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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    Reality-as-simulation, reality-as-dream and reality-by-consensus all dance around the idea that tabletop roleplaying games are behaviorally magic rituals, where the participants engage in symbolic actions to purportedly enter an altered state of concsiousness, to create a world that only exist when and as long as the participants spend mental effort on it. The obvious corollary being that the players, and specifically, the game master is the Demiurge / Evil Daemon of the illusory world. Some games already go all in with this, for example indie supplement for D&D and OSR games, Dragon Union, makes "Game master is God" into outright game rule and the roles of characters are adjusted to suit (f.ex., the Cleric has direct hotline to God and is responsible for holding the Fighter (=party leader) for following God's commandments.)
    I don't think that really holds for the Reality-as-Simulation setup. That one is based much more on how simulated realities actually operate. A simulated reality has a set of operational physics with agents in that reality that operate according to those physics, ie. ordinary NPCs. It may also have another set of agents that are able to access special exploits that violate those physics, whether specialized NPCs or PCs. We, as humans, have managed to build simplified simulated universes with this setup, such as No Man's Sky - which has 'magic' tech like teleportation to the hub zone that violates the procedural physics engine of the universe.

    A lot of mythology has this sort of basic setup as well: there was some Creation event that just kind of happened or was conducted by an extinct lineage of deities, but when the present deities showed up they started mucking about in the world because it didn't fit their desires properly. Magic is simply the means they utilized.
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  2. - Top - End - #32
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    Reality-as-simulation, reality-as-dream and reality-by-consensus all dance around the idea that tabletop roleplaying games are behaviorally magic rituals, where the participants engage in symbolic actions to purportedly enter an altered state of concsiousness, to create a world that only exist when and as long as the participants spend mental effort on it. The obvious corollary being that the players, and specifically, the game master is the Demiurge / Evil Daemon of the illusory world. Some games already go all in with this, for example indie supplement for D&D and OSR games, Dragon Union, makes "Game master is God" into outright game rule and the roles of characters are adjusted to suit (f.ex., the Cleric has direct hotline to God and is responsible for holding the Fighter (=party leader) for following God's commandments.)
    Huh. You think with how many RPGs in the urban fantasy/weird fantasy/dark fantasy sector of the thematic map have taken inspiration from gnosticism, someone would have thought to call their GM the "Demiurge", but I actually can't think of a case.
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  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    @Mechalich: dreams are simulations, they have their own operational logic and straightforward homologue to PC-NPC- distinction in the dreamer-dreamed-distinction. My point is that the worlds of tabletop roleplaying games are simulated in fundamentally dream-like manner, namely through functions of the human mind and brain.

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    @Eldan: it's something of a missed opportunity, yes.

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    It occurs to me that in worlds where life force is a thing then that implies a life field and you could get spontaneous generation by excitation of that field, which could explain certain conjuration
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
    The best generalized setup I've found is to treat the world as a simulation. It goes like this:
    • Someone, divine or otherwise, sets about creating the world
    • They develop a specialized programming language to do this
    • When they finish creation they leave the language in place, in case they need to tweak things later
    • In-world agents are able to access this language (probably to allow for divine avatars or the abilities of deputies like angles and demons)
    • Mortal in-world agents figure out a way to access this language as well. That's the magic system.

    .
    This is more or less how it works in my setting.

    The story of Prometheus is a metaphor for said code being leaked to mortals.
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    It occurs to me that in worlds where life force is a thing then that implies a life field and you could get spontaneous generation by excitation of that field, which could explain certain conjuration
    That's a thought I'll take with me.
    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    This is more or less how it works in my setting.

    The story of Prometheus is a metaphor for said code being leaked to mortals.
    I find magic-as-computer-code to be a terrible fit (magic is too chaotic for it to be computer code, see my initial post in this thread for where I see magic fitting) for a fantasy/swords and sorcery setting, but for futuristic genres maybe ... although I prefer psionics for that kind of setting.(A matter of taste, to be sure).
    Last edited by KorvinStarmast; 2022-05-04 at 09:08 AM.
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  7. - Top - End - #37
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Real computer programming is sufficiently chaotic that real programmers started using terms such as "magic" and "wizardry" in reference to non-transparent code. Hence the appeal in equating language of magic with programming languages in minds of contemporary people.

