Suggest a magic system for fantasy India...

[tantric]

So, in my hobby of worldbuilding which I almost never use in actual gameplay, I've move on to a fantasy culture inspired by ancient India. I'm going to lest the majority of the races have access to limited psi (no telekinesis) and restrict magic to the priest caste. Priest in this sense will involve worshipping the Maharaja of the Nagas, Garuda, Hanuman, Ganesh or the Mother Ganges. Yogis and ascetics from any caste can retire to the forest and perfect their psi, but priests have a monopoly on functional magic.

This is set in my Erywhone naturalist/furry inspired world, see my sig. I'm posting what I have written in the next post.

Thanks

[tantric]

Patala

Geography

Patala is the indigenous name for the Naga Kingdoms. The area is tropical rainforest, between the Wrack Wood (monsoon forest) and Candlelabra Forest. The flora and fauna are drawn from NE India. The great river, Gangamata, flows from the Bod-Lhasa Plateau into the Stormy Sea.

The tropical vegetation of Patala typically occurs at elevations up to 900 m. It embraces evergreen and semi-evergreen rain forests, riparian forests, swamps and grasslands. Evergreen rain forests are found in the Ganga Valley, the foothills of the eastern Bod Mountains and the lower parts of the Naga Hills, where the rain fall exceeds 2300 mm per annum. In the Ganga Valley the giant Holong (Dipterocarpus macrocarpus) and Meranti (Shorea assamica) occur singly, occasionally attaining a girth of up to 15 m and a height of up to 100 m.

Banyan trees are sacred throughout Patala. Even a Rakshasa will not harm a Banyan. Almost all Banyans that survive to adulthood germinate Yakshinis. These are Vat Vriksha and are of the Priestly caste. There are Vat Vriksha at the center of all rural villages, whereas the lord of the villages often lives on the outskirts. Likewise there are numerous Banyan parks throughout the major cities. Banyans are more forest than trees, and such parks can over 2 hectares.

Patala is deeply urban. There are seven great cities and thousands of smaller ones. Only the Aprushya live in agricultural villages, with exiled Virupakkhi to rule them. The capital and home of the Living God is Pataliputra. The others are Harapa, Lothal, Kotdiji and Mohenjodaro. Kalibanga and Mathura are falled to Ravana.

Peoples

There are six racial groups in Patala: Nagas (snake people), Suparnas (bird people), Varanas (monkeys and gibbons), Gajendras (Indian elephants), the various Were peoples and the Fey. The Weres are of the lowest caste and the Faerie races have little interaction with mainstream Patala. The Rakshasa are less a race and more of an extended family of Weretigers augmented with dark magics.

Nagas are the dominant race in Patala. Common Nagas are scaled humanoids with serpent tails rather than legs. There are seven clans of Naga: Virupakkhi (cobras), Erapathi (vipers), Chabyaputti (colubrids), Sagari (watersnakes), Upanandi (tree snakes), Uptali (pythons) and Balavani (burrowing).

Nagarajas have multiple heads, odd numbers for males and even numbers for females. The royal families of Erapatha, Chabyaputta and Upananda have been exterminated by the Rakshasas. Nagarajas lack arms but have powerful telekinesis. The Maharaja of the Nagas and Living God of all Patala is Virupakkha, who has three heads, Vritra, "the encompasser"; Ahi, "the confiner"; and fierce Kushna, "the scorcher".

Suparnas are winged humanoids. They are covered with feathers and have beaks and talons on their feet. There are eight clans: Apatike (raptors), Arasa (storks), Sari (songbirds), Galavrata (galliforms), Kamika (duck), Buddhimat (shrike), Vihagavavega (swift) and Azvaka (finch). Garuda is the Lord of Suparnas. He usually takes the form of a roc. Garuda is the enemy of the Nagas and eats them exclusively, but no ally of Ravana.

Varanas are apes and monkeys, distinguished from their Earthly counterparts only by intelligence. There are four clans, Ulaka (gibbons), Kapi (macaques), Kesari (langur) and Neela (loris). Their lord is Hanuman, who is a great ally of the Nagas and enemy of the Rakshasas, though many individual Varanas have gone over to the service of Ravana.

Gajendra are fully sapient Indian elephants. In Patala society, they are mainly beasts of burden and heavy lifters. Their Lord is Ganesha, who takes no part in the war between Naga and Rakshasa.

