Pennsylvania Dutch Magic: design questions

[FenrisUlf]

HI all,

Just got some questions for 'spells' based on Pennsylvania Dutch magic as listed in books like The Long-Lost Friend and The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses.

As a general note -- about all of these spells involve Incantations, usually prayers (sometimes to 'the Fallen Angels'), Gestures (most often the sign of the cross three times), and usually last until the person in question 'takes the Holy Blood and Body of our Lord Jesus Christ', i.e., takes communion, which would be about once a week in Dutch country. They were also done as amulets of a sort, with everything from the infamous SATOR square written on a dinner plate to various himmelsbrief ('heaven letters') which were supposed to defend their bearer from death by various means, vindictive prosecution, and death by fire, illness, and wild animal attacks.

For a start: 'Stealing Fire from a Gun'. This is something supposed to make the person using the spell/amulet (most of these spells are written down ahead of time and carried on the person) immune to gunfire. The 'how' depends -- sometimes you just won't get hit by a bullet, sometimes the gun fails to go off, and very rarely the gun will backfire or explode.

Any ideas on how that can be handled in game? A Dispel versus RKAs, Firearms Only (-1)? Extra DCV, only versus Firearms? Or should I use something else? This should be somewhat subtle magic, as 'real' Dutch magic is supposed to be low-key.

Thanks for any help.

[Shadowsoul]

Specialised DCV sounds about right to me although one could interpret the spell as aggressive in that it tampers with firearms aimed at the caster; in which case the caster would gain the (unconscious?) ability to force anyone who fired at them to make a misfire/malfunction roll with consequences rainging from missing to breaking or even blowing up in their face. Assuming of course that the caster made their magic skill roll which might gain bonuses from the level of success of the roll for the original ritual or spell. That may be overcomplicated, albeit amusing, however and so for simplicity's sake it might best to stick with a specific DCV enhancement.

[Captain Obvious]

If you're using the misfire rules from 4th ed, you could combine that with the Luck constructs from Valdorian Age.

The spell would be a certain amount of Luck, limited only to alter the attack roll of an attacker. Each point of Luck that came up when you rolled would move the attack roll up one point, basically draining OCV (or adding DCV however you look at it). At some point, it will push the roll up into misfire country (16+), and then the gun will misfire, jam, or backfire.

Not incredibly foolproof, especially if the attacker has a good OCV, but it keeps the subtlety. Actually I kind of like this construct...I'll have to use it myself.

Thanks for the opportunity to brainstorm, Fenris!

[Chris Goodwin]

I just want to say, I couldn't not look at this thread; my mom's family are Pennsylvania Dutch.

[FenrisUlf]

I just want to say, I couldn't not look at this thread; my mom's family are Pennsylvania Dutch.

As are my father's, which is where I first learned about Pennsylvania Dutch magic.

They ever tell you about Snyder County's undead witches or the valley that leads to Hell, complete with der Ewige Jager*?

* -- 'The Eternal Hunter', a PA Dutch version of the Wild Hunt.

[OddHat]

The book GURPS Voodoo is a great resource for this style of magic.

Something like "Stealing Fire" is probably best written up as extra DCV, plus a triggered Dispel vs Firearms with IPE and an 8- activation roll. The Extra DCV defends most of the time, and the Dispel occasionally goes off and fries the gun.

[Chris Goodwin]

As are my father's, which is where I first learned about Pennsylvania Dutch magic.

They ever tell you about Snyder County's undead witches or the valley that leads to Hell, complete with der Ewige Jager*?

* -- 'The Eternal Hunter', a PA Dutch version of the Wild Hunt.

No, and I wish they had! My mom and her sister and cousin are the only ones left of that branch of the family now, unfortunately (and I'm not even sure the cousin ever lived there).

[AmadanNaBriona]

Somewhere in my storage unit I've got a book with a pretty good breakdown of how to construct Pennsylvania Dutch Hex Signs (My mothers father was from penn-dutch stock).

The first talisman I ever made was a redded leather magic square I made at Scout camp.

M I L O N
I R A G O
L A M A L
O G A R I
N O L I M

To call dreams and see the unseen

[FenrisUlf]

No, and I wish they had! My mom and her sister and cousin are the only ones left of that branch of the family now, unfortunately (and I'm not even sure the cousin ever lived there).

