The Arcanist Cookbook
A solo-play spell-building game, in which you add spells, hexes, potions, and curses to a witch's recipe book in order to help them defeat the dangerous, colonizing, patriarchal villagers. A hack of 1971's The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell, in which the author provided recipes intended to help the general populace fight against fascist and capitalist threats.
Created for the Solovember Jam!
This game was written and designed over a 4-day period while on vacation in what is now called Orlando, Florida, land that was historically home to the Mayaca-Jororo peoples.
cw: colonialism, implied violence against nature, animals, and witches by the villagers; fed-up witches getting revenge; insults.
November 2024. All text content by me, design assets by Canva.
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Winged Barb
TYPE: Curse
FOR USE WHEN: The villagers threatened to completely purge the dragonflies because the witches didn't comply to the newest insect management laws.
INGREDIENTS: Grief, a parent's womb, dragonfly egg flattened inside a book, and whisker from a tomcat.
RECIPE: Wash the ingredients in the first snowmelt of the year, with best results when it's in an area where logging operations recently took place. Ensure the spirits are called upon so that you properly acknowledge their resilience to man's efforts at annihilation. Should they be generous, groundwater will rise and permeate your washing.
INTENDED EFFECT/DURATION: To be absorbed when the targeted learns of why they are truly nothing compared to a dragonfly's brilliance- a matter of conjured perspective. Upon this realization, their life will be drained of all meaning in an instant.
CASTER'S NOTES: I had the privilege of putting this to use against the executor's grandson. It failed to drain his life of all meaning, but accomplished much the same by turning him into a womb.
If you make recipes with this game, upload them here when you're done!