BoM/TWS/SB Wiki

Magic: Sigils

A sigil (in Book of Masks, at least) can be thought of as a kind of computer program. It is a set of instructions that, when executed, causes a change in the state of the world. In BoM, the change is typically the creation of a magical object.

As a set of instructions, a sigil must be thought of as having a syntax (a set of symbols), a grammar (rules for putting the symbols together correctly) and a semantics (the meanings of the symbols and of their combinations). A sigil, really, is just a string of sentences written in a different alphabet and language.

Making a sigil, however, is itself a magical undertaking. Copying a sigil from a spell book does not result in a sigil. It only results in a drawing of a sigil. Think of the difference between a cat and a drawing of a cat. That is the same difference as between an actual sigil and a hand-drawn copy of the sigil.

To make a sigil, begin on a clean, unlined piece of paper. Draw a box. Within the box, inscribe a pentagram. Touch the center of the pentagram with your fingertip and say the magic word: Biztrekon-gatuta-e! If you have done it incorrectly, nothing will happen and you will have to try again. But if you have done it correctly, the pentagram will disappear, leaving only the box. The sigil must be drawn within the box.

As you must begin a sentence with a first word, then add subsequent words to it, so too a sigil must begin with a symbol to which other symbols are added. The "language" of sigils does not contain nearly as many basic symbols as languages have words, but it does have a large number. Among these are symbols denoting the Empedoclean elements (earth, air, fire, water) and Empedoclean powers (love, strife); the signs of the zodiac (Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius); the signs of the planets (Sun, Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto); the humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile, phlegm); atoms (all elements of the periodic table); numbers (in principle any number can have its own sign; in practice only one thru twelve do); the arithmetic operators (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division); logical operators (negation, conjunction, disjunction). There are command symbols for executing operations and tenses for executing them at the correct times and in the correct order. There are others, but the preceding are enough to give a sense of the scope.

Sigils are created from symbols, but they are not created sequentially upon a page. Rather, they are created sequentially within the bounding box. Two symbols are placed within the bounding box (they may touch or overlap), and then a third symbol (one used to force a combination) is made, which causes the two symbols to combine into a new one. There is a physical change -- the ink will twist and flow into a new shape, So, if placing the symbols "F" and "L" into a charged bounding box, and combining them, both those symbols will vanish and be replaced with a new one: "XZ". New symbols can be added to this one, with the metamorphoses following on each other until the inscription is complete, at which point the addition of a final "closing" symbol will seal the sigil.

When the sigil is completed and sealed, the resulting symbol will (like a blossoming flower) unfold on the page into the kind of sigil seen in BoM: A double-rimmed wheel with symbols written along the edges of the inner and outer rims, and between them. (The bounding box will vanish, and sigil may or may not be larger than the area of the box.) Many of these symbols may (or may not) recapitulate those used to make the sigil.

One consequence of this is that the meaning of a symbol depends not upon its shape but upon the manner in which it was crafted. For instance, a symbol "RR" might mean one thing when inscribed within a bounding box, but it might mean something completely different if it is a metamorphosis resulting by combining the symbols "TY" and "SV".

Returning to the computer language metaphor: The sigil is a step-by-step set of instructions, and if it is not crafted correctly it may (like a buggy computer script) result in unexpected and undesirable effects. Faulty sigils should be burned.