Black Magic

Black Magic	Tradition
Combat	Fire
Detection	Water
Health	Earth
Illusion	Air
Manipulation	Man
Drain	Willpower + Charisma
Preferred Spells	Chaotic World, Control Actions, Control Thoughts, Death Touch, Opium Den
Preferred Adept Powers	Commanding Voice, Cool Resolve, Killing Hands, Voice Control

Interested in learning Black Magic? Start by taking your books by Crowley and LaVey, along with your fake Necronomicon, and throwing them out the window. Black Magic isn’t messing around. It isn’t dressing up “be yourself” platitudes in trappings of darkness. It’s not there to say “boo” and then go away so you can tuck yourself in at night and sleep soundly. It is mean, brutal, and focused. It has a bad reputation because it deserves it.

The key of Black Magic is to combine hedonism with sustainability. Any idiot can score some novacoke or drop a few nuyen on a prostitute, but that’s bush-league stuff. Black Magic is not just about fulfilling a desire; it’s about the satisfaction of having people line up to give you what you want, of bending them to your will so that they forsake everything they thought was important to them in order please you. If you cannot conceive of the satisfaction that can come from that, you have no place in Black Magic. Black Magic understands that evil is not about random, uncontrolled destruction—it is about the systematic breaking down of others to facilitate your own pleasure and enjoyment.

Perhaps the most dangerous thing about Black Magic is how appealing it can be. Sometimes practitioners will invoke the symbols from other religions or traditions— demonic horns, pentagrams, swastikas, the Masonic eye—mainly to get a rise out of people, or to convey the perception that they are doing something illicit, but don’t be fooled. Black Magicians put little stock in the magical power of these symbols. They are primarily interested in how they can use those symbols to manipulate others—which is their real area of interest.

Black Magic can occasionally be in your face, but more often it relies on subtle insinuation, manipulation, and subversion so the practitioner can gently lead their targets where they want them to go. And then lower the spiked fist on them.

Black Magic takes all kinds of practitioners, as long as they are willing to dedicate themselves entirely to this way of doing business. Spellcasters can use magic to dominate the minds of others, conjurers can call forth spirits to do their bidding (predictably, Black Magic practitioners tend to be haughty toward their spirits), and adepts can use their social skills to talk people into giving what they want. And mystic adepts can do a little of everything.

While some Black Magicians work together when they find their interests overlap, they are not by and large a group that sees much virtue and benefit in collective action. They are more likely to work their way into the ranks of some other organization, make their way to the top, and then turn that whole organization into a Black Magic organization—or at least an organization that serves the needs and desires of a particular Black Magician.

The fact that a Manhattan mage named Juliette Burma put out a notice on the Matrix saying she was looking for “willing students of the dark arts” is reason enough for most people to steer clear of her. Black Magicians generally don’t like teaching anyone anything, and if they are advertising it’s because either they’re lying about their abilities, they have some secret plan to take advantage of you, or both. But a few street mages who used to be good for nothing more than card tricks have popped up in The Pit demonstrating some startling new abilities and crediting their growth to Burma. So either she’s legit, or she’s working a very special, longterm operation.

(p41-43 SG)