06-06-2019, 12:08 PM | #21 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
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Re: Powerstone historical names
Proper names are so much cooler;
The Sky Tear The God Stone The Eye of Molloc Kali's Heart Hartil's Destroyificator |
06-06-2019, 12:14 PM | #22 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Powerstone historical names
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06-06-2019, 12:34 PM | #23 |
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Wormtooth Nation
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Re: Powerstone historical names
Just thought of a cool one:
The seripigari shamans of the Matsigenka people of Peru maintain a contract of friendship with a spirit being called a saangarite. The friendship is established and maintained through the discovery and cultivation of a stone called a Serepitontsi stone, which is a particular translucent blue stone with indentations resembling a human face, found beside rivers. The seripigari feeds the serepitontsi stone tobacco juice until the stone (and thus, the conduit to the spirit) becomes powerful. Then the seripigari evokes the spirit friend to perform healing (edit: various rituals, not necessarily healing), which taxes their bond. The stone must then be recharged with tobacco juice. Side Note: the tobacco juice is believed to, in general, strengthen the bonds of kinship by invoking cosmic forces. It's also used in diplomatic overtures. So feeding the stone is essentially super-charged diplomacy, and the other rituals surrounding the maintenance of a friendship with the saangarite spirits are also practices adopted to mitigate differences between the species and enhance similarities; in other words, good diplomacy. This provides a construct for a form of powerstone which only recharges by some contracted behavior [special recharge] because the stone is a diplomatic conduit. Access to the powerstone's reservoir might require a pact disadvantage. Edit: source: Rosengren, D. (2006), Transdimensional relations: on human‐spirit interaction in the Amazon. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 12: 803-816. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9655.2006.00364.x
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06-06-2019, 05:13 PM | #24 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Powerstone historical names
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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06-06-2019, 05:35 PM | #25 |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: The deep dark haunted woods
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Re: Powerstone historical names
I was under the impression that Powerstones were a modern concept, anlogus to an electrical battery. I'm not sure any ancient myths and legends had anything that could be called a Powerstone.
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"When you talk about damage radius, even atomic weapons pale before that of an unfettered idiot in a position of power." - Sam Starfall from the webcomic Freefall |
06-06-2019, 05:48 PM | #26 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Powerstone historical names
In general, that's true. But "magic stone" is an older idea. Medieval writers on magic were big on the idea that various metals and minerals were attuned to the planets or constellations and could do specific things based on that. In a lot of texts those capabilities were called "virtues."
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
06-06-2019, 06:48 PM | #27 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Powerstone historical names
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Naming individual stones is good. That always gives a magic item more character, even if it's just a "+1 sword". Also suggests that they're unusual, as opposed to routine dime-store supplies that mages buy by the dozen. |
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06-07-2019, 09:51 AM | #28 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Psionic Ward
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Re: Powerstone historical names
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Alternately, pick a different language. "rock of power" is "skály moci" in Czech (says google translate) |
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06-07-2019, 10:09 AM | #29 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Powerstone historical names
Yes, something more obscure is what I'd suggest -- assuming you're not Tolkien and making up your own languages. Latin and Greek are just too familiar in modern English vocabulary, even if the speakers haven't studied those languages or know the intricacies of the grammar to get the right inflections on all the words in an actual sentence. Borrowing those words won't be either mysterious or foreign. Better to just make something up.
Now, if you're doing Ars Magica Mythic Europe, then you definitely want the Latin and Greek. |
06-08-2019, 09:02 PM | #30 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
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Re: Powerstone historical names
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Tags |
magic, powerstone, vocabulary |
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