[Thaumatology] Path/Book Magic

[Cernig]

I'm working on revamping (sorry) my modern secret magic & monsters setting, Beyond The Veil, to include path/book magic.

Right now vamps, spirits, mythos creatures, shifters and fay get spell-like Powers they can learn as they become more powerful (master vamps, alpha weres, sidhe nobles, you get the idea) and Cabal human mages get 'Enochian' magic, which is essentially a variety of Powers that mimic spells too. All spell-like Powers for all "races" come with at least "requires FP or ER", often with more limitations especially at medium/low ability levels with those Powers.

But I want to introduce working magic at both lower CP totals and with a more subtle but potentially more powerful flavor, so Path/Book (effect shaping) Magic it is.

So I wanted to pick the Forummind for any new Rituals folks may have written up, for possible Paths (especially stuff like Wiccan/Druidic, Shamanistic, Quabbalistic and other "real world magic" Paths) or for Books suitable for a modern "occult secrets" game.

Can anyone help with ideas, examples etc?

If it helps any, right now there are three PC parties currently active: built on 250 cp human monster hunters; built on 400cp parahuman and human "MiBs" working to keep The Veil intact and preserving the secret occult world from mundane scrutiny; and a 700 cp planar and dimension hopping parahuman team comprising a Master Vamp, Sidhe Noble, Alpha Weretiger and a Nephilim (demi-angel) working directly for the Primus Illuminatus (Simon Magus) trying to stop Nazi cult mages from Antartica immanantizing the Estachon by unleashing the Great Old Ones).

[somecallmetim]

Here is a path I am working on for one of my games. It is a path manipulating blood used by vampire wizards. I am sort of new to the path/book magic system so I am not one hundred percent sure about how balanced it is yet. I hope it is similar to what you're looking for:

Vampiric Path of Blood


Seek Blood
Effect Shaping: Path of Blood, 10 minutes
Energy Accumulation: 5 points

This ritual tells the user where the nearest source of fresh blood is (usually a living human or fresh corpse.) It won't detect vampires and won't distinguish supernatural creatures from humans, as long as they have blood.



Blood Ties
Effect Shaping: Path of Blood-2, 30 minutes
Energy Accumulation: 7 points

This ritual works just like the Locate ritual with the following differences: it only works on humans or vampires, it requires at least a drop of the subjects blood to work, no resistance roll is allowed.

The ritual can also be used to find a vampire if the caster has a drop of blood from one of his ancestors or progeny. The ritual is at a further -2 for each generation of separation between the two.



Afflict Blood

Effect Shaping: Path of Blood-5, 1 hour
Energy Accumulation: 10 points

This ritual attacks the subjects circulatory system. The caster and the subject roll a quick contest of wills. If the caster wins, the subject must make a health roll. If he succeeds he is subject to Nausea and gains the hemophilia disadvantage for 12 hours. If he lose, the victim suffers a Heart Attack. In addition to mundane healing, the effect can be countered by the Healing advantage, the Dose ritual, an alchemical healing potion, or esoteric medicine.



Steal Blood: Path of Blood-12, 1 hour
Energy Accumulation: 12 points

This ritual (which will work only for a vampire) steals the victims life force directly. After the ritual is performed, the caster and subject roll a quick contest of wills. If the caster wins, the subject loses hit points equal to the casters margin of success at the rate of one per hour. The caster gains these hit points at the same rate, just as if he had drunk the subjects blood. The subject appears to be suffering from blood loss with no visible wound.

The ritual can be countered by ward, curse sanctum or dispel ritual. If any of these are successful the hit point drain is halted.

[Cernig]

Thanks, exactly the kind of new ideas I was looking for and the idea of a Style of Path/Book magic for each parahuman race is quite an interesting one to me at second thought.

I've been trawling the forum archives and the internet and found some interesting stuff.

Macphersonrants on Voodoo style initiation for 4e.

Sir-Pudding on his system for his own campaign

Tbrock's Path of Planar Travels

This website by Jonathan lang and this one by Rev. Mike Monaco (thanks to dataweaver in this thread)

Thanks all, I'll be stealing and borrowing avidly from all your good works :-)

I'm told in one thread that Pyramid 13 will be very useful to me for what I'm envisioning (Thanks for the tip, Rev. P. Kitty), so I guess I'll have to get it. Should I get Age of Gold or any other official supplements too?

At the moment I'm looking at adding five other Paths to the ones in Thaumatology: Path of Death, Path of Sacrements, Path of Glamours, Path of The Planes and Path of Warriors. That last one won't be actual damage-dealing magic so much as about courage, keen edges, tactical insight and so on. I'll be adding a bunch of new rituals and some new Books too.

[Cernig]

Another useful one from Mike Monaco: A PDF called GURPS Rituals.

Monaco writes: "a pdf of rituals for GURPS, adding Medieval stuff to the existing Voodoo rituals. At least some of these were harvested from other “fan” documents back around 1995 or 1996, and altohugh I got permission to use them at the time, I have completely lost all contact information and who to credit. I’m pretty sure I did most of the work though."