What is arcane magic?

[Umbran]

the game's arcane magic is a (very, very) loose interpretation and amalgam of the magical traditions of late Middle-Ages and Renaissance Europe, and a lot of fantasy.

Very broadly, there's magical energy loose in the universe that can be tapped and channled, if you have the right words, symbols, formulae, and state of mind.

 

[Dausuul]

Maybe a silly question but what the heck is arcane magic?
Other types of magic/powers/whatever make sense --
divine/primal magic can be explained by gods and spirits...
psionics can be explained by latent powers of the brain...

So what is arcane magic then? How to make sense out of a spell? Or do I just have too much free time?...

For me, the answer varies depending on the campaign I'm running.

Typically, I view arcane magic in one of two ways. One, which might be called "wizard magic," is that it's a kind of science. The arcanist has learned through painstaking study to use spoken words, written symbols, gestures, and material components to shape the universe. This is probably closest to the traditional D&D view.

The other view, "warlock magic," is that arcanists gain their powers from extraplanar beings such as demons and primordials. Using some combination of bribery (offering sacrifices or services in the material plane) and extortion (using a being's true name or other secrets to threaten it), the arcanist induces these beings to provide him or her with mystical abilities.

 

[Flobby]

Words have power. So do symbols. You invoke the right words, you can make people feel like they've been slapped in the face. Yell fire in a crowded theater, you can kill a few people. You paint the right symbols on the ground, you can bring lines of cars to a screeching halt.

In a word where some sort of hermetic-style magic works, this is not merely something that affect people; these things affect the world. Name fire properly and you can summon it. Draw the right symbol on the ground, and you can bring everything to a forcible halt.

Authentic Thaumaturgy: The Laws of Magic is a chapter from Authentic Thaumaturgy, an RPG supplement by Isaac Bonewits, including the rules for "real" magic. Bonewits really believes it; you don't have to, but it is a view as to how real people believe magic works, filtered for reading by roleplayers.

I get that words do have power --- but invoking fire by naming it never made sense to me... With so many languages in the world what does it mean for something to have "true name"?

[MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION]
That kind of makes sense... that arcane magic is playing with the power of the gods/nature directly instead of being "granted" the power through worship or pact or whatever. But isn't doesn't a god have power because, well, they are a god? What is the "power of the gods"? If you are manipulating things mentally, doesn't that sound like psionics?

 

[Flobby]

[MENTION=58197]Dausuul[/MENTION]
now warlock magic makes sense, its a lot divine magic but what are "magical words, components etc.?"

 

[Flobby]

Some people go with the "arcane magic as science" view. It never made much sense to me, but I guess the reasoning was that magic and science become indistinguishable after a certain point.

I ascribe to the view that arcane magic users are actually tearing away sections of reality every time they cast. See, the foundation upon which reality rests isn't as solid as most people would hope. It is held in balance by elemental forces, ancient laws, and the ignorance of the common man. Far realms beyond the ken of understanding (non)exist outside the laws of time and causality. In those (non)places, the thoughts, will and convictions of a being manifest power. Arcane casters punch a hole in reality, and through that hole are able to manifest their will. In this way, the ravaged physical laws around them are forced into subservience.
This is not without its own costs. Excessive use of magic has caused irreparable damage to the planes. In several instances, the very integrity of reality itself has been jeopardized.

Okay I can buy that, but then what does the mage do? Is he mentally accessing these forces?

 

[Flobby]

the game's arcane magic is a (very, very) loose interpretation and amalgam of the magical traditions of late Middle-Ages and Renaissance Europe, and a lot of fantasy.

Very broadly, there's magical energy loose in the universe that can be tapped and channled, if you have the right words, symbols, formulae, and state of mind.

I know I'm saying the same thing over and over but what are "right words, symbols, formulae"?

I can see that arcane magic is like a science, and that you are directly accessing the power of the universe, but why would a special word or symbol help you in this? Why does gesture A + word B make a fireball (or whatever)?

And I know that its a game and all you need to say is "hey its magic!"
I just got to thinking if magic did really work, how would it work?

 

[Dausuul]

[MENTION=58197]Dausuul[/MENTION]
now warlock magic makes sense, its a lot divine magic but what are "magical words, components etc.?"

The main idea is that in the D&D world, certain symbols (written and spoken) are not just arbitrary labels invented by humans for describing reality; they are reality. The true name of a thing is not just a descriptor, it is part of the essence of what that thing is. Therefore, if you know the true name, you have power over the thing.

Try this analogy: Knowing a true name is like having someone's DNA sequence. The DNA sequence is not, itself, a person. It's just data. But with the proper tools, you can do a lot with that data--you can determine the person's parentage, find out their susceptibility to many diseases, clone them, make gene therapies or biological weapons tailored to their physiology, et cetera.

An even better comparison might be the source code of software. The source code is not itself software--you can't just dump a bunch of C++ files on your computer and execute them--but it contains the essential definition of what the software is. Given the right development environment, you can use the source code to replicate and change the software in fundamental ways.

As for how the sulfur and bat guano and other such implements factor into it... it's part of the "physics" of symbol-based magic. In some highly technical way that would likely take years of studying arcane theory to fully understand, these tools allow you to put true names to use, in the same way that the equipment in a genetics lab allows a geneticist to use a DNA sequence, or a development environment allows a software developer to use source code.

(I will add that I'm not a huge fan of magic-as-science, and I prefer arcane magic to be primarily "warlock magic" with just a sprinkling of "wizard magic" elements. But this is how I see "wizard magic" working.)

 

[NichG]

If you consider an animistic world, then the symbols/words/etc would be the language of the spirits of nature, or if not a proper language then at least things that they respond to in a predictable way, like a dog can have a trained response. Or they're the words of a compact between the caster and the local spirits. Of course, Spirit Shaman takes up that idea somewhat.

I ran a campaign once where the entire campaign world was the dream of an entity outside reality (and this in fact wrapped around so that every world was the dream of someone in the next world, until it came back to the first, so if any of them 'woke up' the whole thing falls apart). It didn't highlight much, but there was a kind of magic you could do by knowing symbols or imagery that was meaningful to the dreamer, and by invoking those you could cause the dream to go in different directions.

In that setting there was also standard D&D magic, based on the idea that the dreamer was having a dream about a world where saying certain words or writing certain symbols created magic, and so it was so.

So there are a number of ways to go with a behind-the-scenes take on arcane magic.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That kind of makes sense... that arcane magic is playing with the power of the gods/nature directly instead of being "granted" the power through worship or pact or whatever. But isn't doesn't a god have power because, well, they are a god? What is the "power of the gods"? If you are manipulating things mentally, doesn't that sound like psionics?

Yes, gods have power because they're gods, some of which they loan to their believers. That magic is part of their innate nature.

Psionics is, in some ways, a halfway point between divine and arcane, and as such, has features of both.

 

[prosfilaes]

Why does gesture A + word B make a fireball (or whatever)?

Why does hitting two pieces of special metal together cause them to explode with enough power to level a city? It's part of the special properties of uranium, but why? If someone grew up in my culture, but didn't have high school chemistry or physics, that could be a very long complex discussion. (And it would take years of study to actually understand why you can do this with uranium and not radium.) If someone who grew up in the Forgotten Realms asked that question, I think it would be an exercise in futility to try and explain it. The list of concepts they'd have to internalize before understanding it, like atoms and the conservation of energy, is just too long and too alien.

Correspondingly, even if a wizard was here and willing to explain it, I think it would be an exercise in futility. Ultimately, that's the way it works, and if it were real, there would probably be some deep rules underlying it, but we'd have a hell of a time getting them through our heads.