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sparkindarknessOk, it couldn't be that simple. Here's a bit of Sparkindarkness world building on magic - sympathetic and generic magic really because things are falling into place as I deal with the more Camaalis orientated fic. Darren doesn't know all that much about the theories and principles of magic because he was never truly educated in a Camaalis fashion. So I'm finally considering things from angles that never occured to me before with characters who really know what they're talking about.
These pieces are slowly coming together. I am slowly learning how magic works in this world. I have a feeling Camaalis is doling it out in little manageable lumps because they think that is all my mind can handle. I’d glare at them but they may try to overwhelm me just to prove a point. Cursed super people in my head.
Sympathetic Magic is a major part of magic as it permeates everything. It is a part of most acts of magic, perhaps even all. It is one of the prime building blocks of magic, as important as the three Powers.
At its base, Sympathetic Magic is the magic of similarities - a wonderfully simplistic summation that tells people nothing. Sympathetic magic involves forming a bond or Connection in magic. There are hundreds of ways of forming these Connections - and that is usually what most ritual involves - forming Connections to cast magic or enhance magic in some ways. Sympathetic magic can be a magic all of itself without any of the Magician’s talents or it can be used to enhance a Magician’s natural talents in one of the Powers.
One of the main problems is that few magicians, in Camaalis or out of it, actually think in terms of Sympathetic magic when they use their basic abilities. They just do it because it is so simple. The foundation of Sympathetic magic is that magic is actually everywhere - not just in Magicians. Magic is in the Earth, in the Realms and in the self of all that lives and thinks - even in basic concepts and forces. Magic is everywhere and the trick is to form the right Connections to tap into the vast magic of All.
There are many uses to these Connections and I think giving examples will probably explain it better than me fumbling for words to adequately describe it properly.
Targeting
The most basic and obvious of Sympathetic is to use it as a focus to target magic. In fact, any spells that are targeted automatically use Symapthetic magic to a degree. For example - an Elementalist summons fire to his hands to cast at a foe stood in front of him - he has targeted his magic (fiery death) at someone else. The Connection he has used to target it is sight - he can see his target which forms an automatic Connection of perception (it’s a weak Connection but it’s there). Another example - An Augur runs her hand across a man’s desk, a treasured family heirloom to gain visions of that man’s future and his personality. Again Sympathetic magic has been used to target the man for her magic - the desk (which both belongs to the man and has a strong emotional Connection) acts as a Connection for her magic.
The classic example when Sympathetic magic is obvious and known is the use of poppets - dolls or figurines or other models that represent the target and the magic is directed at the doll to effect the actual target (a voodoo doll is a poppet). In the same way, magic users can use hair, toe nail clippings, blood etc as Connections for their magic.
Targeting Connections are the simplest, they don’t really draw on the magic of the All or even one of the Powers, Magicians just Connect their own magic to that of their target.
Enhancement
Enhancement is another common use of Sympathetic magic - and in many of the basic uses of magic it is again not recognised or defined - it’s just assumed. You can use Sympathetic magic to enhance your magic by using things that have Connections with your own spells. This is usually why magic users use ritual (another reason is because they’re placating creatures of other Realms) - they are building Connections into their magic. Sure, a Seer can just close his eyes and look at the myriad of possibilities through different alternate Realms without any extra tools - but he can also ingest a hallucinogenic “teacher plant.” He forms a Connection with the plant and its inherent magical nature of foresight and Enhances his own talent.
There are many kinds of Sympathetic Enhancements - plants, animals, symbols, potions, words, rituals, places, crystals - there is magic everywhere that can be tapped for an Enhancement Connection if you know how.
In Camaalis the use of Sympathetic Magic for enhancement purposes is actually looked down upon. They often mock the Concord that they need to use ritual and artefacts to make their magic work because they are so much weaker than Camaalis that they need Sympathetic Enhancement if they hope to achieve any real effect. Camaalis are very proud of the fact that they can do vast works of magic without needing to Enhance themselves in any way...
