Mystery Codex

WitchCraft RPG

by C.J. Carella (Author / Editor), M. Alexander Jurkat (Author / Editor), Scott Maxwell (Editor)

The world of WitchCraft is a place of mystery, danger and dark secrets.

The magically aware all know that a major change is approaching, a new era that will be preceded by terrifying, catastrophic events. But the transitions brought on by this Time of Reckoning are unknown. Great power, great destruction, great anguish -- all or none may arise.

The threat of the Reckoning is not limited to humans. It has also stirred beings from the Otherworlds, and creatures that once were human, but now live on as Spirits or the Undead. Some of them are willing to work openly, side by side with the Gifted and the Mundane. Others prefer to operate in secrecy. Still others have hidden agendas that they pursue ahead of any common purpose.

Only time will tell what lays ahead.

Time . . . and your choices.



Mystery Codex is a supplement for the WitchCraft roleplaying game. In it, you will find:

• Two new Character Types, the Spirits and Undead, with accompanying character creation rules, powers, vulnerabilities and background for Ghosts, Phantasms, Vampyres and the Relentless Dead
• New Associations: shunned Pariahs, dedicated Iscariots, elite Storm Dragons and death-obsessed Thanatoi
• New Invocations and Necromancy, the gruesome Disciplines of the Flesh, and the mystical Tao-Chi
• Background on Geburah, the Sephiroth of the Dead
• New Character Concepts, Qualities and Drawbacks, Skills and Rules

Genres: Role Playing Games, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy

224 pages, Paperback

First published May 5, 1999

About the author

C.J. discovered his obsession with making up crap and writing it down at the age of 6, when he wrote his first short story, back in the days when the Cold War was still on and the only mobile devices were the wrist watch and the walkie-talkie. He's been making up crap and writing it down for fun and profit ever since.

Reviews

[Timothy Pitkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool new playable additions like I love the idea of playing a ghost which I don't think many games do so it is really cool. It also adds in other traditional horror theme player options like Vampire to play as.

[Max · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book in hope that it would increase my interest in WitchCraft, and instead it's pretty much cemented my decision to not use this game. Annoyingly, a fair bit of the material here is redundant to the core book I have, since it serves to update or expand on the first edition rules. Further, a lot of the metaphysics and character types weren't that interesting to me. I honestly don't really get the ideas behind the Phantasm (ghost that can briefly take on a physical form) or Relentless Dead (nearly unkillable undead monster) character concepts. I do get Vampyres, of course, but these are largely psychic vampires, which isn't my preferred form. There were a few interesting things about them, but overall I prefer the way White Wolf handles them. The Covenants had some potentially interesting aspects to them. The Storm Dragons felt a bit generic, and the text doesn't give me a good idea of how the House of Thanatos differs from the Necromancer group in the core book. On the other hand, the Iscariot's theme of redemption for past misdeeds is pretty cool, though the discussion of suicide is pretty weird, bordering on gross. The Pariahs and their associated power set are definitely the most interesting part of this book. I'm tempted to steal the concept to use in some other urban fantasy setting/system. Speaking of powers, I continue to be disappointed by the fact that everything other than magic gets shortchanged. The Storm Dragon mystic kung fu and Pariah powers only get a handful of pages each, even though the latter especially is a fascinating concept. Some of the stuff about the various realms of the dead was kinda interesting, but it just makes me want to check out Wraith. All in all, while the Unisystem seems to be perfectly functional, after reading the core book and the first supplement, I just can't say that I'm sold on WitchCraft's setting or system enough to actually ever use it, especially to run a game.