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Old 10-10-2018, 08:57 PM   #1
b-dog
 
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Default Secret Magic in DF?

Has anyone made a secret magic setting for Dungeon Fantasy? If so do you have any pointers? My idea is that there is a state religion that is acceptable but other religions and magic are not allowed.

I have druids being more like the historical idea of them than just a nature worshipper. The sacrifice people by burning them but they are not entirely evil. The religion of the good god doesn’t like druids much at all and keeps people from the old faith by saying it is witchcraft. The same is true of any magic.

In any case, there would be secret societies and people who live out in the woods who practice magic so magic using PCs would have to go there. buying magic items would be much more difficult to purchase. Anyone ever made a DF setting like this?
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Old 10-10-2018, 09:17 PM   #2
SteamBub
 
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Default Re: Secret Magic in DF?

For an official setting, there's the The First Resistance article in Pyramid #3/48 and Dungeon Fantasy Collected. It's where the occupying nation has banned magic and the resistance uses a more subtle style.

And also there was someone that ran a DF game where the religious order suppressed the use of magic until most forgot that it can be used. This was done so they can have the more complicated religious magic as the dominant force as magic was very simple to learn. The game players had to first learn about magic and then hide the used of it from the religious order. I don't remember who ran this game and I might be mis-remembering it as a DF instead of a D&D game.
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Old 10-21-2018, 09:31 AM   #3
Pope Uncommon the Dainty
 
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Default Re: Secret Magic in DF?

I kinda like the idea of a setting where magic requires that you do ever more disturbing things ~ a little bit like (many people in the Euro-American sphere imagine) Left-Handed Tantra. The shock you feel from doing things you wouldn't normally is what raises the mana to cast the spell; you are breaking the rules of society and your own behavior in order to bend the rules of reality, asserting that you are outside normality in order to treat the normal world as an object you can forge. Very simple cantrips might just require minor violations of generally accepted social behavior (picking your nose in public, say), but the behavior gets more shocking as the power of the spell increases ~ simple spells involve behavior that could lead to you being ostracized from polite society, moderate spells shocking enough that even impolite society will look at you with distrust and maybe even call in the guard, powerful spells are flat-out crimes and violations of strong societal taboos, and the most epic spells call for you to break the most dearly-held and powerful societal taboos (the kind of thing I don't even want to post examples of here on a public forum).

Thus, the secret nature of the magic is a consequence of how the magic works rather than state oppression of magic-workers. A similar but very different effect could use the old European "Witches' Pyramid": To dare, to know, to will, and to be silent. That's a world in which magick is weakened the more people who know it happens, which can lead to a more Mage: the Ascension kind of thing. Oooh, wait, tho! What if magick is infectious ~ if someone knows you cast a spell, then they are affected by the spell, too. That's a very different sort of secret magick world.
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Old 10-21-2018, 11:04 AM   #4
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Default Re: Secret Magic in DF?

Quote:
Originally Posted by SteamBub View Post
For an official setting, there's the The First Resistance article in Pyramid #3/48 and Dungeon Fantasy Collected. It's where the occupying nation has banned magic and the resistance uses a more subtle style.

And also there was someone that ran a DF game where the religious order suppressed the use of magic until most forgot that it can be used. This was done so they can have the more complicated religious magic as the dominant force as magic was very simple to learn. The game players had to first learn about magic and then hide the used of it from the religious order. I don't remember who ran this game and I might be mis-remembering it as a DF instead of a D&D game.
You could see this in the same terms Okinawans saw self-defense. Nunchakus were once merely rice flails, common farm tools repurposed for self-defense. In fact, all sorts of common tools were made into weapons and not just in Asia.

If you had working magic, and it was outlawed, people would find new ways to work spells both for practical uses (bless crops) and defense. Given the loss of productivity outlawing working magic would entail, it is far more likely that certain spells would simply be declared malefica (evil magic). This would lead to figuring out how to use "harmless" spell colleges like Plant or Food for defense.
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