Eight Spells for Wizards*

Consider for yourself the nature of magic. Think on wizards, and wizards, and wizards. Ask what magic they might do. Read what might pass for a grimoire of modern wizardry. 

These are mostly bad spells for bad people. They don't care very much about consent, for example. Expect violence, general grossness, blood and other fluids, and bad intentions. 

Also, warning for overwritten prose.

fuck your opinion

people all the time think you fucking owe them shit for existing and its not true

they come up with these ideas of who you are and what you do and its not true

they dont see you they just see what they think they see and that shit is not fucking true

dont let them decide

fuck their opinion

what i do is fucking

and this may not work for you

ok 

get a length of string as tall as you are

sisal works best i think i dont fucking know

tie it in a knot again and again until its like a lumpy fucking ball of twine

tuck the ends in

leave it someplace until you forget how you tied it

i skull a bottle and that does the trick

next fucking

find one of those signs

those traffic signs

the no uturn ones

scrape some of the paint off and feed it to an animal

one you don't care about

kill it and skin it

wrap the skin around the ball of string and tie it in place 

this is important

DIFFERENT KIND OF STRING

i use fishing line

find the person you want to let's say adjust

fucking alter

invert

whatever

you gotta bury the ball youve made

fucking tony calls it a fucking bezoar or whatever

you gotta bury it close to where they sleep

i dont know how close

fifty feet definitely works

a thousand didnt

uh and then as long as they sleep there they will remember you different

think of you different

whatever their old opinion of you was

invert it

swap it

negate it

fuck it

they think youre like the opposite of you and always have been

walk into a bank and get treated like a king instead of a bum by the manager

walk into a hotel and get taken to the penthouse by the guy at the desk

fuck your ex

figure it out

inscribe dramatis personae

Like many spells identified by modern practitioners in the last century in North America this one operates on the principles of attention, leveraging Penthic Ritual Script to attract the eye of the universal watcher and in so doing garner its insight or nudge reality. The grammar, syntax, syllabary and overall use of Penthic Ritual Script goes beyond the purposes of this document. Suffice to say, if you are not initiated in the language, it will prove impossible. Variations on this ritual have also been used to produce similar lists of attention, although as noted by both Arto and Hoff in their respective works, the Observer prefers dramatic forms. See Hoff's notes on the use of broadcast schedules as precognitive mediums.

This particular invocation creates a list of relevant people to an object, person or indeed topic. You will need to be careful in your definition of the subject of the ritual or you risk production of an "all of the above", the danger of which is discussed at length in Conrad's Practical Manipulation of Category Theory in Ritual and Invocation.

1. Identify a space of total darkness and isolation. You want to sever all possible attention other than your own and the universal audience. Ingle indicates a Faraday cage is useful while I hold that construction of a ritual sanctum (already invaluable) via inscription with the ogdoadic wheel is a better approach.
2. Gather red clay, paint in a sealed container, gold or iron pyrite, semen (donor is irrelevant), dramatis personae or cast lists from at least eight different pieces (Arto claims increased effectiveness from vintage folios but this has not been reproduced to my knowledge), a blindfold and a ritual knife prepared in the standard fashion.
3. Blindfold yourself.
4. Enter the darkness with the prepared materials.
5. Do not, under any circumstances, open the sealed container of paint.
6. Operating in darkness and blindfolded, without speaking, cut your pages into strips of equal width (specific dimensions have an unknown effect on the final product).
7. Weave these together into a mat and spread on the floor of your space.
8. Continuing in darkness draw your blood with the ritual knife and knead together with the clay and semen.
9. Form the resultant ritually prepared clay around the piece of iron pyrite and gold and place atop the woven papers. 
10. Without lifting or shifting it carve a description of your subject into the clay. Use the tip of your ritual knife. It goes without saying to write in Penthic Ritual Script.
11. Once complete wait no less than twenty-two minutes and no more than a hundred and eight. 
12. You may turn on the lights.
13. The list of connected individuals will be written on the woven mat in Classic Greek. If you dare not literate in Classic Greek you may require a translator or use of online tools.
14. Dispose of the clay wrapped metal and the container of paint in the usual way. 
15. Do not, under any circumstances, open the sealed container of paint prior to disposal.

attraction cultivation

A love potion is old magic of course, a way to take a heart and turn its path. To take their own desire by secret force with red intent, coral policy, and rosy tack. Coral colored daydreams showed me this way. If there are more it's not for me to say 

Acquire a stone that grew inside a heart. Your own heart, dog heart, hare's quick heart. They are easier to remove from the weak. Carve it dense with descending curvatures, the arc of all things towards the center.

