The Dresden Files RPG

The Seventh Law

Never Seek Knowledge and Power from Beyond the Outer Gates.

The universe is infinite, and contains within it multitudes: The world. The Nevernever. Hell, and perhaps even Heaven. Every being and thing within those bounds has its place, even if that place may be horrible beyond mention. But there are Things outside of this universe. To say that they hate the world would be to assume that we can even understand them. It is more accurate to say that they are antithetical to the world. They do not want to destroy the universe any more than a ball you drop wants to fall—it is simply the outcome.

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Hi folks! Sorry for the major delay in getting the Sixth Law posted up. We were busy running around as part of Evil Hat Productions at a number of summer conventions—and we even managed to come back with some awards under our belt for Spirit of the Century: the Ogre Cave 2006 Best RPG award, the Indie RPG Awards RPG of the Year 2006, and the Silver Ennie for Best Rules. We’re psyched!

But enough about us, here’s…

The Sixth Law

Never Swim Against the Currents of Time.

So far in the Dresden Files, we’ve seen precious little of this Law in action, in great part because if someone is breaking it, he’s doing so in a way that fits right into Harry Dresden’s non-time-traveling story.

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The Fifth Law

Never Reach Beyond the Borders of Life.

Necromancy has all sorts of applications, from keeping someone from crossing over Death’s door (or pulling them back from just stepping across the threshold), to reanimating a host of corpses as your bodyguards, waking the ghosts of the Civil War for one last assault, or wrapping ectoplasmic flesh around the bones of a dinosaur and taking it for a ride to save the city. It’s all bad news, and most of it clearly breaks the Fifth Law (the dinosaur might not, thanks to the humans-only technicality of things, but Warden Morgan wasn’t wrong when he called such an act an abomination).

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The Fourth Law

Never Enthrall Another.

A close cousin of the Third, the Fourth Law goes beyond the simple invasion of another’s mind to outright mastery over it. Here, enthralling is any effort made to change the natural inclinations, choices, and behaviors of another person. And due to its cousin Law, it’s pretty easy to see the Fourth as an extension of the concepts there—a case of more equals worse.

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The Third Law

Never Invade the Thoughts of Another.

The Third Law, though it might seem to be about a relatively harmless act, recognizes a single, simple principle: a violation of the mind is as much a crime as violation of the body—by some lights, it may even be worse.

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The Second Law

Never Transform Another.

The image of a witch turning someone into a newt is a popular and even amusing notion, but in the eyes of the White Council it’s a deadly serious matter—emphasis on deadly. The Council views such transformations as tantamount to murder, and they’re pretty much right on the money for one simple reason—human minds like to stay at home in familiar human brains. Transform someone into a newt, and you’ve just tried to cram a human mind into a newt’s brain; such an effort (if you’re even bothering to attempt it) usually ends in near-total destruction of the target’s self. Even if you could manage such a feat, the psychological shock the victim undergoes is bad enough that it would make no actual difference.

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The First Law

Never Take a Life.

Whenever magic is used to kill, some of the positive force of life that mankind is able to bring into the universe is truly destroyed, removed from the universal equation. Kill with magic, and the darker things inside and outside of creation grow just a bit stronger. Whether you’re using magic directly to rip the life out of someone, summoning up force or flame to kill, or even killing someone without magic and then using the energy created by their death to power a spell, you are breaking the First Law of Magic.

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This starts part one of an eight-part series as we look at the Laws of Magic and how they affect the game in play. There be spoilers here! Much like anything excerpted from the book!

The Laws of Magic

The White Council’s Wardens are the main law enforcement body of the supernatural world (at least as far as mortals go)—and for the Wardens, the Laws of Magic are sacrosanct. The Laws of Magic are clear, concise, and offer little in the way of “wiggle room” (at least in the views of some Wardens), but are very much written to communicate the spirit of the law—which is the mode in which they are enforced. This stands in contrast to the other major body of supernatural legalese, the Unseelie Accords, where there is no spirit of the law—only the letter.

Here, we’ll discuss what it actually means to break one of the Laws of Magic, looking at each one in depth, finding where the grey areas are in this code that separates black magic from white.

In practice, the Accords and the Laws are polar opposites. The Laws are clearly spelled out, but there are some grey areas where flexible standards of enforcement are seen. The Accords meanwhile are incredibly Byzantine but absolutely iron-clad when enforced—often to a fault.

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