about not going in great depths about it.
In any case, each campaign is different and should be adapted by the GM. For me, the attraction of a more “realistic” system of magic, one that would be both more low-fantasy, as it were, and more complicated, flavorful, not as systematized, always had a lot to do with Elizabethan magic, John Dee, even the more modern Golden Dawn et. al. magic systems. I just think they are super cool. And since I don’t play a European campaign (I play in my own version of Greyhawk), I feel completely free to adapt, steal, change, add anything I want! 🙂
I understand your concerns about demonology, though I would say that by the 15th century it was already well established in European grimoires. And I agree that maintaining a connection to the official Vancian structure of the game is a good idea.
I am from Portugal, actually. Crazily, many medieval-born grimoires slash magic books are still sold in general use here, like the Book of St. Cyprian, which I think everybody outside the big cities knows. LOL.
For example, let me compare one Codex spell (Philosopher’s Cottage) with a very similar spell in L&D, it can give you an idea of the differences. You are probably familiar with the book Ars Notoria (or Ars Nova), one of the books contained in the Lemegeton. It teaches a system of mnemonics and visualizations, inspired possibly by Memory Palaces, with prayers to spirits etc… to develop eidetic memory and so on. In L&D, if a magician gains a copy of the book, he may study it for a lot o months (can’te remember, 12 or so), after which he can attempt a ritual, which, if successful, will transport him to an extra-planar room where time passes more slowly than on the real world (1:2) and where healing also is at double rate. This is similar to the Cottage, but less powerful in the sense that the time available in the extra-planar room is less than in the Cottage, and also, the magician must bring his own stuff to the room (with lots of limitations). But… from then on, the magician gains the ability to cast the spell (no longer a long casting one, just 10 minutes casting) on any door, and when he goes through, he enters the room; he can come out through ANY door that he has ever passed through (providing a very good means of traveling). This is quite powerful (I’d probably reduce it to “come out through any door he has ever cast the spell on”, so the mage has to slowly buid a list of doors through which he can pass). This “spell” is fully learned, there are no slots or memorization to do. If the mage fails at his DC roll, he can retry some time later, etc…
More, once the mage has learned this, he can continue studying the book, and after a few more months, he can try to learn a new method: he can cast a trap spell on any door he wishes, and seal it with a password. Anyone who goes through the door without saying it will think they are entering the room beyond it, but they suddenly trapped in an extra planar “oubliette”, a cell from which they cannot exit unless they have means of traveling through planes etc… This is quite a powerful ability.
In L&D almost all magic is like this: the mage learns a specific magic skill which he can then use at will (there are of course other limitations, risks, material components etc…), some skills can be learned as he goes up in level, other skills can be gained from studying books and so on.
The core ability of most mages is to summon a demon, and then compel him to perform services. Demons are then listed with the things they might be able to do for mage, stuff like “can reveal a secret from any one person, can discover a hidden object provided the mage can name it specifically, can cause a person to fall sick, can raise a storm at sea until the next sunrise” etc… But there are no “spells” per se as in the D&D game (or the Codex). It’s an interesting system, and one I might combine with the more classical D&D/Codex one.
Sorry for taking so long to answer, but work and holidays got in the way! 🙂
Re. your questions:
C&S was always very light on detailing an actual world, they did have an “official” campaign published but was quite undetailed. Newer versions also have a campaign, but it’s quite generic. The older versions (1st and 2nd ed.) assumed you would be playing in a version of medieval Europe and that was that. A default period of 12th-13th century seemed to be the preferred one, but not too much so.Lions & Dragon assumes a version of the 15th century Great Britain, with some fantasy elements thrown in, it’s not the Catholic Church but a kind of “Church of the Sun” a monotheistic religion similar in many aspects to the Church etc… I know they have a sourcebook on this fantasy Europe, but never read it, and probably won’t, I bought it (and many of the short supplements) for ideas on more “authentic but fun” magic rules.
I started playing D&D in late 81, and I think I played my first session of C&S in 85!
As for Chivalry & Sorcery (and specifically, the 2nd Ed. with the D20 combat system)… well, it’s what made our group decide to adapt lots of its rules to AD&D play. The combat system is actually pretty good, if you resolve and clarify a couple of minor issues. When I first played it, I was surprised to find that it was very smooth going and a lot of fun. It generated plenty of fun results through the interplay of Attacks and Active Defenses, and Criticals an Bashes. For quite a while we played AD&D (character creation and classes, magic system, etc…) with C&S combat rules. Later we started tinkering with the magic system, and adapted some of the C&S rules to the AD&D spells.
