Ceremonial Magic used to support an army.

[Hemlock]

Isn't it possible to introduce a new Perk called ...

True Believer (required Specialization of Ideology).

In order for an assistant to be able to contribute to the casting of a ceremonial spell, they would have to have the Perk "True Beleiver" that is the same as the primary caster.

That would make it difficult to simply round up a bunch of dregs, slap a few bucks in their hands, and have them assist in ceremonial casting.

[ErhnamDJ]

Create Animal for elephants. Body of Wind on the elephants. Use Hang Spell to negate the casting time.

Does Beast Summoning work against those animals created by Create Animal? Either way, it still works against horses. So those are probably out for either side.

And, really, all you need to make this thing capable of operating on the battlefield is a heavily fortified war wagon with steel walls a foot thick. Put the wizard in there with his hundred people (the lightest that can be found--children perhaps? Young students, maybe?), and have the thing pulled by Golems or something like that. And that's if we're ignoring the myriad ways to power this using magic. If the ancients had such a thing as the helepolis, then surely our magician can create something a bit more agile. I'm sure there would even be some way to get this contraption to fly.


What I find curious is the idea that there will be some lack of wizards. How much training did an English archer receive? What does a wizard look like who has received the same amount of training? How long does it take to get someone proficient in one spell?

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by Hemlock

Isn't it possible to introduce a new Perk called ...

True Believer (required Specialization of Ideology).

In order for an assistant to be able to contribute to the casting of a ceremonial spell, they would have to have the Perk "True Beleiver" that is the same as the primary caster.

That would make it difficult to simply round up a bunch of dregs, slap a few bucks in their hands, and have them assist in ceremonial casting.

For straight cermeonial Magic (Magery) I would say (IMHO) no.

For Religious Ceremonials (Power Investiture) I would say maybe...perhaps an Initiate of the religion, an active congregant or the like, so that they would know the songs to sing and the responses...

Although if they know the caster and have SEEN him use the miraculous powers of his/her LORD then that might cover the belief base (and mebbe make a convert)...then it would just be the question of some familiarity...

in summation (IMHO) mages no priests yes-maybe...

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

What I find curious is the idea that there will be some lack of wizards. How much training did an English archer receive? What does a wizard look like who has received the same amount of training? How long does it take to get someone proficient in one spell?

It is a question of setting...in Normal Mana you need to have Magery.

How many people have Magery 0 (5 pt) Advantage? Similar to the number of people with Flexibility/Ambidexterous/Charisma/Eidetic 1?? More? Less??

Magery 1 (15 pts) Perfect Balance? Luck?

and of those people with inborn talent...how many are found and trained??

After all mebbe I could be the shortstop for the Boston Red Sox...but no one found me in Little League and gave me the intenste training needed so...

Some settings everyone can work a little magic (High Mana)...but IME in a lot of settings Mages are fairly rare.

FREX..in The Lord of the Rings...1200 ish pages...IIRC Gandalf cast a Light spell in Moria...that was it...and he only met ONE other wizard...Saurman.

YMMV...

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Witchking

For straight cermeonial Magic (Magery) I would say (IMHO) no.

For Religious Ceremonials (Power Investiture) I would say maybe...perhaps an Initiate of the religion, an active congregant or the like, so that they would know the songs to sing and the responses...

Well, you could require all participants to have some formal training - ie, a point in Thaumatology, Ritual Magic or Religious Ritual. This changes Ceremonial casting from something that's done by gathering a church congregation or hiring a bunch of interns, to a project that requires a school's-worth of apprentice magicians or monks.

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

Well, you could require all participants to have some formal training - ie, a point in Thaumatology, Ritual Magic or Religious Ritual. This changes Ceremonial casting from something that's done by gathering a church congregation or hiring a bunch of interns, to a project that requires a school's-worth of apprentice magicians or monks.

I was thinking more like baptised catholic, baptist, bar mitzphed, etc...not really skills/pts based but roleplaying/flavor based...(as a GM toward PCs)...if a PC priest wanted to use random hired bums instead of close associates or an established congreation...I would probably give him a reaction roll...and base the believer/nonbeliever ratio off that...so he would be somewhat crap shooting what energy he might get.... ;->

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by Witchking

It is a question of setting...in Normal Mana you need to have Magery.

And is that something you're born with, or can it be trained?

At the very least, you can use the Spellgraft spell from Biotech to get your wizards. Use it on everyone and hope they're born with Magery. And if Magery is genetic, then you can use the other spells in Bio-Tech to test for it. Or maybe even to grant it, like with the Manipulate DNA spell.