This generally means Camaalis don’t use TOO much Enhancement (sure, most use the word, a wand or the occasional potion - so long as it doesn’t look like you’re going out of your way to make more than casual Connections). When they do then most Camaalis will assume that the user is both pissed and means serious business and it’s probably time to talk them down or edge away. If you do come across an angry Camaalis in a ritual circle, tossing runes, slugging back potions and chanting the Word then you had better ru-... actually, don’t run. You’ll just die tired.
Rune Crafting/Alchemy/Herbalism
Ok, these make a LOT more sense now. Before they were kind of out on a side and didn’t seem to fit in any of the Powers. These are Sympathetic Magics, almost entirely. The Magician uses runes/alchemy/herbalism to draw magic of the Powers THROUGH other things using Sypathetic Magic. It still begs the question whether they belong to any particular Pillar and some Camaalis studying Sympathetic Magic say that people usually have a preference for which Power they draw on. Others dispute this and say there is no real proof of anything beyond personal inclination,. certainly nothing like an actual talent for a Power as found in other Magicians. They contend that the former are just trying to force everything to fit the idea of the Three Powers and you can’t force evidence to fit conclusions. These contend that Pure Sympathetic Magicians (called “Channelers”) have a talent for Sympathetic Magic that replaces direct talent with the Powers - that they can be considered a different branch of Magicians beyond Power Magicians. They point to the fact that Channelers only ever have one Power - you never find an Illusionist/Alchemist, for example. They say this shows that Channelers aren’t Power Magicians at all - and get all excited at the possibility of other types of Magicians as well. The first group snort at this and think that the latter are reading far too much into the evidence and stretching it too far without justification.
It’s a matter of heated debate and is likely not to be resolved for some time... it’s possible more will turn to it now they seem to have finally resolved the Shaman question - or Magicians looking at Sympathetic Magic may be turned from their research to further develop the new paths of Shamanism that have opened up.
The Word:
The Word is actually a major, perhaps ultimate manifestation of Sympathetic Magic. The Word is the true essence of a thing or concept in every way - it forms an incredible connection. When a Namer says The Word he has formed the strongest and deepest known single Connection with his target. This is considered perhaps the most powerful use of Sympathetic Magic there is (disputed though - see Power of Three) This is why Magicians of all stripes use the Word in their casting - use of the Word acts as a Sympathetic Connection for Targeting (forming a HUGELY powerful link that a Magician can throw their magic down) and other Words act as a very powerful enhancement (If, for example, a White Mage got your True Name and used the Word for life? They could heal you. Of just about ANYTHING short of beheading. Maybe not that short of it).
Even without your own magic the Word acts as very powerful Sympathetic Magic in its own right - you may not be a Sorcerer but if you know someone’s True name and the Word for Death then you can cause a whole world of hurt.
Back to the argument of a separate branch of magic - the first group contend that this is proof that Channelers aren’t a separate group because there ARE no actual Namers. Oh, there are legends and there are people who call themselves Namers - but they don’t have a magical talent in the art, they’ve just studied really hard and learned a lot of the Word. The second group scoff and say you can’t prove a negative, especially a negative you know little about - many arts are lost or very rare. And all Channelers need a lot of education - there may be hundreds of Namers out there that Camaalis just doesn’t recognise because they don’t know what to look for.
The Power of Three?
Ok, This is a debate. The problem is that as far as Camaalis is concerned, the Power of Three has almost religious significance so discussions tend to be heated and hesitant. The Power of Three combines Three similar Powers together into an incredible power boost - some argue that by definition the Power of Three is the ultimate Sympathetic Magic - where whole POWERS are used as Enhancement connections.
The other Camaalis find the idea a little disturbing and don’t think it is accurate since Powers are drawn through Connections,. they’re not Connections themselves. If they were you would be able to form many more kinds of Connections with Powers rather than having to be so similar, especially if you were just doing one specific, defined task. And you wouldn’t have to limit it to Three.
The first group then enthusiastically declares - well maybe they CAN form other connections and use more than Three! After all, Three Circles of Three can already combine together (in theory). All they need to do is experiment a little...
Then the rest of Camaalis screams NO. Because they rather like the British Isles being above water. And the others complain because they never get to play with the fabric of the universe or time or reality or nuthin’.
Sympathetic Magic as an Art in itself
Since the Power of Sympathetic Magic is technically in the Connections you use, in theory you should be able to tap it without magical talent so long as you tap the Connections. The Word is the Word no matter who says it, a herb has the same magical properties no matter who uses it, right?
