MGibster
Legend
The Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic (Review – Call of Cthulhu)
The Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic is a compilation of some 550+ spells appearing through the myriads of Call of Cthulhu sourcebooks, supplements, and scenarios published over a period of time spanning more than thirty years. The Grimoire is primarily a resource for Keepers (game masters) who are searching for that perfectly awful spell to introduce to their campaign for use by the investigators (player characters) or villains.
Short Review: While Grimoire isn’t a must have supplement, it’s a nice addition for the Keeper who likes to design their own scenarios and wishes to have a majority of the spells that were published in various sourcebooks and adventures over the last forty years located in a single convenient book.
Long Review:
The Grimoire is divided into four chapters. The first chapter, “Concerning Magic,” is a short chapter covering the importance of a spell caster’s state of mind, their work space, the nature of sacrifice in some spells, and the importance of astrological events like the phases of the moon or the equinox or solstice. It’s suggested the Keeper should allow a bonus to a caster’s roll if they wait for the stars to align. For example, Saturday is associated with Saturn and that’s a good day to cast protection spells, warding, and banishments whereas Monday is associated with the moon and is better for dreams and spells concerning health and restorative magic. At only four pages, I would have liked to have seen these ideas expanded on.
In “Concerning Spells,” chapter two discusses various categories of spells, spell components, how magic might affect the physical environment, and ley lines. Many spells in the book have an entry for deeper magic, allowing for extra benefits by those who have access to it. As a general rule, deeper magic is only available to those casters who have abandoned Sanity in its entirety (they have zero), but an Investigator who is temporarily or permanently insane may have access to the deeper magic version of the spell as well.
In addition to regular Mythos spells, there are also Dreamland and Folk spells. Dreamland spells can only be cast while the Investigator is actually in the Dreamlands. Folk magic doesn’t appear outwardly as Mythos magic, being a pale reflection of “true” magic. Folk magic is less likely to be found in Mythos tomes and more likely to be learned via word of mouth.
Spells are very complicated and it’s entirely possible the Investigator got their hands on a flawed copy. The spell might look correct, it might even function, but it could have some unintended side effects that are harmful to the Investigator, the environment, or doesn’t quite work like it was supposed to. A flawed Contact Azathoth spell might instead transport you to Azathoth’s location. Good luck with that.
Ley lines are ancient tracks of energy that run through geographic locations often crossing through ancient, sacred sites. There’s a nice little history of ley lines as a concept, areas of the world they’re found, and what effects being on a ley line have on certain spells. I would have liked to see more information on holy, sacred, or otherwise meaningful locations and their affect on spells.
I really like that the authors spent some time going over spell components. Spell components might be physical items of importance to the target (like a favorite locket they frequently wore), a comparative item which is a substitute for something more difficult to obtain, it might be non-physical like moonlight or the caster’s mood, and it might be something the caster has to sacrifice like an animal or an object. There is a random table for the Keeper to roll and see what component a spell might require with anything ranging from the wood of a coffin to the act of cannibalism. The table might be fun to use, but the Keeper should use their discretion when determining components for spells. There is a sidebar that goes over magic tools including ritual daggers, brooms, altars, and other tools of the trade. Again, as with chapter one, I would have preferred if this chapter were a bit longer.
File this under amusing, but there’s a disclaimer at the end of the chapter stating “The spells presented in this book are fiction.” I just thought I’d mention it because it just seems odd. Is anyone going to read this book and think they can try these spells?
The third chapter goes over the different spell categories. Some of the categories include banish or control, communication, protection, harmful, influencing others, etc., etc. Each spell category has an accompanying symbol associated with. The Eldar Sign is the symbol used to denote a protection spell, which I thought was a pretty clever idea, but more on that in a bit. This chapter is useful, if you want to find a protection or making monsters spell you will find the names of each one listed making it a bit easier to track down specific types of spell.
Chapter four is by far the largest chapter containing all the spells in alphabetical order. Spells are written in this format.
Consume Likeness (symbol denoting this is a transformation spell)
Deeper Magic – additional affects the spell might have when cast by someone with a better understand of all all that magic stuff works. i.e. NPCs lost to the Mythos or someone with a really, really good copy of the spell.
Alternative Name: Many spells have a list of alternative names for spells. This is a great feature, especially if players are familiar with Call of Cthulhu spells already.
The most infuriating part about this chapter is the type of spell is not written next to the title. Readers are instead forced to look at the symbol next to the spell name and if they don’t have it memorized go look up that symbol in chapter 3. Very annoying. After using the book for months/years, perhaps the reader will recognize spell type by their associated symbol, but until then, it would have been nice if the spell type was visible written. They do this for all Dreamlands spells, but for every other spell you must rely on the symbol alone. Perhaps this sanity blasting feature is just the publisher’s way of giving readers a taste of what reading a mythos tome is all about.
There are over 550 spells listed in this grimoire, but a lot of them are various of the same spell. Pages 73-80 include various contact spells such as Contact Azathoth, Contact Ghoul, Contact Yig, etc., etc. I feel as though an effort could have been made to consolidate some of those spells, but contacting Yig involves some different steps from contacting Azathoth, so I can’t fault them entirely for the number of contact spells.
This is a very comprehensive list of spells for use with Call of Cthulhu. There’s more than 550 of them, how could it not be comprehensive. A Keeper can get some good ideas for villains just by poring over the grimoire and reading some of the spell descriptions. This is essentially an encyclopedia of magic.
Is this product a must have? No. But it’s a worthy book to add to the collection of any Keeper who likes coming up with their own scenarios.
The Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic is a compilation of some 550+ spells appearing through the myriads of Call of Cthulhu sourcebooks, supplements, and scenarios published over a period of time spanning more than thirty years. The Grimoire is primarily a resource for Keepers (game masters) who are searching for that perfectly awful spell to introduce to their campaign for use by the investigators (player characters) or villains.
Short Review: While Grimoire isn’t a must have supplement, it’s a nice addition for the Keeper who likes to design their own scenarios and wishes to have a majority of the spells that were published in various sourcebooks and adventures over the last forty years located in a single convenient book.
Long Review:
The Grimoire is divided into four chapters. The first chapter, “Concerning Magic,” is a short chapter covering the importance of a spell caster’s state of mind, their work space, the nature of sacrifice in some spells, and the importance of astrological events like the phases of the moon or the equinox or solstice. It’s suggested the Keeper should allow a bonus to a caster’s roll if they wait for the stars to align. For example, Saturday is associated with Saturn and that’s a good day to cast protection spells, warding, and banishments whereas Monday is associated with the moon and is better for dreams and spells concerning health and restorative magic. At only four pages, I would have liked to have seen these ideas expanded on.
In “Concerning Spells,” chapter two discusses various categories of spells, spell components, how magic might affect the physical environment, and ley lines. Many spells in the book have an entry for deeper magic, allowing for extra benefits by those who have access to it. As a general rule, deeper magic is only available to those casters who have abandoned Sanity in its entirety (they have zero), but an Investigator who is temporarily or permanently insane may have access to the deeper magic version of the spell as well.
In addition to regular Mythos spells, there are also Dreamland and Folk spells. Dreamland spells can only be cast while the Investigator is actually in the Dreamlands. Folk magic doesn’t appear outwardly as Mythos magic, being a pale reflection of “true” magic. Folk magic is less likely to be found in Mythos tomes and more likely to be learned via word of mouth.
Spells are very complicated and it’s entirely possible the Investigator got their hands on a flawed copy. The spell might look correct, it might even function, but it could have some unintended side effects that are harmful to the Investigator, the environment, or doesn’t quite work like it was supposed to. A flawed Contact Azathoth spell might instead transport you to Azathoth’s location. Good luck with that.
Ley lines are ancient tracks of energy that run through geographic locations often crossing through ancient, sacred sites. There’s a nice little history of ley lines as a concept, areas of the world they’re found, and what effects being on a ley line have on certain spells. I would have liked to see more information on holy, sacred, or otherwise meaningful locations and their affect on spells.
I really like that the authors spent some time going over spell components. Spell components might be physical items of importance to the target (like a favorite locket they frequently wore), a comparative item which is a substitute for something more difficult to obtain, it might be non-physical like moonlight or the caster’s mood, and it might be something the caster has to sacrifice like an animal or an object. There is a random table for the Keeper to roll and see what component a spell might require with anything ranging from the wood of a coffin to the act of cannibalism. The table might be fun to use, but the Keeper should use their discretion when determining components for spells. There is a sidebar that goes over magic tools including ritual daggers, brooms, altars, and other tools of the trade. Again, as with chapter one, I would have preferred if this chapter were a bit longer.
File this under amusing, but there’s a disclaimer at the end of the chapter stating “The spells presented in this book are fiction.” I just thought I’d mention it because it just seems odd. Is anyone going to read this book and think they can try these spells?
The third chapter goes over the different spell categories. Some of the categories include banish or control, communication, protection, harmful, influencing others, etc., etc. Each spell category has an accompanying symbol associated with. The Eldar Sign is the symbol used to denote a protection spell, which I thought was a pretty clever idea, but more on that in a bit. This chapter is useful, if you want to find a protection or making monsters spell you will find the names of each one listed making it a bit easier to track down specific types of spell.
Chapter four is by far the largest chapter containing all the spells in alphabetical order. Spells are written in this format.
Consume Likeness (symbol denoting this is a transformation spell)
- Cost: Magic Point Cost
- Casting time: How long it takes to cast
Deeper Magic – additional affects the spell might have when cast by someone with a better understand of all all that magic stuff works. i.e. NPCs lost to the Mythos or someone with a really, really good copy of the spell.
Alternative Name: Many spells have a list of alternative names for spells. This is a great feature, especially if players are familiar with Call of Cthulhu spells already.
The most infuriating part about this chapter is the type of spell is not written next to the title. Readers are instead forced to look at the symbol next to the spell name and if they don’t have it memorized go look up that symbol in chapter 3. Very annoying. After using the book for months/years, perhaps the reader will recognize spell type by their associated symbol, but until then, it would have been nice if the spell type was visible written. They do this for all Dreamlands spells, but for every other spell you must rely on the symbol alone. Perhaps this sanity blasting feature is just the publisher’s way of giving readers a taste of what reading a mythos tome is all about.
There are over 550 spells listed in this grimoire, but a lot of them are various of the same spell. Pages 73-80 include various contact spells such as Contact Azathoth, Contact Ghoul, Contact Yig, etc., etc. I feel as though an effort could have been made to consolidate some of those spells, but contacting Yig involves some different steps from contacting Azathoth, so I can’t fault them entirely for the number of contact spells.
This is a very comprehensive list of spells for use with Call of Cthulhu. There’s more than 550 of them, how could it not be comprehensive. A Keeper can get some good ideas for villains just by poring over the grimoire and reading some of the spell descriptions. This is essentially an encyclopedia of magic.
Is this product a must have? No. But it’s a worthy book to add to the collection of any Keeper who likes coming up with their own scenarios.
