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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 9742187" data-attributes="member: 21169">The source of magical power has been very important with regard to real world beliefs about magic. Therefore I think it’s reasonable that D&D should represent these different categories of magic in some way. We can distinguish between three varieties of magical practitioner: witch, sorcerer, and magician. The witch’s power derives from a pact with the Devil. The sorcerer (or conjurer) uses ritual magic to command demons. The magician understands and controls the hidden connections and properties within nature and has no truck with demons.In John Fletcher’s 1647 play The Fair Maid of the Inn, one character states that a “conjurer” is “the Devil’s master, and commands him” while “a witch is the Devil’s ‘prentice, and obeys him.” English occultist Robert Turner asserted, in his 1655 introduction to the Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, that the magician is very different to the witch or sorcerer. “Witchcraft and sorcery are works done merely by the Devil, which with respect unto some covenant made with man, he acteth by men his instruments, to accomplish his evil ends”. By contrast, a “magician” is “a studious observer and expounder of divine things”. “Magic is the connection of natural agents and patients, answerable each to other, wrought by a wise man, to the bringing forth of such effects as are wonderful to those that know not their causes.”The witch resembles the D&D warlock, while the magician corresponds to the wizard class. The sorcerer or conjurer doesn’t really exist in D&D, with the exception of the 1st edition AD&D 7th level magic user spell, “Cacodemon”.</blockquote>

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