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Old 06-15-2018, 01:04 PM   #31
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It's pure. Finer, more valuable things are more refined and pure. The principle of transmuting lesser metals (like Lead) into gold is that the lesser metals are impure, and if you refine the unnecessary elements out you will be left with nothing but pure gold.
It all depends on how you define "lower" or "lesser". If you take pure energy to be superior to gas, gas over liquid, liquid over solid, then materials like air, water, earth are inherently "lesser".

It all depends on the cosmology and philosophy of the game setting.
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Old 06-15-2018, 02:45 PM   #32
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Alternatively, their purer nature may make them more vulnerable to magic than the impure nature of life.
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Old 06-15-2018, 03:32 PM   #33
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It's pure. Finer, more valuable things are more refined and pure. The principle of transmuting lesser metals (like Lead) into gold is that the lesser metals are impure, and if you refine the unnecessary elements out you will be left with nothing but pure gold.
Sure, there are many ways to look at the thing.
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Old 06-18-2018, 05:39 PM   #34
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I was under the impression that the Solomon legend was older than the Thousand and One Nights... but it's tricky to tell which bits of a myth originate when.
Well, obviously, some stories about Solomon presumably go back to Bronze Age Palestine — but dating the stories attached to his name in the oral traditions of Arabia would be a ... challenging exercise. And putting a date on the 1,001 Nights is deep into “How long is a piece of string?” territory, especially if one is allowed to trace it back into its (Indian??) roots.
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Old 06-19-2018, 04:51 AM   #35
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Well, obviously, some stories about Solomon presumably go back to Bronze Age Palestine — but dating the stories attached to his name in the oral traditions of Arabia would be a ... challenging exercise. And putting a date on the 1,001 Nights is deep into “How long is a piece of string?” territory, especially if one is allowed to trace it back into its (Indian??) roots.
Along these lines hasn't Little Red Ridding Hood been traced back to a story in China dealing with tigers?
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Old 06-19-2018, 05:11 AM   #36
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Along these lines hasn't Little Red Ridding Hood been traced back to a story in China dealing with tigers?
I think the stories all trace back to a single prehistoric source, after Joseph Campell was accidentally transported through time while serving on the USS Eldridge and mistakenly left a copy of his book behind.
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Old 06-19-2018, 12:32 PM   #37
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Along these lines hasn't Little Red Ridding Hood been traced back to a story in China dealing with tigers?
I was told it was to do with young women relating to adult male sexuality.
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Old 06-19-2018, 04:23 PM   #38
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Or girl becoming a woman, in cultural context. Eventually she must pass from childhood and the protection of her grandmother to that of a man, the woodsman.
The wolf can represent any number of things, from innate bestial nature to literal wild animals to anything else a culture may decide girls must be protected from.
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Old 06-19-2018, 04:25 PM   #39
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I think the stories all trace back to a single prehistoric source, after Joseph Campell was accidentally transported through time while serving on the USS Eldridge and mistakenly left a copy of his book behind.
Hood doesn't fit Campbell's Hero's Journey fetish as she was ultimately rescued by an unrelated man.
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Old 06-19-2018, 04:34 PM   #40
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...
Hmm. I also have a sudden thought about what you could do with this spell in a Cabal/Infinite Worlds game; gain the power to summon another PC. Well, you'd know their point value precisely enough.
There is a silly reoccurring quest in World Of Warcraft where an Imp supposedly cast "summon hero" for you to kill a demon former boss of his. Of course being a computer game, you have the option of refusing.

An episode of some show in the vein of Tales From The Darkside involved a wizard that had to substitute for a missing ingredient and instead of summoning a wish granting demon, summoned a life insurance salesman from our world.

And this trope is how many "mundanes" get transported to fantasy settings as the beginning to books and movies after all.
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