Dark Arts
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Divine Magick |
A Darker Past
As known, three styles of magick existed in Tazlure in ancient times – that of sorcerers, that of priests, and that of adhiel, who carved strange signs into bark and stone – upholding a balance of sorts. People went on with their lives, making peace or war, arguing or falling in love, doing normal things. Then, for some reason, darkness came.
The daemons, whose masters are often referred to as the forces of darkness, found a way into the world of Tazlure. Not a physical way, because daemons may only come when they are bidden, but a portal for their own souls. They would come in the night, searching out those susceptible to their possession, and take over the bodies while discarding their hosts’ soul. Soon, they were numerous, and it would seem that all of Tazlure could not stand against them.
Because the daemons were limited in their strength by their forms, they realized early on that their edge would not come from their physical prowess, but from their minds. They observed the elves, whose runic sorcery was slow, and the humans, whose grasp on magic was more intuitive, but hard to learn. Either presented an obstacle; for the demons, time was an expensive resource. Each day they did not advance their conquest was time they granted their foes to research possible weapons against them.
Thus, the idea of dark magick, or dark sorcery, was born. Combining aspects of Runecraft and Sorcery, the daemons took the best of both principles and twisted them into something dark, indeed.
For some time, this spellcraft seemed superior to their rivals’, and the demons conquered one place after the other. But the Tazlurians were finding weapons to fight with, and had the support of their gods behind them. And, as such stories always go, the forces of light eventually triumphed over darkness, and the demons were banished from this world. They left behind, however, their dark sorcerous arts, which some daemons had started teaching to human apprentices.
Hunted by zealous churchmen and often falling prey to temptation and corruption, the dark sorcerers had a hard time until, many centuries ago, they were wiped off Tazlure all but completely. By that time, however, they had left their mark on the world.
Some continued to stumble across the research or teachings of a dark sorcerer, but such self-taught apprentices often didn’t have the power or cunning to evade capture by the Earth Mother’s crusaders or the Dominican Inquisition. It wasn’t until the fateful voyage of the warrior-poet Khar-Naahrn that the darkness had a chance to reinforce its tenuous hold on the world of Tazlure.
Khar-Naahrn stumbled upon the writings of a minor dark sorcerer, in whose books he read hints of untold worlds. Possessed of wanderlust and an insatiable curiosity, and gifted with an intuitive grasp of the basics of sorcery, Khar-Naahrn opened a one-way portal to that place which is called the Many Hells, and, with as much warding and precaution he could manage, stepped through.
That he survived the trip at all was the will of darkness itself, it seems; but for seven years, the warrior-poet traveled what the demons referred to as the Six Pits, alternating from fugitive, prisoner, torture subject and fascinating trophy. At last, he emerged from his hellish ordeal, a man broken in spirit and body, his ability to see the world normally having been fractured beyond repair.
Retreating to a small village, Khar-Naahrn wrote down his memories into six tomes, detailing what he had seen and learned there. Then, as he had finished the sixth tome, demons again come to him, this time possessing the minds of the villagers around him. For three more years he lived in a hell, this one on Tazlure itself, as the demons filled him with visions and harried him to write more. Finally, shattered and insane in ways that no living man could have imagined, the poet set to creating his seventh and final work.
This was to become the Liber Maleficarus, in which Khar-Naahrn wrote down the most important items that he had recorded in his previous six tomes; he also detailed the art of dark sorcery, which had been revealed to him partially during his years in the Many Hells, and came to him fully in the harrying by the possessed villagers. When he ran out of paper to write upon, the villagers sacrificed themselves so that more pages could be made from their bodies; when food ran out, they became his nourishment as well as his jailors. Eventually, the book was finished, and the warrior poet used his own blood to annotate those pages he thought not complete. Afterwards, he bound the book in ensorcelled leather, which he had created from his own skin – a final act which pushed his body over the limit, and allowed him at last to die.
Over the coming years, these seven books turned up all around Tazlure, and each time set some unfortunate soul to using or worshiping demons – and act that reinforced the presence of darkness on the world, and kept alive the insidious practices which were set in motion by one who is darker and greater than any of his kind.
