Food is such an important part of our daily lives, a representation of our culture, and a border-smashing commonality that is more easily shared than anything else. Yet, food seldom takes center stage in a role-playing game.
But not anymore.
The Culinary Magic Cookbook: Everything you need for cooking with magic!
The Culinary Magic Cookbook, from Flaming Crab Games, gives you a unique way to spice up your game: a cookbook of edible spells.
Compatible with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, the book lists almost 100 recipes, each with cooking instructions and magical in-game effects. Try Lektar’s One God ale keg beer bread for fortifying the body, flaming crab cakes for burning your enemies, or scroll dough as an alternative to scrolls and potions, to name but a few.
To use the spells your character only needs a few ranks in Craft (culinary) and the Culinary Magic feat. It’s a worthwhile investment considering the sheer volume of spell-recipes available in the book. If you’ve ever wanted to play a halfling cook or a wizarding chef, there has never been a better time than now.
Book Specs
The book comes in both Metric and Imperial versions, which is amazing. The pdf is 117 pages, with a back and front cover, 4 pages of OGL, and photos for every recipe.
From J. K. Rowling’s Hogwarts to Terry Pratchett’s Unseen University, magic schools and universities abound with fantastic adventures. Now you can join the adventure and enroll at Scarthey, University of the Arcane. Live and breathe the magic, wander the halls alongside wise wizards, discover hidden secrets, and battle fearsome foes.
Welcome to Scarthey — University of the Arcane is the ultimate student’s guide to the University of Scarthey, including everything you need for fantastic adventures in the exciting and unpredictable world of magical studies. Compatible with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, this 66 page book includes:
An exploration of the tumultuous history of the University of Scarthey.
An introduction to the staff and faculties of the University.
A look at the four Houses of Scarthey, including campaign traits for each House.
A map of the University and descriptions of all the major locations around Scarthey’s campus.
A guide to the surrounding town of Scartheyton.
A practical guide to the gruesome sport of cackleball and the competitive sport of dragon boat racing.
Both a Single Page Spread PDFand a Double Page Spread PDF, stunningly illustrated, for your viewing pleasure.
This week saw the premier of the final Harry Potter movie and the launch party for Magic the Gatherings 12th edition. It’s almost like magic is everywhere, and really, it is at the very core of the fantasy genre. Magic is an integral part of fantasy and fantasy gaming, from magical creatures to spells and worlds formed by raw magical energy. In this article I’ll look at magic in terms of world mechanics and as a story device.
Defining Magic
I could look specifically at magic in this article, but then write a similar article on mutation and super powers that wouldn’t add anything new. Rather, let’s group magic, super powers, psionics, amazing technology and everything else that is “abnormal” and call them “world mechanics”. I’m using broad strokes here, but let me explain. Mouse Guard is a game (and comic) with little magic. Mice can talk, but they possess no powers as such or magical artefacts. Mouse Guard’s “world mechanics” are interesting because we can play as mice in a world terrifying to mice. Dungeons and Dragons, on the other hand, lets us use magic to fight magical creatures, and we can become powerful beings that can take on terrifying dragons through the levelling up mechanic. If you think about it, levelling is a type of magic, you would never gain such abilities in real life even with dedicated training. Thus the world mechanics for D&D represent a world that is full of magic. So, I’m going to use “world mechanics” and “magic” interchangeably in this article.
Magic has Boundaries
Magic needs to have boundaries, without these boundaries players will feel cheated and confused. Can my wizard become invisible if he casts an invisibility spell? Boundaries (rules) set this out for you. The boundaries then, like I said above, define the world at the same time. Frodo’s ring had power to corrupt, so we understand that in The Lord of the Rings magical items may have a risk involved when they are used.
Magic breaks Boundaries
Firstly, as a story element, magic breaks boundaries. Magic lets your characters and NPC’s do things that they would not normally be able to do in the real world. Flight, as an obvious example, is only possible through magic. Because of this, you need to think outside of reality and be creative when designing your sessions and include encounters and NPC’s that bring the reality of the game world into focus and let the players experience that world. It’s no good running a fantasy game where everything is normal by everyday terms, and I’d argue that a normal day even in terms of your fantasy world would be too boring for your players, but there needs to be an obvious difference between the two worlds. A note of caution though, sometimes subtlety really pays of with regards to the differences in your fantasy world and our own, you do want it to all be believable in some way.
Furthermore, magic gives you a reason to break the mould with you game, within reason. In a recent game I introduced a series of earth-nodes that needed to be used in sequence, and did not let players move as they wished between the nodes. I explained this difference as a consequence of the spell plague, which the players were happy with and I could then stagger encounters out between the different nodes. Because magic and the mechanics of your game world represent the weird and wonderful, take inspiration from the setting and let your creativity flow.
Magic is often Limited
Magic has its limits, which is important to remember. If any world mechanic is limitless, it becomes worthless in a way. If everyone can fly, you will need ways to cut that ability at some point and you need to work out the repercussions of giving everyone such an ability. In my opinion, magic becomes more interesting if there is less of it. In the Lord of the Rings, there are only a handful of magical users, which makes characters like Gandalf and Saruman stand out amongst the rest, magic is thus strange and valuable.
Potter Fans at the Premier
At the end of the day magic represents a great device for telling the stories we love, that’s why so many people fell in love with the Harry Potter series, The Lord of the Rings and so many other fantasy stories. Use magic well and your games will be that much more interesting and captivating.
If you watched the last Harry Potter, or played MtG during the release party or have any other thoughts about magic, leave a comment.Let’s talk geek 🙂
