Liber Chao

Written by Pablo Barrn (Kadari)

The things in this sourcebook may or may not be based on fiction, fact, characters or events (real or imaginary), reality, truth, or logic.

This is an unofficial sourcebook for the RPG Kult, which is currently published by 7th Circle. Greetings and thanks go to the whole "The Last Cycle" forums and its members (http://www. kult-rpg.com) -- and to unsuspecting Pain for that 3D tower ;) Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the FDL (GNU Free Documentation License), Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no BackCover Texts.

Kopyleft (K) 2004 All Rites Reversed

Index
Chaos Magic Philosophy
Beliefs are Tools Shattering the Form The Basis of All Form Hermes Trismegistus

Practicing Chaos Magic

Costs Magic Tools General Spells The Knowledge of the Conjurer of Chaos

The Neither-Neither State of Mind

Method and Objectives Power Techniques

Chaos Spells
Discordia Archetypes
The Compulsive Believer The Mental Terrorist

Daath

Chaos Magic Philosophy

"You are the totality of what you do and can therefore change yourself by doing otherwise. Magic is the art of deliberately believing and pretending very hard and finding that it works. Highly improbable things can be done by those who are prepared to experiment with the belief that they are not quite so improbable. The world is an illusion, it has played a confidence trick on you if you let it define who you are. However, you are able to play confidence tricks on the universe and force it to accept your own definition of yourself(s). In fact, the universe, being a humorous, obliging and magical structure, will invariably collide in any such definitions you care to make, if you act skillfully. We are all charlatans, especially those persons pretending to be normal ordinary people...." [Principia Chaotica - Peter J.Carroll]

Beliefs are tools

Human magic was forgotten for a long time as Malkuth and the Demiurge hid it from us. As time passed, it was slowly rediscovered by a few cultures in distant points inside the Illusion: some say it was Malkuth who, regretting her role in creating the illusion, taught it to us again. Some say Astaroth and his death angels did.
From the beginning, magic was related to specific beliefs or traditions, to gods, demons, and spirits: humans failed to realize that magic comes from their own divinity. Most of them are still unaware of this fact: in contemporary western magic, this error is widespread: pagan witches consider themselves children of the god and goddess, and the heirs of ceremonial magick praise egyptian gods and use alien symbolics in their rituals.
Chaos Magic is a way to approach magic which tries to be a meta-magic. Chaoists do not go blindly into rituals which just work by symbols and beliefs that are rooted in the sorcerer's subconscious by means of human history and development. Chaoists don't need a sword, nor a wand, nor a pentacle, neither a cup: they try to understand what they symbolize and use the most powerful symbols they can come up with to empower their magic and make it limitless, breaking the bounds fixed belief systems impose on conjurers. Those systems, even though they can be powerful, limit the sorcerer: but a wide repertory of beliefs and the ability to use and discard them at will proves extremely useful for the experimented magician. One model ultimately means one approach: that restricts the possibilities the magician is prepared to accept.

Belief is not an end by itself: it is a tool for achieving effects. God is not the center of the universe -the religious point of view-, neither are men -the naive newtonian mechanicism which thinks reality can be understood-. Nothing can be known. Chaos magicians usually draw their philosophy from postmodernism and poststructuralism, and are deeply influenced by the quantum physics ideas on uncertainty and possibility, as well as by mathematical chaos theories: jailed inside a simulation, chaoists try to play with it and break it, investigating ways in which the simulation can be modelled by their will
Psychologically, chaoists are pure situationalists: consistency of behaviour is determined by the situation rather than by any internal personality traits, as well as consistence of reality is determined by the consensus belief, habit, and their symbolics: the illusory continuum in which humans have been inserted. Personality is fluid, as it is an artificial construct the observer -the sorcerer's soul- has built as an answer to external stimulus. For the same reason, it is not the belief structures consistency which is important -no truth can be really known-, but the magician's ability to believe them at will.
Chaoists can be seen praying to Tolkien gods and Pokemon characters, meditating to computer games, relating DragonBallZ dragonballs with the seven chakras and kundalini, and working real magic with them. The chaoist deconditions herself from the social self, beliefs, attitudes, political positions, culture, and every tiny bit which adds to mantain the sense of a fictional stable ego. Thus, freedom is widened and creative ability grows unhindered.
In an uncertain reality bound by a consensual social simulation inside the Illusion which determines who you are and what is allowed within reality, chaoists find their golden rule for magic: "fake it 'till you make it".

Shattering the Form

Some chaos theorists think the sort of magical energies which flow through the universe cannot be understood by our dualistic minds: these energies do not belong to us, neither to our analytical conscience. To make magic work, chaoists have to give up their beliefs, including the consensual social hallucination and self-importance in which their earthly mind is immersed: silencing the neverending mind chattering we all continuously experience is a must. The conjurer's aim is creating in her mind a conscience state which resembles as much as possible the preprocessing state, the non-form one, in which magic is possible.

This conscience state is usually called the "Neither-Neither" state, and will be explained later, as it is the basis of every chaoist's work.
Chaos sorcerers aim for this "Neither-Neither" state, by which they operate their minds in a subconscious level. Through the annihilation of form, the unconscious can be directly operated through focusing on magickal symbols which are binded to the emotional meanings and the will which consist on the desired effect of the spell. So, once there, chaoists can influence their minds by pictorial or musical symbols, mantras, and a few other different techniques of mental work used to create changes in reality.

It is there where chaoists can unleash their hidden powers, the divinity that long ago was stripped from humanity. It is there where they attack their personality and ego seeking illumination.

The Basis of All Form

Language in a wide sense is the catalyst by which our reality -the Illusion- arises: it is the basis of all form. Be it in pictorial representations, mathematics, symbols or specific idioms, language is an abstraction which main function is shaping reality, that is to say, both dreaming and daily life perceptions. Language structures knowledge and produces the time concept by which we track our lifes and live the Illusion: we are composed of pictorial memories which work like a hieroglyphical language, and words which we use to organize them and refer to them. So, language is the creator of every of our 'truths' and gives reality its splendour: this is represented in magical traditions with deities such like the egyptian god Thoth and the greek god Hermes; they are symbols of communication, language, and magic. Sometimes roman god Mercury and hindu Ganesha, the Lord of Categories, are related.
Chaos magicians work with raw symbols, playing -many times unknowingly- with the fact that every fiction can be true inside the Illusion, as it is given form by language.

This is the deepest basis of chaos magic as a meta-magic tool. However, many impulsive chaos magicians are unaware of this, as theory is sometimes misconsidered or not fully understood. Chaos magic itself is based on results, but only a few advanced mages have understood the deeper rules beyond the results which apply to classic ceremonial magic as well as to their meta-magic. This lack of internalization of the deep relationship between language and form sometimes hinders the chaoists' power to develop to its fullest potential.

As language is the key to form inside the Illusion, the chaote will use it to mold reality. Her magic consists on nulliflying every language along with the analytical chattering mind- except for a few language elements -usually symbols- which receive all the focus and are used to perform changes in reality.

Hermes Trismegistus
That which is above is from that which is below, and that which is below is from that which is above, working the miracles of one. -- The Emerald Tablet

Many legends surround the figure of Hermes Trismegistus. Some say he lived in Egypt about five thousand years ago. He is considered the first magician in history, and a very powerful one indeed. He wrote a series of texts on philosophy and magic called Corpus Hermeticum.

After Hermes Trismegistus died -some argue he awakened, and occasionally visited sages until the end of the Middle Ages-, he was immortalized as the Moon god by the egyptians: due to his heku (magic) they called him Thoth (which means "the one who creates with his voice"), and pictured him as a scribe with the head of an Ibis.
As well as the first magician, egyptians considered Hermes/Thoth an extremely wise sage: he taught egyptians how to write down their thoughts and structure their speech. He created the hieroglyphic language, music and arithmetics. Myths about Thoth tell us he wrote the egyptian sacred texts and was a judge for the afterlife path of the deceased: he was the one to establish if they had enough spiritual development to get through. Greeks almost copied Thoth's attributes and called him Hermes, enriched the myth and developed magical philosophies from it.

However, other sources state that Hermes Trismegistus never existed and he was a godform: an idea and philosophy of magic created by greek sages and sorcerers circa 200 A.D. to back up their knowledge and extend it. They called this philosophy "hermeticism", and invented the myth around Hermes Trismegistus.
The highest form of magic these sages developed was called Theurgia, which used magic words (voces magicae) and psychological tricks such like self-identification with gods to cast spells which later evolved into ceremonial magic and the modern meta-magic Chaos Lore.

Some powerful magicians, think that it does not really matter wether Hermes Trismegistus existed or not, but that he exists.

Practicing Chaos Magic

Zos tired, but loathing his hearers too much, he again reviled them saying:Worm-ridden jackals! Still would ye feast on my vomit? Whosoever follows me becomes his own enemy; for in that day my exigency shall be his ruin. Go labour! Fulfil the disgust of becoming yourself, of discovering your beliefs, and thus acquire virtue. Let your good be accidental; thus escape gratitude and it sorry vainglory, for the wrath of Heaven is heavy on easy self-indulgence. In your desire to create a world, do unto others as you would-when sufficiently courageous. To cast aside, not save, I come. Inexorably towards myself; to smash the law, to make havoc of the charlatans, the quacks, the swankers and brawling salvationists with their word-tawdry phantasmagoria; to disillusion and awaken every fear of your natural, rapacious selves.

