Appendix Z
Decanic Focusers
for GURPS Cabalby William J. Keith
Do you play a GURPS Cabal game, or otherwise use Hermetic correspondences? Don't want to flip through a chapter of material to work out what your spell could use in the way of decans, constellations, and planets? The chart below lists the Colleges with their decans and a portable, inexpensive object designed to pack in the decanic energies. Each provides exactly +4 in decanic, zodiacal, and planetary correspondences for that College, and is guaranteed to provide no opposing correspondences. (The new Fourth Edition Weather College is assigned to Sahu, and the unassociated decans are listed separately.) The +4 is a "lowest common denominator" chosen for low expense and ease of construction. If a player attempts to add further modifiers, carefully check the total astrological modifiers already in use.
Any Cabalist who specializes in spells of a given College could carry such a thing around. Some of them might even become standard items in a Hermetic magician's toolkit. Creative or rich Cabalists can also "upgrade" them: for example, the pendant for Charchnoumis could switch the sphinx figure to gray-lacquered wood, hang from a silver chain and add several moonstones around the edge, for a total of +5. Kurtaêl's charm is particularly amenable to this; necromancy is apparently easy to enhance.
In a non-Hermetic system, these weird trinkets can add flavor to enchantments or wizardly accoutrements. They might even be unique objects intimately connected to arcane energies.
College
Decan
Object
Common Name
Air
Isrö
An aspen wand tipped with blue chalcedony, sporting eagle feathers attached by tin wire.
Wand of Raphael
Animal
Charchnoumis
A hazelwood pendant in the shape of a wheel, lacquered dark blood-red and inset with a silver sphinx, set about with small red bloodstones.
Animal magnet
Body Control
Bianakith
A palm-sized elmwood disc bearing an ivory miniature of a starfish. The disc is hooped in steel and set with aquamarines.
Grasp of Mihal
Communication and Empathy
Naôth
A V-frame of copper, wound across with piano wire. Attached to one leg is a brass statuette of an elephant; to the other, an emerald figurine of a swan.
Naôthic antenna
Earth
Ieropaêl
A dark brown orb of smoky quartz hooped in cut slate.
Orb of Uriel
Enchantment
Kumeatêl
A rose-colored silk cord with 13 little charms of lionheads carved from carnelian dangling from it.
Magesmith's bracelet
Fire
Eneuth
A primitive athame with an obsidian blade; the guard is iron, and the handle is ironwood set with a dark red fire opal. A blue-lacquered horse adorns the pommel.
Michaelite Blade
Food
Atrax
A fairly large orange pentacle pendant carries four items in its bottom four points: a peridot, an opal, a sapphire figurine of a dove, and an aluminum representation of a lamp.
Hunger's Bane
Gate
Iudal
Two keys of juniper wood dangling from an amber ring, inset with bits of alexandrite.
Peter's Keys
Healing
Phthenoth
A Greek cross; one branch is steel, the other alder wood, both suitably colored crimson. The steel branch bears engravings of fish while the wooden branch is inset with silver and pearl images of cats.
Shaliah's cross
Illusion and Creation
Methiax
A wallet-sized plastic hologram of a fractal, like a Mandelbrot set. The frame is hazelwood, set at the corners with zircons and inlaid with silver.
Faker's Mirror
Knowledge
Sphandôr
A slice of agate set in a hexagonal rowan frame dyed russet-red, overlaying a copper depiction of a lotus.
Lotus lens
Light and Darkness
Phoubêl
A lozenge pendant divided into four alternate black and white squares, made of alternating laurel and hazelwood, framed in applewood painted yellow and set with carnelians, all on a gold chain.
Chessboard of Yelayel
Making and Breaking
Arôtosael
A primitive hammer, its flint head attached by iron bands deliberately reddened with rust to a blue-painted oak handle carved with eagles.
Smiting Hammer
Meta
Alleborith
A pocket-size pyramid of rowan wood lacquered bright azure, with a tiny garnet capstone. The base bears a dark green picture of a goat.
Mana Focus
Mind Control
Ruax
A pair of earrings or bracelet charms: spirals of iron, painted cerulean blue. One holds a piece of amber at its center, the other a dark red ruby.
Enchantress' bangles
Movement
Anatreth
A model of an arrow: feathered with hawk feathers, yew shaft painted violet, arrowhead of lapis lazuli.