See if you can find ONCE UPON A HEX by Boyer, that contains a ton of old Dutch folklore. Other good books are Arthur Miller's HEX (covering the 'Pennsylvania Witchcraft Murder'), and almost any of the ghost books by Adams & Seibold, though I prefer GHOSTS OF BERKS COUNTY I - III. The coverage of Hawk Mountain (everything from swamp devils to murderous ghosts to the dragon of the Pinnacle) is exceptionally good.

Heck, my paternal grammy could have told you stories; she was a midwife and knew some braucheri (healing). Or my dad, who liked to tell the story about the time he and several other people saw the devil take a man to Hell.

[Nolgroth]

Or my dad, who liked to tell the story about the time he and several other people saw the devil take a man to Hell. Now THAT would have been a story to hear! I love to hear the stories that the "old timers" tell when the mood strikes them.

[FenrisUlf]

Now THAT would have been a story to hear! I love to hear the stories that the "old timers" tell when the mood strikes them.

From what I remember of it (this was about 20 years ago at least, and Dad's been gone for over a decade...)

Once when my father was still a teenager (which would make this anywhere from 1943-46, I think; though it might have been slightly earlier) he wound up keeping a watch on a dying man with the local preacher. The guy was very wealthy, very nasty, and very miserly; he'd done the dirty to just about everyone in town at some point or another out of his love for money. And now that he was dying, aside from a few relatives sitting downstairs waiting for him to die so they could get his money, no one wanted to sit up with him. Everyone in town hated him and were glad for his death. Dad's family kept moving around a lot for work, but all of Dad's brothers were either at work or still just kids when the preacher dropped by the house, so his mother told Dad to go with the preacher to help him.

It must have been terrifying; Dad remembered the old man as screaming and sobbing for his money, alternately cursing God for letting him die and begging the Savior to protect him from the devil. Dad said you could hear him carrying on from outside the house. The preacher tried to give him Last Rites, but the dying rich man just cursed him too. You could barely hear the people downstairs, openly gloating over the man's death and even yelling, "Isn't he dead yet?" once in a while.

Then Dad remembered that everything got very quiet. The sounds from downstairs and outside just seemed to 'fade away'. Then the door of the room, which stood open just a crack and had very rusty hinges (it squeaked audibly when Dad and the preacher opened and partly closed it earlier) opened wide without so much as a whisper. And standing in the doorway is a dog. "A great big black dog, black as pitch, and his eyes were lit up like an animal's at night." The dog seemed big enough to come up to the bedside and look into the dying man's eyes, its head level with the top of the bed or maybe a bit more. Everything was silent; the preacher stopped praying, Dad kept quiet, even the dying man fell silent -- though he stared at the dog in truly horrified fashion, like he was about to have a heart attack.

The dog just stared at the man for a few moments. Then it turned around and walked back out the door, paying no attention to either my father or the preacher. The door swung close behind it and Dad could hear the people downstairs talking again. The dying man said nothing; when the preacher checked him, he was dead.

Dad and the preacher then went downstairs to find the assembled relations ready to start partying at the news that the old man was gone. The preacher asked them, "Who let that dog in here?"

"What dog? What are you talking about, you damn fool preacher? There wasn't any dog in here."

At those words the preacher turned pale and took Dad by the arm, telling him, "Come on boy, we're leaving here." Dad didn't even have a chance to get any words out; the preacher took him outside and didn't stop until he got him to the church. He then told Dad, "Now kneel and pray for that man; God knows he needs prayers, and no one else will give him any." Dad, still not really getting the point of all this, knelt and prayed at the rail beside the preacher. After a few minutes the preacher told Dad, "Now go home, and don't speak about that dog." My father, feeling very creeped out by the whole thing, walked home.

A few months later he told an uncle of his who knew some braucherei about the dog, and the old man told him, "That was no dog. That was the Devil, who came for the old miser."

That was the story as he told it to me. I don't know if he believed the dog was the devil or not by the time he told me, but I think that as a boy he may well have half-believed it.

