The Pharmakis
A working in progress: the circle drawn, the smoke rising, the debt already accruing before the craft is even finished. The Magic Circle, John William Waterhouse, 1886. Tate Britain, London (N01572). Public domain.
Φαρμακίς: “witch,” “one who works with pharmaka.” The root pharmakón: drug, herb, poison, remedy, magic — the substances and practices of working. Hecate as Pharmakis is queen of those who make things happen. The word survives, stripped of its original meaning, in every pharmacy.
Also called: the Entangled, the Worker, the Crafter. Common parlance: Witch, Sorcerer, Practitioner.
The Working threshold is the most broadly understood of the five, and also the most frequently misunderstood.
You crossed through an act of making. Not knowing, not travelling, not persisting, not raging; doing. You performed a working of sufficient significance that the act itself constituted a crossing, and you passed through it. The bargain was in the doing. The cost is in the entanglement.
What this means, practically: you never stop working. Not in the sense that you are always performing craft. You may go days without an intentional act of magic., but the workings you have performed do not end when you stop performing them. They leave traces. They incur debts. They are seen by things that recognise the footprint of craft, and those things have not forgotten.
The distinction from the Phosphoros matters. The Phosphoros crossed through revelation: something showed them what they could not have found otherwise, and the seeing changed them. You crossed through action. You made something happen, and the making is what changed you. The Phosphoros knows. You do. Their condition is what they cannot stop seeing. Yours is what you cannot stop owing.
You are a witch in the oldest sense of the word: a person who works. Your tools may be herbs, or words, or will, or code, or music, or something harder to name. The Sanctuary uses the word Pharmakis from Hecate’s title as patron of those who work with pharmaka; the materials and practices of magic. But the etymology matters less than the experience: you make things happen. The price of what you make comes due.
Background Options
- You learned from someone who did not tell you the full price. You are not certain whether this was cruelty, mercy, or simple ignorance.
- You made something you needed desperately. It worked. You are still paying for it.
- You have been a practitioner for years — careful, methodical, deliberate. The threshold crept up on you. The working that crossed it was not the most ambitious you had ever attempted.
- Someone came to you for help and you provided it. You do not regret this. The cost is yours alone to bear.
- You were taught formally, in a tradition with names for what it costs and methods for managing the debt. The methods are helping. The debt is still accumulating.
- You made the bargain by accident: a working that went further than intended, a word that carried more weight than you knew, an act performed in desperation that was, technically, a crossing.
- You crossed deliberately, knowing what it meant. You had done the research. You made your choice with open eyes. This does not make the geas easier to carry. It simply means you cannot claim you weren’t warned.
Pharmakis Abilities
You gain all of the following benefits:
- Able to take two more minor wounds and one more moderate wound
- Add +2 to Might Pool
- Add +2 to Intellect Pool
- Add +1 Edge in Pool of your choice (Intellect recommended)
- Cypher limit increased by 1 (to 3 total)
- Freely use light weapons
- Freely use light armor
- At tier 3 and tier 6, choose an ability from the Sanctuary Genre Abilities list
Sense the Working: You detect active workings, residual craft, and magical footprints within immediate range. You know whether magic has been performed in this space recently, its general nature (binding, harm, transformation, communication), and its approximate age. You can also detect the entanglement signature of nearby Pharmakis; the specific texture of accumulated craft-debt has a recognisable weight. Enabler.
Lore of the Craft: You are trained in magic lore. When you encounter a magical effect, creature, or object, you may attempt to identify its mechanism: a difficulty 2 Intellect task reveals its general function; a difficulty 4 task reveals its specific mechanism and, if applicable, how to unbind or counter it. This is craft knowledge, earned through practice, not revelation. At tier 3, you can also determine who made it and approximately when. Enabler.
Hedge Working (2+ Intellect): You perform a working; a purposeful act of craft that produces a defined effect (healing, harm, concealment, binding, communication, or another function the GM approves). The working takes at least one minute and requires a material component, a spoken element, or a specific physical gesture that is part of your method. The details are yours to define, but they must exist. The effect is equivalent to a level 2 cypher. Using this ability advances the Geas by 1 state. Effort: Each additional level of Effort raises the equivalent cypher level by 1, to a maximum of 5. Action (takes one minute).
Pharmakis Equipment Bundle
A working kit containing the tools of your practice: herbs, materials, instruments, or whatever form your craft takes; a grimoire, journal of workings, or equivalent record; appropriate clothing; something that represents a debt you have already paid, so you know what payment feels like; and currency enough to restock what you have used.
Or assemble your own: appropriate clothing, one expensive item, five moderately priced items, six inexpensive items, and currency equivalent to a moderately priced item.
The Geas: The Entanglement
Every working leaves a thread. The Geas tracks the weight of accumulated debt.
Trigger: The Geas advances by 1 state each time you use Hedge Working, perform a significant working outside of combat, or deliberately bind or call upon a supernatural entity.
State 0 — Clear: No pressing debts. Your workings are your own, and the things that notice craft have not fixed their attention here. No penalties.
State 1 — Noticed: Things have started to pay attention. Your craft has created a footprint that others in the supernatural world can sense. Tasks to avoid the notice of magical practitioners or supernatural entities are hindered. Conversely, tasks to gather information from the supernatural world are eased — you have become easy to find, and the traffic flows both ways.
State 2 — Owed: A debt has accumulated past the point of politeness. Something is owed and knows it. Your first Hedge Working each scene costs 1 fewer Intellect point (minimum 1). The owed energy is available, on loan. However, tasks to refuse requests from supernatural entities are hindered: they have leverage, and they know it.
State 3 — Collected: A debt is being called in. Something has arrived to collect. The GM introduces this complication into the current scene: a spirit, a practitioner, a consequence, or something with a claim you cannot simply ignore. You cannot advance the Geas further until this collection is resolved: by payment, negotiation, or flight. The Geas returns to State 2 after resolution.
Relief: Pay a debt. This requires a deliberate, acknowledged act of payment proportional to what was owed: a ritual of formal acknowledgment, a significant expenditure of resource points, a working performed entirely for someone else at real cost to yourself, or accepting a narrative consequence the GM offers. The act must constitute genuine payment, not deferral. Drops the Geas by 1 state.
Cypher Manifestation Styling
Pharmakis styling for Cypher Manifestation will be detailed in the Sanctuary Manifestation Guide. Provisional: styling expresses as material, craft-based, and transactional. The working requires something. It produces something. The exchange is visible to those who know how to look.
See also: The Axiomata, Character Foci, Character Types, The Phosphoros