Magical Traditions in Your Game: Part 1

- 11 minutes read - 2203 words

Books Used in this article.

I’ve always been drawn to various faiths as I grew up. What people believed and why was always so interesting to me. Being able to walk into a new church, temple or holy place and seeing the customs, hearing the music and enjoying lessons the faiths had. I tend to gravitate towards character concepts that have faith as their foundation. In Shadowrun, this often meant a Magical Tradition.

Shadowrun has always leaned heavily into faiths (In their Metaplot, specifically Native American faiths) granting the oppressed an ability to suddenly fight back and use their new found power backed up by their faith to carve out a place for them and their people. I believe the core books and extra books that have come out touch nicely on how they should work and why you should include them, but I often feel like people feel overwhelmed trying to condense an entire faith and worldview into something they can conceptualize at the table. I am hoping this guide will help them feel a bit better at being able to make it feel more natural for it to show up in their game. It will absolutely make the player feel extra special to have a kind of “secret world” they can walk that the others cannot without being out of place.

These guides are just meant to give you a crash course into these faiths. I do not belong to these faiths, so I could very well be misinformed about some aspects, but this guide should at least get you in the ballpark for your game. If you want to know more, you will need to seek our some more official venues for that information.

I’ll be covering Voodoo (Which is covered in MiTS), Palo Mayombe (Which is not covered). If people find this enlightening and it helps them with their game, I’ll be more than happy to cover things like Lukumi, Wicca and Braucheri.

Voodoo / Vodou

Voodoo is common to see in a lot of movies and other media. Almost all of it is unfortunately crap. So let me try to set you straight on the fundamental beliefs and how to use Hougans and Mambas in your game.

Best Book on the topic: Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica

Overview of Beliefs

Vodou is a monotheistic faith that surrounds an entity known as “Bondye”. This deity is the maintainer of the order of the universe. To aid in this, they created powerful spirits known as “Loa” (Also called Iwa). Essentially Bondye is remote and impossibly complex, perhaps so otherworldly, that we cannot speak to them directly. This is where the Loa come in. The Loa aid in communication with the singular God.

Each is tasked with some aspect of reality and responsibility. These Loa are much closer to humanity and are able to carry our prayers over to divinity. This is why they are called to, sung to and danced for. They are the ones who can help the practitioners change the world. In Shadowrun, it’s assumed they have been given their magical gifts by a specific Loa. This is why they receive totem bonuses from the spirit they follow. It’s also worth mentioning that each person has a specific Loa that they are attached to at birth. Someone with the “Gift of Eyes” can see someone’s patron Loa and then often that priest or priestess will help that person connect to the spirit.

There is MUCH more depth to mine on this topic. There are thousands of Loa and it’s even possible for new Loa to come into being. For most game purposes, you just need to know. People are born with Loa aspects (Whether they are awakened or not) and that Voodoo is all about honoring the spirits keeping the world working together.

Place of Worship

Often rituals and rites take place in temporary temples put together (though in places where it’s more accepted many beautiful permanent temples do exist.). Really it can be done any place (and some Loa enjoy rites being done in places like a shallow river or lake or high up to be near the sky). The most important aspect is the Central Pillar. This should be a strong post driven into the ground or mounted in some way that someone can swing or put their entire body weight against it. This becomes important when rituals are done.

Rituals usually begin with music and calling to the Loa. Dancing soon follows and offerings are made. In order to speak or call to specific Loa, Veves (essentially complex sigils) are drawn on the floor in either chalk or etched into the dirt. This will call the Loa to come to the ceremony in order to speak or enjoy the festivities laid out. Often there will be food, drink, etc laid out on white tables before the ritual begins as well.

Magic, Ritual Magic and Magical Trappings

It’s assumed that magic comes to a practitioner and then they are brought into the priesthood. This would usually be in the form of a formal initiation however its possible for sole practitioner being able to be called by a Loa without a temple. The Loa would gift them with spells and rituals. These would be complex Veve for calling specific spirits and songs and dances to channel the Loa’s power. The songs would often be in French or Creole. The music always includes some drums.

During these rituals the practitioners as well may create gris-gris (sometimes called Hands, Mojo Bags, etc. depending on how the gris-gris is made). These are sometimes small bags with roots and charms, sometimes necklaces or the creation of even statues from concrete and shells. These in Shadowrun would be fetishes or full on Foci Items as per Enchanting in your favorite edition of Shadowrun. A Loa which would best be asked for assistance in the creation of the fetish or Foci would be called down to “Ride” (possess) the priest or priestess and then they would breathe life into the item.

Two other aspects of voodoo I think would be incredible to include would be that conjuring should require Veve’s to be drawn in flour, chalk or corn meal. Often offerings of alcohol are given with the gift of “breath” which is then put into the mouth of the practitioner and then spit across what you want to bless. This would be a super interesting detail to add to a priest/ess casting a spirit out of someone or banishing a spirit in general.

