As you may already know, Goodman Games offers a free license for creators to self-publish their DCC creations, and this month we spotlight community members whose DCC creations have added great new options for players and judges alike. If you purchase any DCC RPG product this month, you’ll get a free DCC guitar pick. This time up, we present Jeff Rhodes-Gloor talking about Liber Arcanum from Cognition Pressworks!
Farblomb, the wizard, looked at the door that had appeared in the middle of the battle field. It was at least fifty feet high, and easily thirty feet across. It appeared to be made of petrified wood. He could only assume it was at least five feet thick. Even on his best day, Glom the Mighty would not be able to pound through that. And judging by the bent sword in his hand; today was not his best day. Farblomb scanned through is spell book, his fingers fumbling on the pages of worn vellum. Lights danced from his fingertips as he turned to the rune-laden page for Enlarge. Farblomb, like many of his counterparts, has not bothered to study the higher magics. He did not fully understand the workings of his cosmos, but he did remember hearing about reversing spells. The arcane ritual was said to be child’s play for the adept, and adept he wasn’t. Farblomb reviewed the spell, and then imagined turning it inside out, hoping to make the huge door more human sized. He closed his eyes, pointed at the door, and whispered the words of power as he shed quite a bit of his own blood with a silver dagger. As luck would have it, Farlomb succeeded and sparks shot from his fingers; the air surrounding the door popped and sparkled with faerie lights as the door shrank to around four feet high, and two feet wide. His ears rang and he felt weak, but it was worth it. What’s more, Farblomb now knew he could throw his spell book into reverse!
Meet Liber Arcanum, the Book of Secrets, a treasure trove of new spells and patrons for wizards and elves. This compendium of lost arcane lore is compatible with Dungeon Crawl Classics and is intended as an aid for the busy Storyteller. Inside you will find several new banes and powers for magic weapons, 40 pre-generated magic weapons, 6 new patrons, 46 new spells, and a plethora of new ideas to inspire and terrify your players. You will find options to tweak and customize the nature of magic and how it works in your gaming environment as well as new item creation spells as well as the rules for spells of greater than fifth level… and much, much more.
I have been role play gaming since the summer of 1981, and have yet to put my dice down – in fact, they will have to be pried from my cold, dead hands. Since that time I have been involved in regular games, mostly D&D of some variety, as both player and storyteller/ and always as a munchkin. In that time (like many others out there) I’ve put a lot of work into creating a vibrant and immersive gaming environment, teeming with little details for players to use or ignore as they desire. In my time at the game table I’ve also seen a lot of GM’s that want to provide more details to enrich their game environments, but simply don’t have the time to do the research and put it all together. My work with DCC is just an opportunity to help provide some of those details; presenting a fair bit of information for a Judge to use or ignore as they see fit. I offer it based on my theory that it’s easier to tweak the rules of something that is already written than it is to invent whole new concepts out of moonbeams and unicorn farts while you’ve got 8 pairs of eyes staring at you waiting for the story to continue.
As to the creation of the Reduce spell… The devoted munchkin and I proceeded to haggle out the details of the Reduce spell, while the other players at the table waited, staring into their phones. That’s when I realized that I needed a quicker reference and that I’d need to spend some time working out quite a few reversed spells in advance—and Liber Arcanum was born. The Liber Arcanum supplement for wizards and elves expands upon existing DCC rules and mechanics and picks up where the core rules leave off; offering the busy Judge a set of tools for answering odd questions about cosmology, specifics about common magical materials, as well as a ready source for arcane plot-twists and magical treasures.
Check out Liber Arcanum and everything from Cognition Press in our online store!