It seems, however, that the Seven Tomes of Darkness, as they have come to be known, hide an even more sinister secret than that of Khar-Naahrn’s expanded dark sorcery –for somewhere in the writings of each tome is a fragment of a ritual so ancient and malignant that it might just be enough to summon something, or open something, or…
But no. The consequences would be too horrible.
Many Paths of the Same Road
When people speak of dark magick, they are actually referring to three disciplines of spellcraft that are linked close both in their philosophy and purpose. To the uninitiated, this distinction is muddled at best (it’s demon summoning, right?), but to those who know, the differences couldn’t be more profound.
And it gets even worse. Not only is the main style divided into three categories, those three categories are in turn subdivided into different disciplines. Sorcerers would frown on this subdivision and argue that they aren’t really needed; some demonologists agree. But the fact of the matter is that dark sorcery is an ancient art, and has always been potent; it seems to work best if left unchanged. Tradition is a keyword here, and dark sorcerers will probably always continue to do things as Khar-Naahrn describes them.
Gathered under the label ‘dark magick’ are the categories of dark sorcery, daemonology, and necromancy. While the latter doesn’t immediately strike one as inherently linked to dark magic – after all, any apprentice with some imagination can animate a walking skeleton – the link becomes more apparent when you consider that a lot of things done with necromancy rely on the caster calling up a soul that was condemned to the Many Hells, or disturbing a dead person’s soul when he has earned the right to peaceful rest. Necromancy wreaks havoc on all kinds of natural order.
Dark sorcery is the basis of the whole of the dark magick style; it teaches the dark sorcerer rudimentary magic skills which are required to perform the other two parts of the magick style. After this rudimentary understanding of magic, dark sorcery diverges the secrets of casting spells empower through one’s own dark passions and tainted willpower, as well as using one’s own blood to further increase the power of a weaving.
Daemonology is the part of dark magick that calls most heavily on runic magick principles. Much more static, daemonology deals with the creation of empower circles, symbols and rituals to summon demonic forces into the world of Tazlure. Within the discipline of daemonology, three types of spellcraft are distinguished; all three of these deal with summoning demons or demonic aspects into the world, other people, or (most dangerously) oneself.
Necromancy also has several disciplines under it, all of them dealing in one way with remains or souls of the dead. At the most basic levels, it is used for the gathering of information and the crafting of ‘fetishes’ (artefacts created from the remains of the dead); at later levels, if can be used to create ‘vessels’ from dead or dying people which may be used for demonic possession, and bring back souls of the dead, binding them to vessels or items of power in order to employ their services.
The Path of Dark Sorcery
Dark sorcery is the principle that allows basic spellcasting for dark sorcery. In the same way that Sorcery uses intuitive grasping of the flow of energy as its basis, dark sorcery uses the four principal dark drives and emotions of mortals as a source of energy with which to cast. The fact that this energy comes from within the mage and is very personally bound to him makes it easier to handle; offsetting this edge of dark sorcery is the fact that a dark sorcerer must spend time cultivating his darker half, time which normal sorcery students can spend learning to grasp the natural strands of energy.
The following disciplines make up the category of Dark Sorcery.
- Dark Emotions: Hatred teaches the dark mage how to call upon energies of hatred and force. Due to its nature, this energy is suited to over manipulation of the physical world, such as found in telekinesis, and elemental aspects such as wind and earth.
- Dark Emotions: Desire shows the dark apprentice a subtler side to his twisted magick. Desire allows the mage to seek out energy of emotion and of minds, and allows him to influence the thoughts and desires of other people. This energy is most suited to the wish to control.
- Dark Emotions: Destruction is by far the least subtle of the four. Linked to outright desire to destroy and devastate that is inherent to almost any soul, destructive emotions produce energy that is suited to usage of the element of fire and, generally, any other type that is suited primarily or solely to aggression.
- Dark Emotions: Corruption governs the subtlest tools in the hands of the dark sorcerer. Drawing from the wish to undermine in secret and solitude, corruption can bring about illusions, mental speech (or more frequently, harrying) and madness, to name but a few things within the realm of this energy.
