Homunculi in Quasi-Medieval Fantasy TTRPGs
Homunculi in Quasi-Medieval Fantasy TTRPGs
The belief in the existence of homunculi (‘little men’) had its origins in three inter-related strands of classical and medieval natural philosophy and alchemy. First was the ancient Greek notion of spontaneous generation. Aristotle and others observed what seemed to be a process of the emergence of creatures seemingly without any pre-existing living matter. Most famously, it was noted that maggots and other larvae appeared on decaying flesh and fish could emerge in bodies of apparently lifeless water. From the ancient world, this idea was transmitted to medieval Europe. The bestiaries recorded the belief that bees, wasps and hornets appeared from the rotting flesh of horses, donkeys and cows and that fleas grew from motes of dust. Frogs, lice and many other species of insects were said to be the product of such spontaneous generation as a way to explain their seasonal appearance seemingly without any previous existence. Aristotle’s idea had a long life-span and, as late as the 1600s, the Dutch chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont made what appear to be notes for experiments designed to test his hypothesis that mice would be ‘created’ from bundles of rags and grains of wheat while scorpions would be generated from a basil leaf pressed between two stones and left in direct sunlight.
The second strand of thought that underpinned the notion of the homunculus was the doctrine of preformatism - the belief that all living creaures grew from miniscule versions of themselves called animalcules or homunculi. Aristotle had postulated that, in sexual reproduction, male sperm provided the ‘form’ and female uterine blood the ‘matter’ that were required for life. With some modification this idea was bequeathed to the Middle Ages by the work of the classical physician Galen. Until Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was able to examine in detail the structure of male sperm in the later 1600s, the widespread assumption was that sperm consisted of ‘little men’ - homunculi - which encapsulated and dictated the form of progeny. Taken together, from the theories of spontaneous generation and preformatism, it followed that human sperm, when nurtured and provided with the proper condititions of warmth or fermentation and material (frequently blood), could be coaxed into life. However, this was a process of alchemical art rather than simply of nature and so the resulting entity was ‘a creature of art’ rather than ‘a creature of nature’. This difference was what imbued the homunculus with its supernatural powers.
The most famous exponenent of this art was Theophrastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus (c.1493 - 1541). In 1537, in his work De Natura Rerum, Paracelsus recorded his experiment for the creation of an homunculus.
That the sperm of a man be putrefied by itself in a sealed cucurbit (a gourd) for forty days with the highest degree of putrefaction in a warm, fermenting horse dung, or at least so long that it comes to life and moves itself, and stirs, which is easily observed. After this time, it will look somewhat like a man, but transparent, without a body. If, after this, it be fed wisely with the Arcanum of human blood, and be nourished for up to forty weeks, and be kept in the even heat of the horse's womb, a living human child grows therefrom, with all its members like another child, which is born of a woman, but much smaller.
Paracelsus was clearly enormously influenced by the third strand of medieval alchemical thought that had been passed down via the Arabic traditions and arrived in Europe via texts such as the one known originally as the Kitāb al-nawāmīs. This 9th century compilation of magic does not survive in any complete Arabic text, but a 12th century Latin translation of the entire work (of probably dubious fidelity to the original text) survived and copies were circulating in medieval Europe where it later acquired the title Liber Vaccae - The Book of the Cow. The Liber falsely claims its original author was Plato and it evidently owed a great deal both to Arabic alchemical ideas and to classical natural philosophy, although it does not trouble to offer explicit theoretical justifications for the purported wonders it describes. What follows are a series of ‘experiments’ taken from the Liber Vaccae which set out the practical methods of creating homunculi.
The Methods of Creating Homunculi in the Liber Vaccae
The Liber Vaccae contains a number of experiments for creating artificial life using animals and I include one - the pig creature - that is illustrative of these activities. It is an interesting example of the way in which creatures brought about by alchemical art can be endowed with some preternatural gifts, as hinted at by the fact that the pig homunculus can ‘serve’ its creator, which suggests something above animal intelligence. However, in general, I will limit this account to those creatures that are made using human generative material which was the unique feaure of the homunculus proper.
An experiment for an homunculus in the form somewhat of a swine
Build a stout pigsty with a solid roof and such that that no daylight can enter when the sty is closed up. Divide the interior into two equal portions with stout iron bars. Under Capricorn, on the day and at the hour of the Sun, into one half of the sty introduce a sow and, in the other, a boar. Once each day, the swine should be fed with wheat bread soaked in milk - as much as they desire to eat. This must be done for twenty-four consecutive days. On the twenty-fifth day the boar, greatly inflamed with desire for the sow, will emit a great gout of semen that has the appearance and consistency of congealed blood. This substance must be collected and placed in a well-sealed lead container that is buried in fresh, warm, dung that must be added to each day for twenty-four continuous days. When the container is unearthed and opened, it will be found to contain a little creature that must be fed on nothing but nuts and milk for three days before it is extracted from the vessel and can be made to serve the one who nourished the pigs and fed and warmed it.