[Austin Osman Spare -- The Sermon to the Hypocrites]

Costs
As well as every magician, chaoists must have Magical Intuition: this allows the magician to learn lores and spells as regular skills. A character with an already positive balance after it is created adds 20 to her mental balance, and a character with a negative balance substracts 20 to it.
Chaos Lore costs one skill point per level up to the Ego level of the player character, and beyond there it costs three points per level. So do specific spells cost. Chaos Lore does not belong to the Realm of Enlightenment, neither to the Realm of Trascendence, and chaoists consider them an useless dualism. Magicians who have Chaos as their Primary Lore don't care on if any other lore they want to study belongs to the Realm of Enlightenment or to the Realm of Trascendence: Chaos Lore can be used as Ego for any other Lore, regardless its Realm.

Chaos also allows breaking the Primary Lore rule, as it is a meta-magic: any sorcerer with a Primary Lore which is not Chaos Lore can switch her Primary Lore to Chaos as soon as she reaches 15 skill points on it and no other lore has a higher rating: then she will be able to use it as if it were her Ego when studying other lores. However, there will be no chance to turn back to the previous "Primary Lore".
Chaoists are not aware that they are searching for their own divinity: they will learn as they grow, but as any other conjurers they do not know anything from the beginning. Unlike other magicians, chaoists soon learn their abilities come from within and do not engage in faiths nor believe any of their magical powers come from without, so they are less prone to pacts with dark forces: however, they sometimes dwell in uncertainty as they feel magical energies are greater than what their usual concepts of "humanity" hold, and some think about them as a non-human "mana" energy that can never be fully understood.

Magic Tools
Accesories such like tunics, incenses and candles are normally used in traditional Ceremonial Magic: they are supposed to create the adequate mood inside the magician's mind to awake the power that lies within. However, they are unnecesary while performing Chaos Magic, and they are usually replaced by anything that adequately fits the spell required mood or sometimes even nothing at all.

For instance, if a chaoist is invoking a servitor based on James Bond, a tuxedo would fit better than a tunic. Usually, the tunic represents a veil which protects the magician, and the secrecy with which her work is done; but other symbolisms, such like in the tuxedo case, may be more effective for a particular purpose. The chaoist may even choose to be naked, as a wiccan-like symbol on her raw magical approach.

Neither the cup, sword, crown, ring, nor any other magical objects are really needed by the magician. These objects are symbols which represent traits and powers from the conjurer. They can be replaced with any other symbols which fit the chaoist and her intentions in a ritual, or even nothing at all if her psychic abilities are strong enough to use what these tools symbolize: when a powerful meditation is used for a spell, tools may render unnecesary.

The Sword symbolizes reason and discrimination; it cuts through problems. It analyses, divides and conquers the enemy: usually, the magician's own mind. This is why it is recommended not to abuse the sword with ignorance, as it is the caster's own illusory complexity the most important to be destroyed. Furthermore, for positively balanced magicians the sword is considered useful to liberate the conjurer's emotions from the web in which they are entangled and turn them into perceptions.
The Cup represents compassion, as well as understanding: every magic student begins with his imaginary cup almost empty, and it is filled through experience. It is by understanding that the magician purifies his work. When this cup holds some truths about the Illusion, other magicians can learn from it by symbolically placing their wands into the cup -the sexual symbolism is clear-. This is also why the cup is considered to represent compassion.
The Wand is the conjurer's True Will, that which draws her towards awakening and recovering her lost divinity. This True Will shall not be confused with the magician's desires and attachments to her earthly existence.
The Crown represents the achievement of the conjurer's work, as well as her divinity. Usually it is a golden headband in front of which there are three pentagrams, as well as other symbols which along with the wand inform the invoked entities about the magician.

The Ring symbolizes the infinite, the true reality beyond man. It is what qabbalists call Ain Soph: the infinite's essence as the whole range of possibilities from which every reality appears, and the light which emanates from it and is transformed in the Illusion into time, space and reality.

General Spells
Chaoists do not use the generic spells which are common to other lores. They do not have the summoning spell, neither banishing, nor binding, not even exorcism: they work with entities by using servitors and other specific spells which may summon or even create sometimes unwillingly- creatures. However, it is recommended that a magician uses some sort of triangle to evoke any entities in order to keep them under control, such like in the "Raise servitor" spell.
Protective pentagram spells can be casted by chaotes, but they usually do not care and despise them: they use to think that magic should run freely, and that protective pentagrams only hinder magic's natural process. Though, protective pentagrams can be useful as a mental barrier to protect the conjurer from external entities.
an influx of power and information from these outer, supernatural, sources.

A specific meaning of the pentagram that ceremonial magic sorcerers are usually unaware of is protecting the conjurer's sanity; in any magical practice the sorcerer renders himself vulnerable, so there is a serious risk of obsession, paranoia and other mental imbalances. So, the pentagram is useful to return to the Illusion after casting a spell and still be able to do normal things normal people do, without scaring people.

The pentagram is useful to prevent supernatural powers from interfering with the work of the magician: when a ritual is performed, the magician is rendering himself vulnerable to magic forces and opening himself to

Of course, these are strong reasons for a chaoist to avoid using any kind of protective pentagrams and consider anyone using them a coward "9-to-5 magician" (a term which refers to those magicians which just use their powers to aid their normal lifes). The chaoist's mental balance will go to extremes faster than any other magic practitioner, and usually this kind of magic is combined with outsider lifestyles.
Chaoists do neither cast fixed spells related with temples, though some appreciate having a personal space for their magic.

The Knowledge of the Conjurer of Chaos

The Basics (skill score of 1-10)
The conjurer knows personality is illusory. Every of his ideas about the world have been imprinted by experience. His achievements and frustrations have no value, as he is judging them through imprinted social mechanisms. He knows magic has a big cultural influence which determines the symbols and rituals different conjurers use, and that every magician can create his own.

Higher Knowledge (skill score of 11-40)

The conjurer understands that the way in which every perception is structured is a cultural process, and that people who belong to similar contexts modelize and perceive reality through mostly common patterns. He knows that Chaos precedes every perception, and that it doesn't have any form at all: when Chaos is filtered by our minds, we give it form and create inside our minds that illusion of form. He also knows that these structures can be altered: changing the way in which Chaos is ordered can change reality .
He also learns to adapt his behaviour to any circumstances, so he will be able to fit in any social situation if he wants to: he fastly perceives social rituals and their importance once he analyzes a specific context.

Full Insights (skill score of 41-50)

The conjurer knows we are jailed in the Illusion and that every of our minds contributes to give it form. Our mental structures are trapped in an illusory consensual reality we usually cannot escape, as it is our hidden underlying structures which deceive us. Consensus and the way mind is tied to it strenghtens the shackles which make us blind to the primal Chaos that precedes our perceptions. Chaos itself is to some extent perceived by our senses, but we have strong perceptual filters which supress every dissonance with the consensus reality inside Elysium.

Chaoists develop an inner ability to understand the way in which others perceive reality and can manipulate their perceptions: the magician can easily detect lies from other people, sense their moods and influence them: he adds a +5 effect bonus to every ability which depends on CHA.

The Neither-Neither State of Mind

"The Neither-Neither principle asserts that there is no truth anywhere that is not balanced by an equally true opposite somewhere, and there is only perspective and circumstance to determine which seems more true at any given time. To apply this principle to conjuring, wait until you are absolutely positive something is true, then search for its opposite. When you find it, oppose it to your 'truth' and let them annihilate one another as well as they may. Any residue should oppose to its opposite, and so on until your truth has been dismembered and the passion converted into undirected energy - free belief. By applying the Neither-Neither we can gut the meaningless convictions that obsess us every day and use the power released to cause the changes we desire." [Stephen Mace]

Definition
The basic goal which has to be achieved is silencing the "chattering mind": this is a necessary part of the consciousness change needed to reach the "Neither-Neither" state. There is a part of our mind we usually call the unconscious which is always aware and records every of our perceptions. It is a pool that holds everything we've seen and everything we can be. And though not many are aware of this, the deeper parts of that "mind" hold the Deep Pool of human awareness, where the infinite awaits and everything can be explored and retrieved.
This theory on mind is heavily jungian; the unconscious is full of lost and darkened images that still influence our conscious mind.

The unconscious mind works automatically and it never stops, so the magician has to make no effort to turn it on: however, the chaoist expends his effort on achieving the "Neither-Neither" state. Mind has to be fooled, as the conscious stable sense of self which chains humans to the Illusion won't allow things which hinder its stability to happen: it will try to rationalize magic and stop it. So, the trick consists on turning off two mind aspects:
- The first part that needs to be turned off is the chattering analitycal mind. Stopping the egotist internal conversation even for a few seconds is a difficult goal to achieve which has to be learnt through meditation practice or by rituals which focus the caster's awareness completely on specific symbols, mantras and gestures. This chattering mind usually dwells obsesively on Elysium matters on every of us.

