Forbidden Knowledge for 5th Edition

Wizards stand apart from other magic-users in how they acquire arcane knowledge. Rather than drawing on inborn talent or making some fell bargain with an otherworldly power, wizards discover magic through research and study. They delve into ancient tomes and riffle through crumbling scrolls, committing to memory all that they have learned. Their methods reward them with incredible versatility but also tempt them to peer into dark places, to learn and master the most secret arts, for there lies true and lasting power, even if its knowledge damns their souls.

Forbidden Knowledge adds seven new arcane traditions to the wizard class. Each tradition reflects a sinister avenue of study and research, offering ways to gain unique and terrible magic in exchange for madness, corruption, or worse. Using the options in this supplement, player characters can conjure up demons, bestow wicked curses, and reach beyond the bounds of reality to commune with the insane powers that screech and thrash in the primordial void. If you seek advantage against rivals and eldritch weapons to destroy enemies, that knowledge awaits you!

Pick up Forbidden Knowledge in PDF today at Schwalb Entertainment or DriveThruRPG today!

I’m thrilled to announce that the Kickstarter campaign for Occult Philosophy is now live! We’re running the campaign to raise funds to produce a massive tome filled with magic and mayhem. In this book, you find hundreds of spells, dozens of paths, and creatures to do your bidding. A massive expansion to the magic system, this books a must-have product for your Shadow of the Demon Lord campaigns. Whether you’re a veteran of the game or brand new to the wonder and madness of the SotDL, this is a perfect opportunity to jump in and embrace the horror. Please check out and support out campaign here. And if you can’t back the campaign, then help us by spreading the word.

Hail!

Curse the Light: Monstrous Pages for Shadow of the Demon Lord

The ancient enemies of the genies, foes of the faeries, and masters of dark and terrible magic, trolls changed the course of history through their efforts to triumph over their enemies, but paid the ultimate price for their success. Now a people driven into the darkness, shunned and hated, they raise their fists to the sun and hatch diabolical plots in the depths. Curse the Light reveals new details about the trolls and their loathsome kind. With this new Monstrous Pages supplement, you can make these figures a truly terrible threat in your adventures and campaigns!

Pick up Curse the Light in PDF at Schwalb Entertainment or DriveThruRPG today!

As a fantasy game, albeit a dark and sinister one, magic permeates the world languishing under the Shadow of the Demon Lord. One can find it in the ruins of fallen civilizations, in relics pried from the clutches of unspeakable things, and, of course, in the hands of those people with the talent for apprehending magical energies and shaping them into useful forms. In the main rulebook, three of the four novice paths can access the many traditions of magic and, with Bred for Battle, even warriors can dabble in the arcane arts. Since magic plays such a big part in the game’s cosmology, I always felt that free access to magic would broaden the utility of Shadow’s magic system and the numerous spells it offers. For this reason, magic seemed to me the ideal place to start in my efforts to expand the rules and the setting.

Shadow of the Demon Lord includes thirty traditions, from Arcana to Water and everything in between. Each tradition originally offered a set of eleven spells, which gave us 330 spells, not including the spells the game made particular to certain paths. In the years since the book came out, I have added additional traditions, such as Fey in Terrible Beauty, and Invocation in the Demon Lord’s Companion 2, which brought the total number of traditions in the game up to 41. We have also seen new spells added to existing traditions to broaden the offerings by detailing new areas that express the tradition’s central theme. So when I began work on Occult Philosophy,I had loads of spells already, but there’s always room for more, right?

Number 42

As a Douglas Adams fan, I realized 41 traditions would simply not do. After all, 42 is the answer. Now, some of you are probably wagging a finger at me and saying, “But Rob, what about the Blood tradition?” Well, when I was working on Tombs of the Desolation, I thought I would expand magic by offering a slew of minor traditions to supplement the major traditions presented in the main rulebook. After Tombs came out, however, I realized that I could really just express the themes of what were to be minor traditions within the body of major traditions and that by making a distinction between minor and major, I’d be cluttering up the game. Thus, Occult Philosophy pushes all the Blood spells into the Necromancy tradition. Easy-peasy.

But I still needed another tradition. It didn’t take long for me to figure out the one area underserved in magic was madness and insanity. Having a tradition of magic that ravages the minds by calling forth things from beyond the bounds of reality would be pretty sexy, and so Madness, as a tradition, came into being. Here’s an unedited excerpt from the Madness tradition.

Art by Julio Rochá

Madness

With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, some desperate scholars of magic have turned to ancient tomes and use them to commune with strange, alien beings in the hopes of finding some secret knowledge with which they could save their world. From these distant beings, these seekers of occult lore uncovered an entirely new order of magic, one that brings forth impossible, inscrutable energies from across the gulfs of space to serve their commands. Although such magic might be of limited use against demons, it proves itself effective and terrifying against nearly everything else.

The Madness tradition taps into forces beyond mortal reckoning, reaching out into dimensions and realities beyond those known to exist and drawing forth strange energies to spawn horrors that bend and break the mind. Spells from the tradition tax the minds of those who know them and students find the longer they look into the secrets of the tradition, the weaker becomes their grip on reality. All who dabble in this dark art lose their minds and the fearless pioneers who assembled the spells and secrets of the tradition have been sealed away in vaults to protect them from harm and protect others from the unspeakable secrets they reveal.

Each time you learn a spell from the Madness tradition, you must make a Will challenge roll with a number of banes equal to the number of Madness spells you have learned so far. On a failure, you gain 1 Insanity.

