wild magic

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From: David Cake (davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au)
Date: Fri 26 Jul 1996 - 17:40:48 EEST

>I am of the opinion that every living creature carries a piece of the
>otherworld within. That's why they have POW.
>
        Good point - getting yourself into a weird state of mind is another
way to contact the 'otherworld' - prayer, shamanic rituals, dreams,
ordeals, mind-bending drugs, appropriate festivities. You don't need
training or a connection to a god to attempt these things either - though
if a person not trained as a magician did these things with magical intent,
the results would be very unreliable. But they could manage to do
something.
        I don't think just pumping MPs into something is something you can
just do - there has to be at least some change in state of mind that goes
with it.

> I don't think
>it's difficult to create magic - just pump in enough MP and something will
>happen.

        I think it is difficult to create big, visible magic that has a
major effect. Pumping lots of MPs into a piece of fruit, for example, will
probably make something happen - but not necessarily something useful, or
even something that you will notice. It might just make it more succulent
and attractive to otherworld beings. It might make it ripen (and then rot)
faster. It might make it temporarily harder. And it will probably be at
best a lot less effective than the spell would be, point for point. I don't
think many people in Glorantha go around just pumping MPs into things in
the hopes that something useful will happen. They may throw the odd MP into
a prayer to a deity, though - which still is of dubious effect, but at
least it will be a good result if it occurs.

>The big difficulty lies in creating the magical effect you wanted.
>That's where the magic system comes. Every sorcerer uses some kind of
>system to produce (more or less) reliable magic.

        Yes, spells are very important.
        I think that in essence playing with magic outside a known system
is much the same thing as creative heroquesting, its just a matter of
degree (and I think thats the basic idea I was trying to get across - it
should FEEL like a minor creative heroquest act, rather than just pumping
MPs into something).

        Cheers

                David

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