- The second part that has to be inhibited as well is usually called the "Censor Mechanism". The censor mechanism is the part of the mind which makes us humans forget our dreams and works on behalf of our sanity, protecting us from the possibilities of the unconscious and from the mental unstability magic can bring to an otherwise stable illusory existence through Elysium.

However, chaoists have developed several methods to reach the necessary state to practice magic in addition to deep meditation or ceremonial gnosis-reaching: they're shortcuts that turn off for a while the two obstacles so magic can be performed: some of them are described in the "power techniques" section. They have been divided into three levels depending on the power of their effects.
Low effect power techniques are only useful for sigils, but medium power techniques work for most of the Chaos Lore spells.

Low power techniques

Low power techniques can be easily created ad-hoc. With these techniques mental silence lasts only a few moments, which is long enough to launch a sigil. No other spells can be performed this way, as the analytical mind is just briefly shut down:
* Playing videogames to exhaustion: The chaoist would use the sigil while playing mindless action videogames and using moments of mental emptyness to visualize the sigil and launch the desired effect.

* The "wank" technique: Magical masturbation requires that at the moment of orgasm the conjurer focuses on the sigil. The consciousness blink in orgasm lets the mind focus on the sigil, visualize it, and launch it.
* Pain: The conjurer would injure herself while focusing on the sigil (usually by cutting or burning her skin)
* Dancing to exhaustion: Clubs are good places to launch sigils, as the caster gets physically exhausted and mind can be turned off for a few moments to concentrate on a sigil.

There are many other low power techniques which are not described here: the chaoist can make up new ways to turn off the analytical mind for a few moments and launch sigils. For instance, the chaoist could use somewhat stronger ways of low power, such like the stress from going naked in the streets or the fear of getting inside a soccer stadium carrying symbols of an opposing team while surrounded by their hooligans. The Game Master should judge the effectivity of the method -maybe adding to the spell effect-, and its ability to temporarily turn off the chattering mind.

Medium power techniques

Medium power techniques can be used for "Sigil", "Lesser Becoming", "Lesser Servitor", "Know Other", "Greater Servitor" and "Affect Other".

* Generic meditation: the chaoist needs at least 10 points in Meditation to achieve any results by this method: specifics are given on the spell descriptions.
* Lesser ritual performance: to create a personal ritual, the magician needs at least 10 points in Occultism.

* Extremely shocking situations: if the situation does not last long, it will only be useful to launch a sigil, but in a very effective way: any situation in which an EGO roll is failed will be useful.

High power techniques

High power techniques may be used for the same spells like the medium power techniques with a much greater effect. The trance state can be mantained for a long time, which is useful for high level spells.

* Deep meditation: This kind of meditation will be based on a very specific method adequate to the spell, as for instance the Neti-Neti buddhist meditation.
* Complex ritualistic performance: A complex ritual is created for the spell. The chaoist uses gods in which he temporarily believes in, and symbols crafted by the magician hirself.

Chaos Spells
Chaos magic spells inside the game work the same way as in other lores: they are tiring experiences which require hard work and a strong commitment from the magician. There is the only exception of fast-sigils, which can be launched in stressful situations such like Ego-throw needing circumstances as described in "The Neither-Neither state of mind". However, they will still require to work to prepare them before they are launched, their power is very limited, and they almost never trigger an immediate effect except for a really skilled magician.

Spells work like skills. They are based on the Ego ability, and raising the skill points on a specific spell above them costs three points per step instead of one.

Score

% of endurance cost
175%

1-5

6-9 10-14 15-17 18+

150% 100%

75% 50%

For each spell, there is an endurance cost This depends on the specifics of the spell and the skill cost for that spell. The more experienced you are with a spell, the less it will cost you to execute it. The following table is a bit different than for other sorcerers: launching a spell is more taxing in the beginning, but once a chaos mage know the intrisics of the magic he is working at a deep metalevel, spells become easier to cast.

The Spells
Spell
Sigil

Skill Score
5

Loss of Endurance
depends

Time to Cast
20 minutes

Duration
-

Lesser Becoming
Lesser Servitor

7
10
10
13

20
35 25

30 minutes
4 hours

24 hours
-

Know Other

2 hours

Mass Lesser Becoming

25

2 hours

24 hours

Greater Servitor
Affect Other Raise Servitor Greater Becoming Egregore
Godform

15
16

40
30 20 40 80
140

5 hours
4 hours 2 hours 4 hours 1 week
1 month

24 hours 24 hours 24 hours -

17
25

30 50

Sigil
skill score: 5

loss of endurance: Depends on launching method

time to cast: 20 minutes

description:
The most basic form of chaos magic deals with abstractions which are called "sigils". A sigil is an iconic symbol which is usually pictorial; however, there are other sorts of them, such like mantra sigils and action sigils. There is not an "optimal" way to create sigils, and creativity is positive for the magician's work: the most important requisite is that the sigil must have been created by the conjurer, with her magical intent at mind.
Sigilization of a magical intent means creating an abstraction from it. The unconscious will necessarily be aware of what the magician has done: however, his chattering analytical mind will have to forget what the sigil means. So, the magic performed by this technique can't be of any usual wishes, obsessions or characteristics of the magician: if the will that was embedded in the sigil arises to his conscious mind, the magic will fail as it will hinder the unconscious' work: the unconscious is that which performs the magic, and the conscious destroys it by rationalizing the magical intent
The sigil theory is also based on the idea that humans usually hinder themselves and their wills. Humans are masochists and for each desire to be successful there is the usually hidden and opposite desire to fail. Setbacks let us get sympathy and attention: people take care about us when we are ill, sad or frustrated.

Creating the sigil is usually the most time consuming part of this spell, and usually lasts around 15 minutes.
Sigil launching time can usually consume around 5 minutes, though it depends on the technique the magician uses. This technique can be even just a combat round time long depending on the method: a hidden skill throw must then be done by the game master to see if it succeded (a sigil can only be launched once). Anyway, the effects of a sigil are almost never immediate. The magician's desire will materialize -many times in an unexpected way- as soon as it finds its way to appear: maybe in a few hours, maybe in a few days.

The game master must determine the way in which a sigil effect materializes. Usual effects are mostly psychological, though they can affect the outside world: an example of the power of its effects could be adding a positive effect to a dice roll (an "I will have luck in a fight" sigil). Though, it is recommended that the effects of sigils are not that clear and predictable. Luck combined with a low power technique to launch the sigil could mean that one of the enemies decides to attack another person instead of the caster. Luck combined with a high power technique could mean that an enemy is surprised just when he is going to tie his shoes.
There are no tables on sigil effects, as that would only obstaculize using them to the full game potential. Game ; Masters are encouraged to think out unexpected outcomes of sigil spells: it is interesting to consider that sometimes when your wishes are granted they may not be what you thought. When solving the outcome of a sigil spell, the Game Master must consider:

preparations:
There are two basic ways to make a pictorial sigil. By the first one, the conjurer will draw something which reminds her the magical intent of the objective he wants to achieve. The second way the chaoist will write down her Will in a short sentence, then she will delete the vocals and repeated consonants, rearrange them, and paint a symbol composed by the letters. In either case, this symbol is redrawn and simplified by the chaoist, until she obtains a symbol he feels comfortable with, which must not have any direct relationship to the magical intent.

The importance of the effect the sorcerer wants to achieve:

If it is important, very reality-shattering, or the chaoist usually has the topic of the sigil in his head and has not developed a strong mind-control, there will be less possibilities for the spell to succeed. Remember that the sigil is imprinted in the unconscious, so if the character thinks on the sigil meaning or is affected by what is usually called the "lust for result", the effect of the spell will be nullified, regardless the dice results when launching it.
The power technique used to launch the sigil:

One method for musical sigils would be using a table to transfer letters to musical notes (or to hertzs); the composition would be the magic symbol. Another possibility is that the magician writes down a short sentence with his will, scrambles the letters, and recites them as a mantra.

The same sigil will have stronger effects if it is launched by a medium power technique like deep meditation than if it was launched by a low power technique such like wanking.

"Thus the symbol manifests itself first of all as the murder of the thing, and this death constitutes in the subject the eternalization of his desire" [Jacques Lacan]

The wideness of the sigil possibilities:

A sigil with a wide range of ways to accomplish its effect will have a greater effect than a very specific one. A very specific purpose would need a sorcerer with a great ability to focus his will towards that narrow end.

sigil examples:
Albrecht, a beginner on magic, succesfully casts a sigil spell: the magical intention in it is "Edda will kiss me". Two days later, when he is hanging out with his friends and Edda, she gets a brief phone call from Kath, a common friend. After hanging up the phone, she kisses Albrecht on the cheek and smiles him: "Kath says she misses you and told me to give you a little kiss from her"
Overconfident, Karen articulates the intent of her spell as "My will is to become rich on the stock market". She doesn't own many shares, and though she has developed some thought control, she will probably remember the spell or desire to be rich, and the spell will be nullified. The next day when she is in the mall, she is given a leaflet which looks like a fake ten thousand dollars bill: on the reverse side, it advertises a stock investment course.

