Other Magic (2020) is so good! The concept is straight forward: What if traditional folk magic, but translated into vaguely D&D terms for use in RPGs? Jesse Ephraim focuses primarily on American systems — pow-wows, rootwork, brujeria and Ozark magic — but also includes the very intense Russian tradition of Zagovory as a sort of contrast. This might seem odd, especially since all of these speak to a more recent historical era than most fantasy games. Early on, though, Ephraim points out that Manly Wade Wellman’s Silver John is a good example of a folk magician, and the Silver John stories are clear inspirations for D&D, despite being set in America in the 1960s, so this sort of thing can definitely work (see also Lowcountry Crawl).

Ephraim details charms, hexes, enchantments and all sorts of interesting details. At a glance, it might seem like folk magic is vastly underpowered in comparison to pulpy magic like the spells of D&D, but in reading through the zine you can see how naturally fantasy magic, particularly its defensive branches (detection, protection, etc), is rooted in folk traditions. Those aspects that lack a direct connection are clearly complimentary. They offer a kind of magical methodology that could be applied to RPGs for interesting effect — the idea of magic being a back and forth, or magic as the application of secret knowledge. The traditions here are lower key and less flashy than fireballs and lightning bolts, but they also imply new systems of play. One example: there’s a charm that can be used to force a shapeshifter into its natural form — there is no corollary for that in the standard suite of D&D spells, but you can easily image it in the game, and see how it might change a lycanthrope-centric scenario, for instance.

All the illustrations are fantastic woodcuts (I believe by Ephraim) that illustrated effects of spells and strange creatures they can summon, which leads us to tomorrow’s post…