Well... kind of. Technically a completely magicless human can use Sympathetic Magic. But don’t expect much. Without, well, Camaalis don’t know what it is - the magic gene? The magic trait? Whatever it is, without that little thing inside you that makes you a Magician a normal human is just plain bad at extracting Sympathetic Magic. They can do it - in fact that’s how many lucky charms start. But it takes a lot to get any noticeable magic that you can point to and say “oh wow, magic” and not think “oh, that was lucky/weird.” Kind of like a seance, sure most people can scare themselves have to death with a Ouija board then wake up the next morning feeling a little silly and blaming those doors slamming in the wind, but very few are actually going to get a coherent useful message from great Aunt Dora about where she stashed that money she fenced.
So humans can use sympathetic magic, but not well. Magicians can use Sympathetic magic far better - they can actually use Sympathetic magic which isn’t linked to their Powers. So, if he knows how, Darren could actually mix up a healing potion or use a ritual to summon a spirit of light. It wouldn’t be a great healing potion and that spirit of light is going to be royally pissed but he can do it. Magicians are naturally MUCH better at Sympathetic magic that fits their Powers. Channelers get the most out of Sympathetic Magic being equally good at a vast array of Sympathetic Magic. This tends to mean Channelers are extremely flexible but generally not as flashy as other Magicians (or as Magicians if you accept them as a seperate type of magic user).
There are all kinds of debates on whether this points to Channelers being a sub-set of Magicians, separate from Magicians or where in general the two fit together.
Anti-sympathetic Magic
Last, but not least - as some Connections can help magic, others can hamper it. if you can Connect yourself or someone else’s magic to something that has the opposite powers to the spell being cast then it provides at least some degree of protection or resistance from its effects - so a bad luck spell can be countered by wearing powerful good luck charms, for example. Cold magic counters fire magic, light dark etc - this is the concept behind some wards, though there are infinite ways of putting wards together.
These pieces are slowly coming together. I am slowly learning how magic works in this world. I have a feeling Camaalis is doling it out in little manageable lumps because they think that is all my mind can handle. I’d glare at them but they may try to overwhelm me just to prove a point. Cursed super people in my head.
Sympathetic Magic is a major part of magic as it permeates everything. It is a part of most acts of magic, perhaps even all. It is one of the prime building blocks of magic, as important as the three Powers.
At its base, Sympathetic Magic is the magic of similarities - a wonderfully simplistic summation that tells people nothing. Sympathetic magic involves forming a bond or Connection in magic. There are hundreds of ways of forming these Connections - and that is usually what most ritual involves - forming Connections to cast magic or enhance magic in some ways. Sympathetic magic can be a magic all of itself without any of the Magician’s talents or it can be used to enhance a Magician’s natural talents in one of the Powers.
One of the main problems is that few magicians, in Camaalis or out of it, actually think in terms of Sympathetic magic when they use their basic abilities. They just do it because it is so simple. The foundation of Sympathetic magic is that magic is actually everywhere - not just in Magicians. Magic is in the Earth, in the Realms and in the self of all that lives and thinks - even in basic concepts and forces. Magic is everywhere and the trick is to form the right Connections to tap into the vast magic of All.
There are many uses to these Connections and I think giving examples will probably explain it better than me fumbling for words to adequately describe it properly.
Targeting
The most basic and obvious of Sympathetic is to use it as a focus to target magic. In fact, any spells that are targeted automatically use Symapthetic magic to a degree. For example - an Elementalist summons fire to his hands to cast at a foe stood in front of him - he has targeted his magic (fiery death) at someone else. The Connection he has used to target it is sight - he can see his target which forms an automatic Connection of perception (it’s a weak Connection but it’s there). Another example - An Augur runs her hand across a man’s desk, a treasured family heirloom to gain visions of that man’s future and his personality. Again Sympathetic magic has been used to target the man for her magic - the desk (which both belongs to the man and has a strong emotional Connection) acts as a Connection for her magic.
The classic example when Sympathetic magic is obvious and known is the use of poppets - dolls or figurines or other models that represent the target and the magic is directed at the doll to effect the actual target (a voodoo doll is a poppet). In the same way, magic users can use hair, toe nail clippings, blood etc as Connections for their magic.
