The Dresden Files RPG

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The Dresden files RPG is a roleplaying game from Evil Hat productions. The game is set in the urban fantasy world of the popular Dresden Files books written by Jim Butcher - the World of Darkness, if folks decided "Fuck brooding! Gimme my bourbon, I wanna sock the bastards!" The game was released on June 23rd, 2010.

The game mechanics uses the FATE System, a riff off of the FUDGE generic rpg system, already make popular by Spirit of the Century. The Dresden Files RPG is the first official "version 3.0" instance of the FATE System.

DFRPG is maybe the most popular FATE adaption. Its main drawbacks are the generally overpowered magic-users (vanilla mortals FTW!) and the fact that every mention on /tg/ causes a very special avatarfag and his army of hateboys to appear.

City Creation

Probably the best-kept secret of the game, the city creation rules are a great toolkit allowing for players to collaboratively build the kind of city they want to adventure in.

The Actual Dresden Files

They're pretty awesome, seriously, go read them. Private Eye/Wizard Harry Dresden takes on the forces of evil with his magic, his wits, and a near endless supply of old pop culture references. I'll try to summarize them without spoiling them, if it seems that i'm putting in the most exciting bits, i'm not, they're just that great.

• 1) Storm Front: not the author's best work but not terrible. Involves curses, a drug ring, and naked battles with a demon (its less kinky than it sounds).
• 2) Fool Moon: widely regarded as the worst book in the series but still pretty passable. Has werewolves out the wazoo (totally not furries, trust me).
• 3) Grave Peril: this is where shit gets good; Vampires (WoD variety, not Twilight shit, you'll learn to hate them for completely different reasons though) and a scary-ass powerful ghost.
• 4) Summer Knight: Faeries (the old folklore "Steal Children and Mutilate Livestock/People" kind, not the Disney kind). Its got badass Dark Eldar-type Faeries, slightly less badass Craftworld-type Faeries, and everything in between. Also, the sobering after-effects of losing a loved one and emotional crap like that. Also, don't call them faeries to their faces (its like a racial slur).
• 5) Death Masks: to sum it up, atheist warriors of heaven, conquistadore vampires, Fallen Angels, and a villain so evil that he makes Honsou look like Sanguinius. Seriously, he's so evil, that a Fallen Angel literally older than the concept of time thinks that he's one of the most evil things ever.
• 6) Blood Rites: a pretty good read despite the ridiculous premise. Two different flavors of vampire and porn stars. Manages to be pretty awesome.
• 7) Dead Beat: one of the best if not the best book in the series. Dresden fights necromancers and rides a zombie T-rex,if that does not sound awesome you are very clearly disturbed. Also, theres's a Warhammer Fantasy easter egg that rhymes with Shmeinrich Shmemmler.
• 8) Proven Guilty: tracking down monsters that feed on fear at a horror movie convention.
• 9) White Night: most of the details are spoilery, but basically, something's hunting magic users and framing Harry.
• 10) Small Favor: the villain from Death Masks comes back and tries to start the apocalypse again AND Harry has to deal with Faeries again. Includes dolphins, a hostage situation, and a donut, don't worry, it'll make sense.
• 11)Turn Coat: this one's bad guy might second closest thing to pure evil since that guy from Death Masks, it may be even more evil than him. Also, there's a magic cop who was framed for a murder he didn't commit and now he's on the run from his former allies while he tries to clear his name. Will he find out who's responsible? Will he get revenge? Will I stop trying to make this sound like an 80's television show? MAYBE.
• 12) Changes: a whole bunch of spoiler, like paradigm shift, next level spoiler. It's a bit more of a thriller than a mystery but this is where shit gets real in the series. Do Not start with this book, or any one that comes after it. They're amazing but they'll ruin the whole series for you and they usually require some prior knowledge of the series to fully appreciate.
• 13) Ghost Story: Pure unadulterated spoiler, sorry. But it recaptures some of the noir atmosphere from the earlier books and sets you up for the next story arc.
• 14) Cold Days: an assassination/training montage, followed by ballroom dancing, followed by investigation, followed by H.P. Lovecraft references, followed by more investigation. And insane Faeries throughout the entire books. Also, Santa's there, which is awesome, except when you learn that Santa is inspired by Odin, who also happened to be the inspiration for Khorne (which might actually make it even more awesome).
• 15) Skin Game: tied with Dead Beat for the best book. Imagine Oceans Eleven, but replace breaking into a casino with breaking into the Underworld, and replace a buttload of money with the Holy Grail.

Factions, Races, and Supernatural Nations(WARNING: SPOILERS)

The White Council

A collection of the most powerful mortal magic users on the planet (wizards) that's existed since the Dark Ages (maybe even before). Is extremely powerful but is ridiculed by the other factions for being obsessed with tradition and inflexible (which it is, to an extent). What most of them don't seem to realize that without the Council acting as an Inquisition for magic users by upholding the Laws of Magic, the rest of them would be forced to contend with insane black magic users breaking reality left and right, shattering the masquerade and burning them alive from the inside out for shits and giggles. Also, the Council would have phenomenal political and destructive power if it weren't constrained by the very Laws it upholds and if it weren't run by conservative geezers obsessed with the status quo. If a human breaks the Laws of Magic, the Council's grey cloaked Wardens drag them to a random black site and cut their head off, no exceptions, no second chances (mostly). Since mortal magic users exude a murphyonic field around themselves, complex electrical devices short out around them (shit breaks when they're nearby). This isn't that much of a handicap, since they only short out stuff built after WWII and then only if its complex like a computer, and even then it mostly happens when they actually use their magic. Most of them have found magical work arounds. This EMP effect is actually relatively recent, wizards have a probability effect that changes from time period to time period, it used to give them warts or cause fires to burn weird colors.

Harry, on the job

• Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden: our titular wizard/private investigator. A very tall and profoundly unlucky man, Harry Dresden was born to an actual witch and a stage magician. Orphaned at a young age, Harry Dresden is adopted by a friend of his mother and trained in the ways of magic. Sounding pretty generic, right? WRONG! His adoptive father, Justin DuMorne is actually a Warlock(black magic user) and has been training Harry to be one of his minions. When his adoptive father almost succeeds in brainwashing him when he gets difficult to control, Dresden ends up burning him to death and laughing over the charred corpse. Then, the Wardens show up and arrest Harry for killing with magic, a violation of the Laws of Magic that Harry was never told about. He barely avoids getting beheaded, due to the fact that he was acting in self defense (not because he was, like, a minor or ignorant about the Laws) against Black Magic. He's then placed under parole, with the penalty for violation being death, for the majority of his young adulthood. An extremely powerful mage, he's viewed with fear or suspicion by most people he meets, causing him to be pretty miserable and lonely. His perceptions of women were intentionally manipulated when he was young, so he's chivalrous to a fault, causing him no shortage of pain. He's been in several relationships, but they've all ended in blood, tears, or flames. An honest man, he tries to do the right thing, but often, the right thing gets you put on the shit lists of vampire lords and the like. He believes himself to be a horrible person and constantly tries to make up for the fact with do gooding, in fact, that need to redeem himself is the only thing keeping him from manifesting PTSD.
  • Id Harry/Subconscious Harry: The manifestation of Harry's subconscious mind, Id Harry is what Harry could be if he were to stop trying to be so selfless and concerned with being a good guy. Unlike most repressed alter-egos, Id Harry is presented as neither wholly evil nor wholly good, he's nothing more than Dresden's self preservation instincts, sex drive, and untapped potential(which also kind of makes him Harry's super-ego, sort of), if Harry were to stop putting himself in danger for others and let go of all the baggage that the universe heaped on him, he'd be more wealthy and confident, but he'd also be kind of a dick.
• The Senior Council The seven "most powerful and ancient" wizards on the council, while this is usually true positions can be selected due to political bullshit and the Senior Council tends to be aged and crotchety because of this.
  • The Merlin/Arthur Langtry: The Merlin is the De-Facto leader of the white council. The current Merlin, Arthur Langtry, is a cold, calculating, politician who believe in keeping an image of strength and solidarity against the terrors of the world even while there is a traitor in the council's midst. He specialises in defensive Wards, and by which I mean once held off an entire court of vampires and outsiders with an improvised ward which had nothing to anchor itself against. As the book says "Do not taunt happy fun time Merlin."
  • The Gatekeeper/Wizard Rashid Rashid The Gatekeeper is the most mysterious of the current Senior Council, his purpose has something to do with "the Outer Gates", and he can see the future, but until "Cold Days" that's all we know, and even after that he remains just as cryptic as before. He's one of the few characters that is taller than Harry putting him at somewhere around 6'10-7'00
  • Ebenezar McCoy/The Blackstaff Harry's mentor, Ebenezar McCoy is a Scottish hill-billy(as in, Scottish Immigrant who came over in the 17th century) who currently owns a horse ranch in the Ozark's, he is also the Blackstaff, the one wizard of the White Council who is allowed to break the laws of magic if they are being used to protect warlocks or pervert their intended purpose. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE BLACKSTAFF, NO MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL WOULD DARE TO BREACH THE LAWS OF MAGIC, TO IMPLY SO IS SUBVERSIVE HERESY SPREAD TO WEAKEN THE COUNCIL FROM WITHIN, IF YOU HEAR SUCH HERESY, PLEASE REPORT TO WIZARD MCCOY FOR YOUR SUMMARY DEBRIEF. When not using the Blackstaff he specialises in Earth and Gravity magic, and once pulled a derelict Russian satellite out of orbit against his enemies. Does not get along with the Merlin, since they fought on opposite sides of the French and Indian War in the states.
  • Joseph Listens-to-Wind/Injun Joe A genuine Illinois medicine man, Listens-to-Wind is a Native American Wizard/Shaman, and considered one of the few truly decent people in the Dresden Universe. He is both a master of shapeshifting magic and healing biomancy, which isn't counting the fact that he goes back to medical school every few decades so he can keep up with current medical techniques. Is said to still have anger issues with the fact the White Council's laws forced him to sit back and watch as his nation was destroyed.
  • Martha Liberty An exceedingly tall African-American Wizard, very little is known about her.
  • Ancient Mai The scariest old(human, see Mother Winter) woman you'll ever meet, ancient Mai lives up to her name. Said to be over 400 years old, she appears to be the person in charge of handling contact with other supernatural powers as she is the one who sent out emissaries to both Faerie courts at the beginning of "Summer Knight". Her preferred form of magic is unknown, beyond the fact that she has "precious little gift for combat magic."
  • Gregory Cristos The newest member of the Senior Council, he leads a large multi-national bloc of wizards with is what allowed him to gain his position as he neither has seniority, nor much-respect from anyone else. Harry and Ebenezar consider him to either be a member of the Black Council, or a useful patsy that they put in place.
• The Wardens The military arm of the White Council, the Wardens enforce the Seven Laws of Magic with almost no mercy. You break the laws, the Wardens cut your head off. Every Warden is given a unique sword that can cut through magic, and a grey cloak that doesn't stain. Considering the amount of blood involved in cutting off heads this last one is important. When the Council was forced into a shadow war, they had to increase recruitment, so a lot of the Wardens are really young. This creates a dynamic of the conservative old guard disapproving of the young upstarts' willingness to use more aggressive and unorthodox methods, while the new Wardens disagree with the old geezers' excessive caution and overly rigid interpretation of the First Law.
  • Anastasia Luccio Currently the Technical Commander of the Wardens, she is responsible for the organization, logistics, and training of the Wardens, due to necromantic body-switching fuckery that ripped her out of her original body and into the much younger, magically weaker, body of a grad student. She is still on of the scary members of the white council, as this might have diminished her power significantly to the point where she can no longer make the enchantment breaking swords that she was known for, it did nothing to her skill or control. She specializes in Fire evocation.
  • Donald Morgan The field Commander of the Wardens, he is responsible for leading the wardens on the field (no duh). Morgan is fanatical in his service to the White Council, and especially the Merlin and Luccio, having seen the horrors of what happens when Black Magic grows out of control. He specialised in Earth Magic, and was said to be one of the best evocators alive, capable of doing quick and dirty like no one else. In a singular moment of unrivalled badassery he once led a Skinwalker (Naagloshii) onto a nuclear testing site, and escaped to the Nevernever before the nuke went off.
  • Carlos Ramirez A "classically Spanish" Warden, Carlos is the youngest ever Regional Commander in the wardens, and one of Harry's few allies in the White Council. He specializes in Water magic, specifically entropy magic, and is more than capable of hurling disintegration beams around in combat.
  • Justin DuMorne: Harry's abusive adoptive father and first magic mentor. A former Warden and secret Warlock (Black Magic) user, DuMorne adopted Harry with the intent of raising him to be his Black-Magic-using underling. When Harry got too rebellious, he tried to mentally enslave him. Fortunately for Harry, he failed and Harry was able to escape into the care of his godmother, the Leanansidhe, who then offered to make a faustian pact with him: she would give Harry the power required to defeat DuMorne, in exchange, he belong to her. Harry then killed DuMorne in a magic duel. He may or may not have been a member of the Black Council.

