Sorcery As Transgression

[dreamer_prophet]

Clearly YGWV applies across the board. Some people will feel the need to make firm decisions about objective Truth in their campaigns, others will prefer to leave the question open.

I see the position you take with regard to sorcery will be a powerful driver for the campaign you outline, Alex. I like to ground things in history to some degree, which means acknowledging that many well known "historical sorcerers" lived in an age where belief was as natural, unforced and effortless as atheism is to most westerners today.

For example, Michael Scott, the thirteenth century occultist and ordained priest wrote:

"Every astrologer is worthy of praise and honour. Since by such a doctrine as astrology he probably knows many secrets of God, and things which few know."

John Dee was an intensely pious Christian who hoped to unify Catholic and Protestant Sects by recourse to the ancient wisdom of cabalistic angel magic.

Isaac Newton, rightly recognised as one of the first giants of science, it should also be remembered was the last of the alchemists, and fervently religious as well.

This is the mindset that informed my earlier post. As for the "evil sorcerer" cliché. I recall reading that Lucan describes an Etruscan witch Erictho promiscuously invoking a whole grab-bag of supernatural agents, gods, spirits and bogeymen to carry out her necromantic desires. On the whole, her antics seem too deranged to signal any great insight into the deep mysteries of the universe.

 

[Hopeless]

And here i was wondering about setting up a thread about an idea for a Legend campaign originating from one I ran a year or so ago to explain the origin of magic and especially the gods!

Had the idea that the village of Tarmsen that once was capital of a sprouting empire before they overstretched themselves by moving their sources of power so they could cover a larger area ending up losing that power.

Essentially beneath each site is a secret delve in Tarmsen's case its a former bunker used to survive a cataclysm a millennia or so ago but its powered by an artefact that is literally an elemental stone or fire for Tarmsen allowing them access to powerful magic but outside of a certain radius they're dependent on talismans/amulets and so on to access that power.

This thread had made it clear where that power source is getting its power!

Never considered the populace donating say a point of POW and the accumulated amount is how its Theocratic rulers continued to remain in power... given its nature I could easily throw in blood magic as part of that... nice!

My idea was that there are five elemental power sources, Tarmsen's secret bunker had access to four of them but they were moved since combined there was practically noone who could stand up to that empire, but it lacked range so they moved them and was able to stretch how far their power reached until the new locations were lost.

My plan was to have one responsible for causing the Thames to turn into a virtual sea turning a small surviving portion of the south of britain into an island, but haven't gone further into what happened to the others save that the Fire stone is still in Tarmsen.

The fifth would be responsible for the main faith that of the Lightbringer hiding the fact it allows the blood descendants of the woman who became known as the Lightbringer to be able to travel to and from the distant past bringing supplies, knowledge and aid to those under their protection.

Now I better get back to setting up a thread for that idea!

Thanks by the way!

 

[alex_greene]

Thanks by the way!

You're welcome!

 

[dreamer_prophet]

My plan was to have one responsible for causing the Thames to turn into a virtual sea turning a small surviving portion of the south of britain into an island

I like your plan!

How can I donate some POW? :twisted:

 

[alex_greene]

My plan was to have one responsible for causing the Thames to turn into a virtual sea turning a small surviving portion of the south of britain into an island

I like your plan!

How can I donate some POW? :twisted:

If I find out how to do it, there's a long list of objectionable people whose POW I would like to donate ...

 

[Hopeless]

The fun part is that it means London replaces the legend of Atlantis except its actually possible to get there... coming back however... :twisted:

 

[alex_greene]

The fun part is that it means London replaces the legend of Atlantis except its actually possible to get there... coming back however... :twisted:

Nah; the problem is motivation to go there.

"Sure, it's all that effort to get there, but dear Gods ... it's London. With that ridiculous mophead as Mayor and that degenerate rabble in Westminster? No, thanks. I'd rather visit the centre of the universe, Swindon. Much more entertaining."

 

[Hopeless]

Unfortunately its reputation describes it as a literal city of gold and as any spellcaster knows that a city of Orichalcum...

Introduced that little detail in the second adventure but due to them all running characters with low POW it escaped their notice.

No matter if I can get this up and running they'll find out the relevance of that whether as their original characters or the Tarmsen PCs they ran on the last occasion!

But point taken.

 

[alex_greene]

I'm just looking at the latter seasons of Stargate SG-1, the ones with the Ori ... and this is exactly the sort of thing I was on about. But with one difference - I could easily posit a Legend setting where there were really powerful, incorporeal beings on some ascended plane with an agenda, and that they fed on the Pacted, dedicated Magic Points of all their worshippers for their power.

Only, those beings were not gods - never had been, never will be. They used to be humans, until they somehow evolved into a higher form - one dependent on the Magic Points of worshippers.

To be specific ... they used to be sorcerers.