The Haven grimoire has been heavily raided from the Manual of Practical Thaumaturgy and contains formulae that are easily understood from the perspective of the hermetic and shamanic traditions, with glosses for Wiccans and Chaos mages. Some of them come with best practices attached, describing example ethical and unethical uses. (e.g.: it is ethical to use the Enabler spell to enhance the effect of medicine, even if wizgangs out in the Mess use it to get high.)
Assume that anything from SR5 and the Street Grimoire is available, with the exception of:
- One Less / Slay / Slaughter spells; even the variants tuned to vermin and invasive species are only available to guild members in good standing, since they could be reverse engineered for other targets.
- Turn To Goo. No one wants to host the formula for that.
- Dragon Astral Signature (Street Grimoire p107): not invented in 2050, and no sane person would keep the formula for that on a publicly accessible server.
- Anything in the Radiation or Pollution arts. If any Havenly ever ran into a toxic mage’s grimoire, they would not be hosting it on a public server.
It also has Incision (Bullets & Bandages p21).
The grimoire is freely available to citizens, but generally requires in-person visits to get a copy of a spell. Copies are all individually watermarked so people will know who to talk to if it shows up on the public Matrix, as Havens don’t want attention from the Mess if someone learned a dangerous spell and used it to hurt someone.
Some spell formulae are kept on storage where all accesses are audited. Spells like Control Actions, Control Thoughts, and Influence are the sort of thing where if someone is practicing them, the neighbors feel like they ought to know, much like they would if someone were brewing nitroglycerin.
Other spells in the grimoire:
- Water Purification is a sustained spell similar to Purify Water and Barrier. Quickened versions are often in place in many Haven water treatment systems as a final stage, and anything that builds up is pulled away for analysis by the recycling team to debug their process. A separate, smaller pipe runs concentrated saline through the same spell and sounds an alarm if any makes it through, indicating that the spell has failed.
- Gravity Zone. An area spell (using the Earth and Mana arts) that lowers gravity by a specified amount; it is popular in Hollywood (as a quickened ritual) for soundstages set on the Moon, Mars, and free fall, and occasional specialty gyms. The spell made its way into the Haven grimoire via the Haven trideo industry on Santa Cruz Island.
- They have variations on the [Critter] Form spell for changing gender and metatype, and a Naga Form spell (though it only confers naga shape).
- Transparent Flesh is a variation on Improved Invisibility, where the caster can control the transparency (and location of the transparency) of the flesh of a willing or unconscious target, making it much easier to investigate foreign bodies and internal injuries. It’s only Touch range, but the caster can show up as a walking skeleton if they really want to.
- Voltage requires the element of Lightning and can be used to charge batteries in an emergency. It is less effective for an electric vehicle than simply levitating it.
- Magnetize requires the elements of Lightning and Earth and aligns the domains in a ferromagnetic material.
- Electromagnetize requires the elements of Lightning and Earth and makes a piece of ferromagnetic material into an electromagnet.
- Magnetic Compass requires the elements of Lightning and Earth and detects magnetic fields.
- Astral Compass requires the art of Mana and determines the mystical direction of north.
- Magneto requires the arts of mana, lightning, and earth and allows clumsy telekinesis with ferromagnetic materials, similar to the Levitate spell.
- Coilgun requires the arts of Lightning and Earth and accelerates a ferromagnetic projectile, much like the Fling spell does with telekinesis.
- Pelage is a Health spell that makes hair grow 100× as fast (about 4.2cm per day). Mages that know the spell usually have sustaining foci to keep the spell going, and can usually make good money that way.
The Haven Magicians’ Guild likes to open source their spells, but they are practical about it. They have multiple Slay and Slaughter spells captured from a Humanis grimoire, but you need written permission from three senior guild members to get a look at them, and it goes on record. The one person on record thus far did so for the stated purpose of reverse engineering them for public benefit, and subsequently invented Slaughter Bedbugs, Slaughter Lice, Slaughter Fleas, Slaughter Ticks, and Slaughter Ear Mites, and is now working on invasive species (having started with Slaughter Kudzu). Even those spells require being a member in good standing, rather than open source, simply because they could be reverse engineered into something nastier.
Could this be used to heal someone from heavy metal poisoning after a run in a toxic environment?
Hatchetman