    When applied to sword and sorcery, it's worth remembering that the protagonists of that genre are not meant to be programmers. They are meant to be equivalent of barely or non-literate layman using a smartphone: not only do they do not understand first thing about coding of the device, the user interface of the device has been actively designed to hide what is really happening within and be able to be used in total absence of understanding what is really happening.

    Also, that all writing, reading and debugging of the code has to be done by humand hand, eye and mind, often with pre-printing press levels of technology.
    Last edited by Vahnavoi; 2022-05-04 at 10:47 AM.

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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast View Post
    I find magic-as-computer-code to be a terrible fit (magic is too chaotic for it to be computer code, see my initial post in this thread for where I see magic fitting) for a fantasy/swords and sorcery setting, but for futuristic genres maybe ... although I prefer psionics for that kind of setting.(A matter of taste, to be sure).
    It's an analogy, with the gods in the place of programmers and mortals in the place of users.

    In practice, yeah, magic is much more chaotic and unpredictable than code would be for a variety of reasons.
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    It's an analogy, with the gods in the place of programmers and mortals in the place of users.
    It is an analogy I don't care for, in part because I have no mouth and I must scream.
    In practice, yeah, magic is much more chaotic and unpredictable than code would be for a variety of reasons.
    Chaotic and dangerous is a theme that I prefer for magic: I find magic to be a bit too bowdlerized in the current style. (Tastes of course differ in that regard).
    Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Works
    a. Malifice (paraphrased):
    Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
    b. greenstone (paraphrased):
    Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
    Gosh, 2D8HP, you are so very correct!
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  10. - Top - End - #40
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast View Post
    Chaotic and dangerous is a theme that I prefer for magic: I find magic to be a bit too bowdlerized in the current style. (Tastes of course differ in that regard).
    I come from more of a horror background, so for me D&D magic looks too hard. In a horror movie, as long as you say the words right and no part is missing the spell works flawlessly every time, even if you haven't read the terms and conditions, even if you're not expecting it to work, even if you think that the necronomicon is just a book, that Candyman is just a myth, and that the puzzlebox is just a puzzlebox.
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2022-05-05 at 11:33 AM.
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  11. - Top - End - #41
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast View Post
    Chaotic and dangerous is a theme that I prefer for magic: I find magic to be a bit too bowdlerized in the current style. (Tastes of course differ in that regard).
    I think most settings could do a lot by making magic not 'just another bit of physics'.

    I like magic to be where the world breaks down and symbolic logic matters more than hard science. Where there are rules but they vary by individual, or ones you look at and go 'how does that even work'. Where magic is things that reality will let happen, but won't allow the actions that causes it. Or where it just isn't really explained beyond 'you have power over kettles' and you kind of have to work out what that means and if you can maybe also command pots with a bit of creative thinking.

    Or a world where mages don't cast spells because the knock-on effects of staying dry are hard to determine. But that's just because I like Earthsea.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
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    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    Or a world where mages don't cast spells because the knock-on effects of staying dry are hard to determine. But that's just because I like Earthsea.
    That appeals to me as well (your general point) and maybe it's no surprise that I also like Earthsea.
    Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Works
    a. Malifice (paraphrased):
    Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
    b. greenstone (paraphrased):
    Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
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  13. - Top - End - #43
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    My preference is generally for magic to be from somewhere else, the intrusion of unnatural forces into the world, warping and twisting things in defiance of the laws of the material realm. Not sure quite what the best word is, but the sort of magic that is found in Warhammer, Dragon Age or books like the Bartimaeus books, where magic really isn't supposed to be part of the proper order of things.

    Second preference is for magic being performed through the invocation of spirits. Mortals cannot cast spells, but they can learn how to command or bargain with spirits to use magic on their behalf. A man cannot levitate a boulder, but the spirits of the night wind and the moonlit sky can do so if given the right incentive.
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  14. - Top - End - #44
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    For Vancian-style, and 3e-like pseudo-vancian style, I like a semi-animist view. Spirits/kami/small gods/whatever exist for just about everything. Elemental matter is host to elemental spirits which are often dormant. Entire chaotic societies, organized courts, and divine armies of these things exist, and they are an integral part of the laws of physics of the setting. Generally, when they're just working with each other and interacting in the ways their natures drive them, we get something like real-world physics, at least close enough for it to be recognizable in our fantasy milleaux.