Elka is a powerful chaos mage and an abstract artist. Lately her mind is blocked, and she finds herself unable to paint what she is feeling. So, she uses a new canvas and paints a blue tower which is being stricken by a yellow lightning; over it she draws a big Peh hebrew letter in black -- using them as magical symbols to connect raw feelings and form. She burns rose and storax incense and gets in deep meditation for an hour in front of the canvas. Then she burns it and forgets about what just happened. She starts painting on a new canvas, and soon her hands are gracefully dancing, effortlessly expressing her feelings over the canvas.

Lesser Becoming
skill score: 7
loss of endurance: 20
time to cast: 30 minutes

description:
Lesser Becoming is a spell by which a conjurer mentally becomes another person to a limited extent. The chaos magician incorporates the selected person's mental characteristics into herself, thus changing her personality. The magician cannot copy abilities (she will not learn a different language), but she will acquire for the duration of the spell the mental balance, advantages and disadvantages of the target. Her personality will change, as well as her aims and priorities.
This does not mean it is an exact copy; this depends on the magical skill of the conjurer and the spell effect, as she will copy the target characteristics she knows about: however, her intuition will usually be stronger than the facts she has consciously noticed about the target.

Lesser Becoming can affect the conjurer's psyche afterwards, as the sense of self will have been loosened. If the difference between the conjurer's mental balance and the target's mental balance is higher than 50 points, the conjurer will have to EGO resist a shock afterwards. For every 50 points difference between the caster and target MB the EGO roll will be modified by +3. For instance, if the target has a MB of -140 and the caster has a MB of +65 (difference: 205), she will have to resist with a +9 modifier. If she fails, "Meeting With Terror" failure rules will apply. If the shock is too strong, the conjurer's mental balance may get more extreme.
Once the spell is working, the conjurer can stop it by a grounding ritual, in which she reverses the effects and turns back to herself. This ritual is exactly the same as the Lesser Becoming, but this time the magician turns back to her personality. The duration of the ritual will be thirty minutes, and if there is an EGO shock roll required, it will substract -3 to every positive EGO modifier due to MB difference between her and the spell target.
For each thirty minutes the conjurer extends the grounding ritual by meditation (10 points required), the EGO shock roll will be modified by -3 until it reaches 0. When it is 0, another thirty minutes meditating will eliminate any shock risk. If there were no modifiers to the EGO shock roll, a grounding ritual performed through meditation will cancel the shock.

Another possible option is becoming a fictional character or a god. For instance, a conjurer may want to become the greek god Hermes; thus, she would acquire his quick wit, artistic interests, and communication skills. She may want to become a fictional character like Atreyu in the Neverending Story, who symbolizes braveness against an enemy you know is much more powerful than you, so she can get through a fearful situation.

The spell can last up to 24 hours, but a grounding ritual can bring the conjurer back to her personality. Sleeping dispells Lesser Becoming too.

Chaos magicians may make their mental balance more positive -at the discrection of the game master- by using this spell and grounding it, as their sense of personality and self is lessened by the experience.

preparations:
There are several ways to cast Lesser Becoming, though the required casting time does not change.
The first way consists on deep meditation, identifying the self with the target: this requires 10 points on meditation, but the effect is stronger than by any other methods (meditation skill check effect is added to spell effect).
The second way involves artistic means: the conjurer writes poetry, paints on a canvas or sings. The artistic creation praises the target and identifies the conjurer with it, acts like it, until they become one. The conjurer strengthens the ritual by surrounding herself with symbols which represent the entity she wants to become.

examples:
Gabriel is an adept traditional magician who is learning Chaos Magic. To cast Lesser Becoming, he creates a ritual by using information and symbols from his thelemic magick texts. He knows he is going to a very weird place, and wants to work on his mental independence and individual strength. As he is still uncomfortable with purely fictional characters, he chooses the roman deity Diana, the rebel huntress. He learnt by traditional magick that invocation calls a force into the magician, while the evocation calls it forth. He considers Lesser Becoming resembles what he considers invocating -which is done inside the circle-, so he sits there and he performs the ritual, surrounding himself by symbols which relate to the roman goddess and chanting hyms in which he identificates himself with Diana.

As the door closes, Marie sits in a corner and engages in strong meditation. She doesn't have much time: she knows her torturers will come back soon, and she needs to resist for a few hours and not confess anything, until her friends arrive and liberate her. Marie remembers a fictional character she once created named Seline: she is a tough twelve year old child who lives in a town on the desert surface of Hell, in which adults live in constant fear of being captured by some creatures they call "Ghuri" and brought to the underworld. She plays with her friends a game called "culprits and torturers", which consists on that one of them plays the culprit and is tortured by the others, led by a Master Torturer. The culprit will try her best to resist, and when she finally admits her guilt, she will accuse another child who will become the culprit, and she will become the Master Torturer. Through deep meditation, Marie identifies herself with Seline, her toughness, and her childish 'innocent' way to play with the world. When she is brought again to the torture chamber, she is mentally much stronger to resist the pain, as she has temporarily modified her mental structures to match those of Seline.

Lesser Servitor
skill score: 10
loss of endurance: 35

time to cast: 4 hours

description:
The Lesser Servitor spell is somewhat similar to Lesser Becoming. Though, this time the chaoist does not invoke anything within herself; she evokes a part of her psyche. The basis for the Lesser Servitor spell is the conjurer's mind; she "cuts" a part of it by symbolic rituals and projects it into a container where the servitor will "live": this part of the chaoist acquires partial autonomy, though it remains subject to the magician's will.
A Servitor is a semi-independent being which is given a name and controlled by the caster, though it doesn't (usually) manifest physically. The conjurer chooses one of her advantages or disadvantages as a basis for the servitor, and performs the ritual to store it on its container. The receptacle which will hold the servitor can be anything: a ring, a graphic logo, even a song: regardless the container,
the servitor needs to live in a symbolic 'home', so the sorcerer can detach it from her mind.

These low power Servitors draw energy from the magician's obsessions and mental traits (advantages and disadvantages); mental characteristics from the caster are the basis which feeds energy to the servitors and the tasks they perform. Though pure mental work on advantages and disadvantages is an useful way to make use of them, servitors can perform tasks just based on the parts of the conjurer's psyche that were used for them. A chaoist could use her "rage" disadvantage to create a servitor to attack an enemy; she could use her "forgotten" disadvantage to develop a servitor which provides her a supernatural stealth ability.

As the conjurer actively reinforces the spell (this can be done in our previous examples by wearing the ring, graffiting the logo on walls, or playing the song regularly), the servitor consumes the dis/advantage that created it until it can eat no more. After going through this process some servitors remain alive if they have enough energy to perform its task fed by the whole dis/advantage from the caster. Servitors' strength increases while they consume dis/advantages points. Servitors which end up with less than 20 points will lose their power as soon as the dis/ advantage is consumed.
Lesser servitors consume (and add to their strength) 1 point each week, though the chaoist's mental balance cannot get more extreme than +/-75 with them.

preparations:
The conjurer should think the task the servitor is going to do before performing any ritual.

Then she would prepare the place where the servitor is going to "live". If it is a talisman, it may be purified with salt, chants, or any other magical method involving cleansing energies the caster chooses. If it is going to live in a musical piece the caster will have to compose it. If the servitor is going to be in a small temple, it will have to be built. If the conjurer chooses a logo for the servitor, it will have to be designed. Whichever method is used by the caster, preparing the receptacle is an important step which usually consumes half of the time of the ritual: two hours.

At least a medium power technique is required to launch a servitor spell, which consumes the rest of the spell casting time. Using a high power technique grants +5 to the spell effect, but the spell casting time will rise to 8 hours.

examples:

Starla is a negatively balanced chaos sorcerer. One of her stronger disadvantages (15 points) is hypochondria; though, she really thinks she is ill. So, with a more practical than theorical approach to magic, Starla creates a servitor by tatooing a series of designs over her skin to turn her illness inside-out. It works, but people around Starla start getting diverse illnesses instead of her. She regrets what the spell is doing to those near her, but she feels unable to deal with the illnesses again: so, she reacts detaching herself from those around her more than ever. Time passes, and the servitor becomes permanent over her skin...

Kuroda has a "motherliness" advantage worth 15 points. He leads a community in an abandoned subway station. His thirst for understanding has grown unbearable, and he wants to explore the tunnels and find out what is happening there. So, Kuroda prepares a servitor to take care of his kindred when he is abroad: he creates a pictorial symbol and charges it through a ritual which involves developing a deep insight about the origins of his "motherliness". His spell effect, reenforced by using a high power method, equals 10 points.
He paints the symbol on his kindred's foreheads, detaching from his feelings and reinforcing his servitor's effect. Kuroda feels like he has cut off a piece of his mind: when he leaves his home, he feels less burdened. At the same time, the strenght of his "motherliness" will protect his kin, as well as affecting their own subsconscious.. Each day he passes in the tunnels he dedicates 1 hour to reinforce the servitor. After 4 months his "motherliness" advantage has been fully consumed: thus, the servitor has an strength of 10+15=25 and will continue affecting Kuroda's kin as long as he is alive.

Know Other
skill score: 10
loss of endurance: 25
time to cast: 2 hours

description:
The "Know Other" spell consists on analyzing a mind and gathering knowledge about it. This is done through a ritual which allows to accomplish this task through subtle but very effective means.

