Ideas for Spirit World

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Inky

Makes sense about different types of magic working differently. It does seem a bit silly that although the 9 Traditions' styles of magic are supposed to be so different, and the Technocrats' even more so, they use exactly the same classifications and mechanics.

And with the Technocrats' inside-out and back-to-front approach to magic, which they don't even admit is magic, it fits for them to do something mechanically weird like not having the Prime sphere.

What happens (in your system) if the different Paradigms don't even agree about the nature of the task they're trying to do? For instance, suppose there are three mages in the 1600s trying to make amulets to ward off the Black Plague. One of them, ahead of his time, thinks the plague is caused by a living organism, and uses the Life sphere to make his amulet. Another is convinced that it's caused by evil spirits, and uses the Spirit sphere. The third thinks it's caused by "noxious vapours", and uses the Matter sphere. Which of the amulets work? All of them? The one that matches the theory that's most popular among the general public? The Life one because that one is "objectively correct", except in a world that follows Mage rules, is there any such thing as "objectively correct" or do the facts actually change to match what the majority of people nearby believe?

Great question.

Well, first of all I dont use the same groups in my game as the ones in Mage Ascension. I dont use the Verbena or the Eutanatos, the european pagans represented by the Verbena are part of the Hermetic Traditions in my games, and I find the Eutanatos distasteful and a gross charicature of Indian culture to have them be basically exclusively a thanatological magical group. The Cult of Ecstasy is also incorporated into the Dreamspeakers, and I use the Arabic Ahl-I-Batin and the Vaddantic Order for India's culture.

As for the Spheres, the Dreamspeakers have 3, the Virtual Adepts have only 1, since they have an unified universal view of it all being just information (so what they do is specialize in "Sub-spheres" or Sub Realms as per Gurps Thaumatology), the Technocrats have 7 (and yes, I will definetly switch Prime for "Society") and the Hermetics have 9. That's not fixed thou, for I also have Spheres like "Alchemy" and "Necromancy" which encompass aspects of many others - Necromancy for example has aspects of Matter, Life, Spirit and even Fortuna (Fortuna is close to Entropy, but they are NOT the same. Hermetics use Fortuna, technocrats (and other technomants) use Entropy) - however, Necromancy dont have ALL aspects of those Spheres. The same goes for "Elemental Spheres", so for example "Elemental Water Magik" is a Sphere that has aspects of Matter, Spirit and even Forces (and even Prime or Entropy ocasionally), but absolutely exclusevely for water (or ice and steam), while Alchemy allows for pretty much anything and has a lot of effects that would be impossible without Prime, but with the severe restrictions of alchemical preparations only.

As for how the "Thaumatological Theory" works between them... It doesnt lol. They are completely incompatible magical theories. That means that a simple "Fireball Spell" being passed down to basically ALL hermetics in ANY of their arcane schools is absolutely not replicable by other theories.

I mean, a Dreamspeaker can use his Thaumatology knowledge to analize the EFFECTS of a "spell" by the technocracy in order to try to replicate it, but he will be basically doing it by scratch.

In the case of "do I use Spirit, Matter or Life to heal diseases?", that wouldnt be a question in my game. Because ANY mage that believes that Spirit and Life are one and the same, wouldnt even have those Spheres, instead that mage would have the "Spiritual-Life" Sphere or some such, just like my Technocrats have Space/Time as a single Sphere, for believing that they are one and the same. Or, Spirit would have an entry about "healing diseases".

So, to answer your question, the answer is YES. For all the 3 different and contradictory hypothesis.

My technocrats for example, have Biochemistry, which unifies Life and Matter. An example of that is the use of PRIONS, organic molecules of proteins that are not alive but who behave as viruses when infecting living beings.

That's one example of "Technocratic Disease" that is neither Life nor Matter but something inbetween that is super hard for non Technocrats to deal with - which is why they became a techno favourite of the Man in Black. (Hermetics need BOTH Life and Matter to TRY to heal those diseases).

That was actually funny that you came out with such an example, because in my game there are some older traditionalists mages adepts of conspiracy theories that say that "back in the day, ALL diseases were caused by spirits. The Germ Theory was invented by the Technocracy so that they could... (angerly spits in the floor) create vaccines".

The other thing is CONSENSUS. What the "collective inconscious" believe is what is real. So yeah, probably back in the day, diseases were healed using Spirit.

Ever since the "Technocratic Germ Theory Conspiracy" however, reality changed and diseases entered the realm of Life. Probably. Or, the disease spirits entered the material realm as microscopic germs and became trapped. Who knows?

At any rate, a mage that believes that diseases are caused by "imbalances of the 4 humours" fluids, thus a pure matter issue will have "heal diseases" under the description of his "Matter 2" Sphere (or equivalent), a shaman who is dead sure is a spiritual matter will have it under his "Spirit 2", and a magi-doctor under Life 2.

Spheres are just mechanics for the different Paradigms, not true descriptions of reality in my system. So, they say more about what the mages BELIEVE THEY CAN DO than what about REALITY IS.

As a matter of a fact, one of my players once asked if "was the Earth Flat before the 1500's?"

