I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I think these are very different cases. The Lunars are mixed only in that their society includes a truly boggling array of _different_ magics, embodied in separate cultures/persons. The Orlanthi practice a single variety of magic, but one which is only 'mixed' in the sense that a God Learner and his magical Venn Diagrams and Cartesian Charts asserts that it is, in terms of his analysis. If you ask Greg which is the superior understanding, he'll tell you the Orlanthi one on Tuesdays, the God Learner one, alternate Saturdays, and say something else such as 'both are true, on some different level' with an enigmatic smile, and a benevolent nod of sympathy with your resultant bewilderment. Well, or something like that; other Greg Learners must feel free to provide more accurate prognoses.
> Gregs been listening to those damn Return To Rightness crusaders again.
Well, as a self-confessed Riddler, Arkati, Trickster, and sometime dupe of Wakboth, he may be moving up in the world, then!
> I think the mixed mystic traditions are generally pretty fine.
> Orthodox mysticism abjures all magic use, but the mixed traditions are
> (probably without exception) manifest mystics, seeking some unification
> with the world, including the magical world.
I'm not sure of the precise distinction you have in mind between 'mixed' and 'manifest' here. Greg seems to regard the main 'tantric' manifest mystic practices of the East as explictly 'mixture' of mysticism and high/esoteric animism, or perhaps just as being the point they have in common. Whether Kralorelan mysticism is 'manifest', 'mix', or both, is an issue which I shall attempt to duck with a nimble "It's definitely Draconic".
> The Kralorelan
> martial artists schools have some connections to the original animist
> magics of Kralorela, which is one of the reasons why so many Kralorelan
> martial arts styles are animal based.
Citizen, please report to the Instant Tortu-- eh, that is, the Re-education Camp, at once. Just because the mountains are currently infested with hsunchen doesn't make their magic 'original' to Kralorela: but that's a GL-level bunfight I'm persuading myself to let go for now... What's more material perhaps is how much the resemble hsunchen magic, and I don't think that's very much. (Centipede Style m.a.'s don't go around growing numerous extra legs, for example, or anything so Unrefined... (Tempting though the BBC's warmingover of the old millipede footballer shaggy-dog tale might be at this point.))
> It is regarded as a spiritual error by Orthodox
> purists, but by the manifest martial artist it is regarded as a magical
> continuation of their program to master their body, and through it the
> world, freeing their mystic spirit from worldly concerns.
I suspect the usual Kralori program, martial or otherwise, is something of the reverse: utilise the world to liberate the self. Though in one crucial sense one _is_ trying to liberate the world, via a boddhisattvalike self-sacrifice.
Cheers,
Alex.
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