A false document is a literary technique of inserting reference to a fictitious work within a larger work of fiction, with the goal of building mystery or lending depth and verisimilitude to a setting. Fictitious books like Tolkien’s Red Book of Westmarch or Lovecraft’s Necronomicon are known by almost everyone, but there are countless other examples that offer equally tantalizing possibilities for use in tabletop RPGs. False Documents will explore a different example in each installment, describe what it is and where it comes from, flesh it out, and offer ruleset agnostic suggestions on how you might use it in your own games.

II. The Deep School Manual

"I say certain spells and certain voices whisper back. They cannot give me the wisdom I seek, but they say that it is in your book.”

Sources

• “The Letters of Cold Fire,” Manly Wade Wellman, Weird Tales, March 1944

• “Twice Cursed,” Manly Wade Wellman, Weird Tales, March 1946

Canon

In a cellar beneath a cellar, in some derelict corner of at least one major American city, there is a doorway to another dimension. A world of darkness and cold, inimical to human life, and rife with supernatural terror. This is the campus of the Deep School, a college of black magic open only to the most talented and depraved sorcerers. Each matriculant is incarcerated in a small cell; once a day, a hairy hand reaches through a trapdoor in the floor to deliver a foul meal, but that is the limit of their mortal companionship. In the crawling darkness, they must barter their sanity and souls to the invisible, nefandous inhabitants of that dark realm in exchange for secrets no man should seek. For if they do not master these mysteries, there they must die alone and in terror, or if not dying, to go alone in the darkness, forever changed and lost to the world of light and warmth.

Of the few who enter this academy of sorcery, even fewer return from it. But each graduate has as his reward a book, bound in a tanned hide and covered with coarse fur, and filled with the terrible secrets of the Deep School. Its text appears invisible in any light, but when opened in total darkness the pages blaze forth with letters of cold fire, which the magus may speak to unleash unspeakable evil upon the world.

In the 1940s, the depraved occultist Rowley Thorne tracked down an invalid Deep School graduate by the name of Cavet Leslie in a New York City tenement and murdered him to obtain his ‘schoolbook.’ Despite the great power afforded him by the grimoire, Thorne was defeated by his arch-rival, the occult detective John Thunstone. Later on in the same decade, Thunstone succeeded in locating and destroying the Deep School -- or at least its New York entrance.

Apocrypha

The contents of each ‘schoolbook’ is different. The manuals are not handed out for successful completion of the program, but are instead compiled by each individual student as he builds his mastery of the dark lore. As each magus’s journey is different, so are their manuals different, though there will undoubtedly be commonalities. This is the nature of grimoires.

How exactly one completes the Deep School’s rigorous instruction is never revealed in the original John Thunstone stories. The terrible truth is that there is but one requisite for graduation: escape. A graduate has mastered sufficient arcane knowledge not just to escape from his cell, but to survive and navigate the nightmare alien landscape beyond the walls of the school and return to the rational world.

Even successful completion of the program can come at a high cost. Some, like Cavet Leslie, are mentally and physically enfeebled by the experience. But others must emerge with their minds and bodies mostly intact, capable of moving about the world and unleashing the great power they have acquired. And who--or what-- solicits students for the school? One suggestion is presented in the sidebar, but perhaps it is this detail more than any other that requires the Game Master’s consideration.

The next important consideration for the GM is whether the Deep School still operates, or if old grimoires are all that is left of it. Perhaps what Thunstone destroyed in the ’40s was merely an entrance to the Deep School, not the school itself. Perhaps there are other Deep Schools in cities throughout North America, waiting to be found.

What a Grimoire Is and Isn’t

A grimoire is not an instruction manual on how to work magic, or at least, that’s probably not how it should work in your game. A character who is not already deeply versed in sorcery should not be able to simply read a few pages from the book and teleport the party out of danger or lay down a withering eldritch barrage that flattens their enemies. If things were so simple and repeatable, it would be technology, not magic.