Rakshasas are a clan of weretigers that have bound their spirits with Beyonders. Physically they are anthropomorphic tigers with various individual supernatural features, not limited to odd coloration and buggy eyes. Rakshasas are masters of Black Magic. Ravana, their Lord, led an uprising of Asprushyas to defeat three of the Nagarajas.

Faeries are rare in Patala. There are dryads, known as Yakshini, and a few types of satyrs, called Gandharvas. Brownies, called Gramadeva, live as house servants as they do everywhere, and there are a few Waterfey (Apsaras). Other types of Little People are simply Yaksha, mates to Dryads. Goblins (Pisachas) live underneath Patala.

Nagas, Suparnas, Varanas and Gajendras are all psychic. In Patalan culture, non-psychics, meaning the various Were and Faerie races, are considered less spiritually evolved. Faeries receive a certain amount of respect owing to their immortality, but Weres occupy the lowest rungs of society.

The culture of Patala is deeply interwoven with the caste system, even in the Rakshasarastra. The basic castes are: Rulers, Priests, Warriors, Merchants, Artisans and Workers. Only the Virupakkhi and the Nagaraja lineages are Rulers. Of the common Nagas, the Erapathi and Uptali are Warriors, the Balavani are Priests, the Sagari are Merchants and the Upanandi are Artisans. Of the Asparas, the Apatike and Buddhimat are Warriors, the Sari are Arisans, the Kamika are Merchants, the Arasa and Vihagavavega are Priests and the Azvaka are Workers. For the Varana, the Ulaka are Priests, the Kapi are Merchants, the Kesari and Neela are Artisans. All Gajendra are Workers but for a single clan of Priests. Were races have their own caste, the Aprushya. The Aprushshya are 'untouchable' not because of feared physical contamination, but because they lack basic telepathy - their minds cannot touch other minds.

Technology

Patala is a TL 3 society, with spots of advanced magitech for the ruling castes. Basic material technology, rare in Erywhone, takes Patala to TL 3. Both Adamantium and Argentium are used, depending on the application, and little special importance is attached to them.

The Ruler caste has free access to flying air-cars called Vinamas which can reach 200kph. Vinamas are legacy technology and are thus irreplaceable. Most can travel 1000km carrying 200kgs before needing to recharge, which takes a week. Vinamas are fully manuverable and can hover, though they do not compensate for inertia. Most are equipped with radar and beam weapons, though these are a serious drain on the batteries. Physically, they are shaped like hollow cigars with pseudoglass canopies. The bodies are gold plated and richly ornamented with rare jewels. The Rakshasa war has shown that these vehicles are actually rather vulnerable to magical attack.

[aesir23]

As a current resident of India, I will follow this thread with some interest!

Originally Posted by tantric

Peoples

There are six racial groups in Patala: Nagas (snake people), Suparnas (bird people), Varanas (monkeys and gibbons), Gajendras (Indian elephants), the various Were peoples and the Fey. The Weres are of the lowest caste and the Faerie races have little interaction with mainstream Patala. The Rakshasa are less a race and more of an extended family of Weretigers augmented with dark magics.

Might I suggest that you're missing out by not having Mongoose people, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Flying_Fox people, and Gaur people? At least those are the coolest animals I've seen in India (apart from Elephants).

[whswhs]

I would suggest using the meditative magic rules to model the accumulation of merit that enables effective use of mantras. Mantras themselves seem like "spells" in many ways, though you might want to model them as powers activated by verbal formulae; in the latter case, it would make sense to give them an Energy Reserve charged by meditation.

Bill Stoddard

[Edges]

You are essentially looking at three categories.

You have yagya, with are basically rituals. These require quite a bit of time (minutes to days), chanting, and paraphernalia (statue [murti], food, water, incense, etc.). Effect magnitude depends on participant group size, ritual duration, and paraphernalia value. These are exclusively practiced by the priest caste. On first thought, path/book magic would fit this well.

Secondly, you have a variety of yogic practices. These almost invariably require gathering and expending merit. Merit can be gathered through meditation, breathing exercises, or through the maintenance of certain codes of conduct. This can be done with psi (as most of the abilities are things we would associate with psi [though not all as there are things like growth]) but with Energy Reserve bookkeeping. I would probably have a set of disadvantages (Truthfulness, Disciplines if Faith, etc. [check out the first two limbs of yoga for inspiration]) as a power limitation and use meditation, breathing exercises (pranayama), etc. as means of managing ER.