    Magic is what happens when they act differently than through their normal behaviors and interests, due to things happening that aren't mediated by material interaction alone.

    3.PF wizards, for example, have books filled with notes and entire discussions and copies of ancient magical treaties with various spirit courts and entities, as well as sociological notes on the needs and wants of these beings. They spend an hour each morning performing various tasks and rituals that generally fulfil "if" clauses of contracts with these things, and which give them permission/rights to demand certain services (through verbal invocation and proper gestures, and sometimes additional tokens or signs in the form of material components or foci) in return for the things they did during that morning preparation. "I evoke a fireball where this bead streaks by right of Infriet!" for example, because he traced the symbol of Infriet Triuphant over dry dust that morning, which was important to the servants of Infriet and gave him rights to make that demand. Once. If he prepared multiple fireballs, he probably did that multiple times.

    In this paradigm, different spells might be straight-forward contracts negotiated specifically for those effects, or they might be a combination of several contracts whose effects the wizard has figured out how to rules lawyer together into the spell he wants. Spellbooks tend to be a combination of law review and tips and tricks and exploits, and each wizard's is unique because he's working from his own understanding of existing things.

    Higher-level wizards can prepare more spells because they're better at balancing the requirements of "their side of the bargain" to ensure none of them cancel each other out.

    Sorcerers instead have cadres of besotted, loyal, or otherwise obedient servitor-spirits that do select things for them, or work their side of the bargain for them as part of the casting, which is why they have fixed lists.

    Clerics are actually members of the divine hierarchies, and get their spells and the services of various spirits animating the world because they have authority to do so, generally in the form of specific rites and permissions they may call upon.

    Druids are similar, but are more getting it out of the same way you make trades with your neighbors, doing each other favors and the like, calling in IOUs.

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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Generally, when they're just working with each other and interacting in the ways their natures drive them, we get something like real-world physics, at least close enough for it to be recognizable in our fantasy milleaux.
    That's what physicists refer to as a "correspondence principle", "Classical Limit", or reduction to classical mechanics
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  16. - Top - End - #46
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    That's what physicists refer to as a "correspondence principle", "Classical Limit", or reduction to classical mechanics
    More or less, yes. Though I feel it is important to differentiate, a little, between the use in physics, where it's a test for whether a new theory for "underlying physics" in real-world physics - such as quantum mechanics, relativity, and the like - is valid by virtue of whether, at scale and values we interact with on a real-world daily basis, it approximates sufficietnly well to classical mechanics that we would notice no difference, and using it to explain a fictional "underlying mechanics."

    The principle is the same: the underlying mechanics of your magical fantasy world should reduce to classical mechanics when you don't have "overt magic" being used and just conduct tests that would normally be classical mechanics.

    However, in fantasy magic-physics, you also can allow for overt magical actions to have overt magical effects.

    Normally, water doesn't freeze without some super-cold stuff, and cold doesn't come from seemingly nowhere. But a spellcaster should still be able to wave his hands, invoke the contract (in my model, anyway), and command either cold energy be brought from the proper elemental plane or that the water itself freeze by spontaneously becoming ice or something.

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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    So for magic exists, I have this idea:
    Your universe is mostly normal, the reason magic exists is because on the other side of the universe, far far away, there exists a small area of space that intersects with another dimension/universe. Because your universe intersects with the other one, the way to manipulate the supernatural is available to mortals. (And gods.)
    Last edited by DarthArminius; 2022-05-13 at 01:15 PM.
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    For a more sciencey magic that'd have very specific mechanics, I like the idea that there are different parallel universes with different conservation laws (including abstract concepts like 'equivalent exchange' or 'karma'), connected only by a small number of 'motes' that manifest as either red or blue.

    Red motes pull something that would be conserved in their far side connected universe out of the near side one, turning immaterial things into material things and then removing them, but also must pull things conserved on the near side into the far side to drive the process. Blue motes pull in things that would be conserved on the near side from the far side, but also draw things conserved on the far side into the near, and the far side conditions determine the rate of flow. Structures can be assembled around a mote to filter or direct these conversions.