The Seven Laws of Magic: the Laws of magic that the White Council enforces, for damned good reasons.

• 1: Thou Shalt not Kill
• 2: Thou Shalt not Transform Others
• 3: Thou Shalt not Invade the Mind of Another
• 4: Thou Shalt not Enthrall Another
• 5: Thou Shalt not Reach Beyond the Borders of Life
• 6: Thou Shalt not Swim Against the Currents of Time
• 7: Thou Shalt not Open the Outer Gates

it is worth noting that the first five laws are as such because they involve the usage of Black Magic, which twists and corrupts the user, making them more likely to use Black Magic in the future, while the sixth and seventh laws are there because they are simply BAD IDEAS(tm), and not even the White Council knows if breaking them would cause the end of the world. NOTE: Laws 1-5 only apply to full human beings, so you can do whatever you want to vampires, ghouls, demons, demon-possessed, faeries, etc.

The Black Council?

The Black Council is a rumoured collection of mysterious entities that may or may not be seeking to throw all of existence under their mighty thumb through use of Black Magic. According to the Merlin, and thusly most of the White council, they DO NOT EXIST, and to imply that they do is heresy.

• "Cowl": A necromancer and a Badass, so named because he covered his face in a deeply shadowed cowl. Has "died" at least once.
• "Kumori": Cowl's apprentice, a necromancer with a "heart". Stopped a man from dying from gang warfare inflicted bullet wounds to argue that necromancy wasn't black magic. Is, as far as we know, dead.

The Fellowship of St. Giles

Named after the patron saint of outcasts and lepers. These guys are composed mainly of half-vampires of the Red Court and hate full vampires, but they take all types of outcasts. If you're a fugitive from the White Council who thinks they can still do some good, they'll take you. If you're a monster who hates your own kind, they'll take you. If you want to be a weird edgy guy and an underdog with a sense of justice, you're basically these guys. The catch is, a lot of the stuff they do in the name of fighting evil is pretty shady itself. They're not as powerful or well-entrenched as some other factions so they rely on the underworld (the criminal one) a lot more. As a result, the old adage about one man's freedom fighter being another man's terrorist holds pretty strongly to them. There is also evidence that they harbor Warlocks. They spend all of their time waging a guerrilla war against the Red Court; but as of Changes, they've effectively disbanded due to REASONS. (Spoiler reasons.)

Vampire Courts

Largely unrelated supernatural predators that all feed off of humans parasitically. They are also called "Anthrophages"

The White Court of Vampires

Psychic vampires that can walk around during the day. They can inspire a specific emotion in mortals which they use as a conduit to extract their life force. They mainly inspire and feed off of lust but they can also eat fear and despair. Very pale and very beautiful on the outside, but their souls are bound to a hideous demon called the Hunger, which provides longevity and super strength in return for life energy. They cannot create more vampires from mortals but when they have actual children (the old fashioned way) they don't tell them about their heritage until they grow up and lose their virginity. Upon having sex for the first time, the dormant Hunger awakens and completely devours their partner's life force, leaving the new vampire traumatized and confused. The vampire parent then swoops in and tells they child of its heritage and how normal this is and that it was okay to kill the human, after all, it was only food. The parent then may or may not rape the child to display dominance. Needless to say, they all have massive psychological baggage, creating a self sustaining cycle of trauma. The only way to escape this fate (if they naturally feed on lust) is to lose one's virginity to one who is in True Love with the young vampire, as White Vampires who feed using Lust are harmed by True Love (which is actually pretty fucking hard to find), a dormant Hunger will be killed by the first exposure to True romantic Love. They mainly inhabit first world countries since they prefer refinement and sophistication (being the physically weakest of the types of vampire), where they try to use their influence to create an atmosphere of zero inhibitions, zero limits, zero restraint. They also have a really annoying habit of calling humans Bucks and Does.

• The White King: rapist, murderer, owner of the vast majority of the american porn industry, the White King is the metaphorical(as opposed the the literal psychic manifestation) personification of squick, but wrapped up in a visually appealing package. He controls the pornography industry so he can manipulate popular conceptions of sexuality and beauty, making it easier for him and his kind to feed while making people shallow enough so that they have trouble finding True Love.
• Lara Raith: the White King's eldest surviving child, she's smarter than her father, but since he regularly rapes her, completely subservient to him. In the presence of regular people, she's basically a goddess(once again, metaphorically as opposed to the literal); confident, smart, attractive, etc (but she's also kind of an evil bitch). In the presence of her father, she's cowed and submissive. You'd almost feel sorry for her if she wasn't power-hungry and dangerous
• Thomas Raith: the White King's only surviving son (he kills them when they get old enough to oppose him, since, while he's willing to rape his daughters into psychic submission, he's too picky an eater to do the same with his sons.) He's pretty bro-tier with Harry and unbeknownst to most they're secretly SPOILERS, but everyone thinks that they're just lovers (which, ironically, they aren't)
• Justine: human thrall and the love of Thomas' life

The Red Court of Vampires

Mesoamerican blood sucking vampires. They can create a beautiful disguise or "flesh mask" over a hideous bat-like body (without wings), but the flesh mask combusts in direct sunlight. They are physically stronger than the White Court and they pacify their prey with narcotic saliva (no, really). They reproduce by turning people into half-vampires. The half vampire then gains an insatiable thirst for blood and super strength, but retains their human appearance and mind(well, most of it). Upon killing a human by draining their blood, the transformation completes and their strength increases, turning them into a deluded blood addict with an unjustified god complex (they actually have to kill someone by feeding off of them, its a metaphysical thing, so no, they don't get full powers but drinking a body's worth of blood from blood banks). They're mainly concentrated around Central and South America, where they use their connections to the cartels to benefit from human trafficking.