The spell consists on an invocation, much like Lesser Becoming. But as soon as the feeling of otherness arrives, the sorcerer consciously detaches herself from that which she has invoked. In that stage its strength is low, and the sorcerer's mind can combat it and detach more easily from it. Thus, its meaning can be unveiled.

conjurer makes a more or less accurate guess on the target's mental balance. Above 16, the caster will recognize the advantages, disadvantages and limitations of the target. She will acquire as well a rough intuition on the nature of any target's dark secrets, and a very accurate knowledge on its mental balance.

preparations:
"Know Other" can be casted by using two different methods:
- Deep meditation (10 points needed, skill roll required): it involves a mental process similar to the "Lesser Becoming" spell. However, when selfidentification with the target is going to be reached, this self-identification is suddenly cut. Thus, it is transformed again into an "otherness", which is tamed so its composition can be analyzed.

When a conjurer casts "Know Other" , she will acquire knowledge on the target's advantages, disadvantages, limitations, and mental balance. The effect of the spell determines its accuracy. An effect below 5 will reveal one strong advantage or disadvantage. An effect between 6 and 10 will let the caster know the more important advantages and disadvantages of the target, as well as if its mental balance is positive or negative, and a rough estimation on how strong it is (like, very extreme negative, positive, normal, etc) . Between 11 and 15, advantages and disadvantages of the target are discovered, and the

- Ritual (10 occultism points needed, skill roll required): A ritual involving symbolics related to the target is performed. The caster surrounds herself with things which remind her of the target, and evokes the target's mind in order to understand it.

Mass Lesser Becoming

skill score: 13
loss of endurance: 25
time to cast: 2 hours

description:
The methods for becoming in the Mass Lesser Becoming spell are similar to those of Lesser Becoming -pen and paper, music, painting, imagination-, and most rules apply (preparations, launching and afterward problems with mental balance). However, this spell is directed towards a group which also participates on launching it. The ritual is directed by the chaoist, and the group can be composed by nonsorcerers.
Minor Breakdown The character suffers from split personality, and it switches from one to the other several times during the next day. Both personalities lose control to their disadvantages. Mental balance may go down.

Any non-sorcerer character and any sorcerer with his highest lore skill below 10, will have a chance of breakdown. When the character recovers his mind, he will have to make an EGO roll. If it fails, there will be a minor breakdown, and the character will suffer from split personality the next day. After going to sleep again, the character will have to roll EGO/2. If it fails again, there will be a major breakdown.

Major Breakdown The two personalities collide, and they fight inside the character's mind. They take over his will and verbally assault each other inside his mind, which could be similar to a catatonic schizophrenia episode. This will last for a few hours, though it can be interrupted by methods like pain. However, the character will have to EGO roll to avoid acquiring permanent schizophrenia or split personality from this.

Greater Servitor
skill score: 15
loss of endurance: 40 time to cast: 5 hours

description:
Advanced sorcerers know that the deeper part of their psyche, the unconscious, is composed by all the human psychological inheritance. This is an infinite source built from imagination. This deep pool from which virtually anything can be retrieved was called the "collective unconscious" by doctor Carl Gustav Jung. The sorcerer's understanding of this collective unconscious lets her draw power from it and apply it to spells in order to modify symbolic reality.
Metropolis or Gaia. Depending on the characteristics of the servitor: it can also attract lictors if they notice this strong magic is being performed.

Thus, this knowledge can be applied by the chaoist to cast a Greater Servitor. This spell works much like the Lesser Servitor one, but the sorcerer isn't limited by her advantages/disadvantages. Any can be used as a power source for the servitor. As in the Lesser Servitor Spell, the servitor is given a name by the sorcerer, and she chooses a receptacle for it.
The servitor will draw energy throughthe magician's psyche as it has been detached from it. Though, this time there is a link to the collective unconscious which holds these endless possibilities: the servitor will draw energy from it to perform the task that it has been created for. Greater Servitors get strong fast: the energy is consumed not from the caster but from the unconscious pool, which is channeled into the servitor. So, one day after casting the spell the servitor is already at full strength, and the sorcerer's mental balance is not affected by this process.
The way in which Greater Servitor channels the collective unconscious can easily shatter the illusion and alert creatures beyond it. Also, during the ritual there is a 3% chance of a reality breakdown leading to Hell,

Servitors which end up with less than 20 points will be forgotten if they are not actively reinforced: the maximum depends on the chosen dis/advantage. The initial strength of a servitor equals the spell effect. If the servitor is strong (above 30 points), real creatures can be attracted by the purity of the characteristics of the servitor; though, it would only attract creatures which share traits with the servitor. Sometimes these creatures do not manifest physically, but reinforce the servitor with their own unconscious force which tunes in with the servitor. This way, the servitor can develop to an uncontrollable egregore if it reaches more than 40 points strength: the chaoist and the creatures' interests melt on it, making it bigger than what the chaoist can control and developing a will of its own as an egregore.

preparations:
Exactly like in the "Lesser Servitor" spell, though the casting time is now 5 hours. The servitor must be based on an advantage or a disadvantage, which doesn't need to belong to the chaoist. Limitations can be used too, as long as they've been experienced through a "Know Other" spell .

Greater Servitor needs at least a medium power technique which can be based on either meditation or occultism: however, 12 skill points are needed to cast the spell succesfully.

Niveh is a chaoist driven by a strong idealism, who thinks that heavily shaking people's minds is the only way to change how "reality" works. Her best friend, Nadia, suffered from visual schizophrenia: as reality shattered around her and Niveh learnt to manipulate these breakdowns, they both learnt about the Illusion. One day, Nadia disappeared; her note to Niveh said, she left to "spread the knowledge", to "spread the revolution".
A few days after Nadia left, Niveh finished an idea they both had: a Greater Servitor based on her friend's schizophrenia. She wanted the schizophrenia to jump on other people, to break their stability, to force them to break the Illusion. She designed a ritual which consisted on dancing to exhaustion surrounded by symbols which represented schizophrenia and a chaotic mixture of scents, and then carving the symbols over her whole body with a stiletto. Finally, Niveh pronounced the 'power words' she would use to make the servitor over her skin affect others.

The ritual was very succesful, with a +10 effect. The servitor, held by her body carvings, was 30 points strong. People around Niveh started to experience mildly schizophrenic inconsistencies in their perceptions as she used the servitor on them through her power words. She tried to take care of them, teaching those affected how to cope with it; but soon it was difficult to keep track on everyone.

The spell also attracted a creature: an amentoraz, who unconsciously reinforced Niveh's spell and started to lurk around those affected. One of Niveh's targets lost all control and commited suicide. Though Niveh stopped using the magic words after this, the amentoraz's strength made Niveh lose control over the spell, and no longer power words were needed in order to affect others with schizophrenia: people became affected just by Niveh's presence... the servitor strength rose above 40 points, acquiring a will of its own, becoming an egregore...

skill score: 16

loss of endurance: 30

Affect Other

time to cast: 4 hours

description:
The caster carefully crafts a hypersigil to affect the spell target. This means he needs to know about the target's psyche in order to strongly affect it. If a "Know Other" spell has been casted beforehand, its effect sums with the "Affect Other" spell effect. When the spell is casted and the target is shown the hypersigil, he will have to roll EGO modified by the sorcerer's spellcasting effect.
The effects are based on an advantage, a disadvantage, or on shattering or injecting a specific belief. They are supposed to last 24 hours, but if the change goes unnoticed and the target does not reject it, the belief/ behavioural modification may slowly become permanent. This is easier when the spell is based on beliefs rather

preparations:
Hypersigils are highly complex sigils composed by several symbols and meanings. They usually take the form of a song, a complex picture, or a tale: however, regardless the way in which the hypersigil is materialized, it is important that subtle symbols and meanings are introduced between the lines. These will be the means by which the target will be affected by the spell.

than in disadvantages: for example, a carefully crafted text can lean the target towards a specific opinion on the text subject, or even towards the depicted ideologies and personal beliefs.

The conjurer must determine the aim of the hypersigil before casting "Affect Other": the strength of this spell relies heavily on the sorcerer reaching her unconscious mind and understanding the change she wants to make: and so, finding out which symbols can be subtly crafted to affect the target's psyche. Once this has been done, the chaos sorcerer will craft the hypersigil while still in touch with her unconscious.

skill score: 17

loss of endurance: 25 time to cast: 4 hours

Raise Servitor

description and preparations:

This spell allows the sorcerer to evoke a physical manifestation of a servitor from its container. Through rituals or meditation (15 skill points are required on either occultism or meditation -- a high power technique), the chaoist reaches a samadhi-like state concentrating in the servitor's receptacle: the sorcerer must consider this object void of any meaning, as to avoid exciting her mind with any considerations on the object.
So, first of all any subjective considerations on the servitor's receptacle are destroyed. After that, and through focusing on it, the aim of the spell process is making the servitor "formless", in the sense that no receptacle is able to hold it nor any word can describe it, as every form it may be attached to is destroyed inside the sorcerer's mind.
The physical form created or called by the magician is subjected to his will:

- Lower spell effects (below 5) will create a vaguely physical creature subject to the magician's will. Though this creature will not be able to affect the Illusion physically, it will be able to project its essence over anything or anyone the chaoist orders.
- Between 5 and 10 spell effect points, the creature will have a physical form determined by the magician, and will be able to affect the material world around it. At the will of the chaoist, it will be able to affect any target with its essence.

