Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom H.
If I recall from the Fellowship of the Ring, I guess we were supposed to be impressed with Gandalf setting Wargs on fire, while Saruman was controlling whole weather systems from a distance.
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The wizards in Tolkien were supernatural beings. All were far more powerful in theory than they ever showed in reality. All 5 were more or less equivalent to Saron... they all were Maiar.
No mortal spell casters are shown in LotR. Even Gladriel’s direct spell casting in the movies doesn’t happen in the books. I don’t think Gandalf setting fire to the wargs happened either.
Indiscriminate use of powerful magic broke the world in the first Age. The Istari were given the mandate to go to Middle Earth and influence, not to force a victory directly. Saruman is willing to bend the rules more than Gandalf... and he IS more powerful overall, but both were more powerful than either are willing to openly show.
If you’re going to do Tolkien-ish I’d suggest using inmate powers rather than learned spells. The Istari certainly are expressing their inmate power when they use magic rather than casting a traditional spell. A magically oriented being could learn new powers over time, but much more expensively than just learning a spell. Gandalf’s breaking spell and aura of protection that he uses multiple times across all the movies is an example... he uses the same power repeatedly rather than using different spells.
Ritual magic also probably has a place, much of the magic done in Tolkien’s works is probably ritual magic, just with different looking rituals than you might expect.... and performed by incredibly powerful beings who don’t require much if any help and performed in places of great innate power.
Also much direct magic seems to come from magic items. Rings, wizard staves, swords... one possibility is to have rare magic items created with ritual magic, then have the magic items be the primary expression of magic in the world. The magic is subtle even then... rings of leadership and influence, swords that glow in the presence of an enemy, mithril and adamantine armor.... wands of lightning, not so much.
There is rune magic in LotR as well.