You Asked for It . . .

Magic is the backbone of fantasy. It is the genre's chief identifier. Within the fantasy roleplaying game Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, it's no different. To be sure, this is a fairly high-magic rules set, just like the d20 System core rules set is. The Lands of the Diamond Throne, based on those rules, are steeped in magic, mystical happenings, runes, and rituals.

For our purposes in Grimoire II, magic is defined by spells. And as any Arcana Unearthed fan knows, the spells in that system showcase the very nature of the unique magic system it employs. Each spell can be heightened or diminished. It can be ladened or woven. Each spell is designated simple, complex, or exotic and can be modified by templates. Most are defined by a large and exacting number of descriptors. So spells in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed are extremely important to the system. A big book of additional spells is an exciting development for any playing of the game.

Now, a few of you might be saying "Grimoire II, where's Grimoire I?" The Grimoire was a PDF-only product we produced when we released Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed. It came out along with two other PDF-exclusive products, Way of the Staff and Way of the Sword. The contents of these books were excerpts taken from Arcana Unearthed, with the material organized by type: We gathered the nonspellcasting classes together in Way of the Sword, along with the more nonmagical classes and feats. Likewise, the spellcasting classes, races, and so on all appeared in Way of the Staff. The Grimoire was a collection of the magic rules and all the spells.

Grimoire II, then, is a book of more spells to add to the system presented in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed. From a designer's point of view, this is a strange product.

Normally, in the introduction to a new book, I would talk a little about all the great new things between its covers. But it's different with Grimoire II because:

A) There are no "covers" (in the literal sense) and there won't be-this is one of the rare products that we intend to be electronic only; and

B) There's really nothing new here.

Nothing new? That's right. The spells in this book all come from The Complete Book of Eldritch Might, The Book of Hallowed Might, and Book of Hallowed Might II: Portents and Visions. What this book does that they don't do, however, is gather the spells in one place and rewrite them for a Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed audience. No flipping back and forth from the Spells chapter of one of these source books to the Arcana Unearthed appendix in the back. No multiple sources to consult for Arcana Unearthed spells. You can just keep this file handy, or print it out and stash it next to your copy of Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, and you're good to go.

So, in a way, this is a big book of "new" Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed spells. Over 250 of them, actually-and that's nothing to sneeze at when you consider that there were about 280 spells in Chapter Nine of the original variant player's handbook.
So Grimoire II effectively doubles the number of spells at the command of your favorite magister, mage blade, greenbond, runethane, or witch.

One of the coolest aspects of this product is the fact that it was not something that Sue, I, or anyone else involved with Malhavoc Press thought of. It was proposed by the fans of Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed on our very own message board forums. We thought it was such a good idea, Sue spent time over the last couple of months—a moment in between projects here, another after she was done with the day's work there—to compile all the spell info and make this product a reality. A special thanks goes out to Søren Thustrup, whose documentation helped with the compiling.

The Grimoire II, in a very real way, is a product for the fans of Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed. You asked for it, you got it. We hope you like it.

 

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