• The Red King: progenitor of the Red Court and maniacal despot, the Red King has been around at since the time of the Maya, possibly even before. He's masqueraded as a god throughout central american history, reaping the benefits of centuries of blood sacrifice. Evil, arrogant, and possibly insane.
• Arianna Ortega: the Red King's daughter (unconfirmed if that's in a biological or purely vampire sense). Sadistic and scheming.
• Paolo Ortega: Arianna's emasculated husband, a former conquistador and the Red Court's main wetworks operator, Arianna married him specifically for the purpose of making him suffer for his role in toppling the Aztec Empire(which she and her kind exploited)
• Bianca St. Claire: Red Court Vampire in charge of prostitution in Chicago(at least until Marcone outcompetes them with his higher quality prostitutes and brothels)
• The Eebs/ Esmeralda and Esteban Batiste: a married couple of Red Court vampires and assassins, while "husband-wife" kill-teams are common in the Red Court, its only because married couples attract less attention when traveling. The Eebs however are genuinely lovers, on account of having complimentary insanities. They also happen to be swingers, which unnerves most of their targets when they flirt with them. They're also really short. They ended up becoming the personal torture playthings of the Erlking and his Goblins though.

The Black Court of Vampires

Classic "Bram Stoker's Dracula" vampires. They have all the folklore weaknesses, garlic, crosses, running water, etc. In appearance, they resemble rotting or mummified corpses so they can't pass for human without using magic to create illusions or make people ignore them. They compensate by hitting like fucking trucks, being nigh un-killable by conventional means, and being able to create more vampires extremely quickly (no half or dormant stage). The more powerful ones can walk around in sunlight freely, like Dracula did originally. In fact, the novel "Dracula" was written as a secret guide to killing them, as a result they are almost extinct, with the survivors being extremely good at being hard to kill (which means not popping up and making more vampires whenever they want). Most of them are hiding all over the world.

• Vlad Tepes/ Dracula/The Black King: no, really, he was like, the first one
• Mavra: vampire wizard and walking corpse. Mistress of blackmail.
• Renfields: the Black Court's thralls and dumb muscle, humans who have been brainwashed into mindless killing machines, the process is irreversible and the Renfields end up killing themselves after a few months

Fae Courts

Beings from the spirit world closest to the real world. They are extremely diverse in mentality and appearance but all share two similarities, they cannot tell an outright lie (but can still deceive people with precise wording) and iron burns them to the touch. They also have an obsession withe the number three. Traditional morality like good and evil doesn't really apply to them. Changelings are offspring of humans and faeries, upon reaching puberty, their faerie traits partially manifest and they can choose to either embrace their fae side and become full faeries or choose to retain their humanity (and original personalities) and become fully mortal. Until they choose, the changeling remains in a half fae state; mortal but having partial faerie mentality(read :mental illness) and traits that vary based on the nature of their fae parent. Faeries can either actually care for their offspring or treat them like absolute shit, like I said before, extremely diverse. The Faeries are ruled by the Sidhe nobles, who would be elves if they weren't batshit crazy supermodels with cat eyes and a hard-on for scheming, murder, and faustian pacts. They don't like being called faeries, to them its the equivalent of calling humans apes, technically true, but not really accurate.

The Unseelie Court/The Winter Court

The "wicked" court embodying the season of winter, cold logic, ruthlessness, and predatory instincts. Not necessarily "evil" but super crazy and super dangerous.

Queen Mab

The fate of someone who pisses off Queen Mab

*Queen Mab: The leader of the Winter Court and a ruthless, hyper logical ice queen. Her likes include torture, machiavellian schemes, and metaphorically emasculating Harry Dresden. Do not piss her off, EVER, she'll either destroy everything you hold dear or torture you to the point of insanity, then heal you so she can start all over again.

• Lady Maeve: Mab's irresponsible, nymphomaniac, queen bitch daughter. Is literally insane (like she has dementia).
• Mother Winter: possibly the scariest character in the Dresden Files. Imagine every wicked witch story ever, distilled into a being of godlike power with the disposition of of a cranky grandmother from the old country. The good news is that she's basically a helpful, albeit cranky old grandmother when she's off the clock, which is most of the time these days. She lives in a small cottage with Mother Summer, who she gets along with surprisingly well.
• The Winter Knight: the faerie queens cannot kill anyone not directly linked to the fae courts, so the Winter Knight was developed as a workaround, essentially being the mortal embodiment of Mab's will. Whoever holds the position is a mortal instilled with magical power and enhanced strength, but also their sanity will slowly erode under the strain of predatory impulses not unlike those of the Winterfae themselves. So Winter Knights can start out all normal, but they eventually turn into disturbed Vaas Montenegro motherfuckers. When they are killed or eventually burn out, the queen removes the Mantle of the Winter Knight from the corpse and holds it until a suitable replacement is found. As of the book Summer Knight, the Winter Knight is Lloyd Slate, a heroin addict and rapist. The current Winter Knight is SPOILERS.
  • (In)Famous Winter Knights: Gilles de Rais (A serial killer who preyed on children), Fritz Haarman (a serial killer of boys and young men), John Haigh (the Acid Bath Murderer), Andrei Chikatilo (watch Citizen X, you'll get the idea, a serial killer of young boys), and Tam Lin (Scottish Mythology, surprisingly not a serial killer)
• Lea / The Leanansidhe: Mab's handmaiden/henchmaiden, and possibly the second most powerful creature in the Unseelie Court outside of all three queens, and is Harry's godmother. Comes from Celtic mythology where the Leanan Sidhe was a beautiful muse who would offer inspiration at the cost of driving the artist insane and putting them in a premature grave. She commands a pack of hunting hounds which may be Cu-Sith, or Black Hounds. She wants to turn Harry into one of these hounds, believing that he'd be much safer and happier as a dog, and she might have a point. Genuinely loves her godson, but because she's winterfae, that love takes odd forms
• The Redcap: A truly sadistic fuckwad who pretends to helps travelers on the road before killing them while they are asleep and using their fresh blood to dye his hat. Has a serious hate-boner for Harry.
• Jenny Greenteeth: Matriarch of the swamp hags and shellycobbs, she looks like an attractive twenty something (she's much older) but with green teeth, and gets wet at the thought of drowning somebody, even in something as shallow as a bowl of punch. Maeve's henchwoman.
• Malks: Psychotic cheshire cats that travel in packs, known to have weird voices.
  • Cat Sidhe/Cat Sith/Eldest Malk: Is said to be the progenitor of all Malks. Thus being the boss, he's slightly bigger than other malks and considerably more dangerous. He serves as Mab's henchman, and can serve as a snarky, passive agressive butler in a pinch. Known to be a cold motherfucker and a total badass who isn't afraid to cut a bitch, but also gives good advice.
• Fetches: Shapeshifters who feed on fear, they serve as Mab's elite spies and assassins. Notable for making a White Court Vampire who literally ate fear nearly shit himself in terror. In an ironic turn that particular vamp was a total pussy.
  • Eldest Fetch: The biggest and scariest Fetch. Masqueraded as a movie monster called "Scarecrow", which was essentially the Great Pumpkin on crack, and probably the lawyer friendly version of the monster from the Pumpkinhead movies.
• Trolls: hairy, man-eating brutes who are afraid of sunlight, serve the Queen as bodyguards and blacksmiths
• Hobs: Hairless, eyeless, baboon-like monsters who resemble the cartoon version of neanderthals, also afraid of sunlight. They compensate by conjuring supernatural mist called "myrk" that covers their surroundings in darkness and extinguishes all light sources
• Shellycobbs: crustaceans who like to drown people
• Rawheads: monsters made out of the meat and bones from corpses, they look like skinless minotaurs
  • Manticores
  • Giant bats
  • Swamp Hags

The Seelie Court/The Summer Court

Embodying the season of summer, passion, empathy, understanding, and growth. They're the more Disney of the faerie courts, in that they seem "good", but they're also largely paranoid, lawful stupid, and distrustful of anyone who doesn't conform to their own standards of virtue. Prone to favoring art and superficial "goodness" over practicality and inner fortitude.

• Queen Titania: Mab's sister and leader of the Summer Court. She believes in "the wisdom of the heart", which includes being more ruled by her emotions in contrast to Mab's coldly logical disposition; she follows her heart even if it tells her to kill someone who she doesn't like despite the consequences (although she can sometimes control herself). Is currently estranged from Mab.
• Lady Aurora: Titania's daughter, a compassionate and wise character, though REASONS lead her to believe that the ends justify the means.
  • Mother Summer: Possibly the most level headed character in the Dresden Files. Imagine everything compassionate and understanding distilled into a being of godlike power with the disposition of everyone's favorite grandmother. She lives with Mother Winter in a small cottage, and they get along surprisingly well, despite being polar and literal opposites.
• The Summer Knight: the faerie courts are locked in a constant struggle, so anything Winter does, Summer will likely try to counteract it, therefore, the Summer Knight was created as a way to oppose the Winter Knight, essentially being the mortal embodiment of Titania's will. Whoever holds the position is a mortal instilled with magical power and enhanced strength, but also their identity will slowly erode under the strain of compulsive blind loyalty to Titania and a hardwired predisposition towards Lawful Stupid. When they are killed or eventually burn out, the queen removes the Mantle of the Summer Knight from the corpse and holds it until a suitable replacement is found. As of the book Summer Knight, the Summer Knight is Ronald Reuel, an old man and an artist. The current Summer Knight is SPOILERS.
• Gruffs: goat headed satyrs who are really good at killing trolls, and anything else Titania points them at.
  • Eldest Gruff The eldest Gruff, is a serious badass. He's also pretty bro-tier. Unlike his younger brothers, who are progressively bigger and better armed, he's a tiny guy who looks like a miniature old man who needs his walking stick, but he's an enormously powerful spallcaster.
• Centaurs
• Unicorns
• Giant bees/wasps
• Elfs: Closer to Santa's elves, the're the shitty halfling kind. They're happen to be good with bows and might be pretty agile too.

