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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4670096" data-attributes="member: 54707">I like a lot of the comments already posted.In my human world the Wizard actually is a scientist (a proto-physicist and natural scientist in this case) as the Mage is in other respects and fields of pursuit.In that context though science is far less a "science" as it is thought of today (based upon purely physically testable hypotheses and theorems, empirically demonstrated with the intent of being replicable and provable to others) as it was the pursuit of curious individuals and of individual geniuses.In other words proto-scientists (by today's standards) were not so much interested in proving scientific knowledge for the sake of dissemination and technological advance (or profit) as they were interested in delving into secrets, discovering the true working of God's universe, and of gaining power and knowledge over the forces of nature in a way that other's lacked.In some ways, as the Doc pointed out many in the church were the leaders and developers in science because they saw it as both a religious method of studying nature and God, and they wanted to gain the ability to understand and manipulate the world as God did, so scientific knowledge and mastery also had an element of Theophany. As well as epiphany, and enthusiasm (as the Greeks meant the term en-theosim, "to be possessed by god").I guess what I'm trying to say is that science at that point was an "arcane discipline" and for various reasons you didn't run around publicly disseminating all you knew, nor did you necessarily want others to know what you knew or to be able to replicate what you could demonstrate. Your fame, reputation, mastery, skill, and understanding were often closely guarded secrets.So instead of a circulating body of knowledge you might consider making it a concealed or covert body of knowledge (of course one definition of arcane is secret knowledge. So in my opinion, as with Wizards in my world, scientific knowledge is closely guarded. (Though there are those in the church, among the nobility, and in general society who want such knowledge popularly disseminated, there are also those in the church, nobility, and society who want it suppressed, for obviously different religious, social, cultural, and political reasons.)What I'm saying is I don't think of it as an open body of knowledge or skill, but a very covert and secretive opus, much like alchemy in particular, one which is passed along more by code, notation in obscure texts and by an apprentice like relationship, rather than freely disseminated.But then again I personally think that Wizard or Wizard-like proto-science based characters are extremely versatile, interesting, fascinating, and fun to play character types. Especially when combined with inventive and engineering capabilities.</blockquote>

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