As the illusion of form is broken, a sort of low power samadhi is reached: the spell process will then deal with the formless essence of the servitor. From the receptacle there will arise a vortex composed by the psychical energy of the servitor.

Finally, the sorcerer takes control on this energy and tries to give it a physical form. Depending on the effect strength, the results will be more or less tangible. The vortex also creates a big chance of invoking creatures which share any part of the servitor's essence: they can come from outside the Illusion.

- Above 10 spell effect points, there will be an Illusion breakdown, and the servitor essence will melt with a creature or a group of them (if the effect is even stronger). These creatures are binded to the magician's will, as is the servitor's essence which has taken control over them. However, there is a chance of a total breakdown of the Illusion equal to the spell effect (13 points will make a 13% breakdown chance). A protection circle (and a succesful Chaos Lore roll) may protect the life of a chaoist threatened by a dangerous reality breakdown.
The spell has a 24 hour duration: afterwards, the essence of the servitor dissolves, and the receptacle can be used again. However, physical creatures invoked remain inside the Illusion and recover their own will.

Greater Becoming
skill score: 25
loss of endurance: 40

time to cast: 4 hours

description:
The Greater Becoming spell is a fully enhanced version of "Lesser Becoming". The caster adopts the target's external aspect and gestures, as well as its behaviour and psychological traits -including mental balance, advantages, disadvantages, and limitations-. However, the sorcerer does not automatically know the target's abilities, neither does she retrieve any specific knowledge or memories related to the spell target.

The conjurer's psyche can be affected afterwards, as the sense of self has been loosened through the becoming. The chaoist can consciously adopt different perspectives on this: if she decides to let things flow, her negative balance may get more extreme. If she decides to control the change back to her usual personality, she will have to pass an EGO roll modified by +10. If the chaoist can control it, her mental balance may become more positive.
If the chaoist does not pass the EGO roll or lets things flow, the "Major Breakdown" consequences for nonsorcerers from "Mass Lesser Becoming" will apply: though, now the chaoist risks acquiring not just split personality, but a special version of it in which the caster will spontaneusly switch between both personalities, memories, and physical aspects -- some chaoists let this happen on purpose --. When dealing with more than one alternate personality, the chaoist will randomly switch among all them at specific events determined by the game master.

Before launching this spell, the chaoist will need to study carefully the behaviour of the real or fictional character she wants to become: in order to launch the spell, the chaoist needs to cast a "Know Other" spell beforehand with an effect greater than 5 points.
The caster's personality will change, as well as her aims and priorities. Even those mental traits which were not discovered by the "Know Other" spell will be acquired by the chaoist: this includes every limitation, advantage, and disadvantage.

preparations:
The ways to launch this spell are either deep meditation and self-identification with the target (15 points required in meditation skill), or a symbolic ritual designed by the chaoist (15 points in occultism).

Once the spell is casted, the sorcerer will not be able to keep control over the new personality: during the ritual, the chaoist will provide herself with new memories created for the spell, which will replace her own for the duration of the spell. These memories have to make sense with the new personality, or the spell will become highly problematic. Weaving the new memories is one of the most difficult parts of "Greater Becoming", as they need to be crafted carefully and a deep control of "temporary belief" is needed so the chaoist does not go nuts.
The spell can last up to 24 hours, and there are no grounding rituals possible, unless the target personality is given memories on how to return triggered by specific events. Sleeping dispells "Greater Becoming", too.

Agents of chaos cast burning glances at anything or anyone capable of bearing witness to their condition, their fever of lux et voluptas. I am awake only in what I love and desire to the point of terror--everything else is just shrouded furniture, quotidian anaesthesia, shit-for-brains, sub-reptilian ennui of totalitarian regimes, banal censorship and useless pain. Avatars of chaos act as spies, saboteurs, criminals of amour fou, neither selfless nor selfish, accessible as children, mannered as barbarians, chafed with obsessions, unemployed, sensually deranged, wolfangels, mirrors for contemplation, eyes like flowers, pirates of all signs and meanings. [Hakim Bey]

skill score: 30
loss of endurance: 80

Egregore

time to cast: 1 week

description:
Sigils which could be used more than once in a servantmaster fashion were called servitors, and were used by the chaoist to perform specific tasks. Servitors were magical abstract entities which lacked any will of their own. However, when Greater Servitors get above 40 points strong, they start developing a slight independence. Those new entities, which can also be casted as spells, are called "egregores". An egregore is some sort of group mind, an abstract concept which characteristics are influenced by more than one person. Egregores are created when a group of people gathers for a common purpose, as the sum of their wills lets an independent will which belongs to the egregore to emerge. So, it develops its own personality using as a basis the sum of the wills of the group which has created it.

Embodied cognitive science theory states intelligence emerges as a property of complex parallel processes. For instance, if you program a robot with a process which makes it avoid obstacles by stopping and turning on its axis until it finds empty space ahead, and with another process which moves the robot forward when there are no obstacles, you will have a robot which is able to solve standard labyrinths. This is an emergent ability of the robot, which has not been programmed by its creator: it just arises due to the two processes which are executed simultaneously, and there is no "solve the labyrinth" command. There is another example we can find in nature: bird flocks have not been commanded to fly together. Each individual bird flies with a specific distance and angle to the other birds. As a group, the 'flock' property emerges from their individual behaviours.
The emergence of the Egregores' will is based on a similar theory. This is why egregores cannot be formed from Lesser Servitors -which just use advantages and disadvantages from the caster-, but can sometimes arise from Greater Servitors -which are created from mental traits which do not need to belong to the chaoist-.

built by contradictions, which hold parts of the beliefs it wants to destroy or deconstruct. This can create a paradox, and as a result the belief can end up wrecked. Of course, the target can try to ignore it, but the first EGO throw is not allowed: belief and traits deconstruction is stronger, as there are always inherent contradictions inside beliefs, and traits are themselves "believed" by those who have them. These contradictions are subtly or blatantly exposed by the paradoxical egregore.
There is a drawback to this spell: lictors and other creatures can notice the egregore if they access the receptacle by reading it, listening to it, etcetera. They may not become very interested if the egregore effects are harmless to the Illusion, and egregores are sometimes used by the media to enforce it: but it is still magic, and furthermore, they will be really interested on any egregore which attempts to deconstruct beliefs. They will want to track the sorcerer, a task that becomes easy if the egregore has been published to reach a wider amount of targets...

To create an egregore, the main caster bases it on an advantage, a disadvantage, a limitation, or on the creation or destruction of specific beliefs or ideas. The first days are dedicated to the creation of the main idea and the ritual behind it. The final days are dedicated to performing the ritual and the refining of the idea. The egregore takes the form of a complex song, a tale, a comic, a story, etcetera, which holds the magical symbols which will affect the targets. Of course, if the casters want to edit a book, produce the song, etc, the time and resources it takes are not included in this week.

An egregore needs more than one person for its creation. If there is only one chaos mage among them, he will be considered the "main caster", but external help is always needed. If the other people are non-magicians, the spell is casted with a -10 modifier to the spell effect -below zero, the spell fails- . Every non-chaos magician skilled above 10 points on her lore who adds her symbolic experience to the creation ritual adds +5 to the -10 base modifier. Every chaoist skilled above 10 points on chaos lore adds +5 too, and +1 for every 2 points, with an additional +10 maximum (that is, when the chaoist has 30 chaos lore skill points: then, she will add +15 to the spell effect)
For instance, an egregore created by a chaos mage helped by another chaoist with 20 chaos lore skill points and another magician, will have a (-10)+(5+5)+(5)=+5 spell effect modifier.
Whenever an egregore reaches 30 spell effect points, it has a chance of becoming a weak godform: the chances are 1% for each point above 30.

Anyone who gets in contact with the egregore is affected by the belief or trait on which it is based for 24 hours: though, people reluctant to the ideas the egregore contains are able to dismiss it with a -5 EGO roll. The affected individuals develop a strong interest for the egregore for that day, and they will have to EGO resist afterwards to avoid being affected by the idea: this doesn't mean the target develops an obsession with that belief or acquires any advantage or disadvantage. However, he will be attracted by the beliefs, advantages, disadvantages or limitations, on which the egregore is based. The result inside the target's mind is a blend of his own will (stronger) and the egregore's will (weaker). This means that the target will blend more with the egregore if he is already tuned in with what the egregore is based on.

examples:
Many TV spots are magically crafted as egregores, which influence the targets to have desires and buy products. Usually the same thing happens with media and government propaganda about specific topics. Songs that you like because they "talk about you". Books which have ideas you roam about. Poetry that moves you. They are crafted so they infect your will, blend with it, and determine parts of it.

Egregores can also be used to shatter a specific belief rather than injecting it. Usually, this kind of egregore is

Godform
skill score: 50

loss of endurance: 140

time to cast: 1 month

description:
When egregores are very strong, they can become godforms. However, they can also be crafted and casted as spells.
Godforms are ideas so strong that they don't just develop an emergent independent will: they are able to submit the target's will to their own. People affected by the godform spell develop a subservient relationship with it.

the godform would use the internal contradictions of the belief, or of the mental trait. The target can try to ignore it: the same rules as for injective godforms apply, but this time only one EGO roll is allowed.