Grind your heart-made stone in a reddish bowl. Mix it well with rose oil and honey. Mix it until you sweat. Let your sweat fall into the bowl. Mix it until your hands on the stick begin to bleed. Let your blood fall into the bowl. 

Bottle the tincture. Sing to it. Sing to it sweetly. Sing to it with true longing. Sing to it with frustration and want. Sing to it until you cannot remember why you are singing. Watch for it to change color from sticky honey and reddish blood to coral pink. Do not stop here.

Wrap the bottle in satin and silk and velvet in that order. Bind it with ribbons. Drape it with lace. Offer it to the subject of your spell as a gift. If they do not accept it feed the potion to an animal and burn it. If they do accept it, rejoice. Within a thousand of their heartbeats they will be compelled to drink it. 

Over the following two hundred and twenty five days they will experience mild discomfort. Stomach pains mostly. Heart burn. Hope they do not see a doctor, who might remove the growth in their stomach that fills them with elation at the sight of you. Hope they do not seek someone to feed them tinctures of ink and ash to purge their dreams of you. Watch them become addicted to thoughts of you, the sight of you, the presence of you. 

You will likely wish, over the second two hundred and twenty five days, to feed them such tinctures yourself, so that they do not become entirely overcome by the growth of rose coral in their stomach.  

song for old man violence

A guy I know went to one of those places you hear about in the middle of nowhere USA. Cult compound type shit. He was FBI, I think. Maybe DEA or ATF. I don't really know. He said these folks were some kind of fringe Christian apocalypse deal. Post-Mormon whatever. Warriors for God. He did surveillance on them for a couple of months before they caught on to being watched. Then things got fucked up, the way they do.

They sang a lot. The cult he observed. They heard them through the bugs. Our god is an angry god, sword of the lamb, and fire upon the heretic shit. But when they found out they were being watched they sang this other song. That's when it went bad. I had to do some digging to figure out the lyrics cause he could only manage like half of it and the tune.

Old man violence

Old man violence

Come on down to me

Old man violence

Old man violence

See what my eyes see

There's a wicked thing

That hates the fight and bleed

There's a coward and a traitor too

It won't raise its sword

It won't bare its teeth

It won't make a fist

It won't kill to eat

Old man violence

Old man violence

teach it how to be

Old man violence

Old man violence

make it see like me.

There's some other shit to the trick. A goat-skin drum, a chorus of eight standing in a circle holding iron tools that have tasted blood, a sacrificial prey animal. 

But what it does is turn people against each other. Makes them hate and rage. Nasty beyond mean. Brutal anger that makes a person hurt and defile and kill. It fills up the people near the target, makes them burst out in these urges. That's what happened to that guy who told me about it. He couldn't help himself. None of them could stop themselves as the tortured and maimed and burnt and buried their commander. 

I think they got the cult, but he didn't really say. Anyway, I got what I needed.

sacred curse of order

When he arrives he will ensure all is as it should be. In the meantime it falls to us to bind the world in proper shape. Our burden and our blessing, to bring order among disorder, to bind and muzzle the black dog of entropy.

Gather metal possessions of the person to receive his Immanance's blessing.

Melt them in a virgin crucible of black stone, consecrated three times over in three different fires.

Draw the alloy made in this fashion through a steel draw plate into wire of manageable gauge.

Wind the wire made in this fashion into a cable the thickness of the recipient's left ring finger.

Coil the cable into two loops the width of the recipient's wrists, shaped in a figure eight.

Heat and fuse the cable's ends together in this shape.

