eric__s
ass hater
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2011
- Messages
- 2,301
Hey, sorry if this is hijacking your topic or whatever, if you want I could make a new thread for this but I've been thinking about some of the things I read in this topic and a really good post by CappenVarra and have had a few ideas. I think your goal with making magic divine was to limit it and I kind of want to take this further. What if divine magic was only capable of being used by avatars of gods - people literally like Jesus and Buddha, people chosen by gods and enlightened to the point where they're capable of altering reality by channeling the god's power?
But this sort of requires that we define "god". I think the standard D&D gods, built on Greek and Norse models, are pretty boring. They're boring because they're endowed with human qualities - they're exceptionally powerful people with worldly agendas. The problem is that we understand them. I understand why they do certain things and why they're involved in the world and what they're trying to accomplish, and this makes the difference between god and mortal less drastic and meaningful. I'd like to see gods less as people and more as cosmic forces, inexplicable powers that govern (or not?) the universe and aren't attached to mortal politics or ideals or goals or even worlds. A god could look at a world or worshipper with the same nonchalance as a person flipping through channels on TV. Gods may or may not even be sentient things. The point, though, is that people don't understand them and don't attach the same human values to them. If there's a god of war, it's because the way humans interact with this god is through warfare. Warfare could just be one aspect of this god, or not an aspect at all and merely a means of communication. By giving gods domains (war, fire, chaos, whatever) we also give them agendas and purposes and I want to avoid that. The less we're able to understand how gods work, the better.
People with divine powers have a connection with gods but I don't think they should be able to use their powers at whim. Maybe these powers are accessed with the system of self-mutilation I talked about earlier, or through ritual or cannibalism or asceticism or who knows what. I also don't think they should be capable of doing whatever they want, too. Magic is something they can create and practice, but not fully control or understand. I've always liked Gandalf because he wasn't a character who went around throwing fireballs or creating golems or whatever, he was just an exceptionally wise and willful person who could control forces that other people couldn't understand. Maybe this is how divine magic users could be.
But I also think there should be magic unattached to divinity. I like the idea of shamans with clairvoyant and mystic powers that don't immediately manifest themselves. Do you remember how in King of Dragon Pass, you could never be sure if your magic was ever actually doing anything and if you sacrificed before a battle that you won, you weren't sure if you won because of your magic or because of your skill? Ritual magic learned through asceticism and self-denial and study of obscure occult texts could lead to a person coming to understand cosmic forces and drawing from them, but not necessarily in a coherent way. Maybe ritualists can gain strength from eating the hearts of other magic users or hurting themselves or extreme drug use or performing some weird function over and over.
Maybe these two types of magic are just different avenues to the same thing. Either way, I think both of these systems limit magic use, make it something very special and encourage entirely new kinds of characters.
But this sort of requires that we define "god". I think the standard D&D gods, built on Greek and Norse models, are pretty boring. They're boring because they're endowed with human qualities - they're exceptionally powerful people with worldly agendas. The problem is that we understand them. I understand why they do certain things and why they're involved in the world and what they're trying to accomplish, and this makes the difference between god and mortal less drastic and meaningful. I'd like to see gods less as people and more as cosmic forces, inexplicable powers that govern (or not?) the universe and aren't attached to mortal politics or ideals or goals or even worlds. A god could look at a world or worshipper with the same nonchalance as a person flipping through channels on TV. Gods may or may not even be sentient things. The point, though, is that people don't understand them and don't attach the same human values to them. If there's a god of war, it's because the way humans interact with this god is through warfare. Warfare could just be one aspect of this god, or not an aspect at all and merely a means of communication. By giving gods domains (war, fire, chaos, whatever) we also give them agendas and purposes and I want to avoid that. The less we're able to understand how gods work, the better.
People with divine powers have a connection with gods but I don't think they should be able to use their powers at whim. Maybe these powers are accessed with the system of self-mutilation I talked about earlier, or through ritual or cannibalism or asceticism or who knows what. I also don't think they should be capable of doing whatever they want, too. Magic is something they can create and practice, but not fully control or understand. I've always liked Gandalf because he wasn't a character who went around throwing fireballs or creating golems or whatever, he was just an exceptionally wise and willful person who could control forces that other people couldn't understand. Maybe this is how divine magic users could be.
But I also think there should be magic unattached to divinity. I like the idea of shamans with clairvoyant and mystic powers that don't immediately manifest themselves. Do you remember how in King of Dragon Pass, you could never be sure if your magic was ever actually doing anything and if you sacrificed before a battle that you won, you weren't sure if you won because of your magic or because of your skill? Ritual magic learned through asceticism and self-denial and study of obscure occult texts could lead to a person coming to understand cosmic forces and drawing from them, but not necessarily in a coherent way. Maybe ritualists can gain strength from eating the hearts of other magic users or hurting themselves or extreme drug use or performing some weird function over and over.
Maybe these two types of magic are just different avenues to the same thing. Either way, I think both of these systems limit magic use, make it something very special and encourage entirely new kinds of characters.