Daemons and intrigues - a Mephisto review

Grimoire is a compact game setting for Fate, which plays in the world Ganseldom. Here, powerful city-states compete with each other. One way to gain influence is to use the powers of daemons. There are instruction books - the grimoires - to summon the daemons and bind them into the services. In theory, anyone can bind a daemon, but the catch is that this is a challenging task, so few specialists have the training to do it safely. To summon a daemon, a grimoire is also required, which describes the necessary summoning rituals.

However, the predominant church opposes the summoning of daemons, so that the warlocks are persecuted. However, this does not prevent many powerful noble families from using the services of a warlock to gain an advantage.

The small book compactly presents the essential game world, which is transitioning from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It briefly describes, for example, the various city-states and religions from the main daemon-hostile mainstream religion to a few pagan currents. The rule system's central element is playing a warlock because this setting requires all players to play exactly this role. Accordingly, detailed rules for summoning daemons and binding these powerful (and dangerous) creatures are provided, and some example creatures are presented. An adventure that revolves around the intrigue of a house offers immediately playable material.

Grimoire is a well-thought-out setting, and the rules concerning daemon summoning are also fitting. From my point of view, the focus on the fact that all players are warlocks and usually carry out missions in the service of a noble house provides a somewhat limited setting, which is more suitable for a few game nights - instead of a long campaign. For gamemasters who are looking for ideas and rule mechanisms for daemons and their summoning, however, here is an excellent toolbox to use for the own game worlds. In this respect Grimoire is a quite exciting setting.

(Björn Lippold)