Even if you have to try using a Spellgraft on everyone in the hope that you get someone with Magery, all those other people are still going to be able to contribute to Ceremonial castings because they know the spells. They'll still have some use, so it's not like all those castings of Spellgraft will be wasted.

And if Magery is learned, then it won't be a problem. Neither would it if it's innate to a certain group of people, like elves.

Then we're left wondering if it would be possible for our archmage to learn something like Mana Enhancer as an area effect.

How many people have Magery 0 (5 pt) Advantage? Similar to the number of people with Flexibility/Ambidexterous/Charisma/Eidetic 1?? More? Less??

Magery 1 (15 pts) Perfect Balance? Luck?

and of those people with inborn talent...how many are found and trained??

Assuming human beings can have all of those things, I don't know which are inborn and which are the result of training. It's hard to extrapolate those to fictional abilities when they're each different in reality. I imagine Flexibility is more of a born physical trait, whereas Abidexterousness can be learned. And Perfect Balance would be a mix of both.

I would be inclined to think that Magery, like every other Talent, is something you train up. I remember reading the part in Outliers where he's talking about Mozart having spent so many hours practicing. If Mozart has music Talent, in GURPS terms, then I'd say that Talent is something you get through training. He even mentions in the book that he couldn't find anyone who was just exceptional before the training, or with less training. Not that I'm taking that book as some sort of scientific proof of how human beings learn, but it made sense to me at the time.

But it could definitely be the case that Magery is some weird brain abnormality that allows one to technobabble their way into being able to use magic. There's no physical mechanism present for us to analyze here. It's up to each individual GM how that's going to be handled. I don't think there's any default assumption in the rules we can use.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

And is that something you're born with, or can it be trained?

At the very least, you can use the Spellgraft spell from Biotech to get your wizards. Use it on everyone and hope they're born with Magery. And if Magery is genetic, then you can use the other spells in Bio-Tech to test for it. Or maybe even to grant it, like with the Manipulate DNA spell.

Even if you have to try using a Spellgraft on everyone in the hope that you get someone with Magery, all those other people are still going to be able to contribute to Ceremonial castings because they know the spells. They'll still have some use, so it's not like all those castings of Spellgraft will be wasted.

The spells from Biotech seem appropriate to a high-tech Magocracy, but not so much for a traditional fantasy setting. Most of them implicitly (and some of them explicitly) manipulate a subject's genetic code, but that may not even exist in a magical world, especially if the races were created by the gods. In short, I would not assume any of those spells would be present in a fantasy world.

Also, I don't think Spellgraft does what you desire. It grants a child a single spell that can be cast innately. It makes no mention of even having the potential to bestow Magery.

[Pomphis]

Originally Posted by Hemlock

Isn't it possible to introduce a new Perk called ...

True Believer (required Specialization of Ideology).

In order for an assistant to be able to contribute to the casting of a ceremonial spell, they would have to have the Perk "True Beleiver" that is the same as the primary caster.

That would make it difficult to simply round up a bunch of dregs, slap a few bucks in their hands, and have them assist in ceremonial casting.

I see believers as having disadvantages/quirks (Disciplines of the Faith, Vow, Sense of Duty, Duty, Fanaticism ... ) not advantages/perks.

OTOH a perk permitting an spectator to provide two points of energy instead of one might be interesting, and something taught by some obscure magical styles or religious cults.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

Also, I don't think Spellgraft does what you desire. It grants a child a single spell that can be cast innately. It makes no mention of even having the potential to bestow Magery.

What I was saying is that if some people are just born with Magery, then cast Spellgraft on everyone. That way, anyone who happens to be born with Magery will be able to cast a spell.

I suppose that would really help with identifying who has Magery, which is a big problem otherwise. How else would you identify whether someone has Magery? Carry around some minor magic item and have people try to pick it out from the lot? Maybe get a book full of stamps and go around and have every child try to pick out the magical one? I guess you could have someone that knows the Keen Magical Sense spell at a high level go around and cast it on every child and have them look through the book. But you'd still miss some. It would be harder to miss someone who actually knows a spell.

Or maybe I'm missing some really simple way to determine whether or not someone has Magery. And you really only want those with Magery 1 or higher, and the only way I can think of to figure out who has that is to Spellgraft them a spell like Lend Energy and then see if they could do it. Unless we're going to say that there's some way for wizards to get access to Detect (People with Magery 1 or higher), but if they can have that, then they might as well have Mana Enhancer.