Godforms really attract our jailors. Those which attack beliefs or traits, specially if they are useful to mantain the Illusion, will make them seriously try to hunt down those involved with it.

These entities are based on several advantages, disadvantages, limitations, or beliefs (or their destruction). A deep relationship among them is shaped so a new complex entity emerges. It can be a strong belief towards a specific idea, or even new advantages or disadvantages. Godforms can use forms like books (novels and essays), musical compositions, architecture, and a wide etcetera.

The casting time is one month: several rituals, brainstorming, and complex symbol threading are performed within this month. The ritual can be longer, as long as the people -specially magicians- involved are still the same.
Anyone who gets in contact with the godform is affected by the beliefs or traits on which it is based; as with egregores, people reluctant to the ideas the godform contains are able to roll EGO to dismiss it, which depends on how near his mind is from what the godform is about. Those affected will have to EGO resist afterwards to avoid having a persistent effect on them. Modifiers to the EGO roll can be -10/+10 depending on how do the target's mind get along with the godform's will. If the it is successful, the target will acquire the beliefs or traits it is based on.
Now, the target's will is weaker in his mind than that of the godform. Albeit, the belief and/or attitude change doesn't happen just after being affected by the godform: the submissive behaviour needs time. The victim is allowed another EGO roll with the same -10/+10 base modifier as in the first roll. Every week, this modifier is increased by 1 point, until the godform dominates the target's will: however, this is only allowed if the target consciously wants to reject that idea -he also needs to be aware that he is being influenced by an external idea-, or if the godform clashes with concepts he already has. The game master needs to use logic when dealing with this regardless any "rules" written in this sourcebook: it is difficult a buddhist suddenly becomes christian, or the opposite: however, children can be easily convinced on any of the two ideas -and even easier on their underlying structures-, and so can a lost adult who is searching for his faith.

Like egregores, godforms need more than one person to create it. If there is only one chaos mage among them, he will be considered the "main caster", but external help is always needed. If the other people are non-magicians, the spell is casted with a -15 modifier to the spell effect -below zero, the spell fails- . Every non-chaos magician skilled above 30 points on her lore who adds her experience on the symbolic to the creation ritual adds +5 to the -15 base modifier. Every chaoist skilled above 30 points on chaos lore adds +5 too, and +1 for every 2 points, with an additional +10 maximum (that is, when the chaoist has 50 chaos lore skill points: then, she will add +15 to the spell effect). Every additional month dedicated by the group to the godform adds +3 to its effect.
For instance, a godform created by a chaos mage helped by another chaoist with 40 chaos lore skill points and another magician above 30 lore points, will have a (-15)+(5 +5)+(5)=+0 spell effect modifier.

examples:
Standard godforms: Music groups, whose targets are fans who become obsessed with them and copy their way to dress, identify with their songs, etc. Corporations, whose workers believe in its values and blindly serve their interests.
Powerful godforms: Christianity, where concepts like shame and sin are created inside the targets' minds, and pure explicit submission is reached: almost every institutionalized religion is a godform. Aswell, every strong ideology in the world such as capitalism, communism, fascism, etc, is some sort of godform: each of them has its own specific symbolics -including language based conceptswhich function is enslaving our human minds. On the deconstructing side, a godform could be a book on physics exposing paradoxes on the Illusion which would break it down for the reader (though, the author would be tracked down by all means possible and the books would be censored...)

As with egregores, godforms can also be used to destroy a specific belief or trait, or an interrelated group of them:

Some chaoists think even the archons are just extremely powerful godforms, and that the concept of "reaching" Awakening is the highest and mightiest deconstructive godform.

[a deconstructive godform]
The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Eristic Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER. Both order and disorder are man made concepts and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which is a level deeper that is the level of distinction making.
With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about- reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper that is the level of concept.
We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids.
A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle. Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

Discordia

[extract from the Principia Discordia]

Discordianism -also called Erisianism- relies on a series of paradoxes in order to build some western anarchistic sort of DadaZen: through this paradoxes, an invisible line is drawn between those who "get it" and those who don't. Though they're not a joke, discordians just try not to take things too seriously. And though many discordians are not interested in magic, there are a few discordian chaoist sorcerers.

This 'irreligion' was created in the fifties. Two young beatnik chaos magicians nicknamed Omar Ravenhurst and Malaclypse the Younger performed a Godform ritual while in a bowling alley which involved a chimpanzee and a caffeine overdose. Five days later, the Godform Eris appeared in their dreams to show them the right path. Soon they wrote the erisian bible, a text called the "Principia Discordia".
They consider Chaos is the ultimate reality, from which our human perceptions build the concepts of Order and Disorder, considering disorder as the unrelated information through the perceptual grids placed upon reality. So, in order to breakdown the Illusion, discordians empower disorder -though they do not just take aside order-, as they consider an important component of the Illusion is the deceptive almighty mirage of Order
Discordians do not have fixed hierarchies nor any kind of structures, even though they call themselves a church. They act through SNAFUs (Situation Normal All Fucked Up), loosely organized working for what they call Operation Mindfuck, which consists on spreading disorder against stablished social norms, consensual reality, and normal stable order-loving people which they call "Greyfaces". Some of them are aware of the Illusion, and work hard to shatter it creating these contradicting social realities within groups of balanced people.

Their acts have been noticed by lictors, and sometimes discordians have been hunted when their rebellious operations turned out too powerful against the Illusion. But the lack of any fixed organizational structure among the irreligion's followers has made discordians survive for more than fifty years. However, lictors have dealt with this problem in other ways: they have wrote misleading discordian related books, and they have modified the most Illusion shattering parts from the Principia Discordia. Nowadays, it is hard to find a true copy of the Principia Discordia, so even though discordianism is growing especially due to the Internet-, it is also becoming less and less harmful to the Illusion.

The Compulsive Believer

You saw that black SUV again?. It was the conspiracy. For sure. What do you mean, "which conspiracy"? I mean, of course, the nazis on the Moon. The ones who escaped from the second world war on those fancy UFOs designed by the Luftwaffe, clashed with the world government in the end of the sixties and kicked them back to Earth, etcetera. Ok, I said the moon didn't exist, I was wrong. Obviously, it is the world government who made that up, to make us ignore the stuff about the nazis. I do not like any of the two groups, but I've red on the Internet about a partisan secret base on the Antarctica... I even have the maps, would you come? I want to go out on a spiritual mission, I found out some stuff which may be useful there...
This chaos conjurer has lost it to a point she doesn't exert control over her own set of beliefs, which continuously change. Today she is a wiccan witch, and recites the Rede to anyone at sight. Next month she may embrace shamanism, or get involved in ecological activism. However, the compulsive believer does not change her beliefs out of logic nor trying to find any sort of enlightenment: it is just she has played too much with them and she is unable to bear it anymore. Ironically her aim could be stability, and she is involved in an unconscious quest to find out a belief which does not spontaneously shatter in her head.

Personality A disordered individual, his inner feelings tell him he is completely lost. Nowhere is he to find rest, as any belief he holds doesn't fill his demands for a stable sense of reality. So, he is extremely active, and the way he acts can't be foreseen: his behaviour will usually be constrained by his actual beliefs, mixed up with his need for stability -he will usually develop a domineering attitude in order to strengthen his temporary mental position-.

Disadvantages Amnesia, Anhedonia. Black Sheep. Death Wish. Domineering. Depression. Fanaticism. Mania. Manic-depression. Schizophrenia. Split-personality. Advantages Cultural flexibility. Empathy. Forgiving. Intuition. Iron will. Social chameleon
Dark Secrets Forbidden knowledge. Insanity. Occult experience. Supernatural experience.

Profession Usually short-term and low quality jobs

Living Standard 2-5

Skills Lores of magic and spells. Academic skills: humanistic scholarship. Alchemy. Astrology. Cabbalah. Hypnosis. Meditation. Numerology. Occultism. Parapsychology. Search. Tarot.

The Mental Terrorist

Oh, so you saw me. Ok ok, I wired the Walk sign on red and the Don't Walk on Green. And did the thing with the lighter on the street thermometer too. Wasn't it fun, forty celsius degrees? I mean, I wonder if people double-checked if it was *that* hot even for a second. You know a hypnotized person told a red circle is green really sees it as green? I mean... no, I'm no fucking vandal. It is not ha-ha I'm a cool antisocial bastard, can't you see what I'm talking about? Yeah, of course you can't. Those sunglasses you are wearing, they've been rigged. No shit. Look, how many fingers? Three? Really? See! They ARE rigged! Put them off, fast, you are losing karmapoints. You're already going to reincarnate on a very ugly insect, please don't make it worse...