    Magic is just the manipulation of these motes. Pairs of red and blue motes enable more stuff and higher power levels than single-type, because you can set up currents that carry the exophysics to everything along the path between them, rather than a limited area around the mote.

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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Magic in my settings is fundamentally simple, and based on the matter-energy dualism. The only major break with the physics of reality is that a force of will, applied through intermediaries like magic circles, incantations, gestures, and the like can directly harness this dualism to shift a substance between the two states, in a way that achieves the desired result. A Fireball converts tiny amounts of ambient matter to energy, which creates a thermal pulse that ignites the air. A freezing spell instead drains energy from an area by converting it to matter, creating an area of cold. My fantasy setting puts it in terms of Law and Chaos, but it is the same thing.

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    There is one perpetual motion phenomena for each planet. It is mirrored by something like a black hole, an object which can absorb energy, but not matter. Like the positive and negative energy planes in some cosmologies. When the first phenomena overpowers entropy, it becomes a star. When entropy animates after sufficient amounts of absorbed energy, it becomes an aberration akin to the old gods. When the forces form a sort of harmony (which usually looks like a sine wave) a planet with life and magic develops.

    Fusion in normal stars produces many different elements. On a long enough time scale, energy from the perpetual motion phenomena warps the qualities of matter it suffuses (generally on the nearby planet or a moon). Natural elements break down, are eaten by various forms of life, and are inevitably eaten my mortal creatures such as sapient humanoids. Certain ratios of various enchanted elements are prone to effects akin to oxidation (spontaneous combustion), but with the products being a variety of magical spells.

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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    I think it's important to be careful about what we mean by "magic". Do we mean

    1) all the stuff that differentiates Earth from a fantasy world (ie the stuff that couldn't happen on Earth but is part of the fantasy world)
    2) OR overt manipulation of supernatural forces by individuals (aka spells).

    #2 is a sub-set of #1, but relies on it. #1 is much more interesting, and answering that question (ie why is #1 not the null set) is necessary to answering #2 (why can some people do specific acts falling into #1).

    I strongly dislike the "magic as exception to natural law" model. It does violence (IMO) to the concept of natural law itself and causes incoherence once you dig even the slightest bit deeper. I also do not accept the correspondence principle as stated--reducing to earth-classical law imposes substantial and unnecessary constraints that mean magic (#2 and #1) are basically written out. Or bloats the concept of "overt magic" to swallow the principle.

    Instead, I prefer a naturalistic but not realistic model. One where the correspondence isn't between modern understandings of classical mechanics and the "non-magical state", but instead that the fantasy world's surface phenomena would be roughly familiar to an medieval (~12th century) alchemist, using tools and concepts he's familiar with. So much more of an Aristotelian world-base. Atoms, molecules (which, FYI, are mostly-classical objects once you get above H2, being very well explained classically unless you really need the details of the bonding energies), cells, etc? Those don't exist as on Earth. But things like "unsupported objects fall" and "if I push something across a table, it slows down" and "the planets move in a regular fashion" and what things are flammable, etc? Those are basically the same. Coincidentally, that fits the player-side naive physical intuition (unless you're playing with physicists or chemists). In essence, the what is the same (the mathematical or phenomenological descriptions and predictions) as on Earth for these surface things. However, the why (the underlying theory and explanations) are very different.

    My setting works on a unified-substance model. There is only one "base thing", which makes up all matter and all energy. Anima. Aether. Both names are used. It comes from the dreams, growth, and souls of mortal beings, and can be condensed, given aspects (elemental or otherwise), etc. There is a cycle of anima--mortals create it by living; after their death a large chunk of it (that which isn't eaten directly by another being, including that bound up in the nimbus[1] around the soul) passes into Shadow, where the soul is gradually freed of this encumbrance (and passes Beyond). The remaining anima passes upward into the Astral, where some of it is consumed to power the Great Mechanism and the lucians (the residents of the Astral, encompassing both angels and devils and all the other residents) but most is distributed among the elemental planes, where it is solidified and brought back into the Mortal to complete the "natural cycles" (ie hydrological, air, etc). That is, the mountains don't grow because of "natural" plate tectonics or whatever--there are elemental forces distributing earth-aspected anima to shape them. And to fill back in the old abandoned mines (slowly). Anima is not conserved--in fact, the natural trend is upward.

