On Sun, May 11, 2003 at 07:53:23PM -0400, Dave Camoirano wrote:
> What makes something like Kero Fin different from "that rock" is that
> going to Kero Fin *is* going to the god plane. Yes, many sacred sites
> co-exist. That's why they're *not* sources of common magic. But that
> rock *is* more magically accessible to a "common-concentrated" person
> because it's a being in the mundane world, *not* a spot that overlaps.
I understand the nature of the cosmological distinction being made here, but I can't see what it can possibly mean in terms of magical approach. Surely you get either 'type' of Feat by the same essential method; to wit, sacrifice. It doesn't intuit for me that a "commonconcentrated" person would be better at such a form of sacrifice than a theism-concentrated person -- _and_ simultaneously better at certain types of ecstatic worship than an animist, etc, what's more.
> At the very least, it is definitely accessible to members of the
> individual cults since someone who concentrates in theist magic can use
> common magic feats.
I think I'd read this before, now that you mention it. That rather disposes of the other-worldly objection, surely, at least in one direction. (i.e. the distinction doesn't matter as far as concentrated theists are concerned, even if it does to concentrated 'commonists' (this being the part I'm not able to get my head around).)
> > _However_, it'd be not unreasonable to assume that much non-cult magic
> > was indeed of animist origin, given that the Heortlings do have the odd
> > (in more ways than one) shaman kicking around.
> Well, I have to disagree here. I think that RQ used spirit magic for
> common magic because "we" didn't know any better. RQ2 didn't have
> sorcery because it wasn't needed for the focus of that game. Spirit
> magic didn't change to something separate from common magic in RQ3
> because RQ3 was so similar to RQ2 and didn't really *need* to (IMO). I'd
> be willing to bet that if Greg & Co. were designing RQ then with what
> they know now, it would have been, well, HQ.
I'm not sure I really see the thrust of your objection. HQ apparently (re-)establishes that Heortlings have a degree of access to (what are now called) charms, which are at bottom an animist magical effect. If there's a yawning gap of a difference in fundamental nature between "real animist charms" and "common magic charms", I confess I ain't seeing it. Granted it equally establishes the same thing is possible with Feats, clearly very different from RQ in that respect. (I imagine that common magic Spells are still pretty rare in Sartar.)
Cheers,
Alex.
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