Third, you have sidhi or perfection. These are yogic practices that have been perfected and no longer require merit. You could model this by introducing an advantage (or perhaps an enhancement) that does away with the need for an ER.

[tantric]

My world is anthropomorphic/naturalistic. There are unaging Faeries, analogs of arthropods, amphibians, small mammals and ungulates (satyrs, etc) and Weres, analogs of carnivorous and omnivorous mammals. In this subsection, I'm going with several new races (Nagas and Suparnas) that are not really represented elsewhere in the Faerie/Were dichotomy. I'm adding in monkeys and elephants because it works with Indian mythology and doesn't break the setting. The Were races in this area are the peasant class - so there are mongoose, dhole, what have you Weres, they are just Untouchables.

The Rakshasas are weretigers that have mastered dark magic. Since Weres cannot have psi, as the other races do (this is campaign canon, were and faeries don't have psi), they are oppressed. Ravana led a revolt of the lower castes, using demonic abilities. The Rakshasa lands, chaos, freedom and brutality rule.

Symbolically, the Naga kingdoms are Truth in the Buddhist sense - reality as it is, whereas the Rakshasa are Illusion. The Nagas are more old school (pre Thich Nhat Hanh and Ambedekar), where spiritual progress is through lifetimes and the caste system is part of Karma.

The spell casting is a good idea. There are mantras, mudras (hand gestures) and smitri (visualization, I think I spelled that wrong) in Dharmic rituals, very like D&D magic. Where are the mediation rules?

Edges, you posted while I was writing this. I would very much like your input on the idea of making this Truth vs Illusion rather than good vs evil.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by tantric

The spell casting is a good idea. There are mantras, mudras (hand gestures) and smitri (visualization, I think I spelled that wrong) in Dharmic rituals, very like D&D magic. Where are the mediation rules?

Both GURPS Fantasy and GURPS Thaumatology have versions of them. In GURPS Fantasy, see pp. 161-162; in GURPS Thaumatology, pp. 53-54.

GURPS Powers doesn't explicitly discuss how this works with Energy Reserve, but my feeling is that since you only get one use of the energy from meditative magic, you should just get the storage capacity for it free, and have it go away for free when you burn the energy.

I agree about buying psi with a fatigue cost, payable only from the energy reserve, being a good way to handle a lot of abilities.

Bill Stoddard

[tantric]

In the default setting in my campaign, psi is noble magic and automatically trumps other kinds of magic. I call RAW GURPS Magic 'Lorecraft'. Lorecraft cannot in any way cancel or negate psi. I also completely disallow all mind based magic - base magic can't touch souls/spirits at all. Not that necromancy doesn't exist, but that you can't do it with the basic system. (Base magic for most cultures is Lorecraft, Alchemy and Spellsong).

This obviously will not work for priestly magic in this culture. What good is priestly magic that is inferior to the psi every common citizen possesses? So, this kind of ritualistic magic, Yagya, has to be priced differently and needs some controls. I'm not sure how to go about that.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by tantric

So, in my hobby of worldbuilding which I almost never use in actual gameplay, I've move on to a fantasy culture inspired by ancient India. I'm going to lest the majority of the races have access to limited psi (no telekinesis) and restrict magic to the priest caste. Priest in this sense will involve worshipping the Maharaja of the Nagas, Garuda, Hanuman, Ganesh or the Mother Ganges. Yogis and ascetics from any caste can retire to the forest and perfect their psi, but priests have a monopoly on functional magic.

This is set in my Erywhone naturalist/furry inspired world, see my sig. I'm posting what I have written in the next post.

Thanks

Why not restrict certain types of the most powerful magic to Brahmin mages and give other types around as fit? Weaponsmiths are Vaisha aren't they? I don't know if Indian legend has magic weapons but the Vedas do have poetry about chariots and bows.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I would suggest using the meditative magic rules to model the accumulation of merit that enables effective use of mantras. Mantras themselves seem like "spells" in many ways, though you might want to model them as powers activated by verbal formulae; in the latter case, it would make sense to give them an Energy Reserve charged by meditation.

Would your upcoming Thaumathology be of use for a fantasy India?