davecake

Moon accessible only to Lunar sorcerers makes sense (and of course, its probably the only element accessible for most (all?) of them). And presumably they use it to 'fake' access to other runes via their phases as they do in HQG. And no respectable member of the major sects would be interested in Chaos rune sorcery, but it is not a surprise that it is out there. I'm surprised that Magic is not included, because one of the few schools of sorcery we knew about, the Malvonian school, was described as a Magic rune school - and also because it is easy to see how all sorts of classic magical effects (dispel magic, protective wards, sensing and investigating magic, etc) that are already in the game in one form or another would naturally fall within it. It seems to me to be useful enough that there are more potential problems that stem from not having it than from having it. I can certainly imagine what Dragonnewt, or Mastery, or Fate or Luck etc Sorcery might be, but none of it sounds like something that would be accessed by the major Western cultures. Some of it may well be useful later, when we get around to looking at non-Western sorcery traditions such Kralorelan sorcery. (eg Path of Immanent Mastery could potentially be reinvented as a bunch of Combine Dragon and Man spells).

Yes, the Lunars have an afterlife. But what happens to your in the Lunar afterlife is dependent on your embrace of the Lunar way and its insights, as judged by the goddess. Not by how non-Lunars might view the morality of your actions. And the Lunar afterlife itself is evidence that the Lunar way can include torture, slavery and chaos when necessary.

I think Nysalorism is generally an immanent tradition (everything is god, including them), but ascetism only really comes into it a lot later, post-Sheng. I don't think the Lunar approach to Illumination is ascetic, but they support the Order of Day (which is ascetic) as the approved path to Illumination for those who are not part of a Lunar cult.

My personal bugbear - I quite like the skill check mechanic, and have no issue with it, but even though the POW gain roll mechanic is very similar, I've come to really dislike it. The difference is that the POW gain mechanic gives players a strong incentive to *decrease* their personal power. The optimal strategy to become powerful in the long term is to voluntarily decrease your personal POW, keep it relatively low by sacrificing it for Rune Magic (or use it for Enchantments, etc), and thus get much higher POW gain rolls. This is what I call a perverse incentive - the 'right thing to do' known to the player is different to that understood by the character. Its not a big game breaking deal for me. But I suspect I'll have some sort of workaround house rule for POW gain, perhaps involving Runes or passions or something. Maybe get a point of POW every time your Rune Affinity hits a certain level or something.

According to GROY, there is also the SunStand formation - form a circle, plus a group in the middle, forming a fire rune shape. Not a formation that useful to fight other phalanxes or similar heavy infantry, but useful to fight very mobile enemies, including some flying enemies, or that can be used to defend a group of magicians in the centre.

And as close as I can get to summarising mysticism in a single line is 'mystic magic is something you transcend'. Or a 'limit you have overcome'. Or event 'something you aren't'. its considerably subtler than other magic - and most people in the mystic areas East Isles or Kralorela use other magic (all three forms, animism sorcery and divine worship) for the day to day and mysticism is more of an aspirational goal that shapes their magic use rather than a practical day to day form of magic. Illumination as described in earlier RQ, and HQG, is more or less mysticism as understood by theists (this isn't a statement about the nature of Illumination, rather the limited rules understanding of it we have currently).

I think Ernalda is fine for a starting PC, as long as you are happy not to be much of a physical combatant. They get excellent healing magic without the challenging pacifism of Chalana Arroy, attack magic (especially elementals are always dangerous), and other magic that is useful to a party (especially buffing). Plus they have a fairly easily understood and important social position. If you want to play a character that is magic focussed, they are one of the best choices. And I agree that Xiola Umbar would be a very unusual cult to be found separate from other Darkness cults, which is most Orlanthi - but not that unusual where darkness cults are already worshipped (including the Torkani and Bachad) though it would still be a cult for a very small minority of specialists rather than widespread (just like Chalana Arroy). The Kitori are they other common group of human Darkness worshippers. I agree Eurmal is not an easy cult for starting PCs. In general, they are not just thieves or comedians, Tricksters would generally these days be classified with a mental illness or personality disorder, and are reckless and untrustworthy even to their own party. Lanbril for urban professional thieves, Orlanth or Yinkin if you want a sneaky scout type but who is not necessarily a professional criminal. Personally, I also think Heler is under rated, but I agree that the support to play them isn't really there except in HeroQuest.