    There is an ambient level of diffuse, only vaguely-aspected anima all around everything. Thicker in some spots than in others. "Natural" magic (ie the parts of #1 that aren't spells) involve drawing in this anima and using it in various ways. Dragons fly (despite that not working physically because they're just too big and heavy) by (unconsciously) manipulating ambient anima, imposing aspects that allow them to fly. And breath energy in much the same way--they have natural elemental ties and aspect their exhalations appropriately. Yet this breath is not the natural stuff--a breath of lightning is not generating a bunch of positive and negative charges with a potential difference. It's imposing a particular mix of lambent fire and umbral air onto a region, which produces the phenomenon known as lightning with a bunch more control. Dragons gain their control and "power" via their hoards--a dragon simply cannot consume enough food to survive properly if deprived of their hoard. At least as an adult+ dragon. Giants are strengthened well beyond what physics would suggest (ie able to violate the square-cube law) by the runes which reprogrammed them to draw on the elements more directly. Undead, being anti-life and "powered" by spirits of entropy and destruction from beyond the world's edge, actually drain the ambient anima in small ways. Life around a cluster of undead is weaker; plants don't grow well, babies are stillborn or sickly, etc. Eventually, regions long-inhabited by undead become completely sterile and even the condensed anima of the rocks and dirt starts breaking down, creating a blasted moonscape of "ash" and dust, incapable of supporting life.

    Spells and other "coherent" magical effects (of which spells are just one small portion) are methods of manipulating the ambient anima in a more conscious, directed format. Each spell consists of two parts. Every spell has a pattern and an activation energy.

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    The pattern is a complex construct at the nimbus level, facilitated by particular movements, sounds or outside material catalysts (aka spell components). Note that simply performing the components is not enough--unless the pattern is constructed consciously in your nimbus and fed by energy, nothing happens. Simply memorizing the components is not enough. Patterns are effectively universe-level API calls. Requirements and outcomes set in place by the Great Mechanism (via the god of magic). They can be discovered, but they cannot be created. And there are a lot of them. Way more than in the PHB/all books combined. But they do fixed things. There is a certain amount of tolerance for slop and variation, however, so better casters can make the fireball a bit harder deal with, but can't generally change its shape or size.

    Different traditions learn their patterns in different ways, leading to four basic "varieties" of magic, each with their own focus and area of specialty.
    1. Harmonic magic (bards, plus lots of "common" magic) is one of the oldest. It mediates the patterns in rhythms and sound. Anyone can perform a chant (which produces very minor effects like making weeds easier to see and only has an effect while the chant is ongoing). Bards can perform more powerful spells. Harmonic magic tends to resonate best with souled creatures, especially those with minds.

    2. Primal magic relies on convincing the micro-spirits of nature to assist. A druid or a ranger (among others, including many shamans) makes deals (although not in any concrete language, more like teaching an animal to do a trick) with these micro-spirits that are all around. In exchange for a bit of personal energy (the spell slot) and being allowed to "ride along" with the caster, the spirit will enter the caster's nimbus and become the necessary pattern. Druids make and dissolve these deals constantly; rangers tend to make friends and "embed" their favorite spirits into their gear.

    3. Divine magic is mediated. Paladins and clerics have access (the one via stubbornness and the other via faith and being chosen) to a repository of pre-set patterns. When they prepare spells, they're literally accessing that repository and downloading the chosen spells into their souls. They don't understand them--the spells come from the outside and access to re-arrange their prepared list can be cut off. But they have access to a huge library of spells. This also lets them handle the most complex patterns, such as healing or resurrection (which require understanding/describing the entire being).

    4. Arcane magic is "direct". It can be taught or innate, but once acquired it's fixed. Wizards encode the spells in writing and symbols, learning to encode them onto their souls via mnemonics and other techniques. Sorcerers are born with the spells--their struggle is in expressing them and disciplining the patterns so they can actually successfully cast them. Warlocks are gifted the spells[2] as a consequence of their contact with some greater being. Because they cheated the process, their spells are unruly and require force of will to express rather than learning by intellect and mastering that way. Gaining new spells requires further contact with the patron. Artificers (although I do that differently) mediate theirs via "technology" (more like mad science, it only works for them most of the time).


