Sorcery?
Sorcery?
I wonder if Almea contains any kind of magic, or of sorcery, that can be performed by uest??
And if yes, how its occurrence is explained?
And if yes, how its occurrence is explained?
Sé da o• dáire an gudd’ a• ráilla. Hal’ tso tsoissan i• théinn’ an chursad ton.
(Fate is like a gorilla in a cage – it throws dung at you if you mock it)
(Fate is like a gorilla in a cage – it throws dung at you if you mock it)
Sometimes, if the Powers feel like cooperating.Waldkater wrote:Does Almean magic work successfully?
Just to explain, for newer readers... I'm annoyed by some contemporary treatments of magic in fantasy-- treating it as a reliable form of technology. To me that makes it a dishonest form of science fiction: if magic lets you light the streets and institute a cargo service, you just advance to the modern era in a different way, and you shouldn't keep all the other accoutrements of fantasy-- the kings and knights and castles.
To me, magic should be something numinous-- spiritual rather than scientific. I've essentially borrowed my solution from Ariosto: magic is actually requests made of sentient supernatural powers... superior beings that have their own agenda. They may indulge their pets a bit, but there is a price to be paid, and they certainly can't be ordered around or turned into a business.
- Space Dracula
- Lebom
- Posts: 111
- Joined: Wed Nov 19, 2003 8:10 pm
- Location: Austin fuckin Texas
- Contact:
Yes sir!zompist wrote:Sometimes, if the Powers feel like cooperating.Waldkater wrote:Does Almean magic work successfully?
Just to explain, for newer readers... I'm annoyed by some contemporary treatments of magic in fantasy-- treating it as a reliable form of technology. To me that makes it a dishonest form of science fiction: if magic lets you light the streets and institute a cargo service, you just advance to the modern era in a different way, and you shouldn't keep all the other accoutrements of fantasy-- the kings and knights and castles.
To me, magic should be something numinous-- spiritual rather than scientific. I've essentially borrowed my solution from Ariosto: magic is actually requests made of sentient supernatural powers... superior beings that have their own agenda. They may indulge their pets a bit, but there is a price to be paid, and they certainly can't be ordered around or turned into a business.
I'm wanting to compile a list of annoying and clich?d things that pop up in conworlds.
<Dudicon> i would but you're too fat to fit in my mouth!!
Oh well, I guess you won't be very interested in my work then; that's a pretty succinct summary of the basic principles of my conworld. I think it makes for a beautifully improved storyline to be able to have modern and even better-than-modern lifestyles without having to worry about technological progress (since magic is pretty much static).zompist wrote:Just to explain, for newer readers... I'm annoyed by some contemporary treatments of magic in fantasy-- treating it as a reliable form of technology. To me that makes it a dishonest form of science fiction: if magic lets you light the streets and institute a cargo service, you just advance to the modern era in a different way, and you shouldn't keep all the other accoutrements of fantasy-- the kings and knights and castles.
Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey says:
Depends on how you did it, really. Technologized magic is basically equivalent to science fiction with new physical laws. If it works as a s.f. world, great. It's the combination with standard medievalism, D&D style, that I think is cheap.Mercator wrote:Oh well, I guess you won't be very interested in my work then; that's a pretty succinct summary of the basic principles of my conworld. I think it makes for a beautifully improved storyline to be able to have modern and even better-than-modern lifestyles without having to worry about technological progress (since magic is pretty much static).
- Aurora Rossa
- Smeric
- Posts: 1138
- Joined: Mon Aug 11, 2003 11:46 am
- Location: The vendée of America
- Contact:
Might it have had something to do with the fact that Almea was originally concieved as a D&D setting?Eddy the Great wrote:Why did you decide to add magic?
con quesa- firm believer in the right of Spanish cheese to be female if she so chooses
"There's nothing inherently different between knowing who Venusaur is and knowing who Lady Macbeth is" -Xephyr
"There's nothing inherently different between knowing who Venusaur is and knowing who Lady Macbeth is" -Xephyr
It does; so the question isn't really why I added magic, but why I left it in. And the answer, more or less, is that there was never any reason not to. Fantasy goes well with magic, just as rationalism goes well with science fiction. The Almeans themselves would believe in magic, anyway; and it's more interesting if they're sometimes right than if they're always wrong.con quesa wrote:Might it have had something to do with the fact that Almea was originally concieved as a D&D setting?Eddy the Great wrote:Why did you decide to add magic?
- So Haleza Grise
- Avisaru
- Posts: 432
- Joined: Fri Sep 13, 2002 11:17 pm
Good call... the Cuzeians trusted in their god(s) and viewed other forms of magic as idolatry. The modern Eledhi are distrustful of magic as well.So Haleza Grise wrote:Is there any nation or grouping on Almea that, for one reason or another, does *not* make use of magic? Did the Cuezians?
In a pre-modern society there is a good deal of what we'd call magical thinking-- e.g. in herblore or alchemy-- but which the participants wouldn't call magic.
Actually, it's always struck me as missing the point a little bit when someone asks if magic "works" in a given consetting. I mean, I know what they're getting at, but at the same time a big reason belief in magic (or "magical thinking") persists in our world is that it's not possible to prove that said belief is always wrong -- so it's a bit misleading to ask if magic "works" in someone's world as thought it's self-evident that it doesn't "work" in ours. Belief in magic is non-falsifiable, just like any supernatural belief (though in our age, like a lot of supernatural beliefs, it does often try to dress itself up as "science" for the sake of intellectual prestige).Drydic_guy wrote:Just so people know...herblore is quite useful, and yes, it does work, if you know how to do it right (not me).
