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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 9671326" data-attributes="member: 58172">Part of where I am coming from is, material components are 'protoscience', and feel extremely 'arcane'.The ancient Hellenistic worldview would identify very specific ingredients with very specific magical influences. For example, they would use an agate gemstone, to prevent scorpion venom from spreading thru the blood of someone stung. Different gems have different magical properties that a knowledgeable person could exploit for different purposes. The important point was, it was the material object itself that had the magical property, like using a magnet to pick up iron. Different stones, and different plants, but also time of day, and so on, would engineer specific magical effects. The New Age 'crystals' popculture fad came from this Hellenistic then Neoplatonic approach. In many ways, it is like external chemistry power − not internal personal power.All of this D&D flavor referring to specific ingredients, precise body movements, special verbal formulas, sigils in spellbooks, and so on, is what the Wizard and arcane powers generally do. It is alien to what personal magic is doing.</blockquote>