Wyldfae

All the faeries who aren't part of Summer or Winter. More populous than both courts but more fragmented. It Winter and Summer are Cold War Warsaw Pact and NATO, the Wyldfae are everyone else.

• Ogres: huge thugs who hire themselves as muscle to summer or winter, basically less hairy, more humanoid trolls who moonlight as mercenaries
• Goblins: killers obsessed with the concept of hunting (doesn't matter what, so long as its entertaining), ruled by the Erlking/Herne the Hunter, no two Goblins have the same physical appearance, they can vary widely but they all have red eyes, they have been compared to "ninja terminators"
  • Erlking/Herne the Hunter: king of the goblins and Lord of the Wild Hunt, the Erlking is equal to the Queens of Summer and Winter in power. He generally appears on Earth during halloween, when he leads the Wild Hunt in search of prey to slaughter. He has features that are asymmetrical and mismatched, like many goblins, but on him they look handsome, like "carved driftwood"
• Tylwyth Teg: benign shapeshifters, their king, Gwyn ap Nudd, is the reason why the Cubs lose so much, he's behind the Billy Goat Curse (but he's gotten over the insult that started the curse in the first place, he just keeps it going out of a sense of tradition, he's actually a huge baseball fan)
• Puck: an insanely powerful wyldfae lord who's ancient even among the fae. He's gone a bit crazy from both old age and boredom. He like to cause chaos among mortals for entertainment and delights in surprises and uncertainty.
• Kringle: Yes, that Kringle. Santa Claus is a Fae. You may either rejoice or scream in terror. Also, Kringle is basically the legend version of Santa where he's a jolly warrior, minus the parts where he's weird and syphilitic. Also parts in the books casts uncertainty on if he's a fae or possibly something else from the Nevernever.
  • (Note) The Seelie/Unseelie Kings: These positions are taken by powerful Wyldfae who represent the opposite "morality" of thier court, but have a similar theme. The current Summer King is The Erlking who represents the passion of the hunt, nature red in tooth and claw, and the primal empathy between hunter and hunted, while the current Winter King is Kringle who represent togetherness and giving during bleak times, a moment of kindness in coldest Winter. They are however, politically affiliated with the court of their season.

The Fomor

Millennia ago, when the Sidhe were a nobody faction of proto-elves hanging out in Ireland, they fought and defeated a race of weird-ass guys called the Fomor and drove them into the sea. As it turns out, driving one's enemies into the sea was really popular thousands of years ago and the Fomor met and subjugated a whole bunch of outcasts from all over the world, eventually turning into weird frog-men united by a burning hatred for the surface world. They like to abduct humans and animals, mutate them with magic, and sell them as living weapons to the highest bidder. A weakness they share with the Fae is being burned by iron, since they used to interbreed pretty heavily back when the average Fomor didn't look like Kermit the Frog.

Svartalves

The setting's version of dwarves. Surprisingly, they're not alcoholic berserkers with scottish accents, but xenophobic grey-aliens with goatees. They're still extremely greedy and vengeful, not to mention bloodthirsty warriors. They have a reputation for being THE neutral faction, their schtick is basically "you don mess with us, we don't mess with you." Tend to sell their services as magical craftsmen

Regular humans/ Vanilla Mortals

Mocked and derided as prey and cattle, but most predators don't appreciate how dangerous an angry mob of confused and scared humans can be. In fact, most haven't noticed that the potential mobs are much bigger than the ones in the sixteenth century, and that the torches and pitchforks have been replaced with assault rifles and attack helicopters. In the supernatural community, involving human law enforcement in a supernatural dispute is the equivalent of waving around a nuclear warhead. (Un)Fortunately, most humans will try to rationalize and forget most encounters with the supernatural so they can get back to their safe, normal, mundane, lives. So the masquerade in the Dresden Files isn't a massive conspiracy of epic proportions, its more of a series of low to medium level bribes and coverups.

• Susan Rodriguez: reporter and Harry's sometime lover. They met when Susan kept trying to use Harry to write an article about the supernatural, which would have made no difference to the world at large because she works for a tabloid. Other than that, she's pretty smart (but lacking in foresight at times, leading to several spoilery plot points).
• Waldo Butters: coroner and Harry's go to forensics guy and sometime "guy who takes care of my bullet/sword/claw/fang wounds". A literal genius and polka aficionado cursed with and unfortunate name

Criminal Underworld

Most organized crime probably has some connections to the supernatural, they may not be directly involved in it, but they probably know about some of the supernatural predators and organizations in a given area and try to give them a wide berth. Some crime lords have a preference for hiring half-demon hitmen and ancient norse security consultants.

• John "Gentleman Johnny" Marcone: the Baron of Chicago and the monolithic ruler of its criminal underworld, he's extremely ruthless and efficient. While the city was locked in a gang war, his rise to power began, he kept killing the competition until he was the only capo left. He realized that people are more loyal to you when you treat them nice, so all his underlings get decent working conditions and medical insurance. Violent crime and crimes involving minors (he's got a code: don't hurt kids) dropped to its lowest in years during his reign, thus making the streets more efficient, orderly, and easy for him to control. The police don't like to go after him partially because they're afraid of his replacement being worse than he is and partially because he'll have them abducted, dismembered, and thrown into the cold, cold waters of Lake Michigan. So turn a blind eye, the streets are safer, human trafficking is at its lowest, nobody's peddling drugs to your kids, and who do you have to thank? John Marcone of course, your friendly neighborhood real estate mogul, what an upstanding citizen, let's make sure he stays in power why don't we. John Marcone is almost definitely an assumed name, and he's implied to either be ex-military or a former special agent for the US government.
• "Cujo" Hendricks: massive bodyguard for Marcone, seldom speaks but has studied philosophy and wasn't a fraction as ruthless as he is now before he met Marcone.

The Paranet

A recent faction of low level magic users and concerned citizens, its an online community that tries to distribute knowledge about the supernatural for self defense without things like giving up one's humanity or going through complex and humiliating initiations.

Special Investigations

The branch of CPD that everyone else foists all the weird, supernatural cases on in the hopes that they cook up a rational explanation (read: bullshit) for it that allows everyone else to sleep at night. Its also the CPD's equivalent of a siberian detention camp, ask too many questions or pisses off the wrong people. People in SI rarely get transferred to other divisions and many leave the force soon after being put there.

• Lieutenant Karrin Murphy: head of CPD's Special Investigations. Below average height, most people underestimate her, only to be proven wrong when they inevitably find out that she's both a gun nut and a certified blackbelt in aikido and several other martial arts. For most of the series, she's been the second half of an awkward hybrid will-they-won't-they + cop-buddy relationship with Harry. She doesn't take shit from anyone. Her father was in a precursor to the SI, the Black Cat Division, and he ended up killing himself at his desk(its implied that he was forced to by... something). She's been married and divorced twice, the second time to an FBI agent who promptly got remarried to her younger sister, causing both of them to earn her eternal hatred.
• Rudolph: a whiny, corrupt, little shit who who got demoted to SI for sleeping with the wrong councilman's daughter, before kissing enough ass to get into Internal Affairs. As he's in complete denial about his experiences with the supernatural and is implied to be unknowingly on the take from various supernatural nasties, he is one of the most despised characters in the entire series, both in-universe and by readers. He shows up every once in a while to make things difficult for Murphy and Dresden.

Venatori Umborum

The Hunters in the Shadows or the Hunters of the Shadows depending on the translation, although it is more accurate to call them "The Shadows of the Hunters" (See Venatori below). A secret society composed of humans with a lot of knowledge about the supernatural but not a lot of magic power. Dedicated to fighting monsters that prey on humans and pretty good in an actual fight, but they mainly specialize in preventing the (complete) corruption of human government and laws by supernatural predators, hoarding knowledge, and distributing knowledge to others in order to be able protect themselves. Basically lawyer/librarians with flamethowers.

• Venatori: The original hunters, and the reason the Venatori Umborum exist. The Venatori exist to combat a race of beings known as the Old Ones (yes, those Old Ones), in a conflict called the Oblivion War that has been going since the dawn of humanity. They do this by wiping out all mortal awareness of an Old One and thusly consigning him/her/it to Oblivion. The Archive was created to lead this war and her reason for existing that's given in the main books is her cover story. (These guys only show up in the Short Story Backup). The Venatori Umborum were created as a smokescreen for these guys due to the fact that they are fucking with Elder Gods and their cult servants. Fun-Fact: the Venatori almost consigned the Faerie Courts to Oblivion, but Mab got the Brothers Grimm to write their Tales, and Gutenberg to distribute them leading to the Fae being firmly ensconced in the public consciousness. The White Court has either been recruited or has at least partly subsumed this organization, though the reason for either is the same: to drive out competition for the top of the food chain. The Archive, as a construct bound to a set of specific rules, cannot intervene and is relegated to providing information to the Venatori. If the White Court puppet masters actually grasped the importance of their tasks instead of eliminating "poachers" so they can slake their Hungers in peace, they never would have tried to wipe out he Fae since the Fae safeguard reality from even worse beings. TL;DR: Les Mysteres + Keepers of the Source + Division Six

The Archive

The Archive is the living repository of written human knowledge. A magical construct that instantly knows anything that's been written down by a human being. It is bound to a single bloodline and is passed from mother to daughter on the death of each host. All this knowledge has two main effects, the host gains genius level intellect and magic ability, and she is forced to deal with millennia of knowledge and memories. The Archive is ostensibly a backup for human civilization in case it is destroyed, but in reality is a major part of the Venatori's Oblivion War (but it is unknown how useful the war is anymore, the Fae and the Council do the same job more effectively and are not compromised by the White Court like the Venatori are). Regardless, the Archive still serves as the living history of humanity. The tremendous weight of all the knowledge can sometimes drive Archives insane, so to compensate, they limit the amount of time they interact with others in order to avoid forming unnecessary memories

• Oracles of Delphi: past Archives, they used their knowledge of the past to build predictive models of the future
• Ivy: the current Archive, she has been burdened with the position of the Archive since infancy, after her irresponsible, underage mother killed herself to avoid her duty. Said mother had become the Archive after her own mother died in an accident, and, hating the fact that her own youth was cut short while her daughter would get to live a relatively normal life, decided to take the selfish way out. She never even bothered to give her child a name. The child was aware of all of this the second she became the Archive, moments after her mother's death. Never experiencing a regular childhood, she grew up near emotionless and logical, with only brief hints of anything resembling a child(liking small animals). She began to develop more of an identity after Harry nicknamed her Ivy when she was seven, but she remains detached and analytical. She is accompanied by Kincaid, her personal assassin, bodyguard, and chauffer and the closest thing she has to a father.

