The Library of Attnam: April 2026

20 April 2026

Campaign Pitch: City of Magic

Viscount Hugo P'flem-Malévol has slipped, fallen and died.

His obituary in Wizarding World's Words read:

Hugo P'flem-Malévol was peerless among gentle-wizards. While many knew him only as an eccentric recluse with a score of spell-patents under his belt, those close to him will never forget his legendarily wicked sense of humour and untoward charitability. No guest left his house hungry, thirsty and impoverished. Whenever disease, fire or calamity struck our city, Hugo was there.

His death was a tragic accident and any allegations in the nature of "He deserved it, after what he did to those orphans." or "I bet it was a curse of a woman scorned. He was really sleeping around. And he liked them monstrous!" will be sued for calumny. He has reserved a sizeable sum from his estate for post-mortem lawsuits.

His funeral was extremely well attended by crowds of cheerful mourners, some of whom remained in vigil well into the night, dancing and drinking. In death, as in life, he has touched many in ways they never knew they could be touched.

You are all beneficiaries of Hugo P'flem-Malévol - his children (legitimate or not), relatives close or many times removed, old servants or acquaintances, or even just random people he took liking to - coming to Fërn, the second City of Magic, for a reading of his last will and testament. Surely you must wonder who will inherit his magical mansion and patent rights?

Hugo P'flem-Malévol
by Bryce Cook

Half a millennium ago, an unknown event caused a worldwide collapse of ley lines and magic in general, leading to the unravelling of many workings of High Magic that people once took for granted. But then a second blow came, even harsher than the first - the gods had vanished. Prayers fell on deaf ears and priests were bereft of their divine magic. Worry became panic became unrest became frenzy. Churches, empires and civilizations crumbled. This event had since became known as the Collapse, or a CK-class Reality Restructuring Scenario, as wizards like to call it.

The poetically inclined historians claim that the Unenlightened Years that followed the Collapse lasted for exactly 333 years. The factually inclined historians lament the irreplaceable loss of knowledge this tumult has brought.

The Aunian Empire had finally shattered, after centuries of decline. Ghal-Dèroin, the first City of Magic, sank after all of its enchantments failed at once. Orosim, the Djinn Democracy, has been lost to the red sands of Utabi.

A new philosophical school of Humanism has started to spread its teachings, emphasizing the agency of humans, reliance on human reason, understanding and free will, and rejection of the divine. This has led to multiple religious wars, witch hunts and racial tensions, but also an unprecedented burst of scientific advancement.

Alchemical fire powder, once a novelty concoction used mostly as a non-mage's cumbersome replacement for a fireball, became more widely used with the invention of "guns". Now known as gunpowder, it is slowly reshaping the modern battlefield.

And last but certainly the most important of all - in the middle of the Unchartable Woods, a small cabal of disenfranchised wizards founded a research camp that would soon become the second City of Magic, Fërn. The Unchartable Woods were likely quite queer even before the Collapse, but since then they have become a nightmare in green. Full of shifting distances and weather patterns, mutated wildlife and spirits, lost and forgotten places and no-longer-people, and general detritus of things that should not be, the Woods are an exciting treasure trove of everything unnatural and magical - especially for those wizards who do not really care about things like coming back from a research trip with the same number of hirelings as they left with - and sparked an expeditious, precipitous series of magical breakthroughs that brought Fërn a world-wide renown. The camp became a fortified lab complex, then a small town with several towers, then a large town with a fledgling university, then a city that still continues to gather fantastical things from around the world and grow. It is said (by wizards) that it was this founding of an independent settlement fully devoted to discovering and understanding the new paradigms of the world that heralded the coming of the current Age of Enlightenment.

It is now year 526 After the Collapse (AC) and your chance to work with bleeding edge magic - exciting, unpredictable, ready to be exploited and exploded - starts right now. The magical industrial revolution is coming and it is up to you whether your grand dreams will amaze the world with strange machines and stranger magicks, or drown in explosions and madness.

by Sean Andrew Murray

So, is this a Harry Potter setting?

Kind of, but not really?

The closest reference I can think of are the early Discworld books, where the Unseen University is shown as a rather cutthroat place. The best way to rise in rank and reputation is to be powerful enough that no one can say no; the second best way is for your superior to suddenly vacate their position. You do not go about murdering people, of course - you would be subject to ridicule and maybe even (Gasp!) prosecution - but accidents happen all the time. Now expand this attitude to a whole city of wizards, full of unearthly locations, unethical experiments and murder mysteries.