[Nolgroth]

I love those kinds of stories. If I could, I would rep ya for it. Black dog stories are among my favorites. Too cool for school. :thumbup:

[FenrisUlf]

Another "how would you design this?" question --

One of the rare 'direct attack' magic thingies in PA Dutch lore is something called a 'blood bullet'. Basically it's a bullet made at midnight in either an abandoned churchyard or at a crossroads, that can kill any one person in the world if you say their name when you fire it into the air. There are no defenses against it -- if you're inside a house, a bank vault, wearing adamantium armor, whatever, the bullet will kill you. And it doesn't miss. (Though in game terms there has to be some defense against it.) Nor does the person have to be anywhere nearby: as long as they're on the planet (or maybe just in eastern PA) the bullet will find and kill them.

Also, while the bullet can be easily found and extracted after it kills someone, there's apparently no way to identify it or the gun it came from (then again, most of these were made for flintlock rifles, so IDing them might be impossible anyway). Magic can find these details out, however.

The drawback? To make one, you have to sell your soul to the Devil.

Just how would that be modeled in game terms? I'm thinking a NND RKA, probably 3-4d6, One Hex AoE MegaScaled to cover the entire planet? And juist how do you handle attacks like that anyway? If they're MS, wouldn't they affect everyone in the area, i.e., everyone on Earth? I've got a hard time figuring out those attacks.

And the no identifiying, that could be, what some form of Invisibility against Forensic detection?

Thanks again!

[OddHat]

I'd do it with a compound power: 15d6 Mind Scan +20 or so ECV, and a 3d6 RKA BOECV Does Body. If the GM doesn't like treating an RKA BOECV as a true mental power, do it as an EGO Attack Does Body and pump it up to 12d6 or so. One charge that never recovers for both (Special Effect: You sold your soul to the devil, and now it's gone), gestures (firing the gun in the air) and an IIF (the gun and bullet, Inobvious Inaccessible because you can be on the other side of the world from the target). Not being able to identify the gun the bullet was fired from and the bullet actually being found in the target both seem like +0 advantages that are part of the special effects. You might add extra time and trigger if you really want to give a point break for the construction of the one use item.

1 Hex Megascale Accurate with Fully Indirect is legal according to the Ultimate Mystic, but I don't like it as much.

[Vondy]

Pennsylvania Dutch Magic.

Sometimes the irony makes my sides hurt.

[FenrisUlf]

Pennsylvania Dutch Magic.

Sometimes the irony makes my sides hurt.

What irony? According to what I've read in books like Ronald Hutton's Triumph of the Moon, European peasantry were using 'magic' in various forms since at least the fall of the Roman Empire.

EDIT: Oddhat, thanks for the power setup.

[WilyQuixote]

Well having been born and raised in the good ol' country side of Pennsylvania I just had to look in on this one. I lived there for eighteen years before joining the Navy and I had never heard of Pennsylvania Dutch Magic. Thats a new one on me! Now mind you this is not to say I never saw anything strange happen at night in the countryside. Believe you me I did and sometimes when I think about it even now sends a cold shiver down my spine. Now if you'll all excuse me I need to go put on a sweatshirt and turn the heat up...

[Comic]

Wasn't the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow originally a Pennsylvanian Dutch incid.. er, legend?

[Captain Obvious]

Wasn't the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow originally a Pennsylvanian Dutch incid.. er, legend?

It was Dutch, but New York Dutch and Pennsylvania Dutch aren't quite the same.

[Vondy]

What irony? According to what I've read in books like Ronald Hutton's Triumph of the Moon, European peasantry were using 'magic' in various forms since at least the fall of the Roman Empire.

EDIT: Oddhat, thanks for the power setup.

Oh, now I'm really laughing. What does European peasantry have to do with the Pennsylvania Dutch? Absolutely nothing! Their movement started during the age of enlightenment (1690's) as a break away movement of Swiss Mennonites! They are hard-core bible-thumping hellfire and brimstone fundamentalist protestants with a technophobic bent (though they don't thump to us "English"). The Amish regard witchcraft as a mortal sin and deviltry and would cast any person practicing witchcraft (a separate religion in its own right) would be shunned or cast out of their community post-haste. They simply wouldn't tolerate it.

