It’s funny how a simple thing can change play for the better. In previous iterations of Call of Cthulhu, the spells have made up a large chapter contained in the rulebook. This makes a certain amount of sense.
Unlike D&D, where magic is commonplace, Call of Cthulhu’s spells represent secret knowledge gleaned from old books. As in the real world, there is no way to know that the book’s details are complete, thus keeping spell descriptions out of the hands of players preserves their occult mystique. Ideally, players should never be entirely sure what the effect, or the cost, of a spell in Call of Cthulhu is, which keeps things dangerous. If you’re particularly evil, you can even muddy the waters by giving multiple players the same spell under different names or give them erroneous descriptions – again, there’s nothing to say that ancient tomes are standardized or accurate. Magic should be reserved for moments of desperate risk.
On the other hand, finding the damn spell descriptions in the rulebook is a pain in the butt and totally time consuming, doubly so if it is one of the many spells that comes from a book outside the rulebook.
The Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic neatly solves this by sticking all the spells ever appearing in a Call of Cthulhu book in one place. As a full book, the design has breathing room and everything is easier to find. Spell effects are still nonstandard and require reading, but I feel like I can manage it better when all the magic is in one book as opposed to sharing space with all the other crap I have to look up.
I generally dislike book design that attempts to imitate the appearance of a three dimensional book of elaborate design (see all of the D&D 3E book covers – UGH). I give the Grand Grimoire a pass because the interiors attempt to remain consistent with the ruse, with pages dressed as old paper with rough edges. It’s the interior art that sells it. These look like the sorts of arcane illustrations that would actually be in a mythos tome, probably because at their root, they look similar to illustrations that I have seen in actual grimoires: magic circles and ritual diagrams, but more squamous. Good job.