Adding to that, spells (in this cosmology) are semi-sentient spirits living in a wizard's brain. This is not great for sanity. Wizards are basically half-mad "scientists". Ambitious, irresponsible, suicidally curious. If they had a motto, it would likely be: "Why not?" The whole City is teetering on the brink and something will give, probably sooner rather than later.

But getting back to Harry Potter... I guess if you strip away the fairy tale glasses that at least the first few books had going and take a hard look at the wizarding world, this actually might be a Harry Potter setting. After all, the wizarding world is a frighteningly dangerous place. Students of Hogwarts are expected to handle things like mandrakes - who will instantly kill you if your earmuffs slip off - on a daily basis. People get maimed or even die yearly. Nobody bats an eye when a student loses all the bones in his arm to a professor's spell gone wrong. Children as young as eleven are inducted into a beloved sport that involves flying at breakneck speeds high above the ground, while two players' literal job is to shoot you down with a cannonball-like enchanted orb. Different sport involves throwing kids in front of a dragon - all great fun, by wizard standards. Dementors can destroy souls and not only are they stationed around Hogwarts as guards, they are repeatedly shown being barely held back from devouring some of the students. There is a forbidden forest full of deadly creatures right next to the school. These wizards frankly don't have very much in the way of common sense, which is just the perfect flavour for this campaign.

by Michael Dashow

Do you want to...

Own a haunted house?
Get turned inside-out by an eldritch horror you summoned to do your house chores?
Explore lost ruins and reality-shards?
Accidentally remove your internal organs with an experimental magitech you just built?
Travel to different dimensions?
Cause a diplomatic incident on the Moon?
Infiltrate the ioun collider laboratory to steal their research?
Join a doomed archaeological expedition?

by Florian Stitz

by feliciacano

Narcomancer
by retrovenus

Please note that all classes linked below are subject to review and perhaps revisions before play. Not major revisions, but enough to fit my ruleset.

You will play as...

At least at the start of the campaign, all players are young wizards who just came to the City. Other classes will be unlocked during play, depending on what the party will be doing and where will they go. Some of the classes to unlock are:

Thief
Spell thief
Berserk (berserk wizard, anyone?)
Literally a dog (and still a wizard)
Many goblins (you play as all of them)
Time-displaced knight
Wandslinger
Serial killer
Citizen of the Moon
God's only son
Vampire or werewolf
Friend to fairies
Friend to fungi
Brave mouse
Living portal
Sentient slime
Goldfish-powered automaton
Beggar
Dwarf, gnome, rabbit, unicorn, etc.
Even a fighter, if you insist

Frankly, if you want to play as something, just ask me and we can probably make it work. This is a city of barely sane wizards in the middle of a broken reality masqueraded as a forest. There are bound to be weird things abound.

by Bone Dust

Lets go over some more questions about the campaign and setting. First, Jeff Rients' venerable twenty questions:

What is the deal with my cleric's religion?

You are not a cleric, you are a wizard, Harry. Wizards know that "god" is just a title. The celestial gods can no longer meddle in the affairs of mortals after the Collapse and the petty gods who remained are just that - so petty they were unaffected. There are still plenty of terrestrial gods around - shrine spirits, tutelary deities, genii loci, demigods - and they may grant personal favours and perform minor miracles, but a wizard is more than a match for a petty god.

Where can we go to buy standard equipment?

Pretty much anywhere in the City. And as this is a city of wizards, you can buy as many magic items as your wallet can stomach - try the Machine & Magic Market or the Bootleg Bazaar.

Importantly, hats, robes and wands can be purchased cheaply from many thrift stores, or stylishly from one of the branded stores; the Alchemists' Guild holds a near-monopoly on legal (and some would claim that illegal, too) drugs and potions; and Shantytown veritably crawls with disreputable wizards who might be all too willing to deal with illegal magic, for the right price.

Where can we go to get a plate mail custom fitted for this monster I just befriended?

Alrik Stahlbrand can get the job done. Ask around the Red & Pleasant District.

Who is the mightiest wizard in the land?

That would be Pentes Phalanges, the five archmages who rule the City.

Who is the greatest warrior in the land?

Andókai, the Headmistress of the War College, is often awarded that title, but many would object that while she is without a doubt an extraordinary fighter, she is also a wizard. War wizard, but a wizard nonetheless, and thus should not be considered a proper warrior.

From the non-magical warriors, grandmaster von Untermünkheim of the Hunters' Lodge and Invincible Ivory, the Champion of the Pit, are usually mentioned in one breath as the best. There have been many attempts to arrange a fight between the two, but so far they have both spurned the challenge.

Who is the richest person in the land?

Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar Ilteourenoradonossalensdottir, the Archmage of External Affairs (who handles trade and tariffs) and Tanisha Tarako, the Archmage of Internal Affairs (who handles finances and taxes) are likely sitting on the largest funds, but as these are state funds, they cannot really claim this wealth as their own. The largest personal hoard belongs to Ashanti the dragon banker.

The standard currency within the City, by the way, is a mag, short for "magically infused scroll", which is split into centimags, or just cents. Both take the form of banknotes, or silver coins in the case of single cents. Each mag is worth 1 MD.

Where can we go to get some magical healing?

The best treatment (and enhancement) can be bought from the doctors of biomancy at the Academy, but their services are expensive. If you need a quick, cheap and discreet procedure (choose two), there are several private practices at the Surgeon Row.

Should you choose to expand your horizons at the University, it has a free student infirmary, but the healers are usually swamped, not equipped to handle more delicate cases, and they will ask uncomfortable questions if your injuries are strange enough.

Where can we go to get cures for the following conditions: poison, disease, curse, level drain, lycanthropy, polymorph, alignment change, death, undeath?

See above. Though there's no cure for death, I'm afraid.

Is there a magic guild my magic-user belongs to or that I can join in order to get more spells?

You can become a student of the Wizarding University, then peruse the university store, though the prices are not at all student-friendly.

Where can I find an alchemist, sage or other expert?

The Alchemists' Guild, the Stygian Library and Downtown, respectively.

Where can I hire mercenaries?

Buying a round of ale in one of the more disreputable taverns is a safe bet. There are always people willing to risk their lives and limb for good money. If what you are looking for is more of a partner in adventure or a large group of battle-hardened veterans, try the Hunters' Lodge or the War College, respectively.

Is there any place on the map where swords are illegal, magic is outlawed or any other notable hassles from the Law?

Not in the City, but note that casting spells on unwilling targets can easily be classified as assault with magic. Mind manipulation is also very illegal and extremely harshly judged by society at large. It is, after all, the uttermost violation of personal agency and privacy. Possession of a charm spell is treated pretty much like possession of a date rape drug.

On the other hand, necromancy is mostly okay! Buy your corpses legally and nobody will bat an eye when you stroll around with a skeleton in tow. Zombies are a biohazard and thus subject to severe fines if not meticulously maintained, while ghosts are considered an ex-living person and should be employed, not bespelled.

Which way to the nearest tavern?

Down the road, any road. From seedy taverns in Downtown and Shantytown to high-class dining and entertainment establishments in Uptown and Wane & Fallow District, the City offers it all. A gentle(wo)man of discerning tastes might also wish to swing by the bathhouses or Little Lilith.

What monsters are terrorizing the countryside sufficiently that if I kill them I will become famous?

The Hunters' Lodge keeps a ledger of known monsters and bounties on their death or capture, if we are talking about literal monsters. If we are talking about metaphorical monsters, you could try to take down one of the gangs that plague the poor parts of the City, or find a way to counter the druids that always work towards the City's violent destruction.

Among wizard students, a sure path to fame is to brave the depths of the old Defence Against the Dark Arts building and abscond with some trinket without being caught. That place is scary.

Are there any wars brewing I could go fight in?

There probably are, but the scope of this campaign will be limited to the City and the Unchartable Woods around it. Do not expect any globe-trotting warmongering.

You could get involved in the secret wars inside of the city, of course. Ask the vampires or the rats.

How about gladiatorial arenas complete with hard-won glory and fabulous cash prizes?

The Pit in Shantytown is your best bet. There are also duelling clubs, a local offshoot of football called fireball and rat-catching sewer-races.

Are there any secret societies with sinister agendas I could join and/or fight?

Oh yes! They are secret. Don't worry, you will find them.

What is there to eat around here?

All food in the City is imported, as there is no space for crops or livestock and no magic capable of creating food survived the Collapse. This is in fact a constant worry of the ruling archmages, as loss of the railroad or political unrest in one of the City's bread baskets might easily lead to famine and riots. A fabulous contract awaits an inventor of a reliable food production magic.

But back to eating - shipments of food from all over the world arrive to the City every single day, so you can find any and every kind of cuisine in establishments ranging from the cheap and questionable street vendors, to the affordable and still questionable inns such as Gristle Ghoul Grub (Cannibal allegations were never confirmed!) and Fugly Bob's, or even the legendary (and excruciatingly expensive) Le Restaurant Tranquille.

Any legendary lost treasures I could be looking for?

Many people come into the City with the dream of uncovering an ancient artifact or a new deposit of occultum. The very reason why the City was built deep in the deadly Unchartable Woods is that this place overflows with strange treasures. Maybe you can recover pre-Collapse or even primeval spells from alien ruins, or chase the rumoured spelljammer crash site, or tame a hitherto unseen magical beast.