Nail the figure eight to a black walnut tree.

Pray to the great preserver at the base of the tree, reciting His Litany of Protection.

Observe the recipient of His blessing for the following week. Until the figure-eight structure is removed from the tree or its shape is broken every one of their weeks will follow the same schedule as the observed one with minimal deviation. They will get up at the same time, experience the same events, more or less, and will be blessed with surpassing orderliness and predictability, bound to the will of The King.

decant memory

A method for catching a moment.

Ingredients:

1 Blue Glass Container (Jar, Bottle, etc.) with lid, capable of holding 5/9 of a cup for every hour of memory to be stored.

2/9 of a cup of distilled water for every hour of memory to be stored.

One tablespoon of camphor oil for every hour of memory to be stored.

Paper sufficient to cover the exterior of the container twice over or more. 

Paste.

Permanent marker.

Masking tape.

Six entirely steel straight pins.
Wax and a method to melt it.

Method:
Fill the container with the distilled water and camphor oil.

Whisper your best recollection of the memory to be stored into the mouth of the container at least six times. 

Ideally you should be light headed by the time you have finished repeating the recollection. 

Seal the container as tightly as possible.

If you can still remember the memory start again.

If you cannot the next step is ensuring the memory is preserved against decay.
Chew the paper until it becomes a mush of saliva and pulp, probably a half hour.

Mix the mush with paste and cover the exterior of the container entirely with it. 

Allow to dry. 
Seal with wax and push the six straight pins into the wax. They should protrude slightly. 
Label.

Use:
Drink when you need to recover the memory.
Drinking other's memories can be useful but may cause dysphoria. 

biogenesis of homonculi in humans under the influence of axiomatic taphonomic bacterial infection

The axiomatic taphonomic bacteria identified as part of the Langford trials in 1999 have proven fertile ground for the study of biogenesis. While biogenesis as traditionally understood has fallen out of favor among the quote-unquote mainstream scientific community it has a long tradition in natural philosophy and biology that is best not discarded. This has best been demonstrated in the Blackwell experiment performed in 2025, of which this paper describes only a recreation. It is recommended that the reader be familiar with the prior work before initiation of their own experimentation in this area. 

Our methodology mirrors the Blackwell experiment with the only variation being in the scale of the infection and the substrate inoculated with the A.T.B. Whereas Blackwell tested on a two centimeter diameter of infection on the dermis of his left arm (boundaries controlled by the repeat application of formic acid and ethanol) it was our desire to determine if a larger scale infection would produce a commiserate large product. This necessitated the use of a substrate other than the researcher. I know the use of external substrates is controversial among the readers of this journal but we deemed it a necessary step in advancing our knowledge of the A.T.B.

With the substrate secured we inoculated it with A.T.B. to produce a area of taphonomy twenty-three centimeters in diameter on the dermis of its posterior torso. This required intubation and the use of several of the penicillin derivatives identified by Galloway in the June 2025 journal, for which we are extremely grateful. Once the area of taphos had reached the desired size we increased the dosage of the Galloway anti-biotics and demarcated the area with the solution of ethanol and formic acid as used in the Blackwell experiment. 

From here we replicated the process that Blackwell details in her experiment, scaling the quantities up to match our area of taphos, that is to say, by a factor of 143.16. For those unfamiliar with the Blackwell experiment the steps are reproduced here.

1. Following full inoculation with A.T.B. and stabilization of a controlled boundary, debride the taphos every eight hours for a period of no less than sixty-four hours.

2. Combine the debrided materials with a stable solution of 90% FBS and 10% DMSO, ensuring a volume of at least 250 ml, inside a temperature safe cansiter.