[lapsedgamer]

Would it be more appropriate to call this American Folk Magic then? This sounds a lot like Hoodoo to me, which is stuff that my grandmother and numerous aunts used to talk about in South Carolina. Down South everyone is your aunt if they are a woman who is known to you, and older than you are. My grandmother is from a place where they still speak Gullah, and they have a lot of interesting beliefs. She is hardcore Southern Baptist and a regular churchgoer. I remeber that I used to get cuffed upside the head if I said the word Hell when I was a kid.

However, she still belived at a basic level that these things had some type of power that had to be respected.

[Vondy]

I just want to say, I couldn't not look at this thread; my mom's family are Pennsylvania Dutch.

My maternal grandfather's parents were Pennsylvania Dutch. It left an indelible mark on him - and through him my family.

[Vondy]

Would it be more appropriate to call this American Folk Magic then? This sounds a lot like Hoodoo to me, which is stuff that my grandmother and numerous aunts used to talk about in South Carolina. Down South everyone is your aunt if they are a woman who is known to you, and older than you are. My grandmother is from a place where they still speak Gullah, and they have a lot of interesting beliefs. She is hardcore Southern Baptist and a regular churchgoer. I remeber that I used to get cuffed upside the head if I said the word Hell when I was a kid.

However, she still belived at a basic level that these things had some type of power that had to be respected.

You would have to look at the beliefs of the germanic-swiss protestant sects of the time to understand how big a disconnect is in play. Most pennsyvania dutch are anabaptists or reformed lutheran and the entire concept is are anathema to them. I'm not saying its wrong to run a game with Amish practitioners of "American Folk Magic," but it defies belief - or at least severely retards the suspension of disbelief - if you know anything about them.

It would be better to say "its totally wrong but I like the premise and I'm going with it" than to try to make weak analogies that don't fit the reality. A better parallel, which at least hits the right time-period and continent (arriving in the colonies prior to the declaration of independence), and falls under the heading of "protestant reformer sect" would be the Laudian Reform and Reform Calvinist Non-Conformists who lived in... Salem. Though, the difference between the english sects and germanic sects were notable - and one major difference was the swiss-germanic dislike (understatement) of superstition.

My grandfather (who was from Amish parents) was one of the most grounded in the real world people I've ever met, and his belief system, formed by his parents, while including some basic notion of old-world folk-lore, didn't have much tolerance for superstition beyond old wives tales (not amounting to "hoodoo"). Even so, there is a difference between some level of belief in the supernatural and thinking it acceptable to dabble with it. And in my experience, the german-swiss reformer groups tended to have no patience for superstition regarding it as akin to idol worship.

Like I said, it would be fine to run a game with this idea in it, but to propose it in any way reflects Amish society and belief would be... more than stretching the point.

[Vondy]

Wasn't the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow originally a Pennsylvanian Dutch incid.. er, legend?

No, but even if it were, there's a long way to travel between belief in legends and the supernatural and attempting hoodoo with the universe.

[Captain Obvious]

Folk magic doesn't have to be in opposition to a more standard religion. It's often an extension of it, or at least not contradictory in the mind of the common man.

"The Long Lost Friend" is an English-language edition of "Der Lange Verborgene Freund," a magical receipt-book written in German by Johann Georg Hohman, and published first in Pennsylvania in 1820. Its original title would be better translated at "The Long Hidden Vade-Mecum," but since 1846, it has been known in English as "The Long Lost Friend" and the author is now "John George" Hohman to his English-language readers.

The title "Pow-Wows" -- added to the third English-language edition -- brings to mind the 19th century American spiritualist movement, a religious revival in which trance mediums consulted the ghosts of American Indians and deceased relatives for advice. Originally an Anglo-Saxon offshoot of Protestant Christianity, spiritualism found ready acceptance among African-American slaves because it accorded with African religious beliefs regarding the spirits of the dead -- called the Eggun in Yoruba -- who were honoured with food and drink at ritual ceremonies and called upon for aid. The use of "Indian Spirit Guide" imagery continues in hoodoo products to this day, and can be seen in such brand names as "Powerful Indian" products, "Old Indian Stop Evil Condition" liquid soap from Sonny Boy Products, "Indian Spirit Guide" 7-day candles from The Lama Temple, and the E. Davis Company's "Money House Blessing" room spray with "Indian Fruit Oil," "Nine Indian Fruit[s]" and "Indian Spirit." But the added title aside, there is nothing Native American about the contents of "Pow-Wows" -- every veterinary recipe and magical formula in the booklet derives from a German source, as the author himself makes clear in the text.