If it’s appropriate to draw analogies to mundane things at all, then it is better to think of a grimoire as the lecture notes of an advanced doctoral student, loaded with technical jargon, abstruse formulas, mysterious references to past experience, and shorthand that quickly dispenses with years or decades of grueling study and intensive research. Indeed, just as an advanced treatise on quantum electrodynamics is likely to be indecipherable even to a bright freshman in Physics, the worthwhile parts of a good grimoire will be beyond the ken of the dilettante mystic and parvenue occultist. The author of a grimoire is, after all, writing it to help himself, not to instruct an audience of novices. Someone who is wrestling the secrets of creation usually does not have the time nor the inclination to teach the mystic equivalent of the alphabet.

Compounding this problem is the magical praxis itself, a process whose first and highest commandment is often secrecy. Magic is usually a lonely affair, and mages are not eager to give their hard-won knowledge away to just anyone. Mystic truths, to say nothing of reliable spells and curses, will tend to be encoded, either in symbolic language or outright cryptographic ciphers in order to hide their aims and confound rivals. A jealous mage may pepper his grimoire with false teaching that leads nowhere, or a dangerous formula that can cause the death (or worse) of a usurper. And since the mind of a mage is as much a product of the particular mystical school to which they adhere, their grimoire may be so steeped in jargon and mysteries as to make it a daunting puzzle even for accomplished magicians of a different school.

And of course, the successful completion of many rituals will tend to require rare or hard-to-obtain materials, certain weather conditions, particular times of the year, or specific locations.

All of this goes double for any Deep School manuals. For one, it will look like a shabby notebook of blank pages unless inspected in conditions of darkness (and who thinks to try to read a book in the dark?). Even if the letters of cold fire become visible, they are most likely written in a sorcerous cipher like Aklo, rendering it both unintelligible to the uninitiated and provocative of supernatural terror. Naturally, a graduate of the Deep School who spent years in a lightless hell striving for forbidden knowledge is exactly the sort of person to weave sorcerous traps into its pages, or whose deranged mind may have done so inadvertently.

Taken together, these facts imply that anyone seeking out a copy of a Deep School manual is either a dangerous fool, or an even more dangerous villain, for only the most learned sorcerers and the most ruthless goetics could hope to make use of it.

Sidebar: The Deep School Itself

The Deep School was a project of the Invisible Directorate, a secret society of power-hungry diabolists dating back to the fall of the Knights Templar. The Deep School was intended as a successor to previous sorcerous colleges like the famous Scholomance of Transylvania (rumored alma mater of Count Dracula). Like the feared Solomonari of Transylvania, students of the Deep School faced intensive magical study in subterranean darkness, under the tutelage of demons. The curriculum was also similar to the Scholomance, with a focus on scrying, illusion-making, communication with and dominion over beasts, and weather manipulation. However, it has been said that the magical aptitude of the Deep School graduates was less than that of the Solomonari, as many secrets had been lost when the Scholomance was destroyed by the Ottoman Turks in 1679.

Only the Secret Chiefs of the Invisible Directorate knew for sure all of the terrestrial locations of Deep School travel nodes. Even the directorate’s successor organizations like KRAKEN don’t know for sure. A magus inducted into the school would only know the location through which he entered, and often not even that, since a common ritual required that they be drugged or hypnotized before being incarcerated in the Deep School. As far as anyone outside the Secret Chiefs knows, terrestrial entrances to the Deep School were exclusively found in large North American cities.

No proper name is given to the otherworldly location(s) of the Deep School. Alums speak of it in cryptic terms; the most common expression is “the other side,” a translation of the Romanian phrase tărâmul celălalt, a term formerly used in the Scholomance. It is also frequently referred to simply as “elsewhere.” A magus who had gone to study at the Deep School was often referred to by associates in-the-know as having been “sent elsewhere.”

Spells

Bearing in mind what was already said about the individualized nature of Deep School manuals and the contents of grimoires, here is a selection of spells that Deep School graduates may be familiar with. The GM should feel free to add or subtract as appropriate.