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    Some spells are trivial enough that they can draw on the natural production of the soul without meaningfully diminishing resources. But most of the more powerful ones require either sacrifice or bound "capacitor-like" storage. The first is messy (and dangerous if sacrificing larger, more complex creatures[3]) but can be very powerful. A willing, knowing sacrifice of one's life is the most powerful source of energy around. But that's way too much to deal with. So instead, people have learned to open pockets in their souls to store energy, which then can be dumped through a pattern to produce a spell effect. Opening these is hard, usually requiring meditation, solitude, and personal struggle. An average person might spend most of a decade's apprenticeship struggling to open their first, of the lowest capacity. As a note, these are quantized and the matching requirements are such that you can't simply dump N lower level "slots" to power a higher level effect. Not directly, although some people have a bit more control and other "reservoirs" of energy they can play around with (aka sorcerers and metamagic).


    When a spell resolves and comes into being, the pattern imposes a resonant cascade on a portion of local anima. A fireball doesn't actually start a fire--it simply says "you're hot" to a large volume. This is why some "fire" spells don't naturally light flammable things on fire and why ray of frost cannot freeze water--it doesn't have the right aspects or duration to trigger that reaction. Control spells like hold person impose aspects onto the nimbus of the target. Etc.

    [1] A person has three parts: The body, composed of condensed anima that interacts with other condensed anima. The nimbus, composed of diffuse anima that interacts with other diffuse anima and mediates between body and spark. And spark, the soul, the self, the ineffable whence personality flows. Death is the separation of body and spirit (nimbus + spark); the spirit passes into Shadow while the body stays behind. Except when things go wrong.
    [2] As well as the spell slots necessary to power it--they don't acquire those through meditation and growth. Instead they're ripped open unnaturally by contact with the Other.
    [3] A chicken? Meh. A horse or cow? Risks attracting unfriendly things or creating hostile fey. A fully-souled creature such as a person? The trauma and spill-over weakens the boundaries, drawing jotnar (the entropy spirits that power undead and demons). Leading to twisted landscapes and monsters, if not outright spontaneous undead and demons. And pollutes Shadow in that region, leaving the spirits there vulnerable to consumption by demons. And that's just using their body/nimbus as fuel. Those rites that actually consume the spark are really horrible. Like the worst form of industrial dumping. There's a reason such things are forbidden by every sane society on pain of immediate, no trial death for anyone caught performing them.
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    For the OP: there was a time during the Rennaissance era/late Medieval period that Alchemy and Magic went hand in hand. (12th to 17th centuries, roughly)

    The Emerald Tablet, and the Hermetic Corpus (alleged to have been the work of Hermes Trismegistus) were some baseline works that informed this view of things.

    In a nutshell, the universe/all of creation was in harmony at the macro level because everything was infused and directed by one spirit, but, at the micro level, there were a lot of practical difference between various phenomena, substances, or essences that were ascribed to the prime matter of a thing. (Won't digress into the "a thing in itself" musings of philosophy here).

    Going into further detail would take far too long. There were a variety of philosophical stances feeding it, to include Platonic and Aristotlean schools of thought, but I will observe that it seems to me no accident that
    (1) the Prime Material plane and prime matter look to share a linguistic root
    (2) the ideas of sympathetic magic (like evokes like) is certainly a part of using material components for spells.

    The trick for the practitioner of magic, then, is to find ways to see beyond the prime matter and tap into that unifying spirit (whatever that is, Phoenix calls is anima in his system) in order to do something alchemical. That may be transmuting lead into gold, making a tree grow faster and larger, turning some bat guano into a great ball of fire, and so on.

    You can adapt something like that into your magic system, if that's what you are looking for in getting explanations about magic.
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    "Why does magic exist?" Well, examples from human history posit:
    -Magic is a creation of a god (or the gods) gifted to humanity to help them protect themselves from danger (including malign spirits).
    -Magic is a knowledge of the power of the gods gifted to humanity (often favored/privileged members of humanity).
    -Magic is a knowledge of how to compel/cajole lesser powers to carry out actions on behalf of the knowledgeable.
    -Magic is a knowledge of the power of the gods that can be discovered through investigation.
    -Magic is a knowledge of the rules of reality that can be discovered through investigation. And now we're on the road to science, though it's interesting to observe that magic always started with science.