- Blood Magick deals with the general enhancement of spells. Blood Magick requires the dark sorcerer to cut himself and to sacrifice his blood to the casting. This releases powerful energies that can be used in a weaving that uses one of the four dark emotions.
The Path of Daemonology
Daemonology bases itself much more on the principles of runic magick than it does on those of sorcery. Where runic magick busies itself with the creation of sentences of empower runes, however, daemonology tries its hand at empowered circles and symbols. Rudimentary understanding of the channelling of energy as taught via dark sorcery is required, and usually these energies must come from either the desire or the corruption emotion. A lot of additional study is required for the proper use of daemonology. Empower circles and containment symbols are nice enough, but you need to know which daemon to summon, what his true name is, and what specific symbols must be used in order to actually contain his type, tier and circle. The daemonologist who wings it is, in all probability, either mad, or an accident waiting to happen. The following disciplines make up the category of Daemonology. Summoning (also referred to as gatecraft) is the most obvious of the disciplines of daemonology. It is the typical art of drawing patterns on the floor, etching vague stuff along the lines of those, and then uttering some arcane words of summoning. Possessions is a far more unpleasant art that deals with the calling of daemons or demonic traits temporarily into other people. Unlucky victims get the symbols required for a summoning carved directly into their flesh – although the summoning of daemonic traits only requires that they are painted on the body - after which the daemonologist ‘curses’ the victim, and the possession takes place. Daemonsoul embodies the most dangerous of all disciplines under daemonology (and that’s saying something). The usage of this dark art allows a chosen demon to ‘share’ the caster’s body with him, increasing senses and physical strength. When done properly, the daemonsoul is extremely powerful; if the caster makes even the most minute of mistakes during the casting, however, he will never be quite the same…
The Path of Necromancy
Combining both the spellcraft and blood magick aspects from dark sorcery and the lore and summoning aspects of daemonology, necromancy is exactly what you’d expect to get if you mixed aspects of two of the world’s most twisted and degenerate methods of spellcasting. A dark necromancer searches out not only the remains of the dead, but also their souls and spiritual resting places, and uses this energy (or in some cases the souls themselves) to empower spells affecting the dead or emulating their aspects. Note that this is not the sort of necromancy that gives its wielder hordes of hungry zombies, but the kind that gives you control over two or three shades who’ve just spent the last century in hell. Decide for yourself which you’d rather face.
The following disciplines make up the category of Necromancy.
Bonecraft, as the most rudimentary art of necromancy, requires the mage to create minor magickal items – called ‘fetishes’ – out of the remains of people. Such fetishes have properties that are related to the person whose remains they are made of – a skilled swordsman gives one an edge in armed combat; a great kemn-player might yield insight into tactical situations. Of course, finding the proper remains requires a bit of research from the part of the mage, as well as a small application of crafting.
Whispering Lore governs the ability to salvage information from the dead. Contacting spirits is no strange principle to magick, but contacting the spirits of the dead is often considered (and, actually, is) blasphemous. After finding the resting place of someone, however, a necromancer can use spells on that person’s remains in order to learn information that that person possessed - a process which often involves the summoning of the dead person’s spirit, which is extremely painful and scarring for a soul, indeed.
Animation is the gentle art of reanimating the remains of people. A hard process, Animation uses a dead body and prepares it for possession by a soul or a demon. Often, dark necromancers use this in order to give daemons a body with which to walk on Tazlure, either because they serve that demon or because it is part of a bargain they struck. Giving the demon such a body has a number of advantages – the primary one being that, if this body is destroyed, the demon still remains in Tazlure and might repossess another animated corpse, or otherwise a hapless but degenerate mortal. Animated bodies can also be used as hosts for the souls of the dead, and is in fact the only way to give such a ghost a new (or old) body.
Lure of the Damned contains the most horrible of all ways within the purview of dark magick. Able to physically tear souls from their place beyond death, this discipline may summon their spirits to the real world, where the dark necromancer may do all sorts of unholy things with them. Lure is most often used to bring back people who are in the Many Hells, and is often used in conjuncture with Animation to resurrect the followers of a daemon or powerful dark sorcerer.
But of Course, Three are One
Now that we’ve spent all this time establishing the many different categories and disciplines of dark magick, I have the pleasure of reminding you that dark magick is, in the end, only one magick style.
