The Book of Knots - Jags

train their members (in invisible ink with advanced ciphers, of course).
There are mind-expansion gurus and their cults (within them an
accountant or right-hand-man will be meeting select students off on the
side). There book-clubs that read demented exotic fi ction and hold fullyclothed
orgies in the backs of prestigious bookstores in a fashion such
that you could watch one from afar without realizing anything unusual
was happening (there’s someone about mid-way up who will speak with
those of a certain bent and see if they want to try something stranger).
Lodges tend to be well-off (but not always wealthy or super rich: magic
is not a method to easy money). They tend to meet in secret, having
social contact only through the host organizations they feed off of. They
meet to exchange notes, to share experiences, and to assist the others in
their exploration of magic itself.
Lodges are often composed of 3 to 12 men (sometimes women) who
are often average men in many respects. Some may be wealthy. Some
may be powerful. Some may work as mid-level managers in department
stores. Some are virtually homeless. Many are poorly received artists.
Magicians are always “dangerous” in that they are often possessed of
very shaky morals and have both exotic appetites and little respect for
the rules of society. They are also sneaky—a mediocre Magician may
have diffi culty killing a man, but far less than a court of law would have
of convicting him.
Lodges, however, are usually advisors to the more dangerous
conspiracies. They are adjuncts to the political movers and shakers
who employ armed assassins. They are fi gures behind the regimes that
commit atrocities. They are more likely to be found in a jury than as
the judge. When men of power do seek to become Magicians they are
often the worst sort—but for the most part Magician’s goals do not deal
with the manipulation of governments or the silencing of witnesses
(there is usually nothing to witness). When they act they are more often
inscrutable, petty, and personal.
The Three Knowledges
There are three things that a magician can learn to do and these,
combined, make up the Magician’s Tricks (which are called spells by
Initiates and neo-Pagans and contributes to the mysticism that obscures
all of Magic). These are:
• Sciomancy: The art of commanding and seeing through the eyes
of one’s Shadow.
• Binding: The art of strongly associating what a happens on a
lower Chessboard to what happens on a higher Chessboard.
• Warping of the Shadow: Sometimes a human is not enough.
Magicians can Twist their own Shadows to be more than human.
Buying Magic
Each Archetype Point spent
on Magic counts for 4pts used
to buy Sciomancy, Binding,
or Twist Shadow. A character
who invests 4 Archetype points
in Magic would have 16pts to
purchase Sciomancy, Binding,
and Twist Shadow with.
The character might look like
the following:
Sciomancy Level 3 [4pts]
Binding Level 2 [8pts]
Twist Shadow [4pts]
Such a character could perform,
for example, the Sleight Trick
which requires Sciomancy and
Binding and Level 2.
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Book of Knots - Magicians