Mortal sorcery, part 2

In my last post on mortal sorcery I left out a few things, such as how sacrifices and elixirs work with Casual Magic and alchemy. These were never officially updated, so this is just my guess.

Naturally, it's more difficult for secret society sorcerers to perform Casual Magic due to the need for a sacrifice or elixir spilt on a physical representation of the spell's element within a magic circle (see Nephilim rulebook p140, 191, Liber Ka p41, 52, 59). This component overrides the otherwise non-ritualistic nature of Casual Magic.

The secret societies have not learned alchemy beyond the first circle, according to the history chapter from the surviving draft of Slaying the Dragon. So I don't need to worry about that. To make procedures, the athanor itself must be anointed with the Ka-impregnated blood from a sacrifice or elixir for each procedure or the sacrificial blood is incorporated into the materials of the procedure itself. 

Additionally, I have a few ideas for streamlining or expanding the use of sacrifices and rituals. Optional rules and GM's discretion, as usual.

  • Normally, sacrifices are used once because the nephilim is slain in the act. That sacrifices might be done non-lethally. This means that secret societies may keep nephilim imprisoned and routinely bled to power spells and procedures. 
  • A method for streamlining the use of elixirs, particularly in Casual Magic, is to create a special elixir vessel that contains appropriate material representations of all five elements as well as a bit of the caster's blood to forge a sympathetic link. As long as the caster is in contact with the vessel, they may power spells and procedures automatically.
  • The secret societies may have created special enchanted Black Stone athanors that store Ka for later use just like elixirs, loosely replicating how athanors worked in the first edition.
As always, YMMV.

Some trivia: in the French version, only homunculi are used by mortal sorcerers. They work a bit differently from the Americanized adaptation, and share traits of elixirs such as being permanently trapped in a flask.

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