The Church

Way back in the olden times, the Catholic Church tried to crack down on the more evil parts of the supernatural community. Unfortunately, they got carried away and started a shit show called the Inquisition. Nowadays, they're real sorry about that, to the point of trying not to actively involve priests in the supernatural. The "Ordo Malleus" (guess where Jim got that from) limits itself to providing a support network for those dedicated to fight evil with the power of faith. Another subset of the Church are the Knights of the Cross, who wield a trio of swords made with the nails used to crucify Jesus. Contrary to first glances, Knights of the Cross don't have to be catholic or even religious, all they have to do is have sufficient inner strength and the belief that evil should be opposed. There are only at most three at a time and they fight next level apocalyptic stuff, so they have a high turnover rate. The three knights from the start of the story are on the far right end of that bell curve, one having served for years, one for about two decades, and one being an old man who served since his youth.

• Michael Carpenter: A catholic building contractor and wielder of the longsword, Amoracchius. A loving husband and father of seven, he's what happens when a paladin-type is written right. Unlike most portrayals of religious types (particularly members of the Catholic Church), the author decided that religion didn't automatically make you into an abrasive dick, taking into account that organized religion has actually had some positive effects on human history, like the establishment charities and medical aid when everyone else was espousing social darwinism. Harry views him as one of the few unarguably good people he knows. Is also the closest thing Harry has to a best friend. Harry would have killed himself/developed a death wish long ago if Michael wasn't there. Also a descendant of Charlemagne.
• Sanya: A black man who grew up in russia and a descendent of Saladin. Wielder of the sabre, Esperacchius (and also, a kalashnikov for when the forces of evil don't like to engage in close combat). Despite all the stuff involving angels and the like that he deals with, he's an atheist (or at least an agnostic), his argument being that the beings he meets could just as easily be extraterrestrials or non-divine supernatural creatures, or that he may be hallucinating everything. He and Harry are buddies.
• Shiro Yoshimo: An elderly Japanese man and wielder of the cane-katana, Fidelacchius. A genuinely selfless man and a total badass. While he's technically a Baptist, he still thinks like a Shintoist in a lot of ways. Like all other Knights of the Cross is descended from royalty, in this case Sho Tai, the last king of Okinawa
• Uriel: Archangel and head of what is basically Heaven's black ops division. A surprisingly amicable individual who's a fan of both Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. All that friendliness distracts you from the fact that he's been engaged in a shadow war with Satan since before time was a thing and he was responsible for killing the Firstborn of Egypt in the Old Testament.
• Michael The Archangel, prince of hosts.
• Raphael The Archangel, the Demon binder, also at least partly responsible for helping build the panic room in the Carpenter household.
• Gabriel The Archangel, the Trumpeter.
• Charity Carpenter: Michael's beautiful yet intimidating wife. Doesn't like Harry because he keeps getting her husband in life threatening situations.
• Father Forthill: Harry's main contact for knowledge regarding the Denarians, a humble, likable catholic priest and former lawyer.
• Angel(s) of Death: Clad entirely in black, with skin the colour of spilled ink, eyes like voids, and hair the shade of raven feathers the Angel(s) of Death cut an extremely unsettling sight. The one we meet in the books is a stand up girl. Her job being to watch over truly good people as they die, and then escort their souls to heaven, she armed to the teeth because there are things that will attempt to stop this.

Monoc Securities

A "private military corporation" based in Oslo, Norway. Its employees are valkyries and einherjar, resurrected norse warriors. Has significant military and magical resources and is known for hyper competence.

• Donar Vadderung: Owner, Founder, and CEO of Monoc Securities. Is also Odin One-eye, Thunder's Father, King of the Aesir and Vanir. Maintains a cordial relationship with Harry, akin to mentor and unwitting pupil. He also has a bunch of secret identities that would be rude to spoil here.
• Sigrun Gard: a valkyrie and Marcone's security and magic consultant. Is capable of entering a berserk state at will and is skilled in rune magic.

Order of the Blackened Denarius

Pure, unrepentant, fucking, evil. Thirty fallen angels trapped in the thirty coins used by the Romans to bribe Judas Iscariot. The coins basically act like the One Ring, tempting and corrupting whoever holds them with promises of power, eventually tricking the unfortunate host into giving up his or her free will and becoming little more than a beast of burden in the thrall of the fallen. The group's overarching goal is to cause the apocalypse, but its much more complex than that. The leaders of the group believe that its unlikely that they'll actually cause the end of the world, but they can still advance the cause of Hell while trying. Subsequently, their plots are constructed such that if the lose, they're still able to cause pain and suffering and weaken the forces of good, for example: if they're stopped from obtaining nuclear warheads, they'll still have caused multiple deaths, widespread panic, and significant human suffering in the process of trying. Their philosophy is to push the world closer and closer towards Armageddon, creating an environment of chaos and terror. Put in the words of their de facto leader: "Apocalypse is a frame of mind." The group is known to be responsible for The Bubonic Plague, Columbian Cartels, and the Rwandan Genocide. The Fallen themselves were personally chosen by Satan, ostensibly as a promotion, but in reality he was afraid that they would try to pull a coup d'etat against him. Known Coins and Bearers

• Anduriel/Nicodemus For the purposes of the stories, essentially the leader of the Order of the Blackened Denarius. As close to evil as it is possible to get in the series, and disgustingly/delightfully creepy. Nicodemus himself is an extremely enigmatic individual, who may predate the birth of Christ (He can't, the 30 silver Judas got for betraying Christ became the Blackened Danarii, the current prevailing rumor to his identity is the Potter in whose field Judas Iscariot hung himself). He is completely devoted to the idea of the Apocalypse and is wholly convinced that all he has ever done was for the cause of good, believing the forces of Heaven to be evil. Throughout the series, there are subtle hints that he actually has an obsession with Christ and sainthood, seeking to become a messiah. Anduriel is a former lieutenant of Satan who may or may not be completely subservient to Nicodemus, it can listen in on anything said within hearing distance of any shadow on earth (only one shadow at a time though and you can ward against its presence).
• Unknown/Deirdre Nicodemus's daughter/lover. Demon form looks like a green scaled Medusa with hair made of serrated steel blades.
• Ursiel/Rasmussen A giant demon bear who loves brute force. Rasmussen is a broken, insane, wreck of a human being. The Fallen itself has devolved into a bestial mass of madness and rage, motivated only by an addiction to bloodshed and a hatred of Heaven.
• Lasciel/SPOILERS Lasciel is known as the Web-Weaver, the Seducer, or the Temptress, and is described as "a rebel angel among rebel angels"(she's not a mary sue, it means she's as much of a treacherous bitch to the rest of the Fallen as she is to everyone else). Her sigil is vaguely reminiscent of an hourglass, and she likes to take the shape of an attractive woman. In combat she takes the shape of a cloud of purple smoke wrapped around her naked host. Prior to the Fall, she tried to profit by working for both sides during the War in Heaven. When her plans fell apart, she was cast out for her disloyalty. She then threw her lot in with Satan, became something like an anarchist and developed a huge chip on her shoulder in regards to God and any other authority figure.
• Saluriel/Quintus Cassius: A snake-themed Fallen angel bound to one of Nicodemus's personal friends expendable meat puppets, though against Harry's skills as a PI, he becomes an incompetent boob(the host, not the Fallen.) Also known as Snake-Boy.
• Thorned Namshiel/Unknown Tessa's sorcery expert, enjoys picking pockets and strangling people, sometimes simultaneously. Looks like an emaciated man with thorns all over its body. Despises humanity and views humans as little more than animals.
• Imariel/Polonius Lartessa (Tessa) Nicodemus's Wife/Arch-rival in creating the Apocalypse. Talk about a match made in Hell. Currently has the appearance of a 15/16 year old girl (she was a child prostitute in The Roman Empire) and is (as of Skin Game) batshit, fucking, crazy. Imariel transforms its's host into a humanoid praying mantis that can dissolve into smaller mantises. She has White Council levels of magic power (but she predates the current incarnation of the organization)
• Akariel
• Urumviel
• Magog/SPOILERS (Redeemed Bearer): and we've just broken the naming scheme, though it gets points for Biblical origins. Magog looks like an enormous purple gorilla with horns, and serves as Tessa's heavy hitter. He's fast, crazy strong, has next to no reaction time, but he doesn't have any strategy other than "run at the enemy and hit it really hard." Like Ursiel, it appears that he's devolved into little more than a blood-crazed beast.
• "Obsidian Statue": Nickname only.
• "Shaggy Feathers" Nickname only.
• "Green Antlers" Nickname only.
• ???/Rosanna Tessa's second in command, her coin is unknown. Looks like a sexy succubus with goat hooves. Manipulative type.
• Varthiel
• Ordiel
• ???/McKullen We literally know his name and that's it.
• Tarsiel