Curse of Unlight

Description: Scholars of the Deep School come to know the shadows as more than the mere absence of light. They are a living thing with a sinister intellect and will all their own. A magus to whom the shadows owe allegiance may summon them to fill an enclosed space, drowning out not just the visible light, but electromagnetic radiation including heat and radio waves. In this darkness, the warlock may make good an escape or, by supernatural sight, strike at a helpless enemy. Few counterspells work against the Curse of Unlight, but natural sunlight will immediately disperse the shadows.

Invocation: Gesture and incantation in Aklo requiring 1D6 minutes.

Duration: Permanent unless dispelled
Damage: Indirectly from cold.

Shadow Snap

Description: By ‘pinning’ the target’s shadow, the target is immobilized such that they cannot move except in a way that maintains part of their shadow under the stake, leaving them vulnerable to capture or attack. The stake may still be physically removed, or the effect dispelled by a flash of light that eliminates the shadow.

Invocation: A specially prepared iron nail, wound with the target’s hair, is dropped onto their shadow. The ritual to prepare the nail requires 2 hours.

Duration: Six hours, or until dispelled
Damage: None.

Darkling Glass

Description: The black glass, or Anzorum as it was called in the old Arqi language, is a scrying mirror capable of communicating with shades of the restless dead in the Nightlands, as well as for sending secret communications to other scrying glasses. Messages are typically conveyed by shifting salt on the mirror, though sometimes strange voices may echo through it. The mirror must be used in a darkened room, with no more than dim candlelight.

Invocation: A chunk of volcanic glass must be polished and dedicated in the light of a gibbous or full moon, a ritual that requires 1D3+1 consecutive months to complete.

Duration: N/A
Damage: N/A

Hand of Glory

Description: When the tapers on each finger are lit, the wielder, by holding it within view of the targets and directing his attention toward them, can paralyze them. If the target is already asleep, they will stay asleep. Otherwise, they will be be struck motionless, though aware. The effect could be warded off or avoided with a successful willpower check. When directed at a locked door, the Hand of Glory also functions as a blasting wand, destroying the lock, at which time the flames will burn out.

Invocation: The hand of a recently (before decomposition sets in) slain murderer must be severed and preserved with sorcerous salts and oils. Five candles coated in fat from the deceased are then inserted or sewn into the fingers. The creation ritual should require at least one successful check and a full night of work.

Duration: Until the flames are extinguished. The hand itself can be reused until the last of the corpse fat burns away or the limb decays.

Damage: Paralyzing; Locks are physically destroyed

Treasure Candles

Description: Also called Seeking Candles or Hide-You-May-Not Candles, these are used in locating lost or hidden items or people. They must be in the general area of the target, no more than a half-mile away, to work. When lit, the flame drifts in the direction of the target, guttering when moving away, but growing brilliant and fierce in close proximity.

Invocation: A long candle is made of corpse fat, and then certain words of power are said over them. The candles must then be buried for three days in an unmarked hole.

Duration: When the target is found, the light goes out and can never be relit. Once lit, the flame cannot be blown out by wind, extinguished by water, or other non supernatural means. They will burn until the last wax is consumed.
Damage: N/A

Tree of the Betrayer Judas Iscariot

Description: Also called the Hunting Tree, the Avenging Tree, or the Serpens Tenebrae in Latin, a vast, branching form of living shadow rises up to grapple and strangle the target. The ‘tree’ has enormous strength, but may be resisted or escaped with a normal check. For every minute the target is grappled, the life-draining grasp of the ‘tree’ drains the target’s strength and endurance.

Invocation: Like the Curse of Unlight, a magus who can compel the obedience of the living shadow must making a lengthy (2D4-1 hours) summoning ritual at night, preferably during a new moon, or with extensive cloud cover. The summoner must know the exact location of the target. At least a small bit of darkness must be present in the target’s location, but once manifest, it can ‘grow’ and move to follow him even into bright light. If the tree does not kill the target, the summoner must sacrifice some of his own life force to satiate the tree.

