The Darklight Arsenal

Walk into any of our numerous arsenal rooms and you'll find mostly what you might expect: guns, grenades, nets, tranquilizer rifles, and medieval swords and maces. But modern day firearms and archaic scimitars aren't all that The Darklight Society has access to. There are other weapons at our disposal, other occult tools we use during our investigations as well.

Magick
Yes, Magick is real. I'm speaking of true Magick, with a capitalized M and ending with a lower case k. We mustn't ever confuse Magick with prestidigitation, which is what we see being performed by Vegas clods to the oohs and ahhs of blind audience members. Prestidigitation is trickery, misdirection and slight of hand. Mages do it for real, harnessing a vast and as far as we know limitless invisible force that can, does, and will not only show utter contempt for the laws of physics but blow those laws to smithereens. It's taken us many hundreds of years, and countless lives, to compile the list of ten most often used Magick prowess our enemies (and friends) can unleash. Study them well. This list could one day save your life.

A complete debate and discussion about Magick would take a long time and tend toward hundreds of books, so if you want that please head over to the HQ library. This lecture here is generally a basic overview. Magick is broken down into two use classifications, and these are Ritual and Incantation.

Ritual, the most powerful of the three, is the preview of Ceremonial Magick and can be thunderous. Ritual Magick consists of very precise use of tools, gestures, formulaic phrase work, and focused meditation. A single Ritual can take hours, days, and even weeks to perform and complete and the effects can be prolonged, I know of one ritual that was cast in the year 1604 and didn't affect the target family until 2001.

Incantation, by contrast, is quick and easy. With a forceful phrase and gesture, the mage fires off a relatively low-level spell that doesn't require anything but the mage's will. Incantations can be called by dozens of names: cantrips, spells, workings, etc; but recognize an Incantation for what it is. The effects of Incantation will never be as powerful and impressive as Ritual but don't take it lightly or be overconfident. The right incantation from the experienced mage can kill you as instantly as a bullet to the temple.

It is important to note when dealing with Magick that it is a force of neither good nor evil, benevolence or malice. Magick responds to the will of the user. It is the user's desire, intent, and purpose that gives the Magick shape and effect. Take that into account during your investigations and look at the vessel, not the source.

Alchemy is likely the most scientific-minded principles of Magick that we know of. It utilizes a very focused and precise system of mathematics, chemistry, and earth sciences in order to transmute one form of matter to another. Alchemy requires determination, lifelong commitment, and dedication to study; an Alchemist can spend his entire lifetimes in research only to have one success.

Thaumaturgy is Magick that directly affects the physical body. In benevolent applications it can strip away illness and disease, mend broken bones, and even repair ruptured organs or regrow missing limbs. Like all Magick it has it's negative aspect: to cause harm. Victims of negative Thaumaturgy will be overcome with virulent disease, may find their skeletons turned brittle as glass, or in the worst events have their lives snuffed out by ruptured internal organs or fatal cardiac arrests.

Sorcery is one of the three Black Arts, to date there has been absolutely no positive use of it. Sorcery is pure destruction, it's only used to harm, injure, and kill. Sometimes a Sorcerer stands out in a crowd with flashy effects such as blasting fires or calling up blizzards, but the most wise and therefore dangerous mages keep the effects invisible and-hopefully-undetectable which makes it that much harder to track the user down.

Necromancy is the second of the purely Black Arts. Media, television, and role-playing games have all lifted necromancy into this whole mind trap of summoning up zombie legions to hunt you down and eat your brain. True Necromancy is a system of Magick that traps and tortures the souls of the dead, most often to force the soul to provide information but sometimes the soul is also used to inflict harm on the living. Show a True Necromancer no mercy.

Ceremonial Magick is the Magick made famous by the infamous Dr. Dee and Aleister Crowley. Heavy on symbolism, ritual, and rigid adherence to bylaws and infrastructure, Ceremonial Magick is the form of Magick most often practices by everyday men and women looking for something new in their lives. If sorcery is an explosion of Magick, Ceremonial Magick is the atom bomb. Wild and varied, Ceremonials can often pull out working Rituals that we haven't experienced before. Proceed with caution.

Onmyoudo Is an ancient form of magick founded by one of the most powerful spellcasters of the last few centuries Abe-No-Seimei. This powerful form of sorcery is derived from meditation, incantation, mudras, special sigils, enchanted inks, rituals, and hand symbols which all combine to form a litany of powers and effects. The full mastery of onmyoudo by a sorcerer called an Onmyouji is hard to gauge as there hasn't been one said to possess the full powers since it's founding. Some observed powers are though, summoning and banishing demons, youkai, and spirits. Subduing and enslaving the same entities, exorcism of ghosts and spirits. Control and mastery over the five elements. Speaking with the dead. Astral projection. And powers mainly formed around touching and interacting with the pale either to call it or banish it for a variety of reasons.