    So, a tool set a god or the gods created and gave to mortals. A tool set mortals were granted access to. A tool set mortals could force/ask others to use on their behalf. A tool set mortals started figuring out for themselves. I typically extend this progression to include mortals creating their own tool sets on the road to divinity.

    This kind of shifts the question. Rather than thinking of magic as a separate energy, we can think of it as the knowledge of ways of manipulating reality. Not 'why does magic exist' but more 'how does it work'. Although it also answers the 'why' question: because the gods made a tool for mortals, because gods gave mortals access to the tools, because mortals figured out how to ask/force lesser divinities to use the tools on their behalf (really just a more forceful version of prayer directed at lesser divinities), and because mortals figured of how gain access to the divine toolbox.

    In fantasy settings I have enjoyed using a basic model of chaos shaped into order by will. Combined with a multiverse cosmology this allows for pretty much anything, including competing/contradictory explanations of the nature of magic, to co-exist. That gives me a lot of flexibility.
    Last edited by jjordan; 2022-05-16 at 09:36 AM.

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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    More "why do metahumans exist" than "why does magic exist" but I've always been a big fan of Marvel's explanation - the Earth is simultaneously a Celestial Egg, was bled all over by a dying celestial and is also well-positioned as an intergalactic and interdimensional hub, you combine all of those and you get a hotbed of superheroes along with a metric ton of mystic energy for tons of magic-users. This has allowed Earth to pull off feats almost no other planets have (like repelling Galactus multiple times) and having the largest incidence of Sorcerers Supreme.

    Warcraft/Azeroth has a version of this what with the whole planet being a Titan Egg.
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
    We, as humans, have managed to build simplified simulated universes with this setup, such as No Man's Sky - which has 'magic' tech like teleportation to the hub zone that violates the procedural physics engine of the universe.
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    snip.
    That's actually remarkably similar to how it works in my setting.

    The only thing I don't follow is why it is ok to have a setting that follows a 14th century understanding of physics with different mechanics under the hood, but how a setting that follows a modern understanding of physics but with a different mechanics under the hood collapses into a broken mass of disbelief.
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    That's actually remarkably similar to how it works in my setting.

    The only thing I don't follow is why it is ok to have a setting that follows a 14th century understanding of physics with different mechanics under the hood, but how a setting that follows a modern understanding of physics but with a different mechanics under the hood collapses into a broken mass of disbelief.
    Because modern physics makes demands. And has to be self consistent. So change any parameter and the whole thing collapses. Basically, modern physics puts tight constraints on what happens under the hood. Ones that just don't work with magic. And can't handle exceptions because those contravene the predictions and break the models.

    If all you ask is that the gross surface phenomena are vaguely similar, you can alter the how and why much more freely. The lower demands mean that you can keep basic verisimilitude and still accept a lot of fantastic stuff.

    In one sense, it's like midichlorians. Trying to explain it in modern(ish) scientific terms ruins it, because it draws all the inconsistencies into the harsh light. I don't have problems with movies or books that don't try to be scientific or explain things when they have holes. But I naturally hold ones that do say they're realistic or "hard" to the standard they set for themselves. Which none of them survive well.
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    On the other hand Shadowrun is hugely popular despite mixing extrapolated modern science with magic, and I believe that Deadlands: Hell on Earth and Lost Colony do the same. Then again in Deadlands a lot of post-1870s tech is magical in origin and power source. Then you have games like Mage and Unknown Armies which have magic despite taking place in 'our world'.

    Mixing magic with modern or even future technology isn't inherently suspension of disbelief-breaking. You just generally need to apply some form of explanation, or several if you really want to.
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    On the other hand Shadowrun is hugely popular despite mixing extrapolated modern science with magic, and I believe that Deadlands: Hell on Earth and Lost Colony do the same. Then again in Deadlands a lot of post-1870s tech is magical in origin and power source. Then you have games like Mage and Unknown Armies which have magic despite taking place in 'our world'.

