Following are some suggestions on players beginning as sorcerers, and keepers adding side effects to magical usage. They are intended to add magical flavor to the Call of Cthulhu game. 

STARTUP SORCERERS

It is common in CoC for PCs to begin as novices. Why shouldn't PCs be able to begin their careers with spells? This is not a naive question, but a serious one. Anyone who has played CoC for any length of time will soon come to know a bit more about Mythos workings than a fresh-faced new investigator character. The standard argument that good roleplayers will be able to suppress their own knowledge of the genre is still relevant, but there is also a flip side. Occasionally players will get hacked off playing naive investigators and may want something more.

I personally believe that if an experienced player wants to run an hoary old scholar who is an expert in arcane lore then they should be able to do so. A GM-player talk should be used to establish limits of knowledge and character experience. Also, the player should be savvy enough to run the PC properly and not shaft the hardworking GM.

Startup sorcerors are not common in my long-running campaign; in fact of a retinue of thirty or more PCs over a long (very long) period of gameplay there have only ever been two such PCs. Additionally, no other characters have bothered to take the time and effort to learn many spells during game time.


MAGICAL SIDE EFFECTS

If handled properly then magic should have serious side effects on PCs. It should be more than just a loss of a few SAN points. I would encourage GMs to inflict nasty skin diseases on characters who study mouldy old books; to suggest nervous habits and get these PCs constantly looking about to see if someone is watching them from behind; and to make components for spellcasting both difficult to find and nauseating to carry.

For example: In my campaign, the spell Flesh Ward requires a mummified severed hand to be worn on a thong around the neck, close to the spellcaster's heart. When the spell is cast the hand twitches and clutches the caster's chest. A visible side effect of the spell is that the caster's skin solidifies to the consistency of aged leather, and his DEX falls to zero for purposes of DEX rankings. Keep the spell going too long and this nasty effect may become semi-permanent! The mummified hand has a bad habit of falling apart after a few uses, requiring replacement. Unfortunately the caster must prepare the hand himself; he cannot use a "tainted" hand. Therefore sorcerors who make frequent use of this spell get familiar with anatomy, embalming, and chemistry; carry surgically sharp knives; offer to help other PCs when their hand has been hurt in an accident; smell of embalming fluids; and act in such a way that they are generally looked upon as weird.

Historically, witches and sorcerors were accused of numerous unsavoury practices. Why shouldn't those practices actually be necessary for spell-casting? It certainly adds color to the game, and it keeps the bad guys from being one-dimensional and disgusting when the odd PC is too. PCs have to start collecting odd items for spellcasting and their studies soon resemble Vincent Price's workroom from the movie _The Raven_.

Take the case of one sorceror in the campaign, an M.D. and expert on blood disorders who has an aversion to being snuck up on or touched without warning. He sleeps poorly also has a rather blackly humourous bedside manner which many patients and peers find disturbing. This worthy also lectures in forensic science and biology, and his students and fellow lecturers are quite rightly rather wary of the mad doctor. Isn't that kind of result better than a straight SAN loss?

Remember, role-playing is not about rolling dice and playing with numbers. That statement goes double for CoC games. You get out what you put in. Make the effort.


Peter Devlin (c) 1997
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