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Categories
Discussion
Main - Rune Quest
RE: Sorcery
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Author:
Tom Cantine
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Time:
07.07.2003 00:57
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Text:
> > > Although I like the 3 way split between Divine, Spirit
> > and
> > > Sorcery and their explanations of the world I do find
> > this
> > > rather restrictive.
It may be restrictive, but not unreasonably so. What I like about it comes from the backstory I've come to understand about the distinctions, and given that backstory it's easy to see exactly WHY a sorcerer would have such a hard time using other sorts of magic directly, and vice versa.
Here's the way I've come to look at it...
...as a shaman:
"The universe is a realm of spirits. The material world we see in our waking selves is a shadow, or a dream, of the spirits who are real. The rocks and trees, the animals and elements, all are spirits as we are. If we learn to speak with the spirits, they can be our allies, or our enemies if we fail to show them proper respect. Take your sword. Do you sense that within its cold metal swells its Bladesharp spirit? Awaken it with the right songs and dances, and it will fight with you, for it thirsts for blood."
...as a priest:
"You gotta serve someone. That's really all there is to it. You DO serve someone, whether you realize it or not. The only difference between worshippers on the one hand and shamans and sorcerers on the other is that we worshippers KNOW who we serve, while the others fool themselves. Look at the sorcerers, who think they work magic themselves. Fact is, it's the deceiver, the devil, who actually creates sorcerous effects, and he does it in such a way as to make sorcerers genuinely believe their power comes from within. So they end up worshipping themselves, not realizing that it is through self-worship that the devil gets his followers. Shamans at least realize that there are spirits larger than themselves, but in their refusal to serve they are doomed to wander aimlessly in the spirit world, never finding their true purpose. And ultimately, they fall into a trap very similar to that of the sorcerers: self-worship. In essence, ALL magic is actually divine magic. It's just that some gods dress their magic up differently to fool their followers. I'd rather follow a god who is honest up front."
...as a sorcerer:
"Yes, there do seem to be a lot of spirits and gods, don't there? I can understand why it would look that way, because in fact it's SUPPOSED to look that way. Let me explain. Magic is one of the forces that govern the universe according to certain basic and only partially understood laws. Magical forces are unique in that they are directly manipulated by, and to a large extent generated by, minds. That means that the state of the minds manipulating and generating them plays an important role in magical effects, and that includes belief. Very strong beliefs can produce very strong magical effects. Consider ghosts, for example. If you believe strongly enough that your 'soul' is immortal, you can generate a self-sustaining magical energy pattern which will reverberate in the ether, like an echo, even after the brain in which it was spawned has disintegrated. Rarely, however, will this echo have the same complexity as the original, which is why ghosts tend to be less adaptible. Well, spirits and gods are similar effects. If you get enough people focussing their belief on the same object or idea, and practicing the same rituals, eventually they will generate an entity which is exhibits properties consistent with most of their rituals. In essence, a god is a big spell cast by a bunch of sorcerers who believe they're worshipping something that already had independant existence. I could do the same thing, assuming of course I could delude myself into believing that wasn't what I was actually doing. Heh heh. Anyway, spirits and gods are just spells, and with study, you can take them apart and duplicate parts of them. Take the spell shamans call Bladesharp. Sorcerers have managed to isolate the effect which causes the blade to cut deeper, which we cast as Damage Boost. Making the blade strike more accurately is difficult without invoking a false belief in a sword spirit, but we can do something like that by Enhancing the strength and dexterity of the wielder."
Each theory of magic is self-contained, and explains not only its own effects but the effects of the other magical practices. Each theory also makes the other practices cognitively inconsistent, or at least morally repugnant. In principle, a shaman COULD use sorcery or worship a god, but to do so would make it virtually impossible to continue the respectful dialogue with spirits that drives shamanistic magic. Priests in fact DO often use spirit magic, but it is a limited sort involving only those sorts of minor spirits which are also in service of the same god. In principle, a priest could use other spirit spells, but such spirits are very reluctant to get involved with gods and their followers. Priests have a very hard time getting the deceiver devil of sorcerers to grant them sorcerous spells, presumably because the devil knows he can't fool the priests and won't bother trying. Meanwhile, Sorcerers can't directly use spirit or divine magic because they "know" what it's "really" made of, and can't convince themselves that spirits and gods are real without ceasing to understand sorcerous reality.
Of course, if any character in my game universe were to find a way to reconcile these different world views, I'd be willing to let them use multiple magic forms to the extent of the reconciliation. But I don't think I'd just let a mage study a little bit of divine magic and a little bit of sorcery, dabbling in each area, for flexibility's sake. If you really want to have a character able to use more than one kind of magic, spell matrices are the way to go. Sorcerers are perfectly comfortable with such things; shamans might be a little uncomfortable with sorcerous matrices, but still able to use them. Sort of like a vegan finding a leather jacket: he might be horrified at the exploitation involved in creating the jacket, but recognize that at present there's nothing he can do to help the animal, and admit that in the present emergency it's wear this or nothing. And a priest could use the sorcerous matrix with caution: "Go ahead, devil. Make this magic effect happen, and just try to make me believe it's my doing. You won't fool me, but I'll be happy to accept the effect of your spell anyway."
(Sorry this message is so long. As I was writing it, my wife got a phone call, and we have dial-up access, so I figured I might as well keep on typing...)
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Message threads
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Author: |
Time: |
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Peter Beirne
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17.02.2003 20:28
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Bjorn Are Stolen
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19.02.2003 02:25
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Tom Cantine
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19.02.2003 05:49
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19.02.2003 09:36
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Peter Beirne
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19.02.2003 20:23
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Brian Newman
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13.05.2003 23:24
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Garyth Den
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04.06.2003 16:16
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05.06.2003 07:48
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Bjorn Are Stolen
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05.06.2003 12:22
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Tom Cantine
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07.07.2003 00:57
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