Any culture has a “dark side” and a “bright side.” Yes, some Pennsylvania Dutch were fearful and superstitious, but some were also very positive and hopeful. As the old saying goes, “it takes all kinds!” Let me begin by saying that I feel fairly certain hex signs on barns were mainly a decorative form of folk art. The tourist industry popularized the connection with “hex” or “hexerei.” Also, the Amish tended to avoid such decorations which were considered "hochmootich" or proud.
With that said, it still remains true that belief in hexerei, or black magic and witchcraft, did exist among some Pennsylfawnish Deitsch. A farmer who offended a neighbor and then had a cow quit giving milk might say the cow was “verhext” by the neighbor in retaliation. More likely the farmer felt guilty for offending the neighbor and tried to blame his bad luck on something that would distract him from feeling guilty.

[FenrisUlf]

Oh, now I'm really laughing. What does European peasantry have to do with the Pennsylvania Dutch? Absolutely nothing! Their movement started during the age of enlightenment (1690's) as a break away movement of Swiss Mennonites! They are hard-core bible-thumping hellfire and brimstone fundamentalist protestants with a technophobic bent (though they don't thump to us "English"). The Amish regard witchcraft as a mortal sin and deviltry and would cast any person practicing witchcraft (a separate religion in its own right) would be shunned or cast out of their community post-haste. They simply wouldn't tolerate it.

Um, Pennsylvania Dutch means simply a German-American living in Pennsylvania.

It does NOT automatically mean Amish -- most PA Dutch were never Amish.

Having been born and raised in a Dutch family, I think I know what I'm talking about here.

And the Amish are not 'hellfire and brimstone bible-bangers', they are Pietists, which is something vaguely similar, but there are more differences than similarities. For one thing they tend to have better manners.

[lapsedgamer]

Folk magic doesn't have to be in opposition to a more standard religion. It's often an extension of it, or at least not contradictory in the mind of the common man.

Thanks. That was kind of interesting. I have actually seen or heard of some of those things. I may now have to do a liitle reading to see where it all came from. When I was was a kid, I would just kind of take it for granted that that was what old folks believed. Now it's sort of fascinating, especially when you look at the cross-pollination of influences from different ethnic groups.

This would be really interesting in a psuedo-pulp scenario.

[Captain Obvious]

Thanks. That was kind of interesting. I have actualy seen or heard of some of those things. I may now have to do a liitle reading to see where it all came from. When I was was a kid, I would just kind of take it for granted that that was what old folks believed. Now it's sort of fascinating, especially when you look at the cross-pollination of influences from different ethnic groups.

This would be really interesting in a psuedo-pulp scenario.

Yeah, it is interesting how the beliefs spread. Makes you wonder how one group decided what beliefs of another group were poppycock and which ones worked.

As far as pulp goes, IIRC there was a big Hex Witch scandal in the 20s or 30s in Pennsylvania. I don't remember if a Hexer was accused of using magic to kill someone else, or if a Hexer was killed by someone who thought they had been attacked with magic somehow.

[AmadanNaBriona]

I've studied a lot of folk traditions and they really are mostly compatible with Christianity of the appropriate flavor for the era, generally. Christianity doesn't have to occlude superstition. Heck...most of those preachers probably believed in spirits, demons, ghost werewolves and the like. If you're being fed hellfire & brimstone every Sunday and constantly told "Only God can protect you!", and you doubt your own faith, it seems only natural to look for a second line of defense against the things that go bump in the night.

[Markdoc]

Just clearing up a few misconceptions here.