An experiment for an homunculus in the form of a man
Take a man’s semen and a woman’s menstrual blood and, when both are still warm, seal them in a lead vessel and bury the container in warm animal dung for 21 days. Dig it up, open the vessel and kill all the worms that you will find there. Over these bodies spread your own semen before re-sealing the vessel and burying it for 40 days. After that, unseal the container once more, and you will find there a human form.
Another for an homunculus in the form of a man
Take your own semen and mix it with the gall of a white hawk and - at sunset - insert this substance into the vagina of a female ape, afterwards smearing the ape’s vulva with the blood of a tortoise. Confine the ape in an entirely dark place until it gives birth, feeding it wine and human flesh and blood once every seven days. Prepare a mixture of oak leaves, the leaves of the Indian palm and the gall of a turtle and smear some of this over the new-born creature before confining it to a large clay pot with the remains of the mixture and bury it for 40 days. After that time, you will find the creature has taken on the form of a man, missing only his right foot. If you kill this creature and pluck out its eyes, they can be ground to make a salve that will allow you to see all invisible spirits and demons.
Another for an homunculus in the form of a man
Insert into the womb of a ewe or a cow your own semen, still warm, mixed with powdered quartz and then anoint its vulva with blood - the blood of a ewe if the vessel is of a cow and vice versa. Shut the beast up in a lightless room and feed it every day with wine and wheat mixed with sheep’s or cow’s blood as appropriate. Prepare a paste from an equal amount of powdered sulphur, magnetite and green tourmaline mixed with the sap of the willow tree and, when the animal gives birth, smear this substance all over the infant and it shall straight away take on the form of a human. Place this form in a large glass jar and starve it for three days. Decapitate the mother and feed the infant her blood for seven days while it matures. The creature will possess human reason and be capable of many marvels.
The Powers of Homunculi
The Liber Vaccae and other medieval sources contain methods for creating a number of ‘artificial creatures’ such as the basilisk. What distinguished many (but perhaps not all) homunculi from other kinds of experimental life was their capacity for human reason. The ability to reason - together with the form of its physiology - was held to be contained within semen, which was what made male generative material necessary for their creation. Note, however, that the examples from the Liber Vaccae sometimes expressly state that the creature will be capable of reason and sometimes do not make such a claim. It is therefore possible that some ‘artificial men’ were thought of as semi-intelligent tools or even just an ambulatory buffet of ingredients for other experiments.
The various sources are vague or ambiguous about the maturation process of homunculi. Paraclesus seems to suggest that his creature matures at a more or less natural rate and in much the same way as human children. Although his homunculus is imbued with the latent capacity for preternatural talents, these actually grow over time, perhaps many years. Other instances, including those in the Liber Vaccae, are more ambiguous. Some hint that homunculi are fully developed from the time of their emergence into the world, although they are seemingly often literally ‘little men’ in the sense of being diminuitive in stature. It is interesting to note that the early Arabic sources observed that homunculi were often short-lived and a magician who could keep one alive for more than a year was either very talented or very fortunate. Later tales record that an homunculus had to live its entire life in a sealed glass jar or some other receptacle and would imediately shrivel and die if it was ever exposed to the air.
The specific powers of homunculi are almost never set out in a handy list format as part of the accounts of their creation. Many texts simply refer to the fact that they can work ‘many marvels’. The examples from the Liber Vaccae include one where the creature has to be slain and dismembered in order to allow its creator to use its eyes to craft an elixir to be able to ‘see all invisible spirits and demons’. Another example claims that, after vivisection, the ‘fluids’ of the homunculus can be used to annoint the creator, granting him the power to walk on water. Paracelsus says that ‘from such artificial men, when they come to man’s age, are made pygmies, giants, and other great and monstrous men, who are the instruments of great matters’. This wording suggests an interesting link between the homunculus and the Jewish notion of the ‘artificial man’, the golem. Given the cross-pollination between classical, Arabic, Jewish and European magical traditions, this should not be altogether surprising. Other sources claim that a homunculus can reveal to its creator ‘all things that are absent’, suggesting some species of clairvoyance and perhaps even the power of premonition or prophecy. As late as 1775 an Austrian noble and an Italian priest claimed to have created ten homunculi that they kept in glass jars and which they used to tell the future.
Homunculi and “The World’s Greatest Role-Playing Game”
I am always amazed at the sheer breadth of reading that the authors of AD&D1e must have engaged in, especially in the pre-internet age. It is quite clear that Gary Gygax, in writing the 1e Monster Manual, had read something of the actual history of the creation of homunculi. I quote here the text from that entry.
