Sources of Magic

[Speaker]

The fantasy/scifi/religous writer Orson Scott Card purports that all magic must have a price, a serious toll that limits power. While this concept does not apply easily to D&D, I'll synthesize one of his examples as best as I can remember it, so that you might get the general gist of the idea.

He ran with he principle of using human flesh and innocence to power magic spells.

-Thus, the more powerful the magic, the more flesh that must be sacrificed.
-Those who required magic would pay in body parts and blood. A hand to ensure that croplands are forever bountiful, for example.
-The younger the flesh, the more powerful the spell.
-The more closely related to the caster the flesh was, the more powerful the spell.
-Thus, power came easiest to the evil ones who would sacrifice family for the most powerful magic of all.

Thought provoking, hmm? Here's another idea from the same source, relating to an idea espoused above in this thread.

-Every time magic is used, someone dies (or loses a portion of their soul).
-This draining occurred at random, with no pattern. You could heal your brother with magic only to kill your father... or perhaps a far-away villain, who knows?

Disturbing?

 

[Roman]

Very nice indeed Speaker! I must say I agree with this author about the need for cost to magic. It adds a significant amount to flavour.

 

[willpax]

A slight variation on a theme others have presented:

Reality exists because we collectively believe it. Magic is the effort by an individual to bend her or his own belief, thus changing reality. Divine magic is the power drawn from the collective shaping of beliefs of many individuals.

This rationale works well for a fatigue-based arcane magic system where insanity is a risk of magic; the magicians live in a kind of Philip K. Dick universe, constantly being reminded of how fragile our very reality is...

 

[Deadguy]

Sorry to wander quite so late into this conversation... somehow I kept missing it. Some interesting ideas have been posted up. In a way, I have yet to see a supplement that tries to really look at the roots of magic. We have ideas for magic from different sources (e.g. ley lines), but not anything looking at what it would mean for a world to have some variant cosmology.

For myself, I hit the problem when I created the Shattered World setting for my own use. After years of abuse of divine intervention I wanted to create a setting where there were no divine beings. However, I didn't want to deal with integrating 'divine' magic into the arcane (or rather, I wanted to get the game started, and I didn't have time to implement it). So I needed a way to conceptualise this divine magic in a godless world. In the end I opted for the idea of Passion Magic, the magic born of fervent belief in principles and ideals. I transformed the Cleric into the Theurge, though the only reason for the name change was to bring home to players that they are not priests. Theurges are followers of Philosophies, which are theoretical frameworks for channelling real power into beliefs. In the Shattered World the proto-capitalists (known as The White Order) work magic because they believe that the systems they propose can really change the world. Of course, they aren't alone, there are many others too, from supporters of the status quo to radical anarchists seeking to overthrow corrupt (or all!) governments.

It has taken me a long time to really begin to get to grips with what I created, but the party had it brought home to them when they visited a city which had a separate Theurge District (actually Bluffside for those who are interested - a great FRP city!). They found the place disconcerting, with people trying to sell them ideas, asking them to question their assumptions, and of course soliciting cash for their causes!

I named the force of Passion Magic the Odyllic Force, and I needed to ground its origins in the setting. Now the Shattered World doesn't use lots of separate planes. Instead, apart from the Ghost Worlds (similar to both the Ethereal and Shadow planes combined), the sources of power lie in the planets that orbit the Shattered World (yup, a bit of pre-Copernican cosmology for me!). There are the four elemental planets, and then there are the Energy Poles: the Sun and Darkheart. I described the Odyllic force as being like a great meandering river, that flows out of the Sun to Darkheart and then out again and back to the Sun. The Shattered World lies within this flow, and it is this emotionally-charged flow that the Theurges tap. At the moment, I am looking at some rules about fluctuations in the flow, that will modify the availability of Passion Magic. And taking the river analogy forward, I am working out ways to describe weirs, shoals and stagnant waters in game terms.

Phew! Longer than I intended. I guess I am trying to say that I agree, it can be really worthwhile looking at the origins of magic for your setting. By doing so, you create adventures and storylines that relate to the activities of the spellcasters, and that bring to life the underlying existence of magic in the game world.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

...I guess I am trying to say that I agree, it can be really worthwhile looking at the origins of magic for your setting. By doing so, you create adventures and storylines that relate to the activities of the spellcasters, and that bring to life the underlying existence of magic in the game world.

That's why I jumped on the idea of conflict being integral to the way magic developed in my world. If you look at the real world, wars are fought over either resources or beliefs. Magic is both, and its nature would probably be wrapped up in the conflicts of the world.

 

[Roman]

Deadspeaker, please do not be inhibited by the fact that the discussion has already started. New ideas are always welcome and your idea of magic stemming from astrological or astronomical bodies is certainly novel.

I believe that looking at the origins of magic can add a lot of flacour to the setting.

Origins can even be hidden, or the wrong ones may be identified and it can be a long term quest for the party wizard to try to find the true source of magic...

 

[Deadguy]

Deadspeaker, please do not be inhibited by the fact that the discussion has already started. New ideas are always welcome and your idea of magic stemming from astrological or astronomical bodies is certainly novel.

I believe that looking at the origins of magic can add a lot of flacour to the setting.

Origins can even be hidden, or the wrong ones may be identified and it can be a long term quest for the party wizard to try to find the true source of magic...

Thank you, Roman. Actually I do need to look more closely at the astrological consequences of my magical choices. What supplements have looked at Astrological Magic so far?

And the last point is an interesting one. In fact, exploring the origins of a lost form of magic is something I have toyed with including. Your comment has definitely sparked me to look at that point again!

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Thank you, Roman. Actually I do need to look more closely at the astrological consequences of my magical choices. What supplements have looked at Astrological Magic so far?

Relics & Rituals 2 has. I'm pretty sure there are one or two others.

 

[dren]

My theories on the source of magic

In my campaign, magic is an energy, not a quasi-mystical "energy force that surrounds all things," but a definable and measurable substance. In the prime world, magic is like water in the desert, rare and very precious, however in the astral plane the energy flows the same as an ocean.

Priests are given access to the energy by the gods, their holy symbols act as the conduit.

Wizards use the language of the gods, the arcane script that they believe was used to form the world. Through it they can literally warp reality, and usurp the power of the makers. Priests believe that mages steal this energy from the gods, thus they & mages rarely get along.

Psionicists create the energy within themselves, through a process of self perfection and meditation. Theirs is limited by their own physical standards, but are rarely affected by the outside world, thus they operate in wild / dead magic areas. They are rarely respected by the oher "spell casters" but theirs is more utilitarian and often they will dual class with non-casting classes. (Rogue-psion, warrior-psion, etc)

Sorcerors should not exist by every current theory of magic. Wizards fear them, psions are jealous of them, and clerics believe each one is blessed by the gods. In truth, sorcerors are living conduits, a living nexus of energy...but just like every other nexus, it can conduct only one type of this energy. Thus my sorcerors have the same number of standard spells as in the PH, but similiar to a psion, they can only cast it from one magical school. They are powerful one trick ponies!

All other types of spell and spellcasters are a variation on one of these.

dren

 

[Roman]

These replies have indeed been very interesting.

How (if at all) do you people deal with explaining other supernatural abilities, such as those of monks, some monsters, demons, etc.? Do they function in magic dead zones and anti-magic fields? Are they manifestations of magic, or do they depend on another mechanism alltogether?