This is what the old 'what my father says' handouts for RQ3 Gods of Glorantha were useful for - and at that level most of Glorantha hasn't changed much. Enough to know a little bit about each god - a couple of sentences each is all you really need for players to know which cults interest them.

The Crimson kool-aid is delicious! Possibly also chaotic! But delicious! Seriously, one of the great things about Glorantha is that the Bad Guys are the Good Guys from their viewpoint, in almost every case. Even the overtly evil (say, most of Fonrit, or the Vadeli) think they are at worst just being realist or logical. Of course the Lunars have a worldview that makes them seem like wonderful people who are prepared to do what it takes to save the world. Obviously it justifies horrible atrocities on often fairly dubious grounds, but they aren't the first people to have thought that. And how can Nysalor and Arkat both be wrong? Surely if Nysalor/Sedenya is going to destroy the world, then it is important to do everything you can to oppose them, even if you adopt some methods you might find unpatable, right?

Perhaps rather than being created around the time of the Dragonkill she is an older being somehow freed or reawakened at that time - perhaps she dates from the Godtime (she is incredibly powerful) and some guardian or binding that constrained her was destroyed at that time, either by Dragons or perhaps God Learner meddling? That leaves it open for her to have a history either related to the Great Darkness chaos invasions, and/or Nysalor. I don't feel a need to link her to any particular cult, she doesn't seem to wield much advanced magic, and neither of those cults has much history in the area. Much chaos magic is very primitive, often animist etc. I'd probably give her a wider range of both chaos features (as her body gradually mutates) and other animist powers than she possesses in Griffin Mountain.

Absolutely. And some of the details aren't yet settled. It does this by being the form of magic that is least constrained by external forces (well, unless you count Illumination). But it is still constrained in many practical ways by social means (notably other sorcerers, many of whom have very strong opinions on what the rules of sorcery are), including access to resources. Whether or not there are rules included in the first version of RQ for it, what really distinguishes sorcery from other magic systems is the capacity to create new spells, and thus new magical effects, in a relatively controlled way. That is, a magus can decide to create a particular magical effect, put in the necessary (and significant) intellectual and magical effort, and create a new spell - the closest other traditions can come is basically heroquesting for a new magical effect. The ability to create new spells makes sorcery dangerous, and potentially 'unbalancing' if that is what you want. But yes, a big spell, especially a newly created one, is going to be slow and ritualistic. Accumulating necessary ritual objects, engaging other casters, waiting for the right times - all things you will want to do for a big new spell. I see no reason why you can't have a system that is playable for PCs and good for NPC master sorcerers at the same time.

Ezok is the guy I presume the Ezokite school is named after, presumably an ancient Enrovalini sorcerer who studied under Zzabur or something. But I just hypothesised his existence, so its entirely possible that Ezok is a city or an untranslatable term or something instead.

FWIW, I've been seriously rereading pretty much every canon source on sorcery recently, and Jeffs conception of sorcery as a system of known spells with very little on the spot improvisation, but considerable flexibility given some weeks to months to come up with a solution (eg create learn a new spell) seems to me pretty much correct. I'm not thrilled with the emphasis on day of the week etc as a major source of pluses/minuses (often tends to come across as often a bit of an arbitrary choice of whether an event occurs at a time that helps or hinders a player), but location, carrying things around, time of day, etc all work great in play ( and day of week, season, etc still great for big ceremonies. I thoroughly agree that static bonuses are better than small dice rolls most of the time - thanks for taking that on board, Jeff. In practice I suspect/hope for a few emergent mechanics: 1) skill in the spell will not be hugely relevant to many big, massive spells - the caster will ceremony (etc) it up to 100% or so if they are going to invest days worth of magic points in it. A great sorcerer might learn/invent a spell to deal with a problem, then boost its chance of success and free INT up. It should feel like big intellectual endeavors are vital and important and useful. 2) great Maguses will have other means to boost up their effective Free INT and skill that are beyond those available to apprentices, including Enchantments, HeroQuests, the use of very powerful captured spirits/demons and other magical allies, and massive community support. Being a super powerful sorcerer like Yomili or Argin Terror should be doable within the rules, but not just having a huge skill percentage (though that should help, so Brithini are scary). 3) there will be eventually be more flexible and dynamic magical techniques that either require advanced magic (such as magic that effects Magic) or borderline heretical (from Emanationalist to demonological) techniques (eg want flexible responsive Fire Magic? Summon a Fire spirit that can perform several magics!). Though I don't expect these in the first rule book. There are plenty of techniques that we know are possible, but are clearly beyond the average sorcerer eg Mostali creating Jolanti and variations on that.