This creature is created and animated through a special process by a magic-user and an alchemist (described hereafter). The homonculus [sic] travels on its hind legs or by flying. Its bite causes 1-3 points of damage, and forces the victim to save versus magic or fall into a comatose sleep which lasts for 5-30 minutes. The creature makes all of its saving throws at the same level as its creator. Although the homonculus cannot speak, it knows what the magic-user knows, and the latter is able to see and hear through the creatures eyes and ears. There is a telepathic link between the magic-user and his creature, and the homonculus can be controlled up to 48” away from its master. It will never willingly pass from this maximum range. If the homonculus is killed the magic-user immediately suffers 2-20 points of damage.
When a homonculus is desired the magic-user must hire an alchemist, and the latter will require from 1-4 weeks to create fluids for forming the creature. This will cost 1 pint of the magic-user’s blood and 500-2,000 gold pieces. The magic-user must then cast a mending spell, a mirror image, and a wizard eye upon the fluid to form the homonculus.
We notice a couple of things about this description. First, and least interestingly, the reticence of Gygax’s sources or his own sensibilities meant he did not delve too deeply into what ‘fluids’ were needed in the creation process. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, as the scatological details are not to everyone’s taste. Second, it is curious that there is no way for a magic-user to create a homunculus from his own resources. He may be able to stop time or generate wishes, but a wizard will always need the help of an NPC hireling to create a homunculus. This is very strange. It could be that Gygax was assuming that the creation of an homunculus was intended to be an act only carried out by NPCs and perhaps only by evil magicians. However, if that were the case, it is peculiar that any such rubric is never explicitly stated. Further, when looking at the alignment of the creature in the stat block, the entry reads See below, but one searches in vain for any mention of alignment elsewhere in the text. Surely the entry could easily have read something like Alignment: CE, NE, LE (as defined by the magic-user’s alignment) or some such? Third, if it was never meant for PCs to be able to create an homunculus, why go to the trouble of setting out in so much detail the requirements for doing so? Given all of this (and assuming it wasn’t just an editorial oversight) it appears that the original intention was for any magic-user to be able to create a homunculus, subject only to employing an NPC alchemist, the level restrictions implied by the cost in gold or imposed by the mechanical ability to cast the required spells.
By way of comparison, I now quote from the description of the homunculus in the D&D5e Monster Manual.
Shaping a mixture of clay, ash, mandrake root, and blood, one can channel rare ritual magic to create a faithful, squirrel-sized companion.
A homunculus is a construct that acts as an extension of its creator, with the two sharing thoughts, senses, and language through a mystical bond. A master can have only one homunculus at a time (attempts to create another one always fail), and when its master dies, the homunculus dies.
Shared mind. A homunculus knows everything its creator knows, inlcuding all the languages the creator can speak and read. Likewise, everything the construct senses is known to its master, even over great distances, provided both are on the same plane. Functioning as a spy, a scout, an emissary, or a messenger, a homunculus is an invaluable servant for a spellcaster engaged in secret experimentation or adventuring.
We note here a number of continuities. The powers of the creature and the relationship to its creator are retained largely intact. Hit Dice and Armour Class are more or less the same, as is the power of flight and the poisonous quality of the creature’s bite. Since the homunculus is now classified as a construct, the default neutral alignment makes sense. However, although retaining some link to the historically authentic means of creation, this entry is, if anything, less informative about how - mechanically - a honunculus is made. Gone is the requirement to employ an NPC alchemist, the establshment of time-scales, monetary costs and spells that must be cast. The entire process is now reduced to some ingredients and the hand-waving notion of unspecified ‘rare ritual magic’. This lack of specificity perhaps hints that the creation of a homunculus is envisaged to be the province of NPCs and not PCs. Yet here too we have conflicting signals, as the homunculus is described as ‘an invaluable servant for a spellcaster engaged in secret experimentation or adventuring.’ The clear implication of this wording is that it is imagined that player characters should be able to create homunculi, but without any useful guidance on how to do so.
Towards a Mechanic for the Creation of Homunculi
The following discussion employs D&D as the assumed rules’ set simply because it is perhaps the closest we have to a lingua franca of the hobby. Hopefully the terms of what follows are sufficiently clear as to be transposable to other systems.
There are two appoaches one can take to creating a mechanic that underpins the creation of homunculi. First, one can institute a more or less simple Create Hoununculus spell that would allow the magician to make the creature as it is mechanically described in the Monster Manual. I lack sufficent familiarity with all of the moving parts of D&D5e to say with any degree of confidence or precision what level this spell should be pitched at. Personally, I am not convinced that the term ‘rare ritual magic’ necessarily implies that any such spell must be of high level. It seems to me that this language is a hangover from the frankly under-developed notion of the homunculus and the means of its creation from AD&D1e. Some GMs might wish to allow that such a spell would be roughly equivalent to Find Familiar and so allow it as a first level spell; others might consider the homunculus to be of such power and utility as to merit the act of its creation requiring a higher level ritual. A middle way between these ideas would perhaps be to allow that the spell level itself is low, but to impose in game the stringent historical processes needed to create the homunculus (adopting or not the more unpleasant aspects of the process as suits the table’s preferences).