This leaves 12 unknown coins either being held secure by the church, or out in circulation

Demons

Demons in the Dresdenverse are distinct from the Biblical Fallen Angels, they are instead denizens of the Nevernever who are neither spirit nor faerie nor divine being. Most simply want to go about their business without having anything to do anything with mortals, but some are summoned to do the bidding of mortal magic users anyway. According to the fine print of most summoning contracts, they are obligated to test the bindings of whoever summons them, and if they find those bindings wanting, they are free to do whatever they want (read: eviscerate) to the unfortunate would be summoner. While the vast majority are basically neutral, a large portion of them do work for Hell, serving as everything from foot soldiers to bureaucrats (Dresdenverse Hell works like an odd combination of La Revolucion and megacorporation)

Scions

Sometimes, for whatever reason, a human will have a child with a demon or supernatural creature. This child, if it is not miscarried or stillborn, is often insane, deformed, or both (since having six arms and claws made of bronze aren't exactly compatible with normal human biology). However, sometimes the child or "Scion" has a human appearance and gets access to some of the badass powers of it's non-human parent.

• Changelings One of the most common type of Scions, Changelings are the result of Fae and mortals getting freaky. Once they are made aware of their inhuman heritage they may make a choice to either embrace it (becoming fully Fae), and reject it (becoming full Mortal). Changelings are often treated like shit by their inhuman parents, if they are not just outright ignored.
• Grendelkin: Yes, that Grendel. They can only reproduce with virgins, after drinking enough Honey Mead.
• Temple Dogs / Foo Hounds: An example of a non-human scion breed, Foo Hounds are said to be descended from a celestial spirit and a mortal hound. The current guess for their mortal breed is Caucasian Bear Hounds. They are seriously scary stuff to the point where an Archangel refers to one as "Little Cousin".
• Jared Kincaid/The Hellhound: imagine the skills of Deadshot mixed with the looks of a blond Big Boss. He NEVER, EVER misses. He's hundreds of years old and he looks like he's in his late 30's/early 40's. A bodyguard who moonlights as a freelance mercenary and assassin. He managed to stir up the fan-base something fierce by claiming to be as "human" as Harry, which means either, Harry is not fully mortal at some point in his family line, or Kincaid was lying his ass off, and the TVTropes Wild Mass Guessing page has tied itself in knots discussing this.
• Goodman Grey: A shapeshifting mercenary who cannot be bought off a job. Apparently the scion of a mortal woman and a Naagloshii which is all kinds of fucked up.
• Irwin Pounder: The son of "Strength of a River in his Shoulders" (a Bigfoot) and Dr Carol Pounder. Irwin doesn't really demonstrate any physical supernatural traits, beyond being big, strong, and kind of retiring, but has the life force of a full wizard even as a child which allows him to survive things that would kill a normal person. Harry forces "River Shoulders" to meet him as the payment for his last case, because "No kid should never know their dad".

Naagloshii/Skinwalker

Semi-divine monsters from Navajo mythology, basically the Navajo version of a fallen angel. Immortal, powerful shape shifters who have instinctive knowledge on how to torture any given being in the most painful way possible. They feed on the life force of magic users, but they slowly lose their power the further away they are from tribal lands. What separates these guys from Fallen Angels, is while that the Fallen believe that they are in the right, the Naagloshii wholeheartedly admit they are pure evil. Their only joy is proving that all other beings are just as flawed and evil at heart as they themselves are, usually through insanity inducing torture. To illustrate how viscerally hateful these things are, here's a quote of one of them making a threat: “I will come for you. I will kill you. I will kill your blood, your friends, your beasts. I will kill the flowers in your home and the trees in your tiny fields. I will visit such death upon whatever is yours that your very name will be remembered only in curses and tales of terror.”

Ghouls

Man-eating monsters who hire themselves out to the various nasties of the world as muscle (when mind-raped or addicted thralls just won't do), the have an insatiable craving for human flesh. Appear as vaguely humanoid creatures with elongated limbs and dog-like snouts, but they can assume the appearance of humans with plain, unremarkable features.

• Uber-Ghouls: Take a ghoul, cross breed it with the T-1000, and add in enough nightmare fuel and pure squick to make it truly nightmarish. You've got an Uber-Ghoul. These things are seemingly immortal as the one time they've shown up they demonstrated the ability to pull themselves together when reduced to nothing more than rotten, chunky salsa.

Nature Spirits/Genius Loci

If a dryad lives in a tree on the mortal plane, then the tree that a Dryad lives in would be a nature spirit/Genius Loci. Nature spirits aren't so much drawn to places of power as they are the will of places of power; you can have a Place of Power without a Genius Loci, but you can't have a Genius Loci without a Place of Power. Mortal spellcasters may attempt a Sanctum Invocation which is not a contest of wills, a straight-up fight, a contract, or an introduction, but it is certainty partly all of those things against/with a nature spirit, binding both it, and the place it represents to the wizard, and the wizard to it. This boosts the wizards power while in the Place of Power, and connects them to the will of the spirit. A Place of Power does not have to be natural to generate a nature spirit, it is just as likely that a place like "Auschwitz" or "Jonestown" has a Nature Spirit present simply due to the tradgedy there causing negative magic to amass itself.

Known Places of Power

• "Demonreach" A spooky fucking island in Lake Michigan that was scrubbed off the maps after the spirit present caused every single person who tried to settle there to go irrevocably insane. The Genius Loci attached to this place looks like a twelve foot tall man shaped thing made of roots, vines, and rocks. Walks with a pronounced limp, and speaks LIKE THIS.
• The Pyramids of Giza Mentioned in the RPG books.
• Chitchen Itza The Red's Courts primary ritual grounds, lots of Earth Magic, and dark, dark sacrificial rites go on here.
• Stonehenge
• The Hallowed Halls The White Councils headquarters underneath Edinburgh castle. Is said to move depending on the current world superpower, and was located under Rome during the time of the Original Merlin. Why it isn't under the White House or the Pentagon at the moment is a question that really should be asked.
• Vesuvius an off hand comment in Cold Days implies the eruption was the fault of a pissed off Genius Loci.

Forest People/Bigfoots

Yep, they're real, and they're actually pretty polite (with some exceptions). They have agreements with Native American tribes where they provide education and access to resource while the tribes provide them with an interface for the mundane community (lawyers, bank accounts, fast food). Very strong magic users, thankfully, many are pacifists, but the violent ones can fuck shit up something fierce

• Strength of a River in His Shoulders: mild-mannered bigfoot and water magic adept, lover of Dr. Carol Pounder and father of Irwin Pounder. He prefers to avoid conflict and is afraid that his son will reject him. He's also LOADED, having access to veins of gold ore that were never found by humans.

Ghosts

In the Dresdenverse, when you die, your soul goes to the afterlife (which may or may not be the Judeo-Christian one, the nature of the divine is extremely complex and no one on earth or the spirit world/Nevenever has a full understanding) , it doesn't linger on. However, if you have unfinished business, you might leave behind a Shade, a spirit that has all your memories, like a photo negative. The shade essentially is you, and shades believe that they are the souls of the departed(but they really aren't) at first. They can by seen and heard by some people, but they cannot physically interact with the world unless they go insane. Sunlight, particularly sunrise(which has a metaphysical cleansing effect) is fatal to them

• Wraiths: shades that have gone insane and/or been warped by negative energies
• Lemures: shades that have decided to increase their own power, stave off losing their identities, and attempt to feel more alive by devouring other shades

Kemmlerites

Once, there was a man named Heinrich Kemmler (not the one you're thinking of, although given Jim Butcher's status as "one of us" this could easily be a reference), who attempted to gain total mastery over life and death. This lead him to the art of necromancy, an art which he excelled in as none before him had. He perfected this art, calling his beautiful creation, The True Magic. Where others saw charnel houses, he saw potential, while other wizards summoned fire and lightning, he evoked the power of oblivion itself.. He decided to spread his knowledge so that all would know death as intimately as he did, and so it was that he wrote and distributed three texts, The Blood of Kemmler, The Mind of Kemmler, and the Heart of Kemmler. He drew many disciples, but none were his equal. Determined to explore the True Magic in greater depth, he wove a net of manipulation and deception, sowing the seeds of a conflict the likes of which had never been seen before. At the beginning of the twentieth century, his grand design culminated in what lesser minds called The Great War. He used the death brought by his work to increase his own power and deepen his connection with death. But the White Council, who saw the True Magic as an abomination, mustered to stop him, as they had several times before. Kemmler was forced to flee, but he surfaced again during the Second World War, once again drawing power from the death spawned by the conflict. By then he had become so entwined with death that he was far more, permanent than most men. The Council killed him again and again, but failed to completely end him. So great was he that his name even gave Queen Mab pause. But his reign was not to last. In the 1960's the Council gathered together in its entirety, every wizard and warden, in a final effort to slay Kemmler in Russia, an effort in which they succeeded. His great plans were smashed, all the copies of his necromantic texts were destroyed. Kemmler was dead, his body reduced to radioactive ash by a Soviet doomsday weapon, his spirit annihilated in nuclear fire. But the True Magic lingered on in the minds of his disciples. Known Kemmlerites

