Re: magic and magical arts


Subject: Re: magic and magical arts
From: Kim Kunnas (beregar@majik3d.org)
Date: Wed Oct 13 1999 - 14:32:09 EEST


On Wed, 13 Oct 1999, Ari Miettinen wrote:

> In my opinion gods know all the symbols and that is what makes them powerful. That
> also means that if a mortal learns all the symbols, he becomes practically a god.
> (And in my opinion, it should be possible for a mortal to do so)
> He cannot destroy the world, because the other (true) gods won't let him. Of course
> they know spells which stop the mortal mage from destroying the world. Also,
> there are mortals who don't want to see the world destroyed and would also
> fight the destroyer. This creates balance, which is good.

Well, I don't see why this would be the case? Since there are Gods of
ocean, forests etc so they probably know mostly symbols which are related
with their sphere(s) of influence.

> What do you mean with: 'mortals can never form true symbols'?

Can you completelly descripe something which can't be descriped
by words, gestures or writings? The point in this is that when
God makes his spell he/she uses true form of symbol, he/she does
not speak or make gestures or use a component because he/she
fully understand what symbol is. 

> a) They cannot create new symbols.

All symbols should already exist

> b) They cannot use true symbols.

They can't use same symbols as Gods.

> Why would god not use outside energies to power his spells like mortals
> do? 

Why should a God draw power from external source which requires time
and thus makes spellcasting slower, when he/she can use a portion of
of his/her own divine essence which anyway replenishes when mortals
pray him/her. Besides gods probably drain all unnecessary power out
side them to themselves. Maybe you understand better what I mean when
you compare mortal worshippers to nodes: like a mortal mage can drain
power from a node, also gods drain power from mortal worshipping, but
they can also hold that power in their essence (because they are 
spirits) which mere mortals can't do, at least not so well.

This also leads to suggestion where power of mortal mages grows same
way as power of gods when mortal mages drain power to their own
essence. So in theory a mage who has spent time draining power has
more sp (same as dp in this case) to spend in his/her spell. There
should be limit for this or mortals could eventually get as powerful
as the Gods. Continual spells can be either made so that they use
this power and constantly drain power from a mage until he/she no
longer has sp or they can be made to drain it from the free magic
in some area. In both cases sources eventually run out of magic 
(= sp).

Old mages are powerful because they have had much time to drain
magic to themselves and wise spellcaster would rather use spells
which drain power from the surrounding area than spells which
drain power from him/herself. Of course using own sp is always
quicker way to cast spells but it also drains eventually magical
reserves of a mage. 


> Why are there two (or more) different symbols meaning the same thing?
> Why cannot they be combined? What makes 'creation symbol 1' different from
> 'creation symbol 2'?

Maybe there are only one set of true symbols but there are many ways 
to imitate one symbol inside their three main manifestations. So for
example there are different words which imitate creation symbol and
different words which imitate fire symbol but these words don't 
necessary fit together (ie creation1 word doesn't fit together with 
fire2 word, but creation2 word fits together with fire2 word). 

This was originally made this way so we would have different mage 
types without character classes: For example there are set of words 
which descripe symbols in more chaotic way and thus make chaos spells 
more powerful but they probably can't descripe as well other things
and can't descripe "order" symbols at all. Then there are ways to d
escripe symbols in ordered way but since order and chaos ways are so
different to eachother their manifestations don't fit together. 
Hopefully you understood what I was trying to explain. :)  

- Beregar Dar'Eldath (Beregar@majik3d.org)



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