And my answer was "the Earth (in my world) still is BOTH flat and round, until somebody looks at it and collapses one of the possibilities" lol

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Inky

Makes sense about different types of magic working differently. It does seem a bit silly that although the 9 Traditions' styles of magic are supposed to be so different, and the Technocrats' even more so, they use exactly the same classifications and mechanics.

And with the Technocrats' inside-out and back-to-front approach to magic, which they don't even admit is magic, it fits for them to do something mechanically weird like not having the Prime sphere.

What happens (in your system) if the different Paradigms don't even agree about the nature of the task they're trying to do? For instance, suppose there are three mages in the 1600s trying to make amulets to ward off the Black Plague. One of them, ahead of his time, thinks the plague is caused by a living organism, and uses the Life sphere to make his amulet. Another is convinced that it's caused by evil spirits, and uses the Spirit sphere. The third thinks it's caused by "noxious vapours", and uses the Matter sphere. Which of the amulets work? All of them? The one that matches the theory that's most popular among the general public? The Life one because that one is "objectively correct", except in a world that follows Mage rules, is there any such thing as "objectively correct" or do the facts actually change to match what the majority of people nearby believe?

Just to sum it up, a Dreamspeaker CAN learn Thaumatology (Hermeticism) or even "HyperScience" (Thaumatology for technomancers with a different name), and that's useful to understand the magical theory of the opposition and help you "translate" it into your own belief system (with the Thaumatology of your own group), but that's a purely rational endeavor. As an example of real life, an astrophysicist could learn all the theories behind astrology for curiosity, historical importance and perhaps entertainment, he still he wouldnt use the math of astrology to study a black hole.

I hope that is more clear now :)

Or in very very few worlds, in my game world Quantum Mechanics works where ONLY Relativity should :)

A fun trivia: in my world, both the most primitive tradition (Dreamspeakers) and the most modern one (Virtual Adepts) share a VERY similar worldview. For the Dreamspeakers, it's an illusion, "the big Dream". And for the VA's, they believe in the "Simulation Theory" (basically they believe they live in the "Matrix").

They are close... They just havent figured it out yet that they are part of the imagination of some guys playing a RPG game lol

Or perhaps, they DO exist in another universe, and our "imagination" are actually just "memories" that our brains capture at quantum levels from other realities...

Who knows, right?

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Inky

What happens (in your system) if the different Paradigms don't even agree about the nature of the task they're trying to do? For instance, suppose there are three mages in the 1600s trying to make amulets to ward off the Black Plague. One of them, ahead of his time, thinks the plague is caused by a living organism, and uses the Life sphere to make his amulet. Another is convinced that it's caused by evil spirits, and uses the Spirit sphere. The third thinks it's caused by "noxious vapours", and uses the Matter sphere. Which of the amulets work? All of them? The one that matches the theory that's most popular among the general public? The Life one because that one is "objectively correct", except in a world that follows Mage rules, is there any such thing as "objectively correct" or do the facts actually change to match what the majority of people nearby believe?

I gave it a few more thoughts about your question, and I remembered another example:

The Akashic Brotherhood for example, believes that all "life interactions" are done by "Chi manipulation" (or "Quintessence", or "Mana").

Does that mean that they need the Prime Sphere to manipulate living beings?

No, it does not. It does mean thou that their "Life Sphere" is geared towards "Chi manipulation on living beings".

It means that, in a sense, their "Life Sphere" actually is a sort of "Sub Sphere" of Prime. So, they dont truly learn about cells and tissues - or they mighty even learn about those, but under the strict view of the "Chi interactions" between those, rather than chemical reactions of technomancers or even "sympatic connections of the flesh" of hermetics or "divine inspiration" of the Celestial Chorus.

That means that, even if the Akashic Brotherhood and the Hermetic Order both have a Sphere called "Life", the only thing they have in common is the name and PERHAPS the final results, because in truth they are NOTHING alike, and are untransladable. They are not related AT ALL, except for acting on the same "field" (living organisms).

Just like "Spirit" and "Dimension Science" may act on the same subject, but are nothing alike.

Thus, for an Akashic Brother to be able to use the hermetic sphere of Life, he would need to buy Thaumatology (Hermetic) and buy the Hermetic Life Sphere from scratch (even if he has the Akashic version of it). But that's the easy part.

The hard part would be convincing the GM (me) that those paradigms are somewhat compatible enough to the point that you can believe in BOTH.

Also, last entry: the Nefandi have the Qlippothic Sphere. I also have to thank Gurps for that one. Being exclusive to the Fallen, it is massively powerful and dangerous for any other sect, as they are ill equipped to deal with it.

Also, being a Bad Guys power only, it makes them all the more mysterious and terrifying

[whswhs]

My own second M:tA campaign didn't do a lot of changes to the Spheres; I used Dimensional Science and Society for the Technos, instead of Spirit and Prime, but that was about it. But I did some swapping around of the Traditions' links:

* Ether is the (proposed) medium of transmission of electromagnetic radiation, so I assigned Forces to the Sons of Ether and moved the Order of Hermes over to Matter (which went with their having the four Aristotelian elements)

* I never felt quite right with the martial artists having the Sphere of Mind, so I moved the Akashic Brotherhood over to Time (perfect timing seemed to fit martial arts) and swapped the Cult of Ecstacy back over to Mind