Duration: Fifteen minutes, or until dispelled.
Damage: Constricting, Life Drain, Magical

Sorrowful Garden

Description: A particular species of glowing, leafy fungus is retrieved from the environs of the Deep School and tended in absolute darkness. It produces an extremely toxic sap, which, like curare, can be used to paralyze or kill if ingested. It may be resisted with a successful Constitution check at penalty. There is no known antidote.

Invocation: Requires at least three weeks of tending, with two successful checks against Gardening or some other botanical skills every week.

Duration: The poison keeps for up to one year. It takes effect in minutes.
Damage: Poison

Raise Gardinel

Description: Another nightmarish transplant from the Nightlands, the magus can obtain and plant a spore that will produce a gardinel, a man-eating house.

Invocation: The spore pod must be buried deep in wet, mineral rich soil, and regularly fertilized with animal or human caracasses. The gardinel takes at least three years to resemble a shack large enough for a human to occupy, and a decade or more to become cottage-sized. Regular offerings of mammalian blood may slightly accelerate the process.

Duration: N/A

Damage: None directly, but the Gardinel will trap and eat people.

Passage of Death

Description: While in total darkness, the magus and any with him are instantly apported to Deep Dendo or some other part of the Nightlands. From there, they may find a gateway to some other part of the waking world, or yet another dimension.

Invocation: Besides being cast in total darkness, the magus must have spent the previous hour meditating in darkness, silently repeating a certain mantra in Aklo. When ready, the magus must visualize where in the Nightlands he wishes to go, and lay his fingers upon a certain drawing or sigil within the Deep School manual. The transportation is instantaneous.

Duration: N/A
Damage: N/A

Aura of Dread

Description: Any who see the magus, or pass within a handful of yards, are seized with a nameless fear. They must pass a check to keep from cowering or running away in terror. A further check must be made on any attempt to approach or attack the magus. Technically, the aura can also be cast on another.

Invocation: 3D6+5 minutes of meditation and incantations are required, along with the temporary sacrifice of point of Intelligence, Wisdom, or some other mental attribute for every 15 minutes of effect. The sacrifice is recovered in a week.

Duration: Gradually dissipates over the time specified above. Otherwise, the effect persists even if the magus is killed or incapacitated.
Damage: N/A

Bridle of Balaur

Description: A relic of the Scholomance which preceded the Deep School, the magus may invoke this spell to summon a sudden wind of hurricane strength, flattening buildings and scattering his enemies. A particularly talented storm-caller may have enough control over the gale to fly a short distance and alight safely.

Invocation: A special rod of storm-summoning must be crafted and enchanted over D4+2 months, with a successful ritual check each month. If any check is failed, the rod must be discarded and a new ritual begun from scratch. The wood must be cut from a tree split by lightning on a mountain’s summit.

Duration: Gradually dies down over five minutes
Damage: Magical, Impact, Electric

Reap the Whirlwind

Description: Many of the secrets of the Tempestarii were lost even before the fall of the Scholomance, but this most useful bit of weather wizardry can still be learned at the Deep School. A magus may spend the duration of a severe storm, especially a thunderstorm, directing its power into another magical ritual. The power of the storm can be used instead of sacrificing some of the magus’s own power, or to increase the potency of the spell gigantically.

Invocation: A frantic and mentally exhausting ritual that includes the drawing of magic sigils according to esoteric mathematical principles must be performed during the height of a storm. This should require at least one high difficulty skill check. A critical failure may turn the caster into a literal lightning rod.

Duration: The power of the storm can be ‘bottled’ indefinitely, provided the correct procedures were followed. Otherwise, the power must be instantly channeled into another spell.
Damage: N/A

Scapeward

Description: With this ritual, a magus may redirect supernatural means of surveillance or attack onto another target, provided the scapeward was created before that magic was cast. Damage in excess of that which destroys the Scapeward does not spill over onto the magus.

Invocation: The warlock must take a hair, nail clipping, a drop of blood, or some other part of his body and attach it to either an animal or, if they are skilled with poppet magic, a doll. The scapeward is then placed within a salt circle that is gradually broken over a three-hour ritual. Only one scapeward may be made at a time.