Where is the nearest dragon or other monster with a hoard of treasure?

The banker dragon technically counts? But if you are looking for a monster that is not a treasured member of society, look no further than the Unchartable Woods. They are infested with man-eating monsters and mind-bending treasures.

Goblin electromancer...
by Bone Dust

...and her familiar
by Bogdan Tomchuk

Next on the menu are the Mad Queen's ten only slightly mad questions:

What class knows the most martial arts? Are they real martial arts like kung fu, or made up ones like krav maga?

There are surprisingly many wizards who specialize in magical martial arts. From the top of my head: sword mages, adipomancers, muscle wizards and probably more that I am blanking on right now. If you want a non-wizarding martial monk, sure there are some, but it is kind of expected that you will be a wizard in the wizard campaign.

Can I start out having already made a deal with the devil or do I have to do that in game?

Do that in game. This is how you get a familiar, after all.

Do you want me to write an 8-page backstory? Can I write an 8-page backstory, if I want to? If I write something down in it like I'm the time-lost princess of the Brass City and the daughter of the Sun and I commanded legions in the Hell War but was betrayed by my father's vizier but I don't know that, or that I'm elf Conan and cooler than everyone else, will that be true?

Mostly yes, but keep in mind:

You can still be killed. Backstory, no matter how awesome it is, gives you no protection from dying ignobly. Do not play a character you couldn't stomach to lose to a random crit.
All of that happened far away and will probably not be a central plot point. You are new to the City of Magic and cannot be the lost daughter of the third archmage.
If you want special powers related to your backstory, take a relevant class. There is a class that gives you powers as the daughter of the Sun, for example.

If I eat someone's heart, will I gain their powers? What about their brain?

Yes! It is rather looked down upon and not always safe, but eating various body parts of creatures of magic can give you powers. Wizards count as creatures of magic, by the way. Yummy.

These classes are boring, can I be one from somewhere else? What about from a different system entirely?

Sure, converting or creating new classes sounds like fun. The City of Magic can stomach the strangest of entities.

If I make a sword, which one of us gets to name it?

You. Depending on what you made it from and what spirits you bound into it, it might even have an opinion on how dumb the name you gave it is.

Am I allowed to kill the other player characters? What would I have to do to be allowed to? Do I win if I kill them all?

No, unless all players in question agree that they want to proceed. There will be no sneaky PVP.

Actually, how do I win in general?

That's a good question which I don't really have an answer to. Maybe you could:

Graduate from the Wizarding University and get a tenure.
Invent a ground-breaking magitech and overturn the market.
Get elected and really change things around.
Marry into a powerful (crime?) family.
Take over or establish a secret cult and retire to enjoy being the one in charge.

What language stands in for Common? Or what are we all talking to each other in? Like the party, mostly, but also everyone else?

The City is positively teeming with people gibbering in a hundred incomprehensible languages, but most also speak the eclectic Trade Tongue. As a wizard, you probably want to know Low Arkanum, the language of magic, too. It is kind of important.

How do I learn how to talk to rocks? No, not once a day - just, like, normally?

Elementalists can do that, or you can master Djinnish.

Which kinds of wizards get to serve kings and live in towers, and which ones are run out of town or stoned to death in the streets? Can I be both? At the same time?

There are precious few illegal practices, at least within the City - mindcraft (because wizards treasure their secrets and free will, thank you very much), dread necromancy (just buy your corpses legally and stay away from necro-plagues) and filthomancy (because it is gross and disgusting and stupid). Blood magic and summoning also sometimes get the side-eye, especially if there are rumours of human sacrifices and elder evils.

But sure, you can be both. While wizarding traditions are mutually exclusive, you can always learn illegal spells on the side.

by Bjorn Hurri

by Marton Adam Marton

Followed by Filthy Pig's somewhat disturbing questions:

Is there blood magic? Necromancy? Can I start off with these powers or do I have to get them diegetically during play? Will these things get me hanged/drawn, quartered and burned over water/tortured/burned at the stake? Is your necromancer working off the "divination from the dead" definition or is it cool?

Yes.

Both are an option.

Blood magic is more likely to see you shunned and hunted that necromancy, at least within the City.

My necromancers are the coolest.

Will my limbs get hacked off? Can I get new limbs? Do they have to be human or can I have monster parts? Is there a class that does all this or is it just an NPC?

Yes.

You definitely can get monster parts (they need to be fresh, though) or mechanical limbs or necro-grafts.