• Grevane: Kemmler's first disciple, a master of raising corpses as zombies. The older the corpse, the more powerful the undead, and he is capable of turning even the most unimpressive human corpse into a relentless killing machine
• Capiorcorpus/Corpsetaker: a (formerly, she exists only as a spirit) female necromancer who is capable of switching bodies to prolong her life. She prefers binding wraiths to her will rather than zombies. Kemmler didn't favor her in comparison to his other apprentices. She was also ex-Council
• Cowl: see above in Black Council entry

Spirits of Intellect/Knowledge

You know how humans leave behind shades and nature can sometimes manifest incorporeal spirits, well a Spirit of Intellect is what happens when a spirit and human(and some other things too) fall in love with each other. If their relationship is one of True Love, it can create a sentient mass of energy and knowledge called a Spirit of Intellect. SoI's are vulnerable to sunlight, but they can inhabit magical vessels to protect them from the sun, in exchange, they must do the bidding of whoever owns the vessel. They either take on the initial personality characteristics of whoever owns the skull(only the charatceristcs at the time of introduction though) or they take on the characteristics of their owner's first impression of them (so if they change owners, they can stay almost the same if they met the owner before). This mutability may disappear when they get powerful enough. They're most useful as living repositories of knowledge(being essentially self aware databases) and advisors, but they can get scary powerful when they need to, since for them knowledge literally equals power.

• Bob: Harry's Spirit of Intellect who inhabits a human skull. He helps Harry work on spells and enchantments and also gathers information from around Chicago and the Nevernever. Harry first got him when he was a teenager, so Bob's kind of a pervert, much to Harry's(and everyone else who meets him) exasperation. Having been in circulation for at least a millennium, Bob is scary powerful and intelligent, and knows secrets that have him on Mab's hit-list.
  • Evil Bob: Bob's alter ego, a version of Bob leftover from when he was owned by a necromancer. Evil Bob can only be described as twisted, he even manifests as a skeleton in an SS uniform. Bob hates this side of himself so much that he's suppressed or removed most of his memories of being Evil Bob. Due to the amount of knowledge involved in being Evil Bob, this suppression and separation caused the knowledge to leave Original Bob and form it's own independent entity.
• INSANE SPOLIERS (Bonnie): Harry's daughter by Lasciel, Bonnie was all set to pop out of Harry's skull like Athena and Zeus during the events of "Skin Game". Harry was unaware of her existence up until this point as Mab told him he had a psychic parasite that was causing his increasingly painful migraines, which technically wasn't a lie. Fucking faeries. She's also adorable and likes pancakes
• Athena: the greek goddess Athena popped out of her father's skull fully grown, the result of one of Zeus' many, many, many, many, many, many affairs. She had so much power that she immediately ascended from Spirit of Knowledge to god status.

Outsiders

Beings from outside of reality(outside of both earth AND the spirit world), inhabiting a place only known as Outside, beyond the Outer Gates at the very edge of the land of Faerie. They have impossible anatomy and minds, reality tends to break when they're around and they shake off magic like raindrops. Very little is known about them other than that they're Outside, and they want IN.

• He Who Walks Behind/"The Walker": He Who Walks Behind, Lord of Slowest Terror, is a being who's partly responsible for making Harry who he is, when Harry ran away from Justin DuMorne, He Who Walks Behind was summoned to kill him, but Harry defeated and banished him instead (new evidence indicates that he threw the fight on purpose). Has two manifestations, a cloud of razor sharp spikes, and a looming presence that is always behind you, even when your back is touching the wall. He Who Walks Behind is only a title, his real "name" is a psychic impression of pain, hatred, and sadism. He speaks with a British accent
• He Who Walks Before/"Sharkface": He Who Walks Before, Gatebreaker, Harbinger, Feargiver, Hopeslayer, is another Walker like He Who Walks Behind, but he's slightly(and emphasis on slightly) less abstract. He appears as a ragged black cloak beneath a monstrous, eyeless face with fused teeth
• Mistfiend: a creature composed entirely of a substance called mordite, which kills any living being on contact The Mistfiend itself is from the far reaches of the Nevernever and isn't an Outsider. It was however heavily infused with Mordite which is a material from Outside and extremely harmful to anything living in a matter/antimatter kind of way.
• Shoggoth: a creature made out of insanity and the fused bodies of its past victims, it feeds on intelligence and is surrounded by a aura of psychic terror made from the final moments of every single person it has ever swallowed. It is only weak to fire. It's referred to as "the spawn of an Outsider", so it may be some form of Scion, but details are unclear.

Werewolves

A blanket term for a number of magical talents that have wolf-themed capabilities. A bit of exposition made it clear there are four kinds of creatures that can be called werewolves; the non-species specific terminology is Weretherian, but for simplicities sake we'll stick with werewolves for here.

• Werewolves: Mortals who have a minor magical talent for shapeshifting, and learned how to use turn into a wolf at will under their own power. This means they have to learn to properly transform and handle their new body from scratch, but otherwise don't have many of the drawbacks that the other types have. Werewolves are still vulnerable to regular weaponry, so no silver required.
  • Wolfwere: A wolf that has learned how to transform into a man, gaining the power of OPPOSABLE THUMBS. Also note that this is also really rare, because it means that an animal (not from the spirit world) has learned magic, which is almost unheard of.
• Hexenwolves: Mortals who use enchanted items infused with the power of a hunter-killer spirit to shape-shift. This means there is no pesky learning curve to handling their new bodies, but at the same time a spirit of violence and predatory instinct is being let loose inside their skull, slowly turning them into psychotic beasts with little impulse control. Silver not required.
• Lycanthropes: People who channel a spirit of rage. While they don't technically shape-shift; their bodies do undergo minor changes during the full moon, making them harder, better, faster, stronger, and lowering their impulse control as they become more bestial. They are heavily implied to be the descendants of Viking Berserkers. Once again silver is not required, but bring a lot of force.
• Loup-Garou: Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? Well you'd better be scared of this guy. Loup-Garous are the only werewolf variant who have no control over their shape-shifting as they are under a generational curse which forces them to turn into a wolf like demon the size and weight of a small minivan, or large car, during the three days that surround the full moon. This curse has to come from a major heavyweight, like the Faerie Queens or a Demon lord, and is nigh-unbreakable without killing the family line that has been cursed. Loup-Garous are the only form of werewolf vulnerable to silver, and then it has to be silver inherited from a family member, as any other wound will just heal in a matter of seconds, and they are immune to poisons and mental magics.

Types of Magic Users

Like many other settings, the Dresdenverse has many different types of magic users. We're going to go over the human ones here.

