Black Moon magic was wild!

In a previous post I outlined the Selenim’s magic from the French version, the proposed US adaptation, and my ideas for handling it. I accidentally omitted a few things, which I will address here.

The rules for Selenim magic varied wildly between the 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions. My sources are Ian’s notes, the 1st and 2nd edition Selenim supplements, the companion supplement Le Livre Noir (“The Black Book”) and the 3rd edition player’s book.

In the 1st edition book, which would’ve been the basis for the US adaptation, the Selenim simply had Necromancy, Black Summoning (Black Kabbalah in the original French), and the Imago. These weren’t organized into circles. The book mentioned vague and undefined powers like the Tenebrae Ka-audition skill (Pavane in the original French) and a dream manipulation power only mentioned once. In general, these rules were extremely vague and unhelpful.

• The Tenebrae skill was only used for hearing the dead souls and basically a sub-circle of Necromancy. Notably, using it for too long risked the Simulacrum starting to decompose!
• The Necromancy spells were loosely organized into three “paths” (no skills) of Appeasement, Communication and Control, which worked basically as the names imply. [In Ian’s notes, Necromancy would’ve been divided into three non-hierarchical skills of Tenebrae, Communion, and Command.]
• The Black Summoning spells were haphazard in scope and effect. These were loosely organized by general purpose (no circles, realms or other skills): relating to humans, relating to dead souls, soldiers, specialists, related to magical realms, and one set simply labeled “strangeness”. [Ian’s notes would’ve reorganized them into proper circles, though it didn’t mention any summoning realms.]
• The Imago provided the benefits of metamorphosis transformations (more in line with Chronicle of the Awakenings than the rulebook). The Selenim could construct as many Aspects as it wanted to, but could only manifest one per body part at a time. As the imago's Black Moon point investment increased it allowed the Selenim to, in ascending order: Assuage remotely by sending it out, use it to survive disembodiment like a stasis object, and eventually create a magical Realm. The “rules” for creating realms were vague to the point of uselessness. [Ian’s notes only added Personality Traits, limited the number of Aspects to 5 total, and specified the emotional traits played a role in Assuaging.]

In Le Livre Noir, the Selenim’s magic was expanded with further spells added to Necromancy and Black Summoning plus some entirely new effects. In addition to new spells there were rules for designing new necromancy spells [compare with Liber Ka] and designing new evocations using a form of astral projection [compare with Major Arcana mentioning Selenim may learn Shemmut for a similar purpose]. The entirely new effects included:

• Tenebrae spells or “songs” that could affect bodies, minds, and Ka. It existed in a grey space between Necromancy and Summoning. The songs were loosely organized by purpose: affecting Selenim, affecting the local Tenebrae, affecting and creating elementals, manipulating local BMK (the effects given included divinations and conjuring objects), and affecting humans. New dangers included decaying the surrounding environment, causing an area to become cursed, disrupting the doomed fields, or even becoming addicted to listening (with the corresponding consequence of decomposition)!
• Artefacts of Black Moon. These worked nothing like Nephilim artefacts. Instead of inscribing known spells, these artefacts had several unique effects described in the book: storing a reserve pool of black moon points, induce a specific emotion in nearby humans, inducing hallucinations, bind two objects to serve as communication or spying tools, create a receptacle to store a live evocation for later, and delayed activation bombs. Players could invent new effects as desired, too. Several unique examples of artefacts were provided. [I find these artefacts comparable to the enlightened magic revisions for White Stone Alchemy.]
• Orichalc manipulation. The Selenim had spells to dowse, insulate, destroy and even forge Orichalc! However, the danger of working with Orichalc is that the Selenim risked being addicted and corrupted.

In 3rd edition, the Selenim’s magic rules were heavily tightened up and revised to have three circles like true occult sciences. Their occult sciences were Necromancy, Conjuration (renamed from Black Summoning), and Anamorphosis (incorporating the Imago and Realm creation).

• Necromancy Circles were further divided into sub-circles with distinct effects, treated as their own skills. First Circle skills were Spiritism (contact the dead [equivalent to Communication path from 1e/2e]), Clairvoyance (manipulate phantoms and mitigate their torment [equivalent to Appeasement and Control paths from 1e/2e]) and Animation (create and manipulate zombies). Second Circle skills were Possession (a phantom possesses the living and makes them do things [loosely comparable to various effects from 1e/2e]), The Beyond (astral project into the Black Moon fields) and Corruption (create and manipulate humans infected with BMK). Its symbolic tools were, in ascending order of circle: 17th century vanity, embalming hook and metallic skull.
• Conjuration Circles were divided into “Appeals”. First Circle Appeals were Pacifist (healing and protection), Savant (divination, knowledge and spying) and Torturer (imprison, hinder or neutralize enemies). Second Circle Appeals were Soldier (physical combat), Fool (inflicting permanent madness) and Annihilator (destroying Ka). Its symbolic tools were, in ascending order of circle: reed flute, lyre and pipe organ.
• Anamorphosis Circles were subdivided into Morphs. First Circle was Hands, Visage and Skin. Second Circle was Limbs, Torso and other Appendages. These were slots in which the caster could construct Aspects. Third Circle was the creation of a Realm, where “Foundation Points” were accumulated and distributed to determine the exact effects. Its symbolic tool is a self-portrait created by the Selenim in whatever art medium suits her personality.
• Selenim could create artefacts (magic items), using the same rules as Nephilim.

Otherwise, the vague rules and effects from 1st/2nd edition were discarded or only mentioned in passing (although Vision Ka 6 re-adapted certain lost Imago and Tenebrae effects to the 3rd edition). Overall, I think it was a huge improvement!

While I have generally been imagining the Selenim’s occult sciences as organized into Necromancy, Conjuration and Anamorphosis, I have long considered folding Necromancy into a general Black Moon spells list for Sorcery to account for the various other effects listed in The Black Book. Calling it Necromancy doesn’t account for effects like the Tenebrae songs, the White Stone-equivalent mind-altering artefacts, the Orichalc manipulation, dream sending, etc. I’m leery of introducing new occult sciences unless absolutely necessary, and imo single skill magical techniques shouldn’t be allowed for spellcasting.

So as I said in a prior post, I’d have Selenim generally use the same occult sciences as Nephilim but with Black Moon spell lists. The various spells for Tenebrae, Necromancy, Conjuration, black artefacts, orichalc, dream sending, etc would be divided as appropriate among Black Moon spell lists for Sorcery, Summoning and Alchemy. The Anamorphosis I would keep as an occult science, but I would expand and revise it into an occult science that any immortals could learn. The French version had a Grand Secret spell to “Create Elemental Akasha”, which my version of Anamorphosis would serve to replace because that effect doesn’t seem appropriate for the enlightened sorcery rules.

That said, I might still use the concept of multiple skills within circles to substitute for the spells of [element] lists in elemental magic. This would allow Selenim characters to specialize and be just as diverse as Nephilim characters. I’ll have to think on that in future posts…