Oddities from My Bookshelf – The Necromican
The back cover is NSFW (think succubus)
No, that’s not a typo for Necronomicon. I suspect it was an attempt to cash in on the Lovecraft reference without the risk of Chaosium coming after them, since Chaosium had the exclusive license to produce RPG material involving the Cthulhu Mythos. If that’s the case, then the concern went no further than the cover, but they may have figured that a big copyright infringement in the title might draw attention.
Anyway, this little book of spells was put out in 1979 by Fantasy Art Enterprises. Not that I bought mine new. Mine came, as did so many other oddities, from a convention flea market, back when such things bore more resemblance to garage sales than to unlicensed book stores.* The cover text claims that the book is “compatible with most fantasy role-playing games.” Of course, most people assume they meant D&D, but to be fair, they probably meant Arduin as well.
Then again, I don’t recall if Arduin used the same rounds/turns timekeeping mechanic that D&D did in those days, and every spell in this book talks about rounds and turns.
But enough about that, let’s get between the covers and see what we have.
The Necromican contains twelve levels of wizard spells, intended to supplement existing lists. Some of these spells expand the caster’s other abilities, such as senses (“Spell of Gustatory Expansion,” “Spell of Auditory Excellence,” and so on).
Others are practical and marketable. Two of my favorites here are “Spell of Good Grooming” – which provides the effects of “a shower, haircut and laundry” for up to six targets (doesn’t specify a shave, but as a GM I’d probably include a shave or beard trim for those who want it) – and “Spell of Variable Fertility” which can act as either contraception (important in those fantasy worlds) or guarantee of conception.
Amusing point – the “Spell of Variable Fertility” lasts until dispelled. That makes sense for the contraceptive version, but if used to ensure conception, it means either someone’s popping out a lot of kids or someone is leaving a trail of kids behind him.
The spells do get a little imbalanced when it comes to combat. First level includes the “Personal Energy Attack” which, though the damage die and area of effect have a random element, has a 95% chance of being the most efficient 1st level combat spell available. Thirty-five percent of the time, it will be more powerful than the 3rd level spell “Fireball.” Here’s the damage per level breakdown:
d% roll damage per level
1 Nothing
2-5 1 point
6-15 1d3
16-35 1d4
36-65 1d6
66-85 1d8
86-95 1d10
96-99 1d12
100 1d20
Oh, and when I say random element, I mean when the spell is learned, not when it’s cast. The moment you add it to your spell book, you roll the percentile dice and find out just how badass it is (unless you get very unlucky).
Then there are 6th level delights like “Decimal Destruction” (target saves or loses 10-100% of hit points) and “Thoth Amon’s Organ Request”** Just like it sounds, that spell causes an organ to burst forth from a target (up to 240’ away, save to no effect) and fly to “the caster’s outstretched hand.” Hard to interpret that as less lethal than the 9th level D&D spell “Power Word Kill.”
“He told me to have a heart. I thought it was an offer.”
And once you get beyond the 9th level spells, the fun doesn’t stop. My current favorite is the 12th level spell “Summoning of the Black Hole.” Yep, you read that right. I’ll just leave the effects of that one to your imagination, but I promise you – they’re nasty. One short-sighted aspect though: the range is only 360’. That’s closer than I want to get to a black hole, I can tell you that.
So, do I recommend this book, if you can find it? Heck yes! It’s a hoot, and the art is fun. I wouldn’t call it balanced, but I admit I used a few of these spells in games, back in the day. And if you want to, you can tweak these things into useable shape without too much trouble.
Do you have a copy of this book, or one like it? I’d like to hear about it (and what you think of it).
This is on the last page of the book. No explanation.
*By this I mean that, in the 80’s, people ponied up for flea market space to dump books and games they didn’t want anymore, priced to sell. Not so true anymore. At the last DunDraCon I saw one guy trying to get half the cover price for old D&D 3.5 supplements.
**Not so worried about copyright on the inside as they were in their title, since that’s a blatant reference to Robert E. Howard’s Thoth Amon from his Conan stories. And on the Lovecraft front, the book even has a 9th level spell “Gaze of Cthulu” [sic].