Divination is heavily used in this faith as well. Many important choices are only made after consulting some kind of divination. This is done with cards, casting bones, or some other method as taught to the priest/ess handed down by their House (Initiatory Group).

Ritual Sacrifice

This is a very controversial aspect of many diaspora faiths. Often during the height of the music and the ritual movements, animals will be brought in and offered to the Loa. Though this is often done rarely, it becomes the central point of fixation for a lot of people. Something to consider is that the Loa only care about the blood. The rest of the animal is offered to the people. So what this usually translates to is a heck of a chicken fry after the ritual.

Palo Mayombe

Palo is a common diaspora faith in Cuba and southern Florida. It’s often confused with a lot of other faiths and is a beloved target of the media because it looks incredible from the outside. It is a faith about fighting against the darkness in life and offering medicine to those who need it. In this battle the Palero finds themselves, digging into the dirt and harvesting the wood to cure what ails those whom they love.

Best Book on the topic: Palo Mayombe: The Garden of Blood and Bones

Overview of Beliefs

Palo is a faith of spirits, Wood (Palo is Spanish for stick), Fire and Blood. Palo is another diasporic faith that comes from a combination of a lot of Congo faiths. It also is monotheistic faith with the creator deity being known as Nsambi. Nsambi focuses its attention on the dead rather than the living, this being left to the Mpungu, powerful spirits that are charged with maintaining the living world. They are spirits of the natural world or spirits of the dead that wish to aid humanity still.

The practices are similar in regard to voodoo in that they are held with dancing, drumming and singing to the powerful spirits that help run the world. The large difference is how it’s approached. Often in Palo the priests and priestess engage their own spirits (Consider this a kind of Ally spirit) to aid them in any magical workings. This spirit is kept in an iron cauldron with various special branches of wood (usually 7, 13, or 21 different kinds) and some kind of human bone (often a skull). This collection of things creates a “microverse” (Perhaps a demiplane?) called Nganga. That term is often useful to describe a lot of things in Palo that have been spiritually cultivated in order to become more spiritually healthy.

Through this vessel they are able to create a new spirit called “Nfumbe”. That spirit is fed through rituals and brought into power. The vessel itself usually stays within a holy house and is kept sacred.

Magic, Ritual Magic and Magical Trappings

Magical workings are done by calling out Nfumbe and asking it to perform some aspect of the magic. In Shadowrun this would be represented by having each Palero being brought up with a fledgling Nfumbe Spirit that lives inside the Palero’s Cauldron. As the Palero continues on their journey and makes offerings, they can attempt to power up their Nfumbe. I’ll detail a system below for how I would handle it.

The Palo also has a heavy influence on herbal baths, teas and incense in order to cleanse and clear off curses or bad spirits that have been drawn to a person. The priest/ess will often consult divination (done with 4 pieces of polished coconut [called Chamalongos], thrown into the air several times and recording how many land in different patterns). Then a medicine is crafted to directly cure the issue the person has. This is sometimes done even for hire by people outside of the faith.

Another divination system called, Fula is sometimes used by different traditions, which is a style of divination using gunpowder piles and setting them flame to see how they are consumed to answer specific questions. Finally, spirits are often called up for good and ill to follow targets around to either keep them from harm or cause it (Protection or the Accident Power). This is often done by conjuring a spirit binding it to an object which you then give to your target or hide it some place near where the target resides (Often the vehicle, home, work, etc). You can think of these like “Witch Bags” as described in the Supernatural TV series.

How I would run Palero’s in Shadowrun.

This would be an option for Full Magician characters. Character creation would be done the usual way for purchasing Spells. The exception will be made when it comes to Conjuring.

The starting character would begin with a Force 1 nFumbe Spirit which will reside within a new Foci (call Nganga) they will also have to buy for 2500 nuyen. They will need to also give up a single spell point to bind the Nganga to them.

The spirit is allowed to be called out of the cauldron every day and offer favors equal to its Force every day. They will be either bound to the cauldron or the priest (the priest would take some token from the cauldron to bind the spirit to themselves) at any given time and then may only be within Force x 5 KMs of whichever the spirit is bound too.

The Nganga may have its rating increased by performing a ritual costing 2500 Nuyen x Rating and spending 3 x Rating in Karma. This will automatically increase the rating of the spirit bound within it when it is completed.

Should the spirit ever be defeated or banished, it will return to the Nganga and be too weak to leave until a number of days equals to its Force has passed. It can only be truly destroyed if the Nganga itself is destroyed.

NFumbe Spirit 

  B	      Q	      S	    C	W	I	E	R
F + 2	F x 3	F + 1	F	F	F+1	F	F

INIT: F + 10 + 1D6, Astral F + 20 + 1D6
Attack: (Strength)M Stun
Powers: Accident, Confusion,Divination, Guard, Materialization, Search

Palero’s should always have a spirit looking out for them in the astral space. They should be able to have an ear to the spiritual world nearly all the time.

If there is any interest in this, I will be glad to make this much more expansive and give a whole microsystem for empowering the spirit and making multiple cauldrons more worthwhile for the Palero.