The second approach is more granular and can only really be sketched out in this context. It is clear from the discussion of the ‘real’ creation of homunculi that there was a great deal of, if not disagreement, then at least different opinion on the exact power of a particular homunculus. As mentioned above, some seem to have been imagined to be capable of truly remarkable feats of the arcane, while others were little more than fleshy sacks of ingredients for powers that needed their organs. Given this, GMs will need to consider a number of variables when coming to any conclusions about the parameters for creating homunculi of differing qualities and levels of power.
Physical Statistics - Previous editions of D&D always assume that the homunculus is a small creature and this was generally true of the historical examples also. However, it is worth noting Paracelsus’ claim that these creatures ‘are made pygmies, giants, and other great and monstrous men’. From this one may wish to infer that some homunculi can be created as having the potential to possess very different statistics based on their physiology. One can envisage an homunculus that possesses a size and shape more akin to an ogre or even a giant with an appropriate stat block in terms of Hit Dice, Armour Class, Damage and so on. The term ‘monstrous men’ also leaves a great deal of room for interpretaton, allowing for the possibility of hybrid homunculi that are part human, part animal or monster and with stats and abilities to match.
Conversely, throughout history there was a conception that homunculi were sickly and needed a great deal of care and nurturing to survive. This could be modelled by a commensurate reduction in statistical robustness and perhaps even severe restrictions on their abilty to survive at all outside very specifc conditions - recall that some homunculi were said to wither and die if ever released from their glass jars or lead flasks. Individual GMs will have their own preferences as to whether physical prowess and arcane powers are inversely proportionate qualities or whether a supremely powerful magician can create an homunculus with at once superior physical and mystical capacities.
Arcane Powers - The scale of magical powers of homunculi is also another variable factor. This variation can be simulated in a number of different ways but the core constituent elements can be imagined as a series of spell-like abilities that are then subject to greater or lesser limits on how they are exercised. Thus an homunculus might be able to cast Claivoyance at will or, at lower levels, the power might only be used for a fixed number of times per day, per week or per month. The literature with its grandiloquent references to ‘many marvels’ is a licence for GMs to construct homunculi that possess multiple spell-like abilities. One can imagine a truly powerful creature with the capacity to wield a great many powers modelled on or derived from almost any spell. In principle, there is no reason why an homunculus should not be able to grant its maker a Wish.
Having examined the apotheosis of the art, a few words need to be said about what can be regarded as the more primitive end of the spectrum. There is no doubt that some homunculi were imagined as creations made purely in order to be destroyed or consumed as part of the pursuit of mystic powers. Thus we have the account of the homunculus which is to be butchered and its eyes used in an elixir that granted the power of second sight or that which was to be drained of blood to allow the magician to make an unguent that allowed him to walk on water. Generally, given the hoops that have to be jumped through in order to make an homunculus, it makes intuitive sense that the resulting abilities gained through its destruction should be suitably impressive. Powers of walking on water or flight or second sight and a great many others that the GM could come up with should generally be permanent and of appropriate magnitude.
Mundane Powers - One interesting facet of the medieval idea of the homunculus was that, because it was a creature made by art and not by natural processes, it did not suffer from the limits imposed by nature. Thus homunculi were commonly held to possess superior knowledge of nature and the occult which they did not acquire by learning or study as men must, but rather because they were imbued with it from their very creation. As such, it could be that an homunculus could function as teacher to his master, passing on knowledge of arcane and mundane matters. Mechanically, this could be instantiated as the magician being taught new spells or receiving the benefit of training in a skill or, more narratively, being able to call upon his creation to answer questions.
Of course, homunculi are not subject to the usual demands upon natural creatures for rest or sustenance (at least, not once the process of feeding them during the course of their making was complete). It probably makes sense to grant homunculi immunity from a wide array of ‘natural’ conditions such being poisoned, drowned or asphyxiated and especally generous GMs might allow that flesh that is not natural has some ability to shrug off or reduce more kinetic damage.
Other Consderations - It is passingly interesting to note another change from AD&D1e to D&D5e. In the latter it is expressly stated that no magician can ever create more than a single homunculus at a time. No such limit is found in the 1e material, though it is perhaps gently implied. I do not know why this throttle was put in place - it might be as simple as an affort to maintain some sort of ‘game balance’ - but it is certainly the case that there was no concensus about this limit in the medieval and early modernsource material. There seems to me to be no good reason why a PC magician cannot seek to have a stable of homunculi at his command, the only limitatons being those imposed by the GM in order to secure the level of ‘balance’ desired.