>From: "Roderick and Ellen Robertson" <rjremr_at_...>
>So some/much of the Common magic that the Lunars teach is non-cyclical,
>simply because the local beings are not likely to be Lune, but instead
>Spirits, daimones or Essences.
Not to be argumentative, but if the magic is from the middle world, then why would some of it be prone to the Lunar Cycle, and some not? I mean it would be much more consistent to say that all common magic is not affected by the Lunar Cycle, since it's, well, not Lunar magic.
Generally there's this sorta "half-way" nature of some common magic. Talents and natural magic are firmly from the middle world, that's clear. But Feats, Charms and Spells seem to have some of the qualities of the otherworlds in question. But what is that link? It seems to me largely that it's simply a matter of the method of worship. For a Feat you sacrifice and emulate, for a Charm you ecstatically worship and bind, for a Spell you study and use essence as it exists in the middle world.
For Lunar Magic you...well, there is no common magic form of Lunar Magic. Rather, apparently you can do them all and you'll get magic. What makes it so that you have to use the method in question is merely that the being may have once been from the otherworld in question, or at least shares a nature with those otherworld beings. It's "how they work," essentially.
But the magic comes from the middle world in all of these cases. You just use different means to get them from the middle world - the same way you'd get the same sort of magic from an otherworld. Or so it seems to me. If this is true, then either all common magic should be affected by the lunar cycle or none of it should.
Now, it could be that I don't understand what common magic is (maybe it does come from the otherworlds), or that the "Lunes" are some exception to the normal rule and their magic is both "common" and "otherworldly" at the same time. Or that the Lunar effect somehow still works on some of these things (though, in that case, why doesn't it work on all of them).
But in no case is any of this obvious or simple.
What I'm thinking you're saying is that some Common Magic is "Lunar" like some common magic is "feats" and therefore Theist. Which is not the same as common magic that is actually "feats" and "theist" but still OK with the Lunars. So we basically have two definitions for "Lunar" common magic that come from the fact of the coincidence of the name of the culture and the magic being synonymous.
Lunar Otherworld Magic - Specialized magic from the Lunar otherworld. Lunar Common Magic - Common magic associated with the Lunar otherworld (like feats are associated with the God World). Lunar Culturally Appropriate Magic - any magic that the Lunar culture will accept for worship including any non-Lunar Otherworld derived magic.
It's not unusual for a culture that worships mostly from one otherworld to allow common magic associated with another otherworld (somebody gave Flesh Man and the Orlanthi as an example). So the Lunars are no exception here.
Now some of this is speculative based on what it seems to me we're going to see from IL2 - we've been told that the Lunars have their own otherworld. If, however, it's explained differently there, just say the word and we can table the discussion until we've all got access to what's in it.
Otherwise, do I have it right?
Mike
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