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Old 01-15-2019, 07:35 AM   #137
Icelander
 
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Default Re: RPM Rituals: Official, Semi-, Quasi- and Un-official

Quote:
Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice View Post
So my question then becomes did they use another system of magic before this awakening or did they use RPM? Maybe whatever magical block that was functioning temporarily enhanced magic - like water escaping a bottle - until an equilibrium was reached. That could be interesting as a GM - a sudden outpouring of magic in the early years allowed someone to do something that can't be done today even with the world being "awash in magic."
Well, the way that it was done in play was that spellcasters who'd started their studies before 2000 and, indeed, their apprentices, were using a fairly limited list of possible effects and, indeed, for one of them, almost exclusively involved effects that a particular powerful spirit with whom he had a pact could accomplish (or, well, any number of smaller ones he could convince), with his 'magic' consisting of giving the spirit enough energy and sacrifice for him to accomplish the task.

That villainous spellcaster, however, was explicitly growing in power and skill, with events in play making clear that he'd acquired more powerful spirits and was able to perform many more types of rituals. By 2012-213, he was almost certainly an RPM caster of some power, but where, in his history, we should draw the line between Path/Book and Ritual Path Magic, is pretty unclear. He had Thaumatology skill all along and he still has Ritual Magic (Sumer and Akkad), but the precise function of each skill has altered slightly.

For PCs, the only PC caster seen so far, who was played in 2010-2011, got access to Path/Book magic, but as he and the GM were building the Paths of an as yet undefined Zoroastrian magical tradition and adding new spells according to what we believed should fit, he might as well have been an RPM caster.

The character started play as an expert in Zoroastrian influences on major Abrahamic religions, as well as a comparative study of various Ancient Near East beliefs about magic and the supernatural, as well as specific practices and to what extent influence of them can be discerned in later Hermetic thought or qabalistic teachings in magic.

When he found out the supernatural existed, he discovered that he was already one of the most knowledgeable people in the world about at least one magical tradition and he had a very good working knowledge of several others. He started trying to develop Thaumatology skill, using various tomes, as well as forming relationships with academics involved in the British and Vatican conspiracies, who already had Thaumatology.

As the season ended, I think it would have been fair to convert him from a Path/Book caster to an RPM one.
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