Oh THAT'S why I was on hiatus. Right. Hiatus Mode re-engaged.
- zmeiat_joro
- Sanci
- Posts: 35
- Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2003 3:02 pm
- Location: Bulgaria
- Contact:
- Drydic
- Smeric
- Posts: 1652
- Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2002 12:23 pm
- Location: I am a prisoner in my own mind.
- Contact:
I think I agree with you...my mind is a bit mushy right now, so I'm not entirely sure what you mean in a couple places. I'll re-read it tomorrow, it'll make more sense then.ils wrote:Actually, it's always struck me as missing the point a little bit when someone asks if magic "works" in a given consetting. I mean, I know what they're getting at, but at the same time a big reason belief in magic (or "magical thinking") persists in our world is that it's not possible to prove that said belief is always wrong -- so it's a bit misleading to ask if magic "works" in someone's world as thought it's self-evident that it doesn't "work" in ours. Belief in magic is non-falsifiable, just like any supernatural belief (though in our age, like a lot of supernatural beliefs, it does often try to dress itself up as "science" for the sake of intellectual prestige).Drydic_guy wrote:Just so people know...herblore is quite useful, and yes, it does work, if you know how to do it right (not me).
At least in terrestrian cultures there's a close connection, because the people performing any magic or sorcery are the same that studied herblore. Imagine any clich? of an Indianish medicin-man or Mongolian shaman, or of an European medieval witch. At daytime she collects humpbackedly herbs, and at night she brews a green, whirling potion in her kettle. That's all because of the common idea that some herbs and plants possess magical power, maybe due to their actual medical power.zmeiat_joro wrote:I don't see how herblore is connected to magic.
Sé da o• dáire an gudd’ a• ráilla. Hal’ tso tsoissan i• théinn’ an chursad ton.
(Fate is like a gorilla in a cage – it throws dung at you if you mock it)
(Fate is like a gorilla in a cage – it throws dung at you if you mock it)
Incidentally, does anyone know to what extent common terms like "witch-doctor" and "medicine man" are accurate translations of the terms in Amerindian or African cultures?Waldkater wrote:That's all because of the common idea that some herbs and plants possess magical power, maybe due to their actual medical power.
Oh THAT'S why I was on hiatus. Right. Hiatus Mode re-engaged.
- zmeiat_joro
- Sanci
- Posts: 35
- Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2003 3:02 pm
- Location: Bulgaria
- Contact:
Ah, so this herblore you're talking about is not what I thought. I meant more like popular pre-modern-biological-science, derived-from-experience medicine. What you described sounds to me like it belongs to a really young culture that's just starting to develop that.
<WurdBendur> Nae, why are you trying to sterilize maggot eggs?
"Derived-from-experience medicine" probably goes back to remote prehistory and has been a part of "magical" herblore for almost all of recorded history. The practice of vaccination was derived from a folk-cure used by Turkish peasant matrons.zmeiat_joro wrote:Ah, so this herblore you're talking about is not what I thought. I meant more like popular pre-modern-biological-science, derived-from-experience medicine.
Oh THAT'S why I was on hiatus. Right. Hiatus Mode re-engaged.
- vohpenonomae
- N'guny
- Posts: 91
- Joined: Sat Nov 02, 2002 4:23 am
That's my own view as well; treating magic like a science robs it of mystery and mythic power. I was particularly annoyed by Holly Lisle's article that suggests the only good way to approach magic is to create an absolutely defined "system" for it, with hard and fast rules; she may like that kind of thing, but it bores the hell out of me.zompist wrote:To me, magic should be something numinous-- spiritual rather than scientific.
"On that island lies the flesh and bone of the Great Charging Bear, for as long as the grass grows and water runs," he said. "Where his spirit dwells, no one can say."
- Salmoneus
- Sanno
- Posts: 3197
- Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2004 5:00 pm
- Location: One of the dark places of the world
I think that in some way's she is right. After all, having hard and fast rules does not prohibit a mystical or numinous approach to magic - as long as its consistent. If you, as the narrator, don't know what it can and can't do, and when it does or doesn't do something, then it just turns into a plot device to enable you to pull gods out of the machine of magic.
Even if its just "the will of the gods", you should have an idea of what the gods are like, what sort of requests they answer and what they refuse, and what sort of prices they exact.
EDIT: I did NOT just write "write" in place of "right". I go to Oxford. I have an A at English A-level. I won my school's English prize. I DID NOT just write "write" instead of "right". I didn't. Any evidence you may have seen to the contrary was a figment of your imagination. A hallucination. Begone, hallucinations of hideous error, begone!
Let's move along now. Nothing to see here.
Even if its just "the will of the gods", you should have an idea of what the gods are like, what sort of requests they answer and what they refuse, and what sort of prices they exact.
EDIT: I did NOT just write "write" in place of "right". I go to Oxford. I have an A at English A-level. I won my school's English prize. I DID NOT just write "write" instead of "right". I didn't. Any evidence you may have seen to the contrary was a figment of your imagination. A hallucination. Begone, hallucinations of hideous error, begone!
Let's move along now. Nothing to see here.
Blog: [url]http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/[/url]
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!