Help Needed in combining TV magic and Cabal

[Lameth]

When I first started my Secret Magic modern game I was basically using magic born of comics, TV, and books. Basically rituals that will require some materials and a spoken or physical ritual to bring the magic. Very "Supernatural" meeting "Buffy/Angel" and "Dresden Files". Then in time I introduced the aspects of the Cabal book, and the Aethyr and their realms and aligned with my Magicians that use high ritual magic, akin to Western Occult.

My question is how to a "square" them all? How do I explain these rituals in my world that do not use the correspondences of the Aethyr and their realms, yet they still work? how can both magics exist side by side? Can you have a ritual, ala Supernatural, that calls for a few basic items and a spoken incantation in Latin, without trying to shoehorn into the Aethyr?

In the past I basically said that magic simply is and over 1000's of years people found that by using these items and ritual the energies could be manipulated into magical works. This was a rule for all magic. Along side it in the magical craft of "Sorcery" [West Occult Ritual Magic] they found that there where beings, gods, spirits, etc., that by adding their correspondences to these rituals you could dial in better these energies for a better chance of it working.

I hope my question makes sense? How do you combine the magic of "Supernatural" and "Buffy/Angel" with the high ritual magic of Cabal, specifically the Aethyr and their realms? how does it fit into the narrative of a world's magic?

[Kelly Pedersen]

Well, this is slightly trickier since you're introducing the Cabal later, instead of integrating the idea at the start. I'll suggest how I would organize things assuming you were planning this campaign fresh, and hopefully you can adapt something.

What I'd do is make the "standard" magic, the stuff that most people use, be very rote and formulaic. Someone can use a ritual out of a book, but they have to be reading from the book, and the parameters of the ritual are pretty fixed - it affects X targets, in Y fashion, and that's set by the grimoire you're using. Got a spell to put a curse of ill-fortune on a red-haired woman, but you're fighting a black-haired man and you want to make him sick, anyway? Too bad! Find another ritual formula, the one you've got can't be tweaked.

Whereas the Cabalists, with much greater understanding of magic, can change their magic to a much greater degree. They know an "ill-fortune" magic, which they can use to cast on pretty much anyone, or a whole group if they can afford the power, and change whether that "ill-fortune" is just bad luck, getting sick, having a critical ability fail at an important moment, and so on. They can still get bonuses from having a pre-made ritual formula, but they don't need them to do magic.

[Lameth]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Well, this is slightly trickier since you're introducing the Cabal later, instead of integrating the idea at the start. I'll suggest how I would organize things assuming you were planning this campaign fresh, and hopefully you can adapt something.

What I'd do is make the "standard" magic, the stuff that most people use, be very rote and formulaic. Someone can use a ritual out of a book, but they have to be reading from the book, and the parameters of the ritual are pretty fixed - it affects X targets, in Y fashion, and that's set by the grimoire you're using. Got a spell to put a curse of ill-fortune on a red-haired woman, but you're fighting a black-haired man and you want to make him sick, anyway? Too bad! Find another ritual formula, the one you've got can't be tweaked.

Whereas the Cabalists, with much greater understanding of magic, can change their magic to a much greater degree. They know an "ill-fortune" magic, which they can use to cast on pretty much anyone, or a whole group if they can afford the power, and change whether that "ill-fortune" is just bad luck, getting sick, having a critical ability fail at an important moment, and so on. They can still get bonuses from having a pre-made ritual formula, but they don't need them to do magic.

very true. I should have but owell. The main magic of the PCs is "Sorcery" [Western Occult Ritual Magic], basically jonathan strange and mr norrell magic. Its based on rituals, tools, materials, laws, etc. I thought about treating the Aethyr like how they treated the Raven King and the Faeries in jonathan strange and mr norrell. You can do magic, yes, as long as you use these ancient rituals and their odd materials and tongues, BUT if you wanted to you could also add to your ritual these Beings that sit on high and call on extra power by using their correspondences, but beware they may come calling one day [most times they do not and just simply are there]. How is that?

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Lameth

I thought about treating the Aethyr like how they treated the Raven King and the Faeries in jonathan strange and mr norrell. You can do magic, yes, as long as you use these ancient rituals and their odd materials and tongues, BUT if you wanted to you could also add to your ritual these Beings that sit on high and call on extra power by using their correspondences, but beware they may come calling one day [most times they do not and just simply are there]. How is that?

I'm afraid I haven't read the book in question, and I'm not familiar with the magic system. What you've proposed sounds interesting, but I'm not sure if you're suggesting that's supposed to be the "standard" magic system, or the one the Cabal is using?

[Lameth]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

I'm afraid I haven't read the book in question, and I'm not familiar with the magic system. What you've proposed sounds interesting, but I'm not sure if you're suggesting that's supposed to be the "standard" magic system, or the one the Cabal is using?

I apologize I should have made this clear. I do not use the cabal themselves, just the magic system as a tie it into my magical tradition [Ritual Magic : sorcery] or aka Western Occult ritual magic. So basically I have various Ritual Magic specialties and I use Path/Book with enhancements from Thaumaturgy. Then as time went on, with one of my tradition, Sorcery, I introduced the add on of the Aethyr and the connections of Astrology and planets and their materials. Witchcraft is still witchcraft, Voodoo is still voodoo.. I only added the Cabal stuff to Sorcery to give it more of a Western Occult flavor. So in Supernatural you may find a ritual that is very basic, some materials, some latin, some symbols, and I would use it in sorcery. But now adding in the cabal stuff like Planets and Zodiac, how does it fit into that? Or is it simply a add on that Sorcerers know IF they wanted to add additional levels to that basic ritual?

[evileeyore]

Is it possible that your "base magic" is Sponsored? That all a long the "mainstream" witches (those doing book rituals) have been actually calling out to various "gods" and supernatural entities and those entities are the ones powering the magic. For a price the users don't even know they are paying/will have to pay?

[Lameth]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Is it possible that your "base magic" is Sponsored? That all a long the "mainstream" witches (those doing book rituals) have been actually calling out to various "gods" and supernatural entities and those entities are the ones powering the magic. For a price the users don't even know they are paying/will have to pay?

hmmm interesting. No not really. I have two kinds of magic, ambient and sponsored. Either you use what's around you, or you need to get it from others, maybe for the power, permission, or simply that's what it says in the ritual. So when a witch, for an example, calls on a ritual that does not call directly on a being, its normally Ambient [unless im being sneaky] or maybe "nature" itself by their view, and then when a witch invokes a ritual that mentions Hecate, it may be calling on a higher being directly for that power or permission [unless im being sneaky again].