Domriso
2012-01-19, 10:54 PM
Summoning an elder evil. Healing the wounds of a fatally wounded man. Removing the soul of a violent being and imprisoning it within a gem. These are the tales of magic, of the powers beyond ken of man. Performing this type of magic is dangerous, powerful, and more than anything else, symbolic.
Thaumaturgy is the art of creating a magical force which builds, resonates, and expands. Often called rituals, thaumaturgy is not quick and dirty. While the procedure can be put together quickly, the magic needs to be empowered.
It is difficult to define thaumaturgy, because it encompasses so much. But, at its most basic, thaumaturgy is the art of bringing together distinct, separate symbols and working them together to produce a powerful magical effect. It takes a certain amount of belief in the symbols themselves, about the power of the whole image, and refinement in the ingredients making up the ritual for it to succeed.
The System
Thaumaturgy is a simple system with a great number of possibilities. It comes down to three parts: conception, components, and consequence.
Conception
The beginning of any act of thaumaturgy is that of Concept. The Concept is what is desired from the ritual, the seed which begins the magic itself. It sounds simple, but it isn't. The Concept needs to be clear and concise for there to be any hope for the ritual to succeed. Too broad an idea (I want to be defended from everything!) won't have enough precision to be hopeful to succeed, but an idea which is too narrow (I want to be protected from Almedzri poison delivered by dart) will likely possess too few components to really be effective. Therefore, the Concept is a crucial aspect of any attempt at thaumaturgy. Good Concepts will be listed in more detail further on.
Components
The Components are really the meat and potatoes of the thaumaturgy, as they are the symbols themselves which are the mediums of power. But, more than that, the Components are many, varied, and highly subjective. Allow me to explain.
A Component is any aspect of a ritual which can be quantified and is specifically important for said ritual. This means, any aspect of a ritual which has any relation to the desired effect, such as certain movements, particular objects, or certain words said.
But, before you get too far ahead of yourself, you must realize something: components do not simply fall into the "Verbal, Somatic, Material, or Focus" line of thought here. Those four definitely exist, but they are by no means the only ones. A more concrete list of possible Components will be listed later on.
Not all Components are useful in every scenario, however. For instance, if you were trying to get a message to another practitioner, using fulgurite would be very useful (fulgurite being the stone formed when lightning strikes sand, generally associated with communication). But, using garnet (a stone usually associated with healing) would not be very useful at all in communicating with another person. In this case, using a garnet wouldn't be that helpful at all. However, if the garnet was not being used because of its associations with healing, but rather because the person being contacted was in the Land of Fire (fire being associated with red, and garnets being red stones), then that could be useful.
Consequence
For every successfully used Component in a ritual, the player performing the ritual adds 1d12 to the pool. The pool starts with a number of dice equal to the level of the practitioners' skill (which is rated on a scale of 1 to 5). This pool is the number of d12s rolled when the ritual is performed. On a roll of 9 - 12, the die is considered to be a positive roll, and therefore beneficial to the accomplishment of the spell. A roll of 2 - 8 is a failed roll, and does not contribute to the accomplishment of the spell. A roll of 1 actually detracts from the ritual, causing one of the Components to somehow backfire (what exactly happens depends on what Component of the ritual backfired, and will be covered in more detail in the next post).
Rituals are, as can be expected, quite subjective and are intended to be developed on the fly (well, really with some kind of preparation, but they can be thrown together on the fly). The exact Consequences of an individual ritual are highly dependent upon what the ritual was and how well it was performed. Most thaumaturgic rituals have some kind of tiered results, where the number of successes from the pool indicate how well the results were. Exact numbers are impossible to list conclusively, but a generalized listing of possible effects will be coming up in the next few posts.
Thaumaturgy is the art of creating a magical force which builds, resonates, and expands. Often called rituals, thaumaturgy is not quick and dirty. While the procedure can be put together quickly, the magic needs to be empowered.
It is difficult to define thaumaturgy, because it encompasses so much. But, at its most basic, thaumaturgy is the art of bringing together distinct, separate symbols and working them together to produce a powerful magical effect. It takes a certain amount of belief in the symbols themselves, about the power of the whole image, and refinement in the ingredients making up the ritual for it to succeed.
The System
Thaumaturgy is a simple system with a great number of possibilities. It comes down to three parts: conception, components, and consequence.
Conception
The beginning of any act of thaumaturgy is that of Concept. The Concept is what is desired from the ritual, the seed which begins the magic itself. It sounds simple, but it isn't. The Concept needs to be clear and concise for there to be any hope for the ritual to succeed. Too broad an idea (I want to be defended from everything!) won't have enough precision to be hopeful to succeed, but an idea which is too narrow (I want to be protected from Almedzri poison delivered by dart) will likely possess too few components to really be effective. Therefore, the Concept is a crucial aspect of any attempt at thaumaturgy. Good Concepts will be listed in more detail further on.
Components
The Components are really the meat and potatoes of the thaumaturgy, as they are the symbols themselves which are the mediums of power. But, more than that, the Components are many, varied, and highly subjective. Allow me to explain.
A Component is any aspect of a ritual which can be quantified and is specifically important for said ritual. This means, any aspect of a ritual which has any relation to the desired effect, such as certain movements, particular objects, or certain words said.
But, before you get too far ahead of yourself, you must realize something: components do not simply fall into the "Verbal, Somatic, Material, or Focus" line of thought here. Those four definitely exist, but they are by no means the only ones. A more concrete list of possible Components will be listed later on.
Not all Components are useful in every scenario, however. For instance, if you were trying to get a message to another practitioner, using fulgurite would be very useful (fulgurite being the stone formed when lightning strikes sand, generally associated with communication). But, using garnet (a stone usually associated with healing) would not be very useful at all in communicating with another person. In this case, using a garnet wouldn't be that helpful at all. However, if the garnet was not being used because of its associations with healing, but rather because the person being contacted was in the Land of Fire (fire being associated with red, and garnets being red stones), then that could be useful.
Consequence
For every successfully used Component in a ritual, the player performing the ritual adds 1d12 to the pool. The pool starts with a number of dice equal to the level of the practitioners' skill (which is rated on a scale of 1 to 5). This pool is the number of d12s rolled when the ritual is performed. On a roll of 9 - 12, the die is considered to be a positive roll, and therefore beneficial to the accomplishment of the spell. A roll of 2 - 8 is a failed roll, and does not contribute to the accomplishment of the spell. A roll of 1 actually detracts from the ritual, causing one of the Components to somehow backfire (what exactly happens depends on what Component of the ritual backfired, and will be covered in more detail in the next post).
Rituals are, as can be expected, quite subjective and are intended to be developed on the fly (well, really with some kind of preparation, but they can be thrown together on the fly). The exact Consequences of an individual ritual are highly dependent upon what the ritual was and how well it was performed. Most thaumaturgic rituals have some kind of tiered results, where the number of successes from the pool indicate how well the results were. Exact numbers are impossible to list conclusively, but a generalized listing of possible effects will be coming up in the next few posts.