A chaos conjurer centered on a self-destruction path, the mental terrorist enjoys trying to create havoc inside other individuals' minds in the harshest way she is able to conceive. "So either you react, or you collapse", could be the mental terrorist motto. She has activist purposes against consensus reality and she thinks most spiritual paths are too "fluffy" and egotist, and are never going to change anything in the real world. Ironically, her harsh personality is also a projection of an inner fear to utter selfdestruction: she considers she has to make for a living, as she needs the resources to wage her war against mental rigidity.
Personality Though usually absurd, in a standard social situation the mental terrorist may look like he has a contemplative and calm personality at first sight: but he is just collecting data in order to learn how to attack his targets. He can even be charming, as he can easily adapt to the frame of mind of anyone. Still, his remarks turn increasingly crude and/or absurd, and his behaviour is usually considered weird and even untrustworthy by those around him. Many times, his calculated harshness makes him clash with them.

Disadvantages Bad reputation. Compulsive judas. Cynic. Death wish. Depression. Drug addiction. Fanaticism. Hatred. Wanted.
Advantages Cultural flexibility. Driving goal. Empathy. Enhanced awareness. Intuition. Sixth sense. Social chameleon.

Dark Secrets Guilty of crime. Uprooted. Pact with dark powers.

Profession Varies. Living Standard 3-6 Skills Lores of magic and spells. Acting. Alchemy. Cabbalah. City/Area Knowledge. Computers. Electronics. Meditation. Occultism. Search. Sneak

Daath
A hole is when you step in it you go down -- Keith Russ

Neither-Neither Land
Dark blue skies roar in an endless thunderstorm over Daath's barren land. The scarce light is mostly ultraviolet, and its only sources are the continuous lightnings and the flowers of a strange sort of plant which can be found all over Daath. Over the sand these plants are the only vegetation: they are composed by thin stems 30-50 centimetres tall and crystal snowflake shaped flowers on its end. All along these wastelands, there are skeletal ruins of all sorts of buildings as well as dead nature and bones of unknown and incomprehensible creatures: every wrong attempt which preceded the creation of our Illusion accumulates dissoluted in Daath, and manifests on this decayed detritus and on the creatures who inhabit it, choronzides and formlings.

There are several portals which connect Daath and Metropolis, as well as with Hell. Their nature is random and unstable, and strange patterns have to be followed to reach those places.
Reaching Daath from the outside is not easy. There are a few random and unstable portals hidden in Metropolis and Hell, but the only reliable path is invoking a Choronzide within yourself -- Greater Becoming is a very useful spell to accomplish this.

Choronzides
"All possible forms, each equally inane; each therefore evil in the only true sense of the word - that is, meaningless but malignant, in so far as it craves to become real" -- The Confessions of Aleister Crowley
Choronzides are incorporeal creatures long known to humans: the egyptians already worshipped them by the name "Ammit". Their essence is abscense, dispersion and annihiliation -though, some consider them as benefic destroyers of the Ego-. They can penetrate inside any human mind and unveil their secrets, emotions, advantages, disadvantages, and anything that inhabits it.

It is a land which spatial configuration cannot be understood by non-awakened humans, and so it cannot be cartographed: space on it is non-linear. An inmense Abyss surrounds Daath, which is said to be connected both to the Primordial Sea in Metropolis and to the Achlys. The Black Adepts -humans who inhabit Daath- think those who find a way to both dive into and cross the Abyss, find Awakening on the other side; but the extreme uncertainty, fear, and utter dissolution that are felt on the edge of the Abyss, deters most to try. The very essence of choronzides and formlings inhabits the Abyss, and Adepts must confront them and win as well as surrender through a rainstorm of pain in order to pass to the other side. It is said that if you win and cross the Abyss you end up in Achlys, and that if you fall into it you end up in the Primordial Sea, but neither are wanted by the Black Adepts. They consider Daath is the Neither-Neither essence, and chaos magic flows easily here. They hypothesize that Daath's abscense is due to that every perspective is contained within it; and so they all annihilate each other. Every statement and every form is canceled out by another one, and thus nothingness remains: so, the Adepts aim to cross and fall into the Abyss, in order to grasp the knowledge which awaits beyond exhausted and annihilated forms, theories and perspectives.

On Daath, they usually choose individuals and trick them to separate from their group if they are on any. They do this by means of hallucinations, which try to call up their victims' attention by taking advantage of their past and traits. They seldom consider groups, but they may decide to do so if their bonds are strong.
When the choronzide has drawn its targets to a solitary place, it crafts a reality specifically adapted to its victim: usually they make the victims believe they have left Daath (or that they never were there in the first place) and they usually confront them to their "real lifes", through theatrical intensely emotional experiences. Choronzides twist those realities so the characters are confronted to the worst emotional situation they can come up with, so the targets collapse absolutely.
To resist this, the target must pass a +10 modified EGO roll: then he will be able to escape. Otherwise, once the victim's mind collapses the choronzide will abandon it on the surface of Daath, not far from where the attack happened. Characters with a mental balance higher than +150 have only a +5 modifier, and those above +250 have a +0 modifier: if they pass the EGO roll they can control the experience by witnessing from the outside the destructive dissolution of their Ego, so their mental balance may get more positive.

Those who have visited Daath, consider its main characteristic is an absolute omnipresence of absence. The likeness of this feelings to those emotions archons create around their citadels -but as their absolute existential opposite-, leads to several theories among humans who have visited this place. The Black Adepts consider it as an eleventh archon, but one that exists through absence and dissolution: Daath represents everything that goes unseen, the knowledge that is understood because of its abscence. When every possible form is annihilated, that which is laterally understood because of its absence is the knowledge beyond the Abyss: it is the natural environment to a quantumdiscrete perception widening.
An unbearable impulse of self-dissolution is felt among characters who enter Daath. Their identities and bodies suffer metamorphosis as if they were characters with an extremely low mental balance. Randomly, disadvantages with no relation to the characters take control over them. Game masters should often make the players suffer and lose control here.

Those negatively balanced who have been succesfully attacked by a choronzide suffer metamorphosis and lose control permanently to their disadvantages -unless cured in some way-, even if they leave Daath (it is up to the game master to think out how many points does the mental balance need to be lowered). Those with a positive mental balance get their constructs and control shattered, and develop a negative mental balance from the experience of at least -50.

Movement: 30 m/round

Formlings
Among Daath ruins, spider like creatures known as Formlings build their nests. They have circular biomechanical black bodies with a diameter of 25-30 centimetres and several teethless mouths over it, and eight legs which are about 30 centimetres long: these legs are very thin, and its shapes are similar to razorblades; the legs are sharp and cut through skin and bone like if it was butter.
Formlings follow those who wander Daath until they find a spot from which to attack; though they move fast they are unable to jump, so it is easier for them to fall over their victims. Their favourite trophies are human heads, so they sometimes wait until their victims get near any high structure such like a skeletal building. They usually attack only once -they are not strong enough to endure a combat-, and they try to cut their victims in as much pieces as possible in this first blow. If they are successful, they grab with their mouths the body parts they've cutted and run away to their nests.

The Black Tower changes constantly: Black Adepts consciously and unconsciously create, change, and destroy rooms. These changes many times lead to rooms with absurd shapes; convoluted, too big, too small. Often, those changes derive from the chaoists disadvantages and limitations, so they can be designed to trigger specific reactions: maybe a room is crafted so it turns into a hell for a claustrophobic human, then the next one holds an illusory set of drugs which does never satiate its consumer and can trap anyone in it forever.

However, the target does not feel any kind of pain, nor do they feel as they lack any part of their bodies: the body part stolen from them still functions as if it was attached to the target's body: even perceptual organs transmit their signals to the brain, and react to orders -even a muscle cut in a half will not function worse- . For instance, if a piece of a head with an eye is cut by a formling and brought to its nest, the target will still feel his head as a whole: but he will see what the eye sees wherever it is. In the short-term, this perceptual paradox can lead humans to panic attacks: in the long-term, they can easily develop some sort of schizophrenia due to the brain damage produced as the subject tries to rationalize and reorganize his perceptions according to "what-he-knows" about the dimension of space.
AGL: 10+2d10 (21)

Some Black Adepts take care of a few places in the Black Tower which remain more or less stable. There is the big hall beyond the main entrance, where usually some of the Adepts gather to talk and greet new "guests". There is also a library which holds about ten thousand books; these are not ordinary books, and depict strange theories and practice on magic, philosophy, physics, and chaos theory. There used to be some sort of "conference room" too, for the Adepts to show their ideas -not just spoken ideas, consider it as presenting 'forms they have created'- to the others: however, the weirdness of the shows held there made it collapse beyond recovery and now these gatherings are held on random places which are announced through the tower's walls.

CON: 10+2d10 (21)

PER: 15+1d10 (21)
Damage Capacity: 6 scratches = 1 light wound, 5 light wounds = 1 serious wound

STR: 1d10+5 (11)

Movement: 12 m/round
Attack Mode: Blades 19
Initiative bonus: +9

Actions: 4

The Black Adepts

A huge and chaotic black tower can be seen from any point in Daath. It is inhabited by a group of more than five hundred humans who call themselves The Black Adepts, which are mostly chaos magicians with an extremely low mental balance. Most of them are between -250 and -400, but a few are even further. Regardless their extreme mental balance, the Black Adepts have achieved a "comfortable" coexistance: they feel less threatened in Daath than anywhere else, as the nature of this land protects them from positively balanced beings and from the power of the Archons and the Dark Angels.