Targeting Connections are the simplest, they don’t really draw on the magic of the All or even one of the Powers, Magicians just Connect their own magic to that of their target.
Enhancement
Enhancement is another common use of Sympathetic magic - and in many of the basic uses of magic it is again not recognised or defined - it’s just assumed. You can use Sympathetic magic to enhance your magic by using things that have Connections with your own spells. This is usually why magic users use ritual (another reason is because they’re placating creatures of other Realms) - they are building Connections into their magic. Sure, a Seer can just close his eyes and look at the myriad of possibilities through different alternate Realms without any extra tools - but he can also ingest a hallucinogenic “teacher plant.” He forms a Connection with the plant and its inherent magical nature of foresight and Enhances his own talent.
There are many kinds of Sympathetic Enhancements - plants, animals, symbols, potions, words, rituals, places, crystals - there is magic everywhere that can be tapped for an Enhancement Connection if you know how.
In Camaalis the use of Sympathetic Magic for enhancement purposes is actually looked down upon. They often mock the Concord that they need to use ritual and artefacts to make their magic work because they are so much weaker than Camaalis that they need Sympathetic Enhancement if they hope to achieve any real effect. Camaalis are very proud of the fact that they can do vast works of magic without needing to Enhance themselves in any way...
This generally means Camaalis don’t use TOO much Enhancement (sure, most use the word, a wand or the occasional potion - so long as it doesn’t look like you’re going out of your way to make more than casual Connections). When they do then most Camaalis will assume that the user is both pissed and means serious business and it’s probably time to talk them down or edge away. If you do come across an angry Camaalis in a ritual circle, tossing runes, slugging back potions and chanting the Word then you had better ru-... actually, don’t run. You’ll just die tired.
Rune Crafting/Alchemy/Herbalism
Ok, these make a LOT more sense now. Before they were kind of out on a side and didn’t seem to fit in any of the Powers. These are Sympathetic Magics, almost entirely. The Magician uses runes/alchemy/herbalism to draw magic of the Powers THROUGH other things using Sypathetic Magic. It still begs the question whether they belong to any particular Pillar and some Camaalis studying Sympathetic Magic say that people usually have a preference for which Power they draw on. Others dispute this and say there is no real proof of anything beyond personal inclination,. certainly nothing like an actual talent for a Power as found in other Magicians. They contend that the former are just trying to force everything to fit the idea of the Three Powers and you can’t force evidence to fit conclusions. These contend that Pure Sympathetic Magicians (called “Channelers”) have a talent for Sympathetic Magic that replaces direct talent with the Powers - that they can be considered a different branch of Magicians beyond Power Magicians. They point to the fact that Channelers only ever have one Power - you never find an Illusionist/Alchemist, for example. They say this shows that Channelers aren’t Power Magicians at all - and get all excited at the possibility of other types of Magicians as well. The first group snort at this and think that the latter are reading far too much into the evidence and stretching it too far without justification.
It’s a matter of heated debate and is likely not to be resolved for some time... it’s possible more will turn to it now they seem to have finally resolved the Shaman question - or Magicians looking at Sympathetic Magic may be turned from their research to further develop the new paths of Shamanism that have opened up.
The Word:
The Word is actually a major, perhaps ultimate manifestation of Sympathetic Magic. The Word is the true essence of a thing or concept in every way - it forms an incredible connection. When a Namer says The Word he has formed the strongest and deepest known single Connection with his target. This is considered perhaps the most powerful use of Sympathetic Magic there is (disputed though - see Power of Three) This is why Magicians of all stripes use the Word in their casting - use of the Word acts as a Sympathetic Connection for Targeting (forming a HUGELY powerful link that a Magician can throw their magic down) and other Words act as a very powerful enhancement (If, for example, a White Mage got your True Name and used the Word for life? They could heal you. Of just about ANYTHING short of beheading. Maybe not that short of it).
Even without your own magic the Word acts as very powerful Sympathetic Magic in its own right - you may not be a Sorcerer but if you know someone’s True name and the Word for Death then you can cause a whole world of hurt.
