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Old 02-16-2010, 05:48 AM   #31
sieurin
 
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Default Re: Witchcraft and Swashbuckling

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IIRC, d'Artagnan even started out on his way to Paris with a magical potion of some sort, though that factoid is and has been easily excised from most retellings of the story.
It is a salve that is supposedly good for wounds, given to him by his mother. At least one movie adaption has him offer it to all and sundry who are wounded, to their irritation. It is nowhere stated to be more than just a folk remedy, however.

Close to the musketeers: the series of novels about Count Cagliostro, also by Dumas, has less of witchcraft and more of "really this is enlightend science!" sorcery in a Ken Hite-esque story of an Illuminati based on real people causing the Frenc Revolution. Swedenborg's visions guide them, there's an immortal Arabian alchemist teaching Cagliostro, and the Count himself is a "mesmerist" whose powers are appearently electricity-based; he also figures out how to make diamonds out of coal by using his mesmeric trance medium girlfriend to peek inside carbon atoms. It also has intrigue, melodrama, fancy balls and more damsels in distress than you can shake a stick at.

Erik
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Old 02-16-2010, 06:18 AM   #32
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Default Re: Witchcraft and Swashbuckling

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Close to the musketeers: the series of novels about Count Cagliostro, also by Dumas, has less of witchcraft and more of "really this is enlightend science!" sorcery in a Ken Hite-esque story of an Illuminati based on real people causing the Frenc Revolution. Swedenborg's visions guide them, there's an immortal Arabian alchemist teaching Cagliostro, and the Count himself is a "mesmerist" whose powers are appearently electricity-based; he also figures out how to make diamonds out of coal by using his mesmeric trance medium girlfriend to peek inside carbon atoms. It also has intrigue, melodrama, fancy balls and more damsels in distress than you can shake a stick at.
Awesome. Thank you for this recommendation, I'm a big Dumas fan (the Count of Monte Cristo is one of my all-time favorite books), these sound amazing. I'll check them out immediately.

[EDIT] do you happen to know the title of the first in the series?
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Old 02-16-2010, 06:19 AM   #33
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If you want a classic, Caribbean campaign, then your 'Witches' are likely to be Mambos, Obeah men and native Shamen. Of course, if you want European magicians then you might look for a Faust or John Dee type, or a Catholic member of some secret order founded by Pope Sylvester, or a Jesuit who has been trained in carefully approved rituals extracted from forbidden works.

For a more 'Three musketeers' style of Swashbuckling then a mysterious scholar who might (or might not) have magical powers makes either a good henchman for the Cardinal or a Moriarty style BBEG in his own right. A Fu Manchu style character or a mysterious Indian or Arab might work as well, although it's a bit early for that in some places.
You could also bring in a John Dee character as the PCs patron - remember he was Elizabeth I's spymaster as well as her astrologer and magus. Even better if he isn't officially a spymaster, but, say, the Royal Physician - similar perhaps to Doctor Morgenes from Tad William's Dragonbone Chair.
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Old 02-16-2010, 06:31 AM   #34
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do you happen to know the title of the first in the series?
I think it should be "Guiseppe Balsamo" (the Count's real name); I read it in a very old Swedish translation, which is called "Joseph Balsamo".

Erik

Edit: Oh, I now remember a scenario idea me and a friend had (for a pirate LARP, nonetheless). It concerned a band of seadogs who gets contacted by a Jesuit missionary who says he knows where the Templars hid their vast, disappeared treasure - on an island in the Carribean, because they knew of the New World. And he'll let his pirate pals have all the gold, silver and other shiny stuff if they will just let him have certain rare books that is part of the treasure... *dundunDUN!*

Last edited by sieurin; 02-16-2010 at 06:34 AM.
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Old 02-16-2010, 04:25 PM   #35
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Default Re: Witchcraft and Swashbuckling

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do you happen to know the title of the first in the series?
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I think it should be "Guiseppe Balsamo" (the Count's real name)
According to Wikipedia, the novels are collectively called the Marie Antoinette romances:
  • Joseph Balsamo (Mémoires d'un médecin: Joseph Balsamo, 1846–1848) (a.k.a. Memoirs of a Physician, Cagliostro, Madame Dubarry, The Countess Dubarry, or The Elixir of Life)
  • The Queen's Necklace (Le Collier de la Reine, 1849–1850)
  • Ange Pitou (1853) (a.k.a. Storming the Bastille or Six Years Later)
  • The Countess de Charny (La Comtesse de Charny, 1853–1855) (a.k.a. Andrée de Taverney, or The Mesmerist's Victim)
  • Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge (1845) (a.k.a. The Knight of the Red House, or The Knight of Maison-Rouge)
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Old 02-16-2010, 09:03 PM   #36
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Along a different vein, the manga Knights involves witch-hunting and swashbuckling (although it's more akin to the Masters of Defense than later swashbuckling). Of course, in that case the "witches" are not even pagan and are instead targeted for political and economic reasons (the first attempted execution shown is of a girl from a lesser noble house). In that, the main character favors the "outdated" broadsword over the newer cut-and-thrust swords, and he's part of an organization that is actually opposing the church and trying to save the falsely-accused witches.
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Old 02-17-2010, 12:50 AM   #37
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are not even pagan

To my knowledge, there were no "pagan" witches IRL either. They were accused of being "satanic" and, as far as people actually practicing folk magic, probably considered themselves Christian.

Erik
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Old 02-17-2010, 01:54 AM   #38
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are not even pagan

To my knowledge, there were no "pagan" witches IRL either. They were accused of being "satanic" and, as far as people actually practicing folk magic, probably considered themselves Christian.

Erik
Even Pope Sylvester was suspected of Witchcraft ... but I suspect you're right, most witches would have been, at most, syncretists (much in the same way that most Vodoun would consider themselves Catholic) - the idea of witches as 'poor persecuted pagans' tends to be a ret-con by modern pagans.
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Old 02-17-2010, 02:05 AM   #39
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but I suspect you're right, most witches would have been, at most, syncretists.
Though that kind of describes the early Church as well; look at St. Nicholas or St. Brigid.
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Old 02-17-2010, 05:28 AM   #40
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The Dumas stories seem to be online at the Internet Archive. Etexts are useful I think for game planning, you can extract descriptions, timelines etc so easily.
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