    Mixing magic with modern or even future technology isn't inherently suspension of disbelief-breaking. You just generally need to apply some form of explanation, or several if you really want to.
    Agreed, not all urban fantasy is Dresden Files where technology breaks down if a wizard sneezes near it. there is TWEWY with magic smartphones and pins that give you superpowers, there is Werewolves with their techno-shamans that commune with their spirits of machines, Vampire 20th Anarchs that learn magic to super-hack electronics, Fate/Grand Order literally kicks off by uniting the power of magic and science to travel through to save all of humanity from extinction, Demon the Descent blends tech and magic so much its hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

    For Mage the Ascension in particular, If magic couldn't coexist with physics or tech? a big chunk of the settings factions wouldn't even exist. the Technocracy would just not be a thing. No Sons of Ether or hacker-mages either.

    or how about Star Wars where the Jedi exist right alongside things like the Death Star, city-planets, big spaceships and wield lightsabers? one of the biggest franchises in the world founded itself on a magic/tech mix that everyone loves.

    there is also WH40k which blends the two a bit as well.

    FF7 is well known for how it integrates magic and technology together; the entire setting is built upon how its industrial use of materia and mako energy is screwing everything up, and its story is built upon tampering with magic using technology.

    mixing magic with tech is not only not inherently suspension of disbelief breaking, its the foundation of some of the most known and beloved franchises in the world. modern pop-culture would be very different if it was.
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    Default Re: Explain the origins of magic to me

    I think I mispoke/misread the question.

    You can absolutely have modern (or super-modern) seeming technology and magic. That's fine. No substantial issues there (at least fundamentally). What you can't (IMO) have and preserve verisimilitude (for me) is modern science (meaning the laws of nature as we know them in all their details as the fundamental underpinnings of reality) and non-trivial magic. Because magic breaks those laws entirely, which means they can't be the operating laws of the universe (definitionally--a physical law with exceptions isn't a fundamental law at all and there is [presumably] a more fundamental one that handles those exceptions[1]).

    So you can blend magic into your fundamental laws, producing something that, on the surface (defined differently per setting), looks pretty Earth-like (except for the magic and magical elements). But you can't claim the physical laws are the same and magic is some kind of external exception that gets to break those laws. Because that's a contradiction.

    The 14th century (although really I go for about 12th century) "surface" definition is what I use for my own, D&D setting. Because that's what fits best (IMO) both D&D's core model and my own preference for aesthetics (no guns, among other things). You could set that surface in other places. As long as you do define some "surface" below which things vary. And the further you go down before you say "ok, things are different below here", the harder time you'll have constructing a consistent "lower" model. Because the more those things depend on having all the (delicate) parameters of the modern physical laws in place to support them.

    As for the particular settings mentioned (taking the ones I know):

    * Fate/Grand Order (and all the Fate settings) rely on magic being part of natural law, not an exception to it. They use fantasy tech and abuse the Earth laws of physics horrifically in doing so. That is, they have the trappings of tech, but it's premised on very different underpinnings.
    * Mage literally runs on consensus reality. Tech (and the laws of physics) are actually derived phenomena from the power of mass belief. That's not "modern physics is the real underpinning" at all (the reverse, actually). Magic is reality, technology (well, modern science) is the thing that imprisons/constrains magic and it's entirely constructed/external to the core reality.
    * Star Wars (at least the good ones) run "tech as magic". They don't actually try to explain anything, which is good because none of it makes even the slightest lick of sense when you look at the details. Which is what ruined the prequels for me--they tried to take it seriously and in doing so showed that the Emperor had no clothes.
    * WH40k literally runs on the rule of grimdark (like the rule of cool, but grimmer and darker). No attempt to use actual real-world science there. All the tech words are handwavium.
    * Shadowrun incorporates magic into the fundamental laws as a natural force. And most of the tech is fairly hand-waved as well. To the degree that they actually claim that they're using real physics, it does violate (my) verisimilitude.
    * FF7 doesn't even try to explain anything beyond "mako energy coming from the lifestream". Which places it very firmly outside of the modern-science-is-real envelop.

    [1] in the same sort of way that relativity (combining general and special) handles newtonian mechanics in that limit, but also explains a lot of things where newtonian mechanics gives the wrong predictions. Here, you'd have some "magical mechanics" that, in the proper limit, reduces to something that looks pretty firmly newtonian. But at its underlying core is very different.
    Last edited by PhoenixPhyre; 2022-06-01 at 09:10 AM.
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