Why Mysteries of Magic

[Lord Z]

Kevin seems to consider BtS to be one of his own pet projects. He doesn't want anyone else to write it. Mysteries of Magic was more of a team effort. Because Kevin wasn't writing it all by his lonesome, MoM was something he could get out much more quickly. It seems that Palladium Books have been coming out at a respectable pace this year but not at the extreme pace to which Kevin committed the business. The aborted Project X might have been a huge time sink for Kev.

[mrloucifer]

Ive not read the book indepth, but i did thumb thrugh it at the store, and I have suspicions that some of the material may be used for the BTS magic book. Time will tell.

[gaby]

Well until Arcanum come out,I will use the stuff in Palladium fantasy.

The Thing is what do you think what will wokr for Bts?

[mrloucifer]

I suspect there will be two angles it could come from (and this is pure speculation based on what I use in my game that's worked well).

-the first angle is a simple matter the more instant/combat spells will only be as potent as the ambient energy in the vicinity, simialr to how psionics work.

-for more ritual related magic, it will include lots of ingrediants, symbols, and words of power. The closest style I can think of in the real world would be "popwow" magic from the Pennsylvania Dutch and Hoodoo. These types rely strongly on an idea that magic and energy exists in all things and that where the ingrediants come in, the symbols are to provide direction for the enegies and the words provide the focus behind the power.

Its sounds complicated in practice, but adds lots of ambience in a BTS game.

[Shawn Merrow]

Mysteries of Magic was turned in before BtS 2nd was even published as far as I remember. Poor Mark had to wait a long time for his baby to be published. It was also a freelancer project and Kevin want's to write the BtS 2nd magic book himself.

[Lord Z]

Louie Louie stated that there are two ways the magic system could work. I was thinking about that yesterday. I think there is a third way to go.

The new magic system could be monster-based. Magic is everywhere in the form of PPE, but harnessing it would require being or using a supernatural creature. The mages would all be summoners to one extent or another. Spells can still be cast, but they require focusing the spell through a supernatural critter or else binding oneself to the SN critter (either as a familiar or in a pact relationship). The spell is limited by the amount of PPE that the critter normally possesses. Worded another way, the critter can not be the focus of more magic than it can hold. A first level mage could get along quite well by summoning a Talus or a Poltergeist. A tenth level mage would find these critters far too restrictive and seek out instead a powerful demon or powerful entity. There is always the temptation to summon a critter which is too strong to be managed. I like this system because it re-introduces the monsters who are the core of the game in my opinion. It always goes a long way toward explaining why there are so many monster in the BtS world.

[ZorValachan]

Louie Louie stated that there are two ways the magic system could work. I was thinking about that yesterday. I think there is a third way to go.

The new magic system could be monster-based. Magic is everywhere in the form of PPE, but harnessing it would require being or using a supernatural creature. The mages would all be summoners to one extent or another. Spells can still be cast, but they require focusing the spell through a supernatural critter or else binding oneself to the SN critter (either as a familiar or in a pact relationship). The spell is limited by the amount of PPE that the critter normally possesses. Worded another way, the critter can not be the focus of more magic than it can hold. A first level mage could get along quite well by summoning a Talus or a Poltergeist. A tenth level mage would find these critters far too restrictive and seek out instead a powerful demon or powerful entity. There is always the temptation to summon a critter which is too strong to be managed. I like this system because it re-introduces the monsters who are the core of the game in my opinion. It always goes a long way toward explaining why there are so many monster in the BtS world.

I agree with a lot of this statement.

In the real world, historically most if not all 'real' magic has been based upon religion. I do not believe in magic at all as a professed atheist and skeptic, but my background is anthropology/archaeology/ancient civilizations and from my studies it seems people in the past have normally always tied it in some way to their belief system. I can not think of a single real world historical example of magic practitioners who are like a fantasy wizard who learn magic spells and it is only the words and some mystic source that make it happen. Not to say someone else may not know of an example, I just never have seen or heard of one.

Calling out to deities with sacrifices, prayers is the most common 'western' basis for magic. basically pleading, bending the will, or forcing a deity to do what you want. "here-smell the smoke of roasted lamb, now make me invincible" type thing.

Others like shamanic magic convince helpful spirits to aid or force evil spirits to leave (healing)
But it is all about manipulating entities (gods, spirits, demons, etc.)

Even old magic spells (Such as Egyptian, Greek, Roman) invoke deities, and I've seen examples in the first few centuries CE where pagan spells invoked Jewish and Christian names such as Jesus, Moses, because they were 'exotic' and highly placed individuals in their own religions, thus pleas to them were seen to be possibly effective.

Fantasy such as Tolkien and Lewis, and our modern more secularization way of thinking more or less introduced the concept of a magic that was independent of religion.

So that is my own support of Lord Z's theory.

[Stone Gargoyle]

Louie Louie stated that there are two ways the magic system could work. I was thinking about that yesterday. I think there is a third way to go.

The new magic system could be monster-based. Magic is everywhere in the form of PPE, but harnessing it would require being or using a supernatural creature. The mages would all be summoners to one extent or another. Spells can still be cast, but they require focusing the spell through a supernatural critter or else binding oneself to the SN critter (either as a familiar or in a pact relationship). The spell is limited by the amount of PPE that the critter normally possesses. Worded another way, the critter can not be the focus of more magic than it can hold. A first level mage could get along quite well by summoning a Talus or a Poltergeist. A tenth level mage would find these critters far too restrictive and seek out instead a powerful demon or powerful entity. There is always the temptation to summon a critter which is too strong to be managed. I like this system because it re-introduces the monsters who are the core of the game in my opinion. It always goes a long way toward explaining why there are so many monster in the BtS world.

I like this idea a lot!