Re: Sorcery not malkioni ?

From: jorganos <joe_at_...>
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2013 16:33:14 -0000


Peter Metcalfe wrote:
> On 2/24/2013 8:54 PM, jorganos wrote:

>> I'm a bit surprised that you include Kabalt in the "needn't be mystical" category - I had the impression that this special attack was to give the victim an unprepared glimpse of the ultimate.

> Consider the Four Arrows of Light. These were terrible revelations
> of the Lunar mysteries that astounded the Carmanian men and gods.
> Yet Lunar magicians can cast them as glamours without any need for
> mystical magic rules.

Touche - in that I don't consider any of the four arrows as mystical manifestations, but rather more or less impressive magical feats.

The First Battle of Chaos was a mass exposure to Raw Chaos (or the Raw Chaos guise of the Void), and what is hard to survive intact after proper preparations in the Orlanthi initiation was devastating to the unprepared Carmanian forces (and a sizeable number of Lunar adherents, too, creating the Mad Sultanate). I'm not aware of a similar massed reaction at Four Arrows of Light. The closest in mental damage to the First Battle of Chaos is probably 5th Wane's Night of Horrors, with the Skyburn mainly causing permanent death through fire rather than madness other than a hunger for revenge - the Moonburn may have inflicted enough insanity for the refugees from Rist gathering in Dorastor to embrace Chaos in their plans for revenge. These magical effects sure were what the Dragon Pass Boardgame calls Exotic Magic, but needn't be blamed on mysticism.

I fail to regard the Stormwalkers as mystics in the sense of using a different magic as well. They are devotees of Greater Orlanth and/or disciples of other aspects of Orlanth and some probably spend as much time in the otherworld as in the mundane world, but that's strictly the Storm Realm, possibly with sorcerous and animist enclaves but generally theist. Or of course raids into other territories, just as Orlanth did, but in keeping with theist traditions.

The rulers of the EWF like (Isgang)Drang, Lorenkargatan or Sun Dragon appear to have followed mystical practices before being able to manifest themselves in dragon shape, but the common view among scholars seems to be that they were failed mystics on the draconic path, and failures to a much greater extent than Ingolf. This means, they settled for a considerable amount of exotic, draconic flavor magic rather than completing their mystical journey, and on top of that they used the magical energies of the pyramid scheme that was the EWF to enhance their personal powers. I'm fairly certain that none of the leaders of the EWF contributed much personally to the expanded Dragon Dream that transformed Dragon Pass and other parts of the core EWF. Most of that would have come from the dragonewts, perhaps taking their share of the power channeled through the pyramid system, too.

Moonson's Egi nature isn't mystical in nature, either, as far as I am concerned. Takenegi is a magical creature composed of the contributions of the Egi that inhabits the body of moonson. I see this rather a variation of the wyter magic.

Godunya is the only true mystic among current candidates, the human equivalent of a dragonet. I'm less convinced about the majority of exarchs and archexarchs, though.            

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