Magic as a corrupting influence...

[Gez]

IMC, arcane magic is a philosophical road to enlightenment. (Read stuff about real-world hermetic alchemists, and the symbolism of "immortality" and "turning lead into gold" for the Philosopher's Stone if you want an equivalent.)

It is possible, while searching enlightenment, to botch a bit. Not that I would introduce these corrupting influence rules IMC, but if I did, it would be that way.

IMC, it's psionics that are the main cause of magically-induced madness. Connecting one's mind to the collective unconscious' id in order to manipulate the psychic energy of every living things in the whole region is a hazarduous task.

Especially given that some of these collective unconscious are self-aware and may want to possess the psion.

Plus, overanalyzing everyone of your thought is never healthy anyway. IMO.

 

[Desdichado]

Your'e not asking for mechanics but for ideas of why corruption occurs I think?

Right; I've actually got several mechanical options, but I'm looking more for interesting metaphysical explanations of why magic causes corruption amongst mortals.

 

[Turanil]

Well, for my next C&C campaign, I wanted to introduce magical corruption. I was just thinking of adding the Sanity rules from Unearthed Arcana (which also contains the Taint rules from OA/Rokugan btw), with just losing sanity for dabbling in demonology and evil necromancy. But reading this thread, i see many interesting ideas to borrow and work from!

 

[diaglo]

Right; I've actually got several mechanical options, but I'm looking more for interesting metaphysical explanations of why magic causes corruption amongst mortals.

buy the 30th anniversary coffee table book from WotC. in it Peter A. talks all about how he tried to corrupt D&D with the taint of Magic.

and did to produce d02.

 

[Desdichado]

Well, for my next C&C campaign, I wanted to introduce magical corruption. I was just thinking of adding the Sanity rules from Unearthed Arcana (which also contains the Taint rules from OA/Rokugan btw), with just losing sanity for dabbling in demonology and evil necromancy. But reading this thread, i see many interesting ideas to borrow and work from!

Indeed, mechanically there are many interesting options, and metaphysically as well. Although I haven't commented on any specifically, I'm appreciating the input, and still working out in my head what I'm looking for specifically. I'm getting lots of great ideas here, though.

 

[Kelleris]

IMC, magic results from an inherent instability in reality. It's not good or bad or particularly chaotic (at least in the sense of having anything to do with the gods and planes of Chaos), and it simply results in very minor fluctuations in the laws of reality. Mages can exploit these changes and guide them to produce noticeable effects, because reality is also somewhat pliant to human will (or intellect, or asking a god nicely, or whatever).

Something most mages don't know is that these instabilities actaully result from "holes" cuased by the Far Realms in the gods' original construction of matter and time from chaos. I don't use corruption rules for normal casting, but chaos mages/alienists do (powerful) magic by inducing the local area to become metaphysically closer to the Far Realms, causing more instability in physical laws and therefore creeating an explosive potential for magic use. If you play it that way, there's corruption aplenty.

 

[VirgilCaine]

I never wrote any hard and fast rules, but one of my homebrews has magic that alters the user physically. The more often a mage uses magic the more likely their appearance will alter. Usually based on the types of spells they cast: fire-based, hair turns white and eyes turn black; polymorph, subtle features of the dominant animal used; illusions, mage's edges start to blur when he moves ect...

It was pretty simple and only happened over years of use but everybody seemed to lilke the flavour--except for the illusionist who hated the recognition...I warned him.

I like this idea. *YOINK*

 

[Timeboxer]

So, does anyone have any other ideas on what could cause this type of corruption? I'm just brainstorming for my campaign, and want to come up with a good reason why magic is so dangerous to use.

Because magic is alive.

Spells aren't just inert, memorized formulas -- they have an otherworldly tint to them, and they have desires and feelings, on some level. Not on the level of sentient beings, certainly, but considering that they reside in the mind until cast, they are certainly entities of psychology, and sometimes their own impulses can be different from their casters'.

Think of them as like abstract mental parasites, who have to be rounded up and bound for awhile until they're cast (or until they can influence you to cast them?). After awhile, it gets taxing, and the patterns of thought that they leave in the mind can cause a certain amount of imprinting. You can't leave spells in your head for that long without it making a difference, after all...

 

[Ourph]

Spellcasting is actually nothing more than manipulations which allow casters to tap into the psionic powers of an extremely powerful supernatural being who has been asleep for millenia (Cthulhu?). These manipulations put the caster in touch with a infinitesimally small portion of that being's mind so that they can draw on those psionic powers to cast "spells". Each time magic is used, the caster makes the sleeping being incrementally more aware of his presence. Powerful magics make the awareness grow faster than less powerful magics. Additionally, certain types of magic may increase the awareness faster than others (perhaps Illusions are "subtle" while Evocations are "loud"). Eventually, the incremental increase of the being's awareness of the caster passes a threshold at which there is an actual chance that the being, while still asleep, will "notice" the presence of another mind in its own mind and act to "swat the fly" so to speak. The consequences could range from temporary damage/ability drain, permanent damage/ability drain, possession, insanity, all the way to death.

Really powerful magics (Epic Level stuff) might even stand a small chance of waking the entity (BIG trouble!).

 

[DMH]

How about turning the idea around and say that humanoids can not use powerful magic- they must become inhuman to do so.

Levels.............Creature type
1-3.................humanoid
4-5.................monsterous humanoid
6-7.................aberration
8-9.................outsider (for a Dark Sun feel, this could be dragon for arcane casters)