In C&S combat characters have a certain number of Blows (actions) they can use, for either attacks (some attacks require the use of 2 Blows) or Active Defenses (Weapon Parry, Shield Parry and Dodge). Defenses come in the form of penalties to the attack. So a certain Parry might apply a -5 to the attackers roll, for example. A successful defense would be if the attack failed because of the Parry (in this case by a margin of 5). A Critical Defense would occur when an attacker rolls a Fumble (a natural 1 in terms of D&D) against a given defense. The interplay of Attacks vs Defenses generate various “events”. A successful Weapon Parry might mean that a weapon breaking roll is required, or might allow the defender to spend one Blow to attempt a disarm; a critical weapon parry would give the defender a Free Blow (attack of opportunity in D&D terms) to attempt a disarm or any other special skills he might have. A successful Shield Parry allows the defender to attempt a Bash by spending a Blow, and a critical gives a Free Blow for that Bash, or for some other Shield Skill. A Dodge allows the defender to spend a Blow and Disengage from range, while a Critical Dodge gives the Defender a Free Blow to either disengage or to counterstrike, etc…
So a lot of tactical events occur which are more fun than the usual monotonous rythm of ad&AD&D1 combat, without making combat a lot more complicated. Each weapon has both a Critical range and a Bash range, and if the roll is within the range, and succeeds by a minimum margin of success, then a Crit allows the attacher to roll extra dmg, typically under the form of one extra die of damage, and a Bash allows the attacker to roll 2d6 on the Bash table, which will generate results such as knocking the opponent back, or to his knees, stunning him or causing him to lose a Blow, etc… taking into account the relative sizes of weapons and combatants, and whether they have armor nos under the form of minus or pluses to the roll.
One of the things I enjoy in this system is that it doesn’t really add a lot more die rolls to the usual combat sequence resolution, only if special results occur. Obviously, our system is quite different than the original C&S2 since it is adapted to AD&D1, more streamlined (the original rules are quite confusing and badly organized) and some ideas of Codex Martialis were added to the rules (the various weapon attack modifiers, combat ranges, etc…).
And I’ll write about C&S magic later, gotta go!
Lion & Dragon is an OSR system with a simple Old D&D derived game system in termos of character creation, combat and so on. It is set in a version of Medieval Europe (Dark Albion) in the early 15h century, probably with more magic/supernatural than your baltic campaign, but still relatively lower magic. Most of the magic in the game uses a D20 roll vs. a DC target, just like yours, for casting successful magic. Except that there are virtually NO spells in the game, essentially it mostly all revolves around the mage summoning demons, spirits, angels and whatnot to carry out magic and tasks for him. What “spells” actually exist are like many of those in Codex Superno, involved rituals where the mage must complete a couple of things, a ritual, some other something, and wait for the effects, mostly indirect, to take place. There is no memorizing spells, no Vancian system. Mages have access to a certain number of “magical lores” and as they progress in lever they will occasionally gain additional lores, each of those allowing him to perform certain types os magical operations: Astrological Lore, Summoning Demons, Alchemy, Healing, Banishing, etc…
The rules system is quite simple, and since I am more of a simulationist at heart, not really my cup of tea, but the type of magic is interesting, and worth taking a look into. Also, the author (RPGPundit) publishes regular short PDFs for use with the game, which he calls “Authentic Medieval…” and some of these are quite nice, as they focus on adapting grimoires and magic books from the middle ages to the game, allowing characters to learn different new magic skills (generally at the cost of a long study time).
Thanks for your reply. I haven’t actually played for a while, since about 2013, but at that time I did adapt a lot of Codex Martialis to our game. We played a mix of AD&D 1st Ed. (with some 2nd Ed added) and Chivalry & Sorcery 2nd Ed. Essentially, character creation and abilities from AD&D, combat a mix of AD&D and C&S, magic as C&S (with lots of house rules) but mostly AD&D spell lists. We always played a Greyhawk campaign, regardless of how many times we changed or adapted rules, LOL. Not the high-fantasy high-magic usual campaign, but a more low-magic one.
I have been slowly rewriting all the rules we used and trying to compile them into a coherent whole set of rules. It’s a hobby project, and takes some time, and I have been mostly trying to decide on formats of spells, and to “fix and define” the final rules for spell-casting etc… I have arrived at a set of rules that are largely inspired by Code Superno, Lion & Dragon and some C&S 2nd ed.
I think Codex Superno is a superb book, one of the more interesting supplements having come out these last 2-3 years. For what it sets out to do, it is pretty much perfect. Congrats.
