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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tonguez" data-source="post: 8912002" data-attributes="member: 1125">this is the Riddle of Steelessentially this indeed is what magic is, African iron smelting involved both technical skill and propitiation of supernatural forces.  Even today, real world carvers will talk about working with the Essence or Nature of the Wood or Stone to nring out the forms that are already there.Its only 19th century svientific materialsm that tells us that technology and magic are distinct.Tomas Aquinas defined supernatural as the secondary acts of God whereas Preternatural events were caused by the actions of created beings (including humans, demons and spirits). Newton looks to the divine order of the Pantokrator/Divine Providence.DnD magic is a weird artifact of post industrial materialism but in the prehistory of DnD worldsno doubt proto-Dwarves had to deal with earth and fire elementals to learn smelting, and then techniques to tame forge spirits and transmute raw ores, which others saw as magic but which the Iron Smiths developed as an Art.Perhaps as these wild spirits were tamed and eventually domesticated their nature changed to conform to the Smiths Art - the Iron monger was now able to manipulate the material form of fire and iron without needing to tame the spirits, magic become civilised and systematic with a dualistic split between wild spirit and material art - at a philosophical level the split is divine/arcane. Eventually you get the post-industrial materialism of Arcane magic along with the older remnants of wild Scorcery, divine clergy and warlock propituation of greater Powers</blockquote>

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