From: Geoff Gunner (eosgg@raesp-farn.mod.uk)
Date: Thu 23 Sep 1993 - 16:16:24 EEST
___ Jarek writes about spirit magic not working on the spirit plane ...
Spells on spirit plane - don't work ? Well, what about visibility? (yeah, I'm
being pedantic). Does this mean the energy/power for a spell is a sort of
short-circuit ? And how do you visualise the spirit plane ? Most of our ideas
are a hangover from the spiritualism movement of the 1800's (grey, wispy, etc).
I could argue that places like the happy hunting ground or Valhalla are spirit planes. And think about what happens when, say, a bunny rabbit dies. Terry Pratchett (why does the man have so many good ideas?) I think is near the mark with his 'morphic resonance' - the spirit starts off with it's former shape, slowly loosing it over time. Thus you have a spirit plane which looks like the real one, but subtly distorted. Vision doesn't go too far (attenuated spirits blocking out the view). And (call me a alticamelus if I'm wrong) the idea of spirits having a movement of their POW (and perception as well?) is AWFUL. Where are all those ghosts drifting about slowly ? Does the spirit plane have an ecosystem ? If not, what happens to all those old spirits - do they fade into the 'background POW'. I get the feeling that the mechanics of the spirit plane need to be tied firmly down so that shamans and their ilk can function properly, but once you do that a LOT of people's ideas will be offended.
Perhaps it's all down to what you believe (Pratchett again - damn his ears!).
___ Simon Hibbs writes about sorcery, and how the rules should be loosened ...
Yup, would be nice. But I thought (naively) the sorcery system was nice. Put
it in the context of Spirit and Divine Magic, you get a nice feel for the
science of the thing, rather than a ritualised formulae for a desired end.
I'd never change the spirit or divine magic side of things; I`ve too much
emotional baggage attached from my youthful RQ2 days ! ;-)
But there's a lot of interesting stuff out there - the extensions found in
'Vikings' are a good start to extending the concept of magic. I'd like to
think that Spirit, Divine and Sorcery are well-mapped points in the whole area
of Magic, and there's a lot more in between. In the end, it would be nice to
have a whole armoury of magics that characters can equip themselves with.
Geoff - who'd like to stop his players using magic; except he'd be lynched.
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