I think of the schools as being primarily intellectual traditions, but certainly some of them may be associated with specific institutions, just as we speak of Chicago school of economics or the Oxford school of international relations. but some schools (eg the Debaldan) will have many individual centers of learning, without one being pre-eminent.

My conception of alchemy is that a number of alchemical physical processes are known, that correspond to various Powers (eg Putrefaction is Death, Crystalisation is Harmony), and substances are catalogued according to correspondences with elements and sub-elements (eg Alcohol is the Fire of Water, vitriol might be literally water of Death?). Philosophically, it becomes vital to Western sorcery and philosophy - it is the key by which the abstract world of Runes is intellectually translated into the complex world of matter (and back). Without Alchemy sorcerous interaction with Matter would be far more simplistic - probably just simple Elemental manipulation. It concentrates on metals and minerals because much Western Sorcery is ultimately from Mostali sources, but that's not all there is - Plant and Beast alchemy is known to Malkioni in the modern era. Note also the Pavis grimoires seem pretty clearly alchemical and deal heavily with Man (though of course not Western). Alchemy has mundane as well as magical uses (like old RQ2 Alchemists Guild, also perfume manufacture in Fonrit), but purely magical or philosophical use still has value. I admit this is more medieval than Bronze Age but *shrug* 1600 years of sorcerous development surely means Gloranthan sorcery has progressed beyond our own Bronze Age, especially if some Mostali secrets have been stolen. I don't think that knowledge of gunpowder is common - it may be a known secret, but still likely to lead to an invasion of gunpowder gobblers, and no one wants that, so it isn't widely known or used. Of course seeking Iron is desired practically, but a secret the Mostali guard jealously. And philosophically, Iron is Death, which seems uninviting. Ultimately perhaps they seek to refine Adamant, pure solid Law. And surely no one who isn't a major Hero or demigod at least has ever done his. Maybe only Zzabur, or perhaps Ezok. Eastern alchemy, though still sorcerous, is of course a whole different thing.

I've always thought of the Schools of Magic as being intellectual traditions, rather than specific learning institutions/organisations of any kind. So the idea of someone using the magic derived from Against The Demons but not being part of the Furlandan School is incoherent to me, or at the most a subtle distinction probably not worth making. But the idea that the magic changes in practice have taken place in how it is used and approached over history depending on social context, absolutely. Against the Demons is a Dawn age book, because it contains dialogues attributed to Hrestol, though its conceivable other Furlandan grimoires predate it. I don't know the name of the author, but quite likely a companion of Hrestol, who used its magic initially to combat the lion men of Fronela. I know it was founded in Woswal (in Seshnela, though now underwater). Of course it could be based on earlier sources, much as the Hrestoli Telendarian school is based on Viymorni sources. Its always (as far as I can tell, given its obsession with hygiene) been about both fighting animists and also fighting disease and other spirit based 'enemies within'. So certainly it probably became popular for fighting the Enjoreli in the Dawn, but retained some value for fighting disease as well as other mundane spirit attacks even in the Ban - though the idea that they would turn inward and focus on purging the populace makes sense. I do like the idea of purging the populace of spirits. I also think that during the ban the Furlandan exorcists would summon spirits to purge the land, expel them from Loskalm to purify the country - and are thus responsible for empowering the Kingdom of War with the dark side of Loskalms power.

