Grimoire: A Solo Journaling RPG of Immense Power - Review
Have you ever wanted to create a truly magical book? A book of real power, a book with a history and a legend? A book someone struggled to write, a book where someone may have died writing, a book someone was killed for? You do that and more with Grimoire.
I, The Wanderer Vizamur, a great and powerful wizard has been commissioned by my friend Count Slumma to create a new and powerful spell book. I do admit that I am apprehensive about this work, as others have set out to tap into the words of power and they have all failed. All that was found of them was dust, ash, and burnt hair. Count Slumma has faith in me, he knows I can do it and I believe him, never mind he’s sponsored a few other wizards who have failed in dramatic fashion.
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| The Wanderer Vizamur crafting his Grimoire. Created by me using Disco Diffusion. |
Grimoire is a solo journaling RPG where you play as a wizard attempting to conduct dangerous and powerful magical research. The ultimate goal is to create a Grimoire, a book of spells and glyphs. But it will not be easy. There are rivals who will stop at nothing to take your research for their own. The spells themselves are deadly and unpredictable, and the very act of researching and building spells may lead to your doom!
Grimoire was created by Australian game designer The Bardic Inquiry, just last year. Check out their blog here and their Itch.io page here. Grimoire also won best Rule System 2021 at the Australian Role-Playing Industry Award.
Coming home from the Red Dragon tavern, ahead of me I see a figure swaying and stumbling. Another drunk on the street, nothing worth noting. But then I see a sparkle, a shine of blue robes. A wizard! One of us! The wizard continues to make its way through the city and I’m ashamed to say I follow. Why? I do not know. As the wizard approaches their house, they retrieve a key from their robe and drop something. They do not notice it when they unlock the door and slam it shut. I quickly scramble over and grab it. Now to figure out how this can help my research…
Character Creation
Grimoire starts out normally for any TTRPG, you create a character, give them values and goals, and then create bonds for them, rivals and friends. I created The Wanderer Vizamur, whose ultimate goal is to communicate with the great old ones who created this world. I created a mentor, Gul-Golorath the Wise who often shows me the way, a rival Balnok the Red, who sees through me, and a shadowy figure who is out for my blood. Who hired him?
There are three resources:
Coin - This is the wealth you use to undertake quests or prevent consequences.
Wounds - This is the physical, emotional, and mental strain on your wizard.
Corruption - All magic comes at a price and that price is corruption. If your corruption becomes too high, you have become lost.
A knight in a dark amour prevented me from entering a strange alley. He was missing many limbs, too many to make his life viable anymore. Yet he lived, and he spoke to me. He told me this alley was not for me, that another wizard has staked their power here and I was unwelcome. What undying power has infected this poor knight I asked. He just shrugged and told me to move on, this time with more force and with his hand on his sword…
How it Plays
The gameplay loop works simply, pick an action, draw a card or number of cards, build your spell if you can, and respond to the prompt by writing in your journal. You can consort with a friend or foe, Discover a magical artifact that can be used to create a new spell for your Grimoire, Heal yourself of wounds, Perform manual labour for money, Quest out into the world to support your studies, or conduct research into your spells.
Most of those actions will have you draw one or more cards from your deck. Cards will correspond to a prompt in the gamebook and you can respond to the prompts to give the story of the creation of the Grimoire to life. The game will also have you hunting down words of power and drawing mystical glyphs. By the end of your game, the journal should be taking on the look of a mystical tome.
The clergy never understand. They think magical research is an affront to the gods. They know nothing! I’m working to speak with the gods, to commune with them, and to know them. Just because it is a so-called Holy Day does not mean my research can stop! I continued on anyway, I won’t stop for any mortal.
How does the Game End?
The game can end in a few different ways. A prompt can say “The Game Ends” and it is over. These are uncommon and will come up only later in the game. Your wizard can die from acquiring too many wounds, as would any mortal. Your wizard can acquire too much corruption and become lost, or you can complete your Grimoire.
A completed Grimoire holds three spells, its words of power and a magical glyph. After it is created this book of magic and secrets could be interjected into any fantasy RPG you may be playing in the future and really give your players a magical artifact with a deep history and strong power.
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| A completed Grimoire is a powerful thing. Created by me using Disco Diffusion. |
My quest for secrets has brought me deeper and deeper into this underground laboratory. An old wizard still haunts this place, I can feel the magic radiating from the walls and the floors. Before I know it, I am grabbed by a golem of stone and dirt. I am dragged and dragged until I am flung into a small cavern. The golem covers the entrance with rocks and I cannot get out. My candles run short and it is only a matter of time before they go out and my air is spent. I write this last entry so that the one who stumbles on me can carry forth my research. It must be completed…
Who is this game for and should I buy it?
Do you like dark fantasy, spells, magic, the occult, and discovering secrets? Grimoire will allow you to craft the book of spells that other RPGs just seem to ‘have’ as an item. If you ever wondered who the wizard was that created powerful magics, this game is for you.
Do you like games where you need to carefully think and consider your next move? Grimoire is a game of choices. You are low on money, do you do some manual work that will waste your research time? You need to speak to a friend, but will a foe appear instead? You are already corrupted, with a withered hand and burnt face, do you continue to push deeper into magical research? You must make all those choices.
Do you like Journaling or Journaling games like Thousand-Year Old Vampire? No brainer, buy this book and be inspired by the prompts, of which I shared a sample during this review.
Do you like creating a rich backstory for the items in your traditional RPG games? Grimoire will allow you to create an item that can be more than a MacGuffin in your next campaign, a REAL book of power and magic, not just a plot hook.
And do you want to support an awesome indie creator? Of course, you do!
Hopefully, you’ve stopped reading by now because you’ve gone to buy the book on Itch.io or DriveThruRPG already and you are already deep into character creation. If so, I wish you the best of luck and I do hope you do not succumb to madness.
And if you want more magic books and mystical energy, try out Grimoire: A Crack in the Earth at Itch.io or DriveThruRPG. It’s a new supplement with expanded content and optional rules!
Oh and give The Bardic Inquiry a follow on Twitter or Itch.io. Do it for me.
If you want to read some more journaling RPGs check out my Tavern at the End of the World one-shot!
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- Croaker
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