1. There is (sort of) a thing you could loosely call "pennsylvania dutch magic" - they believed in the evil eye, in witches who could cast evil hexes and in certain folk practices to prevent that. These folk beliefs are essentially identical to those practiced in some parts of rural Germany up until the early 20th century (and still practiced these days in places like the Harz, but now it's for tourists, not for real) so you could call it "rural central european folk magic" just as accurately. Some groups of the Pennsylvania Dutch (now pretty much gone) were famous for making "hex signs" on barns and houses, and corn dollies. Since a lot of these feature things like stars, it has been said that they had magical "hexing properties" to protect the buildings theyw ere on, but in truth that seems mostly to have been said by outsiders and given a magical status they didn't deserve - the Pennsylvania Dutch themselves said they were only decoration, which given the fact that they only appeared relatively late (and have no folk antecedants in Germany) is probably true. It was this whole (probably fake) "hexing" thing that Orson Scott Card drew on for his Alvin Prentice series.
As far as I know the Amish (only one group of the larger population known as Pennsylvania Dutch) never did this to any great extent - but then they were an extremely puritanical sect who split off from the Memmonites for being "too worldly"

2. Rural Germany? Yeah. "Pennsylvania Dutch" is an anglicisation of "Pennsylvania Deutsch". They've got nothing to do with Holland. They were pretty much all German or Swiss by origin, even the Amish, who draw their name from their founder, Jacob Amman - a Rhinelander.

cheers, Mark

[Vondy]

Um, Pennsylvania Dutch means simply a German-American living in Pennsylvania.

It does NOT automatically mean Amish -- most PA Dutch were never Amish.

Having been born and raised in a Dutch family, I think I know what I'm talking about here.

And the Amish are not 'hellfire and brimstone bible-bangers', they are Pietists, which is something vaguely similar, but there are more differences than similarities. For one thing they tend to have better manners.

In common parlance it connotes the amish-mennonite sect and your average person makes that assumption. The fact that it can attest to a larger ethnic group living in the region doesn't change the common usage of the term. Also, having both amish and mennonites in my family, we will simply have to disagree about the bent of the movement. One can be both pious and humble and still have a pervasive dose of hell, brimstone, and deviltry in one's dogma.

[Vondy]

2. Rural Germany? Yeah. "Pennsylvania Dutch" is an anglicisation of "Pennsylvania Deutsch". They've got nothing to do with Holland. They were pretty much all German or Swiss by origin, even the Amish, who draw their name from their founder, Jacob Amman - a Rhinelander.

cheers, Mark

The Amish movement started in Switzerland, not the Rhineland.

[katal3]

Historical aspects aside "Pennsylvania Dutch Magic" as it is being defined by the OG poster looks like a pretty interesting idea for a subtle magic system.

Stealing Fire from a Gun: When the proper incantations are spoken, this talisman will protect it's wearer from the next gun fired at him. Often causing the weapon to misfire, or jam.
Game Information Dispel RKA 12d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4), Trigger (Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time, Trigger requires a Zero Phase Action to reset, Character does not control activation of personal Trigger; Firing a Firearm at Wearer; +1/2), Invisible Power Effects, SFX Only (Fully Invisible; +1/2) (81 Active Points); Conditional Power (Firearms Only; -1/2), OIF Durable (Talisman; -1/2), Incantations (To set Trigger; -1/4).
Hex: When crafted, this powerfully charmed poppet will cause a great unluck to befall whomever it represents.
Game Information: Negative Skill Levels (-3 with Any Skill), Costs END Only To Activate (+1/4), Uncontrolled (Hex ends when Poppet is destroyed, or by recieving the blessing of a holyman; +1/2), Area Of Effect Accurate (One Hex; +1/2), Invisible Power Effects, SFX Only (Fully Invisible; +1/2), Indirect (Any origin, any direction; +3/4), MegaScale (1" = 100,000 km; +1 1/2) (150 Active Points); Extra Time (20 Minutes, Only to Activate, -1 1/4), Gestures, Requires Gestures throughout (Requires both hands; -1), Incantations (Requires Incantations throughout; -1/2), IIF Fragile Expendable (Easy to obtain new Focus; Poppet; -1/2)

[Markdoc]

The Amish movement started in Switzerland, not the Rhineland.

Depends on your perspective, I guess. Ammon was born in Berne, but moved to Alsace (then part of the Palatinate, a German state) where he established his own congregation and where he is thought to be buried. There's damn few records, but it is thought that it was actually in Markirch in Alsace where the Amish sect was first established (the first document identifying a seperate congregation dating from 1694, the year after the schism was written there) - though of course it is an offshoot of the Swiss/German Mennonite church. The Amish actually hung on in Germany (mostly along the Southern Rhine where the sect had first spread and was traditionally strongest) until the early 20th century.

cheers, Mark