TL;DR I think the really overpowered sorcerers only came from munchkin NPCs, but there are still real RQ3 play balance issue. In my experience it was both too effective, and not effective enough. A sorcerer with high skills, a familiar, a bunch of bound spirits and magic items, was very powerful - though not necessarily in a way that super fun to play (you often got to buff everyone if you had a lot of Duration, but powerful spells still took a long time to cast), and it was far harder in play to get to be a powerful sorcerer than it was to become a priest or shaman. And if you did have a powerful sorcerer, your game became spells and spreadsheets, constantly juggling huge sets of magic point resources vs complex tradeoffs of Duration, all mostly done out of play. In short RQ3 sorcery was not broken in one single way, but multiple ways. But I'd like to take a closer look at that idea of the very powerful sorcerer. Because I think its spread largely by crazy NPCs in official publications. For example, Maculus the Monitor and the like were quite overpowered, but it was very difficult to be Maculus (let alone Arlaten or Halcyon Var Enkorth (Griffon Island version)) - he had 17 different spells or skills at ~90% or over. Spell Matrices added up to 37 points of POW worth (a large percentage in tattoos so personally enchanted not inherited or found), plus similar enchantments to hold 7 bound spirits (I think thats another 14 points of POW worth?), plus another 6 points on one of his familiars. Plus a bunch of armouring enchantments, and other magic items. Plus some fairly obvious abuse of the Familiar rules (which was absolutely more common than not in published characters). He was overpowered, but it wasn't just sorcery that made him so, and I don't think many games would have anyone like that as a player character. Was he that overpowered compared to a Rune Lord-Priest that had over 60 points of Rune Magic and enchantments? Though he was certainly considerably more complicated to play. And Arlaten was similarly difficult to replicate as a PC - 25 skills or spells at 85% or higher (a couple more for evil Arlaten), 14 points of POW worth of Matrices, at least 10 points worth of spirit binding enchantments. PCs did not replicate these guys often. And again, gratuitous abuse of the familiar rules. And somehow he got all this POW despite maintaining a POW of 21 so he basically never made POW Gain rolls. So again, implausible as a PC, and very difficult to play. This was my experience with RQ3 - that most of the impressions of wildly overpowered sorcerers came from the munchkin sorcerers within official publications, rather than characters worked up in play, and that sorcerers were often a little underpowered, at least at character creation. But the sort of things achievable by a moderately powered sorcerer, like buffing the entire party with a few spells before any major fight, still upset the sense of play balance of most people, and did seem to challenge most peoples ideas of how the world worked. The most challenging thing conceptually about RQ3 sorcery was the idea that large chunks of Glorantha ran around with a lot of magic perpetually active, which was not true of any other magic system. None of which is really meant to challenge or criticise the new RQ sorcery in any way, just to say that the problems of RQ3 sorcery might be widely misperceived. You might be able to create similarly super powered characters in new RQ sorcery, if you assume they are that skilled at a huge number of skills and spells, and give them absolutely enormous amounts of POW to create enchantments, but there might be nothing wrong with that. Worrying about whether you can create an incredibly powerful sorcerer given that sort of crazy 'budget' shouldn't be a huge concern IMO, as long as priests or shamans with a similar budget are also crazy powerful and one or the other isn't obviously inferior - and without knowing how the heroquest stuff works, it may not even matter at all, if you are just pushing the rules into zones where they aren't really designed to be played. Whether or not sorcery is overpowered should be looked at within the realms of play that are likely to happen. Are they roughly equivalent at starting PC level to experienced PC level is what matters. Magic that is a bit less effective per MP but allows the casting of big powerful spells with many MP sounds great, usefully different to other magicians. But it is worth noting that heavy use of multispell and duration was what really bothered people about RQ3, and replicating the same exponential scheme is probably where the weird issues of significant amounts of perpetually maintained magic come in, which was what bothered people about RQ3 sorcery. Anything that uses the exponential scheme of RQ3 is likely to run into similar issues eventually - if boosting Duration 10 is 10 times as long, no problem, but if Duration 10 is 2^10 times as long, as in RQ3, then it will end up with the same issue of permanently maintained magic upsetting some peoples ideas of what Glorantha is like (I have no strong opinions as to what is preferable, but it certainly makes play balance easier if you just avoid the whole issue). Though permanently maintained magic by other means (eg by enchantments that cost POW) are by no means as problematic. So after that long rant - Jeff, are the Duration etc effects exponential or linear? If exponential, are there 'hard' limits that might prevent them leading to the perpetually maintained spells of RQ3?

Jeff, I can assure you that if I playtest, I playtest. I give it to my players (who vary widely in their experience with both Glorantha and various game systems) and let them play with it, and only let them know my opinions beyond the most general after I've heard what they have to say (and I'm regularly surprised). My preconceived notions do make a difference, but mostly in that I have ideas about what I think should be possible that I try to test out - for example my experiences with running a Fronelan game make me think that the case of a character who learns sorcery from scratch, rather than starting with significant previous experience, is worth looking at. I'm sure I'm not the only player with preconceived ideas (as any experienced player will have) but who takes objective playtesting seriously, and I'd like a game that considers some of the concerns experienced players are likely to have as well as the new player.