• Wizard: you're top of the food chain, as far as mortal magic users go. You can instinctively use magic but you must study and develop your talent to truly excel. You can access almost any type of magic, provided you know enough about it, but your skill in that magic is based on your individual preferences and talents. All wizards have The Sight, which enables them to see the true psychic manifestation of the world around them, letting them see paths of magic and allowing them to see through illusions. Its a double edged sword though, since anything you See will form a memory that will never fade or soften, so if you see the true form of an ancient demon lord or an elder black court vampire, it might drive you insane. Wizards can also engage in Soul Gazes by looking into the eyes of beings with souls, enabling them to grasp the true essence of a person(i.e. their soul). This is completely involuntary and will occur whenever the wizard looks deeply into the eyes of someone. Soul Gazes are a two way street, anyone who is subject to a wizard's soul gaze gets a look into the wizard's soul. Most wizards are in the White Council, since the Council tends to hoard magic knowledge to itself. If you play your cards right, you'll live centuries and amass a tremendous amount of wealth, power, and knowledge. If you play your cards wrong, your charred corpse will probably be lying in a ditch in some part of the NeverNever.
• Warlock: you're a magic user of any level who's broken at least one of the Laws of Magic. Chances are, you didn't know about any Laws and are an unlucky, inexperienced kid who just developed powers. Sadly, your life expectancy has taken a drastic decrease because the Wardens tend to compensate for their low numbers with sheer fanaticism. How unjust, right? WRONG! You've most likely been irrevocably warped by the Black Magic and/or have gone mad with power. In most cases, the only solution is for the Wardens to put you down like the rabid abomination in human skin that you are. If you're a Council member, the Council will probably look the other way if you break the First Law, since you very likely had a good reason and you're mature and experienced enough to avoid any warping. But if you break any of the other Laws, YOU WILL BE PUT DOWN. If you're not a Council member and you're sane and repentant, and someone on the Council vouches for you, then you might, just might, get put under the Doom of Damocles, which is basically parole with the penalty for violation being death. The Doom gets removed when you've proven yourself trustworthy in the eyes of the Council, which you'll be forced to join because they want to keep a close eye on you. If you're sane and unrepentant then you're a fucking whiner who's too self-absorbed to surrender your life for the good of the many. This probably sounds unfair right? "WELL SHUT THE HELL UP AND GROW A FUCKING SPINE! LIFE'S NOT FAIR! FOR EVERY GENUINELY REDEEMABLE WARLOCK, THERE'S AT LEAST TEN GIBBERING MANIACS WHO DESERVE TO DIE!"- inner monologue of the average Warden.
• Sorcerer: you're at best middle management in the magic world. You don't have wizard levels of power, chances are you only really have one or two proficiencies in magic. However, you've managed to supercharge your few skills either through making deals with higher powers or tapping into a source of power like artifacts, places of power, or specific dates and time. You're nowhere near Wizard levels but you can hold you own in a fight. The rest of you power comes from time consuming and often tedious rituals. You don't have a complete understanding of magic but to most sorcerers, it doesn't matter how it works so long as it works. You'll probably get an inflated ego from the power boost, and will lord over the lesser practitioners and vanilla mortals. But Wizards will look down on you for taking the shortcut to power and secretly you'll be afraid that the Wardens will visit one day and show everyone how small you really are.
• Focused Practitioner: you can do one type of magic really, really well. You've honed your gift and learned to use it in ways most people never thought possible. For example, if you learn to shape-shift into a wolf, you might learn to halt the transformation halfway and take on a hybrid form or you could use you shape-shifting to heal your own wounds incredibly quickly. You're inferior to wizards and sorcerers in terms of pure power, but you'll be respected(unlike sorcerers) for the effort you've put into your craft. Wardens might recruit you as auxiliaries and informants.
• Minor Talent: You don't have a lot of power or talent, but you have some. To do do anything really significant, you need the help of other minor practitioners. Most likely, you'll be part of a larger community of small time magic users. You might be part of a group of like minded people who will work together to perform magic for a variety of tasks. Work hard enough and you might become a Focused Practitioner, make the right connections and you might become a Sorcerer.
• Emissary of a Power: like the sorcerer, your power comes from the patronage of another being, likely a demon, spirit, or lesser god. Unlike the sorcerer, you probably don't have any natural talent for magic. You've been bestowed power by your patron in exchange for your allegiance(or the small price of your immortal soul). In most cases, you won't know how this power works and even if you do, you can't recreate it without your patron. Emissaries of a Power only keep their abilities as long as they continue to work for their patron. Depending on the arrangement, you might be forced into a job that lasts a lifetime(or several lifetimes) or your job might just last until next Tuesday. The exact nature of the power you've been granted varies depending on the nature of your patron, an emissary of a spirit associated with fire will have fire powers, etc.
• Chosen of God: you're a member of an extremely select group of people who get their power from God Himself. You didn't decide to become a Chosen, God decided. Your power will leave you when you when His will has been done, as such most Chosen have powers for an extremely short period of time. You'll likely appear in the right place at the right time to do the right thing, guided by divine coincidence or vague yet specifically tailored messages from The Almighty. You can perform some miracles and can ward off evil. Your power is fueled by your faith and inner fortitude.
• True Believer: your faith is so strong that it has supernatural effects. Its debatable whether or not this is really magic, its more like you have a greater than average metaphysical mass/psychic presence as a result of your belief or that your chosen deity has decided to reward you for the strength of your faith. You're not overtly supernatural, you can't cast divine magic or stuff like that, but you can ward off and defend against evil. You seem to be ever so slightly more effective than most when fighting evil; when you give someone or something your blessing, its seems to actually work; when you genuinely pray, your prayers tend to be answered. Like the chosen, your power comes from your faith.

Types of Magic

This is possibly the simplest, and most complicated part of the Dresden Files universe. Magic is basically the ability to move around energy with your will.

At its very heart there are only two types of magic. Evocation, the directing and calling of forces at an instants notice, and Thaumaturgy, ritualistic magic that requires the caster to jump through hoops, taking anywhere from a minute to a day to cast. There's a crapton of overlap though. For example: you can use thaumaturgic links and rituals to supercharge evocation spells.

The problem being there is no one way to cast magic.

Every practitioner is unique in what they need to help them cast (beyond a wizard's staff, but that's agreed symbology). Harry uses a staff, blasting rod, and a Shielding bracelet. Ramirez uses a gauntlet and a staff. Asian wizard might use the trappings of an Onmyogi, a non-traditional caster might use things like bicycle chains or a violin bow based on how they view their magic an the sort of things they cast. Depending on their level of skill, objects might not be required, but they do make things easier for the caster

All this said there are a couple of breakdowns in each "school" of magic.

Note: these schools are not set in stone, depending on the interpretation, there may be a significant amount of overlap. For example, Harry views Ice and Fire magic as basically the same, it's just moving around heat energy.

Another Note: magic will still conform to the laws of physics, if you throw a fireball, you have to put energy into the spell to prevent the heat from expanding and the fireball from dissipating. Essentially, if you want the most bang for your buck, create an interpretation of magic that relies less on belief and more on physics to achieve the desired effect.

Evocation

Evocation, or quick and dirty Ka-Boom magic, is the most commonly found battle magic, and most practitioners in the books follow the ancient Greek philosophy of the classical elements when working such spells. It's not all that complex in what you can do with it, which is the province of Thaumaturgy and its infinitely variable rituals and complexities. A simple definition is: you willed it, it became true. The "schools" below are just the most common and they encompass far more than manipulating the specific "element", the elements are just symbolic placeholder names for the overall systems. As you can see, there's a lot of overlap.

• Aeromancy (Air): speed, change, cold, spirit/mind, lack of physical substance, darkness, electricity, weather, mutability

• Geomancy (Earth): stability, gravity, magnetism, nullification, power, immutability, stasis (something interesting the Fae call mortal technology Ferromancy, which loosely translates out as Iron Magic, sufficiently advanced technology indeed)

• Hydromancy (Water): probability, entropy, mutability, healing, nullification, cleansing, dissipation (It is not known why Hydromancers do not ground out their own magic when they create running water, but according to Bob in the RPG book it's not that difficult, Harry just doesn't get the concept that he's trying to explain )

• Pyromancy (Fire): thermodynamics, cleansing, creating or removing heat, light, death rays, warmth, the sun, explosions

• Kinetomancy (Kinetic energy): pure kinetic force, speed, strength, magnifying the force of your own muscles, pure energy, barriers, nullification, telekinesis (On raw technicality this should be Aether, or Spirit magic, as the basic foundation for this is the classical Greek elements, however Kinetomancy is the major use of Raw Energy in evocation so it works close enough)

Thaumaturgy

Thaumaturgy is mostly ritual based, you can use it to create links between things and use those links to transfer energy. A lot of thaumaturgy can be accomplished without rituals though, rituals just help by providing symbolic form to the connections you are making, a "dotted line" for you to trace the flow of the energy. You can do some of the below on the fly, but it generally requires more mental effort on the part of the caster, you have to substitute rituals and their required materials by mentally making the connections and links.

• Summoning

• Conjuration (different from summoning as it is about the object rather than an entity. SEMANTICS HO)

• Ectomancy (the non-icky version of Necromancy, allowing willing shades to enter your body and give you their skills and knowledge)

• Necromancy

• Probability magic
  • Entropomancy (The art of cursing with bad luck)
  • Fortunamancy (They're always tryin' ta get ahold o' me lucky charms)
  • Hexing (Mortal practitioners have an effect on the world around them which has changed throughout the ages, in the current day Wizard's have a deletrious effect on nearby technology. Hexing is the magic of specifically using this tech-bane to a much greater degree. Can quite literally make computers explode or cause cars to tear themselves apart. This magic isn't Entropomancy as it is a natural ability of all wizards rather than a particular style of magic)

• Divination

• Holomancy (manipulating light to create 'solid' illusions)

• Biomancy (healing and shapeshifting, can also be used to supercharge the psychical body, but the after effects of doing so are particularly nasty, unless you've mastered it to the extent that your body's physiology is altered to be beyond normal human limits)

• Mind Magic
  • Neuromancy (Magic that directly interacts with the BRAIN/NERVOUS SYSTEM) Not that illegal surprisingly, but very dangerous. This is the sort of magic that allows you to overclock your brain to amp up reaction speeds or thinking processes, but the backlash is unbelievable. You can also activate people's pain receptors in combat, making them feel like you did when you broke you leg.
  • Psychomancy (Magic that interacts with the MIND/SOUL/PSYCHE) Very illegal, do not do this at home, or in public, or anywhere. As a note it is not illegal to use psychomancy on non-humans, but because of the way that non-human entities minds work enjoy your never-ending acid trip from the comfort of your new padded room with the fancy white jacket. Psychomancy differs from other types of mind magic in that you're altering the psyche on a long term basis. Removing/creating memories, turning people into thralls, reading unwilling minds.
  • Veils/illusions (making it so that people receive false sensory input or suggestions, so they either see nothing or don't notice you) not illegal

• Teleportation (Not very effective[on account of being really fucking dangerous and diffcult] not even that dangerous or difficult really, energy naturally flows to the point of least resistance so getting trapped in a wall or other telefrag accidents are a severe rarity. It's just easier to walk down the street as teleportation has an absymal range compared to...)

• Worldwalking (The magic of opening portals into the Nevernever and if powerful enough creating Ways)

• Wards (Defensive. The current Merlin specialises in this)

• Item Crafting (The making of Staves, Focus Items, Potions, Enchanted Items, and Charms. Every wizard knows how to do this to some extent)
  • Alchemy (altering substances based on their psychic/metaphysical properties rather than their chemical properties)

• The True Magic (Kemmler's magic system based on necromancy, psychomancy, entropomancy, and the removal of energy from things)

A Note: The game handles the way a player may handle their Thaumaturgy focus in one of two ways. They can either choose to specialise really heavily in one particular type of thaumaturgy (such as divination) or they may choose a thematic specialization (such as Photomancy where they can do Holomancy, divination, viels, teleportation, or anything else so long as there is a LIGHT aspect to what they're trying to do). Thaumaturgy is an inherently flexible and complex style of magic use and trying to lock it down the way other games might would be damaging to the DFRPG games narrative. Play fast and loose with it when you can.

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External Links

• Developers page
• PDF preview