Quickening dart
Necromancy
Kurtaêl
A bracelet of rowan lacquered black, set with onyx and jet.
Rainbow's corpse
Plant
Harpax
A useful steel-bladed sickle, its handle set with a small onyx in the shape of a raven. The blade is incised with cheerful designs of ivy strands; the handle is wood from the holly tree, painted forest green.
Harvester's Friend
Protection and Warning
Reêlêd
A chain of stout bronze-colored plastic links (real bronze ages to green, an unfortunate Venus evocation), interwoven with a strip of white Kevlar and carrying a red-colored pendant or bangle of iron depicting a wolf.
Wary Circlet
Sound
Agchoniôn
A green seashell decorated with parrot, peacock and swan feathers, attached with copper wire.
Echo trap
Technology
Ouare
An olive-green plastic gear on a brass axle.
Decanic gear
Water
Saphathoraél
A small blue chalice set with a few teardrop-shaped pearls.
Cup of Gabriel
Weather
Sahu
A model of an arrow: basalt arrowhead attached to a sequoia shaft with animal sinew and real feathers.
Stormwreaker
none known
Akhouiy
A charm bracelet dangling charms of dice, four-leaf clovers, steel fish, and blue-painted tin eagles.
Fortune bracelet
none known
Akton
A palm-sized mirror framed with silver and backed with elderwood painted pale yellow. Its frame is painted maroon and bears images of scorpions carved into pale yellow topaz; its corners are set with pearls.
Poisoned mirror
none known
Alath
A square of tortoiseshell painted deep wine-purple and inset with a brass image of scales.
Foursquare rest
none known
Anostêr
A rowan chalice lacquered dark green and set with an image of a goat's head worked in garnet (orange-yellow spessartite preferred). It bears a green-lacquered rosewood inset of a swan and copper images of scenes or quotations from The King in Yellow, Sherlock Holmes' On the Study of Tobaccos and their Ashes, or other deliberately-fictional books never written.
Impossibility Chalice
none known
Axiôphêth
A massive necklace of lead chain dangling iron weights as well as yew figures of horses painted indigo.
Chain of Burden
none known
Barsafael
A "U"-shaped amulet carved from the taproot of an acacia and dyed crimson, its ends capped with birchwood bearing likenesses of lions.
Secret Depth
none known
Belbel
Scissors of surgical steel wound about with aged copper bands bearing images of mules and lotuses. One finger hole holds a small green emerald and the other an orange agate.
Painblades
none known
Buldumêch
A charm bracelet sporting cowrie shells, a real silver coin, a sapphire, and a gold bangle.
Sugar Daddy
none known
Hephesimereth
A black ebony box set with an onyx, containing some small dead batteries and ashes, wired shut with purple-covered wire.
Box of Pointless
none known
Marderô
The canton of a U.S. flag (the azure part flecked with white five-pointed stars), pinned with a brass Soviet hammer-and-sickle pin, any red scraped off.
Fightin' Words
none known
Nefthada
A strip of satin dyed bright green, a topaz carving of a scorpion and a blue jade figure of an eagle pinned to it.
Immortal instant
none known
Tepsisem
A ribbon of scarlet velvet bound about the sandalwood handle of an iron (not steel) athame set with a ruby.
Entropy blade
Adventure Seeds
The Collector of Mysteries: the PCs come across twelve peculiar objects set apart from the rest of the magical treasure trove. Trained Cabalists can quickly identify them as focusing the decans without known Colleges. So is this a completist's storage room, or had the previous owner identified some use for them?
The Death-Dealer: Just how much can the Kurtaêl charm be upgraded? A room can be paneled in ebony, cypress, rowan, and yew, the latter all painted black; wall space filled with figurines of rats, crows, ravens, and magpies; barred shut with ribs from a mule, magically significant points decked with onyx and jet. If a few of these ingredients are chosen with a careful eye to quality and rarity, this sanctum could be thrumming with necromantic energies to the tune of a +15 bonus to necromantic spells before modifiers from the Laws of Sympathy, mana level, and distance. Prisoners physically in this forsaken chamber can abandon much hope of successfully resisting the necromancer's power. Of course, assuming the PCs rescue their friend before the astrologically optimal moment for the dark rite, it would be a darned shame to destroy such an obviously valuable piece of magical equipment . . .
Article publication date: October 20, 2006
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