3. Add genetic markers extracted via the Avon method, 5 ml minimum.

4. Alternate refrigeration to -80°C and heating to 300°C.

5. Once growth within the chamber is verified, add a 25%/45% TPN solution with sufficient amino acids.

6. Attach a speaker set to the exterior of the chamber, capable of producing audio of at least 55 decibels.

7. Play the invocation of the Blind Mother through the speakers for at least a month.

8. Decant. 

The product in the Blackwell experiment was an obedient mouse sized humanoid servitor (i.e. homunculus) that served ably for one hundred and eight days before collapsing entirely into they typical state of putrefaction. In our recreation we were able to produce a product of appropriately increased size, although due to the nature of the square-cube conversion it was only eleven times larger, that is to say eighty-eight centimeters. It was hoped that via the use of Avon-extract markers from donors other than the substrate that we might produce an obedient servant to that donor rather than to the substrate. Unfortunately the produced creation obeyed neither and indeed showed violent inclinations towards both, requiring pre-emptive disposal. This suggests that the mixture of genetic markers from substrate and Avon donor has a destructive effect or that obedience is only compelled in the presence of both. 

Due to the damage to the substrate by the extensive inoculation we cannot recommend this method for production of biogenetic creatures but it is our hope that continued research in this area will produce further successes in the area.

inveni locus amoenus 

How to find eden. Eden exists, and the gates have been re-opened. This is because the gardener has moved out and the trees are all bare. No more good or evil just grey grass and black sands and flat mountains and water like mercury and Prosper John. I went there by accident but Prosper John wanted cigarettes so he told me how to get back. He knows all about Eden, Prosper John. I think he's been there since before it died.

You have to be hungry and you have to get lost. 

Real and good lost.

Probably no phone lost.

If anyone knows where you are you're not lost. 

Truly lost. 

Doesn't have to be in the woods or the mountains or a swamp but I think it probably helps because of the trees.

I do it at the state forest near Summerville.

Take your shoes off. 

You can keep them you just can't wear them. 

You have to keep walking without shoes on and turn left at every third tree.

If you accidentally hit the road or a town that's bad and you gotta start over which really sucks.

But if you keep at it long enough you'll start to see the trees.

They are like behind the other trees.

They've got silver bark and they've got no leaves and they've got names on them in Greek and Chinese and other stuff I don't know.

They've got my name on them too, I think, I don't know.

Once you see the other trees you're near the other side.

You have to do this now and it's really important and I know it's gross.

You have to find a dead animal.

There's going to be one.

You have to step on it till its bones break.

It's gross.

But if you don't do it you won't come back from there.

Prosper John says so.

The footprints show you the path back. 

But from there you just walk and before long you'll be there.

Under the silver sun.

It's easy I guess. 

But you can eat at that point and  you can go find Prosper John.

Just watch out for the lions.

But why this?

Because I liked writing about wizards. Because I like the discussion about the magic in Wolves Upon the Coast. Because fundamentally you can have interesting systems of magic that are systems. Because fundamentally a spell list can feel magical to me. Because the broadening of choice beyond the possible into the impossible is interesting. Because magic as a niche tool creates interesting moments of game. Because magic doesn't just work one way.

I think the ultimate thing I return to here is the repeated invocation of the numinous. The equation of the numinous with the magical always strikes me as an incomplete understanding of both. The numinous is encountered throughout our experiences with and without magic. They may be overlapping or related, but they are not intrinsic to each other. Magic has been, in history, understood as a secret science, a religion, a communion with spirits, a way of perceiving the world, and an exploitation of flaws in reality. Any of these could be true in our imagined worlds. But one thing does unite them, even in many fictional sources.

Even the people who practice magic don't fully understand it.

As someone who still enjoys an alignment between imagined world, rules, and player experience. I like when I engage with things I don't know as a player. I don't want to know what gods really are in the setting while playing. I don't want to know how the spirits think and respond. I don't want to know exactly what's happening. I want uncertainty. I want mess. I want it as a consequence of the world, but all of that isn't something I as a player want to have to think about.

In my ideal version of these experiences the systems are visible to me for many things. But for magic? I would greatly prefer that magic is a black box in some ways. That the rolls, that the mana, that the slots, that the effects, that the saves, that the truth of magic are hidden from me in part or in whole.

I've written eight spells here as I would present them to the players. I know why they work in the world I imagine. I know the rules or rulings I would use to handle them where needed. But the other players, the characters, I want them to think of magic like a tiger that they have caught by the tail.