GURPS Russia Hedge Magic article

[thorr-kan]

Once upon a time, there was an ezine called Sabledrake Magazine. Issue 6 had an article on GURPS Russia Hedge Magic.

Does anyone know if Sabledrake was an html or pdf ezine? If the latter, is there anywhere it is currenlty *legally* available for purchase? I'm not interested in pirate copies or dodgy downloads.

If not, does anyone know if it was reprinted elsewhere?

[Dalillama]

It used to be on Blue Room GURPS, the author's personal site, but that seems to be down. Maybe the Wayback Machine?

[thorr-kan]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

It used to be on Blue Room GURPS, the author's personal site, but that seems to be down. Maybe the Wayback Machine?

Is the Blue Room article similar to the old io.com article?

https://web.archive.org/web/20040628...john/hedge.htm

for reference

[RyanW]

I couldn't tell you the io article is identical to the Blue Room article, but they are "the same."

[thorr-kan]

Originally Posted by RyanW

I couldn't tell you the io article is identical to the Blue Room article, but they are "the same."

If that's what was in Sabledrake, then I guess I'm good.

I was hoping for an article with a little more detail, but it's still interesting reading.

[Prince Charon]

Reading that, I'm reminded again of the idea of applying that to various other craft skills like Smith, Armory, Jeweler ('Three rings for the elven kings under the sky...'), or Engineer. It seems like the way to make Hedge Magic Items, but the system involved is rather freeform and more GM-dependent than most Magic Item Creation systems in GURPS. There's little or nothing for the GM to refer to, if allowing Hedge Magic Items at all. OTOH, it's consistent with how Tolkien's magic items seem to be created (they aren't 'magic' exactly, just very well-made, by people who know some aspects of the Secrets of the Universe). I'd be inclined to use Hedge Magic in an Epic Fantasy game, especially one set in something like Middle Earth.

Personally, I'd allow it, but how good the item is depends on how well you roll when creating it, how much extra effort you put in, and how epic or mythic is the player's description of the act of creation, backstory of the components, et cetra. Very freeform, every magic item is unique. What do you think?


On a related note, how different would GURPS Banestorm be, if Hedge Magic were the main magical system in Ytarria? Would that be interesting enough to bother making a thread for it?

[thorr-kan]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Reading that, I'm reminded again of the idea of applying that to various other craft skills like Smith, Armory, Jeweler ('Three rings for the elven kings under the sky...'), or Engineer. It seems like the way to make Hedge Magic Items, but the system involved is rather freeform and more GM-dependent than most Magic Item Creation systems in GURPS. There's little or nothing for the GM to refer to, if allowing Hedge Magic Items at all. OTOH, it's consistent with how Tolkien's magic items seem to be created (they aren't 'magic' exactly, just very well-made, by people who know some aspects of the Secrets of the Universe). I'd be inclined to use Hedge Magic in an Epic Fantasy game, especially one set in something like Middle Earth.

Personally, I'd allow it, but how good the item is depends on how well you roll when creating it, how much extra effort you put in, and how epic or mythic is the player's description of the act of creation, backstory of the components, et cetra. Very freeform, every magic item is unique. What do you think?


On a related note, how different would GURPS Banestorm be, if Hedge Magic were the main magical system in Ytarria? Would that be interesting enough to bother making a thread for it?

I've only actually played one GURPS game: a Vorkosigan adventure, with the DM using...GURPS 2E I think. So I really don't have a lot of comparison.

I'm more kibbitzing about folk magic and filing it away for future reference.

It is very freeform. I think Ytarria would be a very different place. If you start another thread, let me know.

[dataweaver]

Note that Hedge Magic exists in GURPS Fantasy in all but name: that's what Mysteries of the Trade (p.162) is all about.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Note that Hedge Magic exists in GURPS Fantasy in all but name: that's what Mysteries of the Trade (p.162) is all about.

I'd forgotten about that. I'll have to look at it, and probably rewrite the opening post I was working on (luckily, it's not that far along).

EDIT: OK, after reading the very short entry in Fantasy, I disagree with your assessment: While Mysteries of the Trade is similar to Hedge Magic, it is not actually 'Hedge Magic in all but name,' being rather less freeform, and explicitly based on the Ritual variant of the standard spell-based system. It could be adjusted fairly easily to become a form of Hedge Magic, though.

[dataweaver]

Fair enough.

Another possibility would be to use Realm Magic as a basis for this: with Realm Magic, each Realm is defined by an advantage that determines what sorts of supernatural things you can do, and a skill that determines how well you do it. To make things a form of Hedge Magic, use an otherwise-mundane skill as the Realm skill; and when calculating the cost of the Realm advantage, assume that there are potentially dozens of Realms (possibly as many as one per skill) and thus use the smallest price multiplier. Without the Realm advantage, the skill in question is limited to doing what a mundane skill could do; with each level of the Realm, various supernatural uses of the skill become available. The lowest level might be defined in terms of extending the skill's use in subtle ways, such as being able to negate penalties that would otherwise degrade the skill, while the higher levels could start invoking now blatantly supernatural results.