Sympathetic Magick isn't necessarily a pure-bred style of its own nor without affiliation with any of the other styles. It can and often does stand alone, especially in pagan spiritual traditions, but also appears in all of the other styles. Sympathetic Mackick relies on objects, tools, and focus items through which the practicition wills and funnels his Magick. In film and television it is prominent, such as the wands of Harry Potter. Despite its witty film and mass media repartee, Sympathetic Magick is very real and probably the easiest of any of the Magick styles. Candles are purified with oil and burned for conjuring effects, wanda are pointed, strips of cord are bound into knots, and so on. Most individuals whom learn Magick off of the street learn Sympathetic without any realization that there are, indeed, other Magickal styles available.

VoDou has its origins in the isle of Haiti, when it was occupied by the French. The slaves of the French plantations developed a system of spiritual beliefs, not a religion, which allows for the practitioner (called a VoDouisant), to seek advice, information, and help from a variety of countless spirits called Lwa. These spirits run the gauntlet from nature spirits to spirits of the dead, and is most notable for allowing the Lwa to briefly occupy the Vodouisants body under the watchful eye of a Mambo(female priest) or Hougan( male priest. Vodou makes extensive use of ritual dancing, chanting, herb, and candle work. From its native Haiti the belief system traveled to the southern United States where, spearheaded by Marie Leveau it became New Orleans Voodoo. For a Voodoo practitioner the Lwa have become Loa and the system is heavier in theatrics than the mother system. It branched further down into the deepest South where it became Conjure, which does away with Loa and possession entirely and focuses solely on Magick used through extensive herb and root knowledge and old wives tales to help or to harm. For the most part VoDou and it's two children present little threat or danger and therefore action on our part but once in a while we do get sucked into this magnificent, multi-colored world of spirits. Be prepared. The most powerful Mambo that we know of living in the Messa district of Darkness Falls is Mama Tachete, whom rules the entire block known as Little New Haiti.

Fey Magick: Fey Magick is another form of sympathetic magick that changes faces along with the seasons. In the Spring and Summer Fey Magick is positive, while negative working is withheld until the Fall and Winter months. Practicioners of Fey Magick claim to be in communication with the immortal nature spirits of the same name and the components always come from nature: Rocks and stones, twigs and branches, flowers; wind-fallen feathers and, often, animal companions or familiars. Rituals include the use of slow, waltz-like dances, natural oils and poltices, candles. It truly is a beautiful style to see in action, and one worth admiring.

Numea
Numea comes from the Roman occult word Numtratea, which means 'Strong mind'. Numea are psychic abilities, and the categories of psychics whom use them. Many psychics work fr us, and ten to one you'll have a psychic in your coven. Study this list with the understanding that no single psychic ever displays more than two psychic abilities. That is, uness you're Julia Walsh. She can do ALL of these feats. Stay well away from her.

In the Darklight Society we have more field operatives with psychic abilities than we do field agents that are mages, and that's not a bad thing. In many ways, a well trained psychic coven member is more valuable than a mage and should be accorded proper respect. We have broken psychics down into three distinct classifications along with the powers most commonly witnessed among each of these types.

One out of every roughly 20 people is born a Psychic Sensitive. These psychics are able to detect the lingering presences of ghosts and ghostly activity, but  not able to actually "see" or converse with them except in small, very quick snatches. The most common Sensitive Numea are empathic reading, seeing auras, minor precognition, sometimes rarely astral projection, and divination.

Psychic Mediums are able to actually see and converse with ghosts with much greater ability then their Sensitive counterparts. To most Mediums, ghosts are seen as full-bodies and solid apparitions, and can hear what the dead are saying to them with perfect clarity. Psychic Mediums excel in 'cleaning', the act of assisting the lost, trapped, and wayward spirits into crossing over to higher dimensions. The most common Medium Numea we've documented is psychic banishment, astra projection, clairvoyance in all of its forms, telepathy, automatic writing, and psychometric prowess.

Physical Mediums, the rarest kind we have, are eye-popping. These men and woman can't see or hear ghosts, but they sure can let ghosts communicate with us by allowing the dead to briefly possess them to speak or produce ectoplasm. Physical Mediums are the people whom conduct seances and the power of their minds is formidable. They are telekinetics, pyrokinetics, psychics whom levitate and fly, and stare unblinking at plain cinder block walls until the walls abruptly vaporize and collapse. Out in the field, an enemy Physical Medium is an exceptionally dangerous enemy indeed.

Relics
Relics should never be confused with the term Artifact, not for Darklight Society reference. An Artifact, a real honest to goodness Artifact: the Spear of Longinus, the Hammer of Thor, the Tooth of Gla'arhi are all extremely powerful objects only ever sought out by our most experienced and most skilled agents, such as Nicole and The Banadaged Man. They are not for us.

We, instead, work tirelessly to recover Relics. The HQ has a large area for Relics, like warehouses stacked side by side areas which we call The Vault. Per Nicole's explicit and unbreakable instruction all agents are allowed to, shall we say encouraged to, head into the Vault and have a gander at the things we've collected there. We have haunted dolls, jewelry with ghostly energy attached, screaming skulls, articles of clothing that transport the wearer through time, and so on. These items can be studied and researched but they are never, ever, under any circumstance, allowed to leave the Vault.

