Buffy Spell Conversions

Obviously, my version of Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG is different from Rules-As-Written, so I'm not concerned with warping some vision of the game with rather admittedly staid versions of spells from the 5.1 SRD_CC or any other source. The careful consideration and choice of spells you include makes all the difference in your world and especially your magic system, and that's what I am doing here. 

Many of the spells in the game were taken from the TV show, where they were usually just a convenient plot device. Thus, we get a lot of spells along the lines of "Tara's Spell for Finding Lost Items" instead of a simple "Locate" spell, which is way more important for our purposes than Tara's nifty little ditty that came in handy at just the right moment in that one episode in which it was featured.

I also need to know which spells are found in which books and where those books are usually located or can be found. Some will be relegated to libraries, others to more important repositories, and still others to the black market. Knowing where to find these spells is half the trouble of being able to use them. Angel/Buffy has a great Quality called Occult Library which really helps pare things down.

Of course, a lot of these more personal types of spells are to be found in college notebooks, Trapper Keepers, diaries, and similar places. They may be more specific, less utilitarian, spells but they are often harder to find, making the more generic ones... more generic. A single session or even campaign could hinge around finding and using one of these very specific spells that are included with a lot of the official reading material.

Just knowing that some of these spells exist in my BtVS world - which extends well into the Medieval Ages, and languishes on through the Victorian Age - is enough detail to influence certain decisions. While this works for me as GM, learning the different spells that exist in my world is useful to players, as well.

© The Weirding, 2025