I have the same concerns about relying heavily on time as some others (definitely doesn't suit every game style to be constantly concerned with what day of the week it is) but sorcerers carrying around a lot of supporting equipment sounds great. One suggestion is that I found in RQ3 if sorcerers gained POW at the same rate as other dedicated magicians, the question arose of what did they do with it all. Priests gained RunePower, Shamans built up their fetch, but sorcerers mostly used it to enchant things. Giving them the ability to enchant items to boost their chances of casting spells will appeal to many players (who might not want the frustration of every new spell being laboriously built up in skill levels before being regularly usable without ceremony), soaks up a lot of POW, and suits descriptions of Gloranthan sorcery (eg the mention in Xeotam dialogues of sorcerers initially having to rely on amulets and such). And sorcerers having plot complications due to access to their gadgets is a pretty classic motif. Of course they will also want to enchant a lot of items that give them access to more magic points as well (binding enchantments that contain spirits for power is another motif both classic and Gloranthan). Also, am I the only one who is finding the editing system on these forums dealing with quotes incredibly hard to use and frustrating?

This seems to me intentional, and expected. Sorcery in HQG was very much your spells are a collection of very specific effects rather than flexible effects. And it seems to me to be Vancian, in the sense of gloriously flavourful spells with cool names, without being at all D&Dish (not the use and forget mechanic, not likely to lead to a pile of bookkeeping keeping track of very minor unexciting spells that soon become redundant).

I'm not really treating the Furlandan school as unchanging - rather, their favourite Furlandan grimoire, Against the Demons, is unchanging (more or less), though new spells can be found in it. And we perhaps know a little too much about that book for it to be too much fun - from what we know of Against the Demons, most of it is about evil spirits or hygiene, so its difficult to extrapolate really cool interesting spells without going down 'the dark side' of commanding evil spirits. It does appear to be useful mostly as a source of defensive magic, though that might include laying the dead to rest, cursing shamans, curing madness, etc. There are some very general chapters in the book, like an account of creation and the expulsion of Malkion, and there are some very prosaic chapters (praise of marriage and charity, praise of physical effort (some physical buffing spells? hardly exciting), and the indignity of breach of contract (oath magic?) and assault (calming magic?). I do like the idea of New Hrestoli spells based on their superior hygiene, though. A Man of All smiling broadly, the light glints off his perfect teeth, overcoming the smelly pagans by virtue of his perfect teeth, hair and body odour. Ultimately, Furlandan magic, even if we extrapolate multiple new grimoires, is still going to be Spirit Rune magic, and that is still going to be mostly defensive to a culture that thinks messing with spirits is generally a bad idea. Not every school needs to be cool. There might be some careful theurgic summoning of beneficial spirits. Of course, there are presumably forbidden volumes of Spirit rune magic that cover commanding and summoning all manner of wicked spirits but well... they're forbidden. Or at least restricted to the truly wise and trustworthy.

HeroQuest is a very different game system to RuneQuest, very minimalist in many ways. Its very satisfying for some sorts of game, and not so much for others (particularly, combat heavy games are probably not well suited to HQ). 13th Age is different again, and kind of the opposite - great for games that focus a lot of combat and not much else. I would say get Sartar:Kingdom of Heroes, Sartar Companion, and Pavis regardless of what rules system you want to play in. The Coming Storm is a lot more focussed on a smaller area of Sartar, but is also pretty great. That will give you the updated collected info on most of the areas you liked. It will be years, if ever, before all the background info in those books is available for other game systems, and most of it is either systemless or very close. Even things like the cult writeups in those books will be useful (there is a lot of info in those 'long form' cult writeups that can be easily combined with rules from other games). The Guide is systemless, and wonderful, and will give you masses on useful information. What you get in it is basically two or three things. First, you get a solid introductory section, with information on the basic monomyth, the major cultures, the Elder races, the broad sweep of (Genertelan) history, the metaphysics and hero plane, etc. Second, and the bulk of the two books, is maps and detailed discussion (at least down to city and major landmark level) of the entire inner (mortal) world, in a similar format to the old Glorantha box (so including some overview, major individuals, cultural notes, summary of hero wars conflicts, etc for each area) but in more detail and much much better maps. Third, you get a collection of extra material that goes into detail about a few of the more unusual aspects of the world including some things that were big secrets previously - maps of the mythic history, information about the coming hero wars, the first age, the Sky, The Gods Wall, the Red Moon, etc,