Mitigating the Madness

The Madness tradition forces users to peer into dark places and grapple with mind-blasting truths. As a result, most students of Madness wrestle with their sanity, always struggling to cling to whatever shreds they have left until their minds finally buckle and break. However, as users grow more and more accustomed to the horrors of their art, they learn to compartmentalize their weird experiences so they can keep their wits even while gibbering, frothing, and clawing at their bodies. Whenever you roll to end the effects of going mad, you add a bonus to your d6 roll. The bonus equals the rank of the highest rank madness spell you have learned.

Sample Spells

Reveal Unspeakable Truth         Madness Attack 0

Target One creature within short range

You whisper some dark, unsettling truth, causing words of smoke to spill from your mouth and float toward the target where they dissipate. If the target can hear you, make an Intellect attack roll against the target’s Will. If the target has 3 or more Insanity, you make the attack roll with 1 boon. On a success, the target gains 1 Insanity.

If the total of your roll was 0 or less, you instead gain 1 Insanity.

Aid from the Outer Gods                Madness Utility 1

Duration1 minute

You impose 1 bane on attack rolls made against you until the spell ends. In addition, whenever a creature you can see would attack you, you can use a triggered action to gain 1 Insanity and impose 2 additional banes on the attack roll.

Eye of the Outer God                      Madness Utility 3

Requirement You must have at least 1 Insanity to cast this spell.

Duration 1 hour

A bloody eye opens in the center of your forehead and remains open for the duration. The eye lets you see into areas obscured by shadows or darkness as if those areas were lit. As well, your attack rolls ignore banes imposed by cover or obscured terrain.

Furthermore, you can use an action, or a triggered action on your turn, to level your gaze on one creature that can see you and is within medium range. The target cannot avert its gaze. Make an Intellect attack roll against the target’s Will. On a success, the target takes 1d6 damage and gains 1d3 Insanity. On a failure, the eye shows you something you cannot comprehend and you gain 1 Insanity instead.

If you haven’t yet heard, I’m launching a Kickstarter campaign in November (the 12th) to crowdsource the production for a new and sexy supplement for Shadow of the Demon Lord. So far, I’ve been able to produce a slew of high-quality digital products that shine lights on various ancestries and spots on the map, reveal details about terrifying creatures, to say nothing of the many adventures available for the game. However, Occult Philosophy is a different sort of beast.

What is It?

Clocking in at around 192 pages with about 800 spells, a dozen or so critters, plus twenty to thirty paths, it’s the biggest release for the game since Shadowcame out around three years ago. A book of this size has a pile of expenses, including art, editing, proofing, layout, and graphic design. And, if the campaign does well enough, we’ll do an off-set print run too.

Q&A

I’m going to make up a few general questions and answer them. In future installments, I’ll get into the nuts and bolts of the book.

Eight hundred spells? Have they been tested?

Yes. I ran a limited playtest with tons of respondents who took the spells out for a spin in their games. From the feedback along with the testers’ insights, I adjusted the design to ensure that they fit the game and work well alongside other spells.

Do spells cover ranks 0 to 5? Do they go higher?

Yep! One of my earliest goals for this book was to reveal magic’s true extent in the setting. Each tradition receives expansions to the basic rank 0 to 5 spells, but also includes a pair of rank 6 spells along with one of each for ranks 7 through 10.

Do we get any new traditions?

For sure. I included one new tradition to bring the tradition count up to 42 (the most important number of all). Madness joins the other traditions, offering ways for you to harness your Insanity and weave it into magic to produce spectacular effects. There’s an Elder Gods vibe to these spells too, and, as a result, raises a few new questions about the game’s cosmology.

How about paths?

Of course! We’re including some guidance for playing characters beyond level 10 (building on the method described in Forbidden Rules). I’m also including a slew of expert and master paths. Expert paths, as usual, ground characters in the setting but also speak to specific traditions or pairs of traditions. Master paths offer alternative takes to mastering the various forms of magic, while also offering options to players who concern themselves with the methods of casting—implements for example.

What about relics and enchanted objects?

I had planned to include a chapter on each, but I ran out of room. I have a product in mind called The Vault of the Demon Lord, which includes new options for enchanted objects, relics, and trinkets. This book gets unlocked as a stretch goal.

What’s your favorite spell in Occult Philosophy?

Hmm. That’s a tough one. I’m pretty partial to them all. Here’s a cool one from the Battle tradition.

God of War                                                Battle Utility 10

Duration 8 hours

Magical power flows into you, transforming you into a god of war. You become bigger, stronger, and far more menacing. Your eyes glow with malice and blood paints your body. Any creature that can see you when you transform must get a success on a Will challenge roll with 3 banes or gain 1d3 Insanity. Until the spell ends, gain the following benefits:

• You gain a +50 bonus to Health
• You cannot gain Insanity
• You make attack rolls with 3 boons
• Your attacks with weapons deal 5d6 extra damage
• You impose 3 banes on the attack rolls made by creatures against you
• At the end of each round, each creature you choose within your reach takes 3d6 damage

Aftereffect You must make a Will challenge roll with 5 banes. On a failure, you gain 3d6 Insanity and take a –1d6 penalty to Power that lasts for 1 week and 1 day. If you would go mad as a result of this Insanity gain, you suffer Battle Madness (see Shadow, page 118) as normal, but the madness ends only on a roll of a 6 and you take 2d6 damage at the end of each round until the madness ends.