What is Saturnian magic?

Saturnian magic is detailed on Secret Societies p67-9. It was written before the revised magic rules in Liber Ka, Slaying the Dragon (unpublished) and Enlightened Magic.

Saturnian magic uses the same magic skills as elemental magic, except that at least a decade of training by the Fraternitas Saturni is required to perform it. (I'd probably represent this as Fraternitas Saturni Lore rating or something, similar to Initiate Spells in Major Arcana.) Saturnian magic is exceptionally difficult and expensive to cast. It requires the caster not only to be trained by the Fraternity Saturni for at least a decade, but to cultivate Saturnian-Ka within themselves (which consumes elixirs and causes premature aging), the sacrifice of both Elixirs and Awakened Orichalc (by pouring the former on the latter, see below), and may only be cast on Saturdays in the months of Aquarius and Capricorn (i.e. Grand Enthronements of Saturn). Only the spell Create Orichalka Ward may be cast outside Grand Enthronements, but it must still be cast on Saturdays. (In light of the Liber Ka revisions, I'd probably add Sundays and Leo to that list.)

Orichalc cannot be used to cast spells by itself. It needs to be awakened (by a sacrifice of Solar-Ka), then the awakened Orichalc’s power must be liberated by a further sacrifice from an Elixir. (I would probably simplify the process by allowing the Fraternity to create special Elixirs that already contain Solar-Ka so that they don’t have to prepare the Orichalc in advance. This way, the elixir may be spilled onto any latent/raw Orichalc to achieve the same effect.)

Saturnian spells cost not only Ch'awe but also a variable amount of Capacity from the Orichalc used to cast the spell. Sometimes the cost varies by the parameters of the spell, other times a fixed cost is used: typically the spell’s Circle×5 in points drawn from the Capacity. Some spells require a permanent sacrifice of the caster's Saturnian-Ka.

Only the spell Create Orichalka Ward may be cast by mages outside the Fraternitas Saturni, but they have to spend their own Solar-Ka via blood sacrifice due to lack of Saturnian-Ka. (No mention is made of whether this sacrificed SK recovers.) This spell seems to be used to create Orichalc barriers to contain Nephilim, such as during the creation of Elixirs and Homunculi. This can prevent a Nephilim from being drawn back into its Stasis item even if the Stasis roll fails.

I will be converting these spells to enlightened magic in a future post, along with the Black Star spells from Secret Societies.

Saturnian spells have a couple of similarities and differences compared to Black Moon spells. Like Black Moon spells, Saturnian spells cost variable amounts of Ka instead of simply Ch'awe. Unlike Black Moon spells, Saturnian spells used the same magical techniques as elemental magic rather than specialized Saturnian techniques. This was probably done for space/time constraints, but it's made me wonder...

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