An agent or Coven that recovers a Relic is expected to tag it, label it, place it in the Vault, and let Nicole know we have it. By the way, recovering a Relic equates to a huge bonus in your paycheck, so keep that in mind.

Side-saddle to the Vault is the Black Library. The name is self-explanitory. This is the area where we store books, tomes, texts, scrolls, and everything else you can imagine relating to the written word. Like the Vault, Nicole encourages us to make extensive use of the Library. In there we can read tratsies of Magick written by strong and note-worthy mages, peruse compendiums of monsters both mundane and world devouring, and all kinds of occult lore and knowledge. As with the Vault, Nicole does not, ever, allow anything stored in the Library to be removed. If you want to use the Library use it, but no walking out with a book tucked under your arm.

The Black Library has some unique items including:

The Mesozoic Plates: This is a book fashioned in a few hundred very thin and pliable sheets of metal. The writing inside is in a language not only unrecognizable but so far evades translation. It is an illustrated record of flora and fauna of that period in Earth's history. A handful of the plates have been tested and shown to be made of, unmistakably, meteoric iron approximately 210 million years old. It's a commonly held belief that the Plates is a record created by an alien species that inhabited our planet during the Mesozoic era, although the book doesn't contain any references we've been able to find of what the species may have named itself or what their physiology may have been like, alas.

The Nekrotic Manuscripts: The Manuscripts were confiscated by the European Darklight Cabal in Yugoslavia in the year 1164 AD. These four scrolls of human skin detail the appearance and worship of the Elder God called the Eater of Childrend (q.v). Brace yourself, it's a horrific read. The Manuscripts offer a step by step ritual for summoning the avatar of the Eater of Children. Please don't perform the ritual, the last thing we need is an Elder God rampaging through headquarters.

Prospero's Books: Prospero's Books are a collection of fifteen tomes written by a mage identifying himself only as Prospero, whom lived in Helsinki. It took him a decade to write each book, they were written between the years 1588 to 1598. They are very intricate, detailed, and concise treatises, expositions, and formula of a variety of True Magick. Many of the books have Magickal properties that make reading them not only informative but entertaining. The Book of Water, for instance, details over a thousand forms of salt and freshwater flora and fauna, some ordinary and other fantastical. The pages seem wet to the touch, and water runs down each of the page from top to bottom but never actually leave the page. The Book of Mirrors is made of pages that all have reflective surfaces running from mirror glass to quicksilver, and carbon. When read, the book's leaves will project images of things he reader did as a youngster, reveal the way others honestly see the reader, and shows hints of what the reader will face or become in the future. The Book of Hues has pages that show every color of the spectrum, visible and invisible but somehow made visible. The first page is white, the middle page is a perfect black, and then the colors continue on back to the very last page, which is also white.

The Revelations of Iod: A 48 page manifesto we obtained from the cult called the Malignancy of Iod (q.v). The book is the tortured ramblings of an unhinged mind, most like the cult founder Theodore Tapman. The book discusses his astral travels to meet the Elder God Iod and how to bring the god to Earth by decimating the population with disease, the reward for which will be that each of the cult members will receive vast cosmic powers and king-ship over certain surviving nations.

Field Agents
It almost goes without saying that the greatest tool and weapon in the Darklight Society arsenal is you yourself, the field agent. Too many of or new agents get so entranced by holding a new weapon they have never seen before or learning the foundations of Magick that they lose sight of the fact that the weapon can't shoot itself and the spell won't cast itself. Some agents in the field end up intimidating themselves with the thought that they may not be competent based solely on dint of inexperience. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here is a basic list of the weapon, magic, and wonderful agent that you are. All of these 'weapons' are with you 24/7, ready to be utilized.
 * The ability to think on your feet: There is no such thing as a case easily solved, and no such thing as a mission going exactly as planned. Your ability to switch plans, directions, and activities on a dime is the most valuable asset in the entire arsenal.
 * Knowledge: When you're facing down a supernatural beastie, you know exactly what it is and how to overcome it because you've researched, studied, and taken careful notes during training sessions. You know everything abut the monster you can, and the monster knows nothing about you. That gives you the advantage.
 * Intimidation: You a morphodite, a chamelion, a lion hiding in the brush. You change identities and occupations as often as a man changes his underwear. This makes it all but impossible for the beastie or cultist enemy to identify you, track you, and eliminate you. The wiping out of any information about you before your recruitment ensures that if a cult meets you more than once, they know they are being haunted by a man of 1000 faces and believe me, nothing is more frightening than that.
 * Thinking Ahead: Armed with knowledge, study, and experience you will be able to stay ten steps ahead of any enemy you may face. In my experience, cults and their leaders have a single-minded goal and they all dsplay a significant lack of what to do if they actually meet that goal. You, on the other hand, have one hundred and one different ways to anticipate what your enemy will do next and thus be there waiting for him when he pokes his snout in.

Final Word
So, in closing, familiarize yourself. Learn. Study. Research. Het to know your Magick coven mates, your psychics, your Relics, the Vault, and the Library. You have decades of very long ights ahead of you, agent, and the more you learn; the more you know, the longer you stay alive.