Biomancers of the Academy can help with the monster-sewing, alchemists with the mechanical replacements and necromantic inventors with undead prosthetics. All of these are playable classes.

When was the last plague in the setting and how soon can we expect the next one? Can we swindle people by selling fake plague cures?

The Archmagery of Health works tirelessly to never see a repeat of the Platypus Plague, but there are a hundred things that could go wrong and release an experimental contagion/parasite/curse into the streets.

Sure, but it won't be just the angry customers going after you. If you do not have the correct permit, the bureaucracy of the City is without mercy.

Cannibalism gives you: A) kuru, B) magical powers, C) full stomach, D) yet another unexpected twist?

In order: C, A, B, D. Isn't this the second time that eating people was brought up?

What can't I do that isn't super obvious?

Ruleswise, there are limited options for flying, telekinesis, teleportation, resurrection, divination, extradimensional storage and long-range communication, as all of them can break the game by offering a boring solution to most obstacles/consequences/mysteries.

Storywise, you shouldn't abuse mental magic like charm and mind reading unless you want to end up in prison. There are very strict laws about that kind of things.

by Sean Andrew Murray

And finally, Scrap Princess also asked some questions. They... are. They are indeed.

Is there weaponized squid?

Yes, and you can play as a robo-squid or an octopus wizard.

Is there undead robots?

Yes. You can fight them; you can make them; you can play as one.

Do icebergs walk across the land?

Not around here, though the weather in the Unchartable Woods does have its moments of craziness.

What do birds know?

What do they not know?

Does medicine work like it does here but no-one knows CPR or does it work like a cartoon so I cure amnesia with more head injuries or does it work like medieval European people thought it did with demons in your teeth?

Demons in your teeth. Or actually a mix of all three, but as a wizard, you do not trust those doctors who tell tell you that a balanced diet does not include random glowing liquids. Basically, most diseases are evil spirits or curses that can exorcised or sucked out with the right kind of leeches. There are many kinds of leeches and you obviously need to know which kind to use.

I want to play a hobbit but really I'm the fleas controlling the hobbit. Where is that in the book?

It's not an exact fit, but you could play as many goblins possessed by a daemon sword? But if you say pretty please, I'm sure mind-controlling fleas would make for a splendid wizard.

How much could I rent my body out to spirits before I lost control of my character?

Depends on your contract. Get a lawyer.

What level do I have to get my character to before I am the GM?

Not happening in this game. The rules are deliberately set so your character's abilities get broader rather than overwhelmingly strong.

What is the dumbest thing I can spend my money on?

I don't know, a cozy life somewhere far away form the City where nothing will blow up in your face? Most wizards would find that the dumber alternative to living in a haunted house that has a jury-rigged particle accelerator in the basement.

How ugly can my guy be? Like can I basically be a walking fish?

As ugly as you wish. We could make it into a special ability.

Not only can you be a walking fish, you can be a non-walking fish, too.

The lamp oil? Is that like cooking oil, kerosene, white spirits or napalm?

Lamp oil is like cooking oil, it won't really burn well. You can buy high-proof alcohol or alchemical combustibles, though.

How does physics work in this world?

From a commoner's point of view, common sense and similarly to real world.

From a wizard's point of view, a lot of it is magic and will probably be explored during play.

Can I start with weapon hands?

Sure, just play as a beast of war.

What cultures approve of cannibalism?

That's the third time! Third time!

Also ratlings, some elves and many intelligent "monsters".

Also define cannibalism. Is eating a thinking plant cannibalism?

Can my character not be real, but a hallucination of another character?

Yes.

Which is the Rome but with lava? Like the fire country in this world?

Orosim, the Djinn Democracy, or Kani, the triplet-city of ashen elves.

Can I invent an insect?

Sure? Unless you play as a bug collector and want to (out of game) establish a new bug to catch, or you play as a biomancer and want to (in game) create a new insect, I fail to see the point, though.

Is there reverse fire?

Winter witches have a spell that conjures blue, freezing flame. You are free to invent a spell that unburns things.

How much money can I make inventing siege engines?

Probably a lot, with the right buyer. Weapons sell well to foreign despots.

What is the most significant tree to the economy of the starting place?

The City of Magic is built smack dab in the heart of the Unchartable Woods, yet the most significant tree is foreign to the Woods. Black walnuts are planted regularly across the whole city and as an unbroken threshold around the Central Park, as their unique properties ward off wrath of the Woods against this urban incursion.

The second most significant are the undoubtedly more obvious wand-wood trees, which are however not a single genus but rather a condition of trees growing in auspicious locations.

The most significant stone is quartz.