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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Jon Peterson Shares Aronson's Original OD&D Illusionist
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<blockquote data-quote="Aaron L" data-source="post: 7774964" data-attributes="member: 926"><p>The Peterson article provides fun insights into the origins of the Schools of Magic in D&D. I've always liked these groupings, and most of them make sense, but the one School of Magic that has always baffled me is Evocation/Invocation (later called just Evocation.) </p><p></p><p>In D&D, Invocation/Evocation has always primarily been magic that creates destructive energy forces, which has absolutely nothing to do with what those words actually mean. </p><p></p><p>Evocation comes from the Latin <em>evocatio</em> ceremony, a ritual performed before attacking a city to "draw out" the city's tutelary deity (its "patron god") and promise it a better cult back in Rome (so as to weaken the city by removing its divine patronage, to excuse the Romans from sacking any temples in the city, and, more practically, to provide a psychological advantage to the Romans by convincing the citizens of the city that their god won't be there to protect them anymore), and the corresponding <em>invocatio</em> ritual would then later be performed to re-plant that deity in a new temple in Rome. Similarly, the word invoke now means to "summon" the spirit of God (the invocation at the beginning of a church service is commonly a reading from the Bible meant to put everyone's mind in a reverential mood) or to do the same with an idea or memory, and evoke means to "summon up" a thought or a feeling from inside yourself. So, the words now mean essentially the same, the only difference being whether the thoughts or feelings originate from inside (evoke) or outside (invoke) oneself: invoke means to summon in, evoke means to summon out.</p><p></p><p>So I've always wondered: how did these terms come to mean such totally different things in D&D, and therefore filter from there into wider fantasy writing? In the minds of almost all D&D players Evocation now means to create Fireballs, not to call up a feeling or memory. Did the D&D writers just pick a "magical" word at random for this group of spells? Because the names of all the other schools of magic make basic sense. Enchantment/Charm spells affect the mind; enchantment comes from the root word chant, meaning to speak ("enchant" basically means "to affect with words") and the terms enchant and charm have long meant to affect the mind, thus enchantments and charms are spells that use words to affect the mind; Transmutation has always meant to change one thing into another, Illusions are fake images and sounds, Necromancy originally meant to summon up the spirits of the dead to get advice from them ("-mancy" originally meant "a technique for divination") but it became a general term for any magic that affects the dead, etc.</p><p></p><p>Anyone have any ideas about this? It's always kinda bugged me. </p><p></p><p>Personally, I'd call the school something like <em>"Visication"</em> which would mean something like "to summon energy or force." But I'd need to be better at Latin to come up with a more accurate name.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Aaron L, post: 7774964, member: 926"] The Peterson article provides fun insights into the origins of the Schools of Magic in D&D. I've always liked these groupings, and most of them make sense, but the one School of Magic that has always baffled me is Evocation/Invocation (later called just Evocation.) In D&D, Invocation/Evocation has always primarily been magic that creates destructive energy forces, which has absolutely nothing to do with what those words actually mean. Evocation comes from the Latin [I]evocatio[/I] ceremony, a ritual performed before attacking a city to "draw out" the city's tutelary deity (its "patron god") and promise it a better cult back in Rome (so as to weaken the city by removing its divine patronage, to excuse the Romans from sacking any temples in the city, and, more practically, to provide a psychological advantage to the Romans by convincing the citizens of the city that their god won't be there to protect them anymore), and the corresponding [I]invocatio[/I] ritual would then later be performed to re-plant that deity in a new temple in Rome. Similarly, the word invoke now means to "summon" the spirit of God (the invocation at the beginning of a church service is commonly a reading from the Bible meant to put everyone's mind in a reverential mood) or to do the same with an idea or memory, and evoke means to "summon up" a thought or a feeling from inside yourself. So, the words now mean essentially the same, the only difference being whether the thoughts or feelings originate from inside (evoke) or outside (invoke) oneself: invoke means to summon in, evoke means to summon out. So I've always wondered: how did these terms come to mean such totally different things in D&D, and therefore filter from there into wider fantasy writing? In the minds of almost all D&D players Evocation now means to create Fireballs, not to call up a feeling or memory. Did the D&D writers just pick a "magical" word at random for this group of spells? Because the names of all the other schools of magic make basic sense. Enchantment/Charm spells affect the mind; enchantment comes from the root word chant, meaning to speak ("enchant" basically means "to affect with words") and the terms enchant and charm have long meant to affect the mind, thus enchantments and charms are spells that use words to affect the mind; Transmutation has always meant to change one thing into another, Illusions are fake images and sounds, Necromancy originally meant to summon up the spirits of the dead to get advice from them ("-mancy" originally meant "a technique for divination") but it became a general term for any magic that affects the dead, etc. Anyone have any ideas about this? It's always kinda bugged me. Personally, I'd call the school something like [I]"Visication"[/I] which would mean something like "to summon energy or force." But I'd need to be better at Latin to come up with a more accurate name. [/QUOTE]
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