What it comes down to, after all, is that each style is a way to manipulate energy in order to get results. And while many of the methods employed by dark magick very remarkably from each other, their principle is always the same: it makes use of ‘negativity’, or ‘evil’ if you will, to manipulate energy, just as mindcraft uses the power of a mind and sorcery intuition and gesture.
Tradition, however, is a very strong factor in dark magick. Practices have always served certain goals and involved certain ways and rituals, and that is how it is supposed to be. The demons and the demon tutors certainly don’t want to change that. In fact, nothing inherent of the dark magick style would stop a dark magician from summoning, say, a normal bear, or actually empowering his hand to heal at the touch. It’s just something that would never actually occur to someone on this path of spellcraft. Dark sorcerers are often self-absorbed, too busy with their own ‘evilness’ to wonder much about the exact limits to their casting.
Why Necromancy isn’t necessarily Dark Magick
There is a difference between the necromancy incorporated into dark magick, which is often called dark necromancy, and the necromancy (or death magick) that pops up in religious spellcraft and normal sorcery and is often referred to as true necromancy. The two are, in fact, very different in that true necromancy never calls upon spirits that have deserved their rest.
You cannot use true necromancy to summon a ghost or to rip a dead man’s shade from the afterlife in order to plant him into some body, which was animated through unholy magicks. Well, you could, but if you think about it, normal people wouldn’t. You just don’t tamper with that sort of thing unless it lies in the very nature of your craft to do so. True necromancy is much more concerned with raising mindless automatons from bones and corpses and with the manipulation of life energies than it is with contacting the spirits of deceased people. Granted, it does sometimes happen, but generally, the two kinds do quite different kinds of things with the dead.
Worship, Servitude, or Mastery
Users of dark magick are not a single group, who have the return of their demon allies as their sole goal in life. As can be expected, most dark magicians are actually men and women of magick who fell from grace (or never got there in the first place) and stooped to using dark magick, which is a quicker way to less completely but nevertheless potent power. They summon demons because of the power it yields them; they practice dark sorcery because those emotions runs strong with them anyway, and necromancy because it becomes a natural extention to their magickal abilities. This is the common face of the dark magician, and the type that eight out of ten times an inquisitor will chase after.
Less numerous but certainly existent is the cultist. These people have formed small ‘churches’ around more powerful demons, whom they glorify and sacrifice to. The problem with a greater demon is that you can’t just summon him and keep him on Tazlure – they very twisted nature severs the link between themselves and Tazlure’s reality moments after it was created. Only very powerful magick can sustain this link – which is why the cultists survive. The greater demon needs them to maintain his presence on Tazlure; without them to sustain his link and to summon him time and again, he would be cut off from this world. Cultists learn some dark sorcery but often focus on daemonology, favouring especially daemonsoul and possession as fine tools with which to serve their master. Necromancy is used, but only to create suitable vessels which can be used as hosts for their master’s demonic servants or the souls of deceased cultists.
And then you have an unlucky few who are condemned to the horrible fate of serving a demon. Sometimes, a demon who is already on Tazlure recruits the powerhungry into his service. While the toll on these people’s sanity is enormous, the direct mentorship of a demon does wonders for the understanding of dark magick. Drones, as these people are often called, focus most of their learning on dark sorcery; the summoning is something the demon may take care of himself (and the idea of his servant being able to make circles that could contain him is somewhat unsettling). Since drones often become physically warped over time because of the demon’s presence and power over them, they are often caught by the inquisition or witch hunters of various churches, or perhaps even by cultists of another demon.
So It’s All Daemons, Then?
See, I could hear you ask yourself that question.
The answer to that question if, of course, no. While demonic things fill out about half of dark magick, there are corrupt magicians who never even so much as summon an imp, but who focus on dark sorcery alone; likewise, there have been necromancers who based their arts on dark sorcery and dark necromancy, but who never ventured beyond those two fields.
That most dark magicians will eventually deal with demons is almost inevitable; most do so in the early stages of the craft and find the summoning to be a far quicker road to power than all that shouting and practice. But nowhere is it written that dark magick is just about demons.