To clarify a bit there - when I say everything is permitted, I mean the Lunars admit to no moral absolutes. None at all, so genocide, slavery, the use of chaos, torture etc can all be justified under some circumstances (though not routinely, mostly exceptional acts require exceptional circumstances). But they also believe that you should be motivated by compassion, as the goddess is, so there should be an outcome that justifies the means, and also that while there may be no absolute moral limits on your actions, in practice there should be many pragmatic and utilitarian limits on your actions required to make a functioning society (limits that, in Dara Happan tradition, they often enforce brutally). But ultimately, the only person able to make the moral judgement as to whether your actions are correct is you (of course, that doesn't mean they won't feel free to enforce consequences on you according to their judgement). So they have laws like anyone else, but are less inclined to make laws that simply regulate private morality (unless in the service of their state religion). It is important to note, however, that it is spiritual compassion that motivates them, rather than more mundane interpretation. Executing those who are fallen into grave spiritual error, even on a mass scale, can be seen as a compassionate act, liberating them from their downward path free to try again in the next life. Making war on the truly spiritually mistaken (like the Orlanthi) is compassionate, because you can free them from their spiritual error and lead them to liberation. Of course destroying the souls of the unlucky few is justified by the greater spiritual project. And so on. The Lunars truly do believe that they are doing the right thing. Or at least many of them do. Its almost impossible to stop this style of reasoning falling into at best brutal pragmatism, at worst dark cynicism. And that is also true of many Lunars. If anything separates Arkat and Nysalor, perhaps it is that Arkat does not believe that this goal of spiritual liberation justifies atrocities and other dubious moral acts. But Arkat later comes to believe that opposing that worldview justifies atrocities itself.

The Lunar goddess, in her compassionate wisdom, gives us the Red Emperor and her Immortals to instruct and guide (and you know, occasionally execute) her faithful so that they do not fall too far into the path of Occlusion. Any allegations that the Emperor has fallen into Occlusion are clearly absurd (unless you manage to assassinate/execute and replace the Emperor, in which case they were clearly correct). Nothing is true - this is true of the Lunars philosophy, but it is also true of all other philosophies, and by acknowledging it the Lunars may seek the deeper truths denied to the heathens. The Lunars (or at least, the Illuminated elite) understand that their empire is based on illusion and deception - but so are all other empires and philosophies (especially including the Orlanthi), and at least the Lunars understand that it is so, and have something beyond that to rely on. It is of course true that incorrect use of Illuminated philosophy can lead to global destruction and ruin, should an occluded Illuminate (like Arkat) use their Illuminated insights in the service of hate and fear. When used correctly in the service of liberation and insight, Illumination can also lead to a Golden Age of peace and wisdom and wonders (like the Bright Empire, or the Lunar Empire itself).

As far as I can work out, the only really unusual about the grimoire (apart from cultural factors like it being non-Malkioni and written in Auld Wyrmish) is that it has two runes instead of one, but that is perfectly within the rules (it says most have a single Rune, but that implies some Grimoires have more than one). You can still combine one of those two runes with any other rune. Harmony of the Parts - this is a Harmony effect obviously enough. Call it Summon or Command Harmony. Soothe the Dyspeptic Stomach - I'd call this a Combine Darkness with Harmony - it is said to suppress hostile Darkness magic, but rules wise it actually doesn't suppress all Darkness, only magical attempts to make the Darkness hostile (practically the same thing for most purposes). I think calling this Dismiss Darkness is technically against the rules - its not involving one of the original runes of the grimoire. The entry to the Room Without Doors could be anything - we don't know much about what magic is used to seal the room in the first place - but my guess would be that this is a Command Stasis effect, and the Room Without Doors is normally kept closed by Flintnail Stasis magic. Same rules objection goes to making this Separate Earth or similar. We know so little about the magic of the Alchemical Wedding of Lord Pavis and The Book of the Original Man that there really isn't much to say, but as they have a single rune each they seem perfectly normal grimoires from a rules perspective. Given the marital metaphors of The Alchemical Wedding its a safe bet that it makes heavy use of Combine. The ritual allowing different species to reproduce from The Book of the Original Man sounds like its Combine Man and Fertility to me. The Book of Treaties is very straight forward - it has the Magic Rune (hey, a bit odd, I'd think twice before letting a player do this, but fine for the GM) and each spell is Combine Magic Element. Command Element is probably the canonical way of summoning an elemental, but Pavis is doing something weird here to get his multi-elemental grimoire, and his grimoire has disadvantages as a consequence (the single shared elemental for the whole cult issue) so its fine if odd.