Ritual Magic for Besties

Magic exists and it is in the connections we're willing to make with each other. Play a group of inter-woven magic users, explore your history together and use that exploration to cast spells. These spells might be to help yourselves, help each other, or just a way of messing around. This is Ritual Magic for Besties, a tabletop roleplaying game for two-to-six players, using a deck of tarot cards. You play a group of magic users, in an urban fantasy setting, gathering together to cast a ritual spell.

Ritual magic relies on the connections between the gathered group , a de-facto coven . In play you build stacks of cards via matching values and establish details of your connections as well as how the in-progress ritual is developing. The kind of spells you'll be casting are more "helping a friend get over a bad breakup" then "fate of the world".

Ritual Magic for Besties is played across six rounds, a round covering as many turns as there are players. The exact length of playing a ritual will vary depending on the player count.

Once all rounds have passed, or if all players find themselves unable to add to the ritual, then it's at an end. If the spell has been successfully nurtured then one player will take it upon themselves to cast it. If things have gone wrong the ritual may fail. Maybe bad luck or maybe lessons learned. Perhaps some of you were holding back.

This book was written by Kayla Dice (Terminal, Follow Me in the Night: A Cursed Radio), illustrated by Molomoot, and edited by Alyssa Ridley and crowdfunded for Zine Month 2024. It includes all the rules of the game as well as tools for character creation and different scenarios to set up individual sessions of play.