Back to the argument of a separate branch of magic - the first group contend that this is proof that Channelers aren’t a separate group because there ARE no actual Namers. Oh, there are legends and there are people who call themselves Namers - but they don’t have a magical talent in the art, they’ve just studied really hard and learned a lot of the Word. The second group scoff and say you can’t prove a negative, especially a negative you know little about - many arts are lost or very rare. And all Channelers need a lot of education - there may be hundreds of Namers out there that Camaalis just doesn’t recognise because they don’t know what to look for.
The Power of Three?
Ok, This is a debate. The problem is that as far as Camaalis is concerned, the Power of Three has almost religious significance so discussions tend to be heated and hesitant. The Power of Three combines Three similar Powers together into an incredible power boost - some argue that by definition the Power of Three is the ultimate Sympathetic Magic - where whole POWERS are used as Enhancement connections.
The other Camaalis find the idea a little disturbing and don’t think it is accurate since Powers are drawn through Connections,. they’re not Connections themselves. If they were you would be able to form many more kinds of Connections with Powers rather than having to be so similar, especially if you were just doing one specific, defined task. And you wouldn’t have to limit it to Three.
The first group then enthusiastically declares - well maybe they CAN form other connections and use more than Three! After all, Three Circles of Three can already combine together (in theory). All they need to do is experiment a little...
Then the rest of Camaalis screams NO. Because they rather like the British Isles being above water. And the others complain because they never get to play with the fabric of the universe or time or reality or nuthin’.
Sympathetic Magic as an Art in itself
Since the Power of Sympathetic Magic is technically in the Connections you use, in theory you should be able to tap it without magical talent so long as you tap the Connections. The Word is the Word no matter who says it, a herb has the same magical properties no matter who uses it, right?
Well... kind of. Technically a completely magicless human can use Sympathetic Magic. But don’t expect much. Without, well, Camaalis don’t know what it is - the magic gene? The magic trait? Whatever it is, without that little thing inside you that makes you a Magician a normal human is just plain bad at extracting Sympathetic Magic. They can do it - in fact that’s how many lucky charms start. But it takes a lot to get any noticeable magic that you can point to and say “oh wow, magic” and not think “oh, that was lucky/weird.” Kind of like a seance, sure most people can scare themselves have to death with a Ouija board then wake up the next morning feeling a little silly and blaming those doors slamming in the wind, but very few are actually going to get a coherent useful message from great Aunt Dora about where she stashed that money she fenced.
So humans can use sympathetic magic, but not well. Magicians can use Sympathetic magic far better - they can actually use Sympathetic magic which isn’t linked to their Powers. So, if he knows how, Darren could actually mix up a healing potion or use a ritual to summon a spirit of light. It wouldn’t be a great healing potion and that spirit of light is going to be royally pissed but he can do it. Magicians are naturally MUCH better at Sympathetic magic that fits their Powers. Channelers get the most out of Sympathetic Magic being equally good at a vast array of Sympathetic Magic. This tends to mean Channelers are extremely flexible but generally not as flashy as other Magicians (or as Magicians if you accept them as a seperate type of magic user).
There are all kinds of debates on whether this points to Channelers being a sub-set of Magicians, separate from Magicians or where in general the two fit together.
Anti-sympathetic Magic
Last, but not least - as some Connections can help magic, others can hamper it. if you can Connect yourself or someone else’s magic to something that has the opposite powers to the spell being cast then it provides at least some degree of protection or resistance from its effects - so a bad luck spell can be countered by wearing powerful good luck charms, for example. Cold magic counters fire magic, light dark etc - this is the concept behind some wards, though there are infinite ways of putting wards together.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-12 11:08 am (UTC)I lived there for, what, seven years? It was mostly ok, so long as you didn't try to cross the river during the hours of daylight, or go inside the walls on a weekend or bank holiday...
(Oops. Too late. I was drunk? I think I told him he hadn't got the nerve to break my arm, and he spent the next six months trying to drive me insane. It was a great game. I won, obviously, because I'm *less* fruitbat now than I was before...)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-12 05:28 pm (UTC)Every time it rains I hear on the radio "and there's flooding in... X number of streets in York" in between the endless "oh and all of York is gridlocked AGAIN.