Duration: Until the scapeward is destroyed
Damage: N/A

Three Cries to Legba

Description: An adaptation of certain Vodoun rituals, this contact spell allows communication with the loa known as Papa Legba, an intermediary between the mortal and sublime realms. Legba will open a gateway through which spirits, demons, and other entities may pass and manifest in physical form, or be communicated with. Deals negotiated via the influence of Legba, increasing the likelihood of a favorable outcome and decreasing the likelihood of attack, possession, or dangerous feedback.

Invocation: A certain ritual dance must be performed on three consecutive nights, culminating in a blood sacrifice. A rooster will do. If none is offered, Legba will claim a sacrifice of his own.

Duration: Fifteen minutes. The gate may be maintained with the sacrifice of the caster’s life force (either one rank of Strength, Constitution, Endurance, or a similar stat, or 5 HP) for each additional quarter-hour. The stat will recover normally after a sufficient period of rest.
Damage: N/A

Unclean Things of the Earth

Description: A cursed lead tablet is hidden in an enemy’s home or buried on their property, creating a supernatural lure that draws disgusting and sometimes dangerous vermin to infest the area. Roaches and centipedes, toxic fungi, venomous spiders, scorpions, mice and rats, rattlesnakes, and diseased mammals and birds will all be drawn to the area from a distance of several miles.

Invocation: The magus inscribes a sheet of lead, similar to the old Roman methods of creating a curse tablet. The ritual takes a day of preparation, including the fashioning of engraving tools and powders made from the bones and shells of local vermin, which must be harvested while still living, and the laying on of the curse takes a further hour.

Duration: Until the tablet is removed, destroyed, or the area exorcised. The vermin may still be killed normally and a good pest control plan may alleviate some of the burden, but the lured creatures will gleefully march to their death even in the face of potent pesticides. And that’s quite awful enough, don’t you think?
Damage: No damage from the spell, but the lured vermin can spread disease and cause negative reaction penalties.

Corpse Masque

Description: The magus may alter the face of a corpse to look like his own, or vice versa. The effect is a potent telepathic illusion that affects anyone who is not a complete psychic void, though astute psionicists and magi may be able to see through the illusion. It does not affect cameras or mirrored reflections.

Invocation: A special wax mixed with fat and, ideally, blood from the corpse is molded and enchanted. The enchantment should require a moderate test for success; a failure indicates something is slightly off about the visage, a critical failure means that the mask is useless. After hardening for an hour, the mask may be applied.

Duration: D6 hours
Damage: N/A

Gnosis

A Deep School manual will open up vertiginous and terrifying new vistas of reality to a magus or accomplished occultist capable of reading and understanding it. It not only reveals the outline of “things which man was not meant to know,” but worse, provides methods of contacting Things which know even more. But the secrets of the universe thus revealed are perceived through a dark and distorted lens, framing truths and half-truths in a way that favors malignant and nihilistic views. Magical potency may be increased drastically, but a proportionate level of sanity-loss will accompany it. Even the very virtuous and wise will find themselves dogged by despair and a mounting temptation to depravity.

Plot Hooks

The Tunnel Mystery Codex

A Deep School manual was acquired as part of a lot by The Tunnel Rare Books & Curiosities, a specialty book store in New York. No one there (seemingly) knows what it is, as it appears to just be an empty journal. However, one psychically sensitive employee has been spooked by it, receiving disturbing audio and visual impressions when she touches it. Fearful of destroying it, she sends out a request for help. The PCs are the first to respond, but a second group who knows what the book is quickly shows up to take possession by any means necessary.

Spoor of the Spoorn

One of the PC’s contacts, both a linguist and a dabbler in the occult, has been contracted for the seemingly innocuous job of deciphering a text in an obscure language. His obsession with the project consumes him, altering his moods and behavior in dark ways. As the PC’s investigate, they discover his patron is a diabolist known only as the Spoorn, looking for possible candidates for the Deep School. The Spoorn sees great promise in the contact and is eager to matriculate him. The PC’s must uproot the Spoorn’s clandestine operation if they have any chance of saving their friend’s mind and soul.