Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts

[Arith Winterfell]

I've been working on designing a fantasy setting, but I've been struggling for ideas and narrowing down ideas from a general vague pool of ideas I have.

I've also been reading over Mailanka's Communion building ideas for inspiration and thoughts. The article: Here

Now, I mention IRL religious stuff here not to focus on it, but rather to explain my starting point and thus explain what "creative influences" shape my setting design. I'm an atheist IRL, so my point of view tends me toward a great distaste for religious zealotry and extremism. I admit, I tend toward religions in my setting that tend toward being good at first glance, but whose insistence on dogma and tendency toward Us vs. Them mentality ultimately mark them as being constrictive and tending toward a "Us/Righteous vs. Them/Wrong/Sinful."

That said, I'm mostly concerned with the inter-relationship between the Fantasy setting's religion and "Arcane" wizard magic. I've already established that there is an Arcane College in the setting which has political power and protects wizards and their usefulness in the setting.

I don't want to have an absolute antagonism between the Arcane College and those religions however either. That's too black and white a division. That said, I wanted to figure out a good way to use the default magic system to explore ideas of magic that religions forbid, but aren't directly crippling to player characters.

At the same time, I'm fascinated by the idea of "Forbidden Knowledge" in the vein of Lovecraftian Horror and would like to capture some element of that. At the same time I don't want to create a situation that disincentivizes actually learning and using Forbidden Knowledge/Magic.

So I'm just looking for general feedback and ideas on how to approach these elements in my setting from a design point of view?

[Dalillama]

Stereotypically, the definition of "forbidden" or "unholy" magic starts with necromancy. Mind control is anothe classic, and sometimes mind reading as well.

[Fred Brackin]

Planar Summons is mostly left blank about _what_ it summons (besides "not Demons" because there's already a spell for that) but Planar Summons is in there as a "blank template" for summoning Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.

[whswhs]

I've read an account of actual medieval European thought about magic. There were very specific forms of magic that were forbidden; it wasn't as simplistic as "all magic is evil." What was forbidden was, first, summoning (since you might summon devils); second, any magic whose rituals approximated to prayer and sacrifice (magic based on impersonal forces was okay); third, magic that trespassed into the domain of divine omniscience, particularly magic that foretold the future. On the other hand, oneiromancy was approved of, since there was scriptural precedent for God sending dreams and prophets interpreting them.

It's not necessary to copy this sort of thing slavishly. But I suggest thinking about what a particular religion puts forth as dangerous or improper, and asking what forms of magic fall into that domain.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Stereotypically, the definition of "forbidden" or "unholy" magic starts with necromancy. Mind control is anothe classic, and sometimes mind reading as well.

Of course, this can vary quite a bit. Blood Magic / Sacrifice is frequently considered evil and thus winds up forbidden, but plenty of real-world religions involve a decent amount of blood sacrifice (typically from animals, not people), and at least in the Beta Diablo IV's Cathedral of Light (the dominant religion of the region of the world accessible in the Beta, that was established by a literal angel) also makes heavy use of blood magic in a variety of ways. For example, there's a nun/priestess who enlists the main character's help in exorcising demons from possessed people, which she accomplishes in part by spilling her own blood into a blessed chalice and focusing a spell/prayer on it. When she loses her chalice, it's up to you to get a new one - after convincing a priest to give you a new one, it has to first be blessed... by filling it with the blood of sinners (you attack a nearby bandit camp to get the necessary ingredient) and then placing a piece of charred wood from a pyre in it (where they burned some demon worshippers). They've even got large suits of magical powered armor that drain the pilot of blood for power. Granted, the Cathedral is implied to be not-quite-good, and the blood sacrifice is probably because human blood does indeed have a lot of power in the setting (where humans are actually the descendants of demon-angel crossbreeds), but the important bit is that the populace regard the Cathedral of Light as The Good Guys (tm).

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

If it's powered by actual belief, then only something leaning heavily on an aspect of Authority would have the ability to limit where power goes. Many faiths will grow organically and not be dictated by someone seeking to gain power for themself and those beliefs will also have power to wield. Heck, it might be much harder to start a "supreme leader" type faith when there are other faiths that can actually prove they have power already.

It may be difficult in the first place for a new religion to get a start when existing religions have established supernatural power. Perhaps what typically happens is a splinter group gets traction, with the followers focusing on a specific aspect of the original religion and the leaders having divine power initially from the original, but as it gains momentum it can go its own way more and more (initially the leaders need to largely adhere to the original tenants to maintain their Power Investiture, but once it hits critical mass they can deviate more, getting their "new" PI from the followers of the splinter group). That will certainly make it more difficult for someone to purposefully set up a new religion to their own benefit, yeah.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

If Power Investiture exists, there must be a real deity (or equivalent being) providing it, otherwise it's Magery.

False. This situation is exactly what the 'etc' was for in this sentence: "A deity – god, demon lord, great spirit, cosmic power, etc. – has empowered you to cast “clerical” spells."


The only differences between RAW Power Investiture and Magery (mechanically speaking) is that PI has a restricted spell list, spells have an altered prerequisite chain (usually being levels of PI rather than anything else, however that is not set in stone), and PI has different ways of removing or depowering it.

Originally Posted by Arith Winterfell

Hmm. What about the priesthood and the power of collective faith granting that investment of power into an individual?

Perfectly adequate. However as the removal should tend to be delayed and would (generally) require those who can cast the depowering ritual to do so (and presumably have reason to do so), PI should cost more.

How much more? Eh.... depends on your world.

However, if you are also requiring Religious Rank to access higher levels of Power Investiture, for instance the character gains the Rank and has a new empowering ritual as part of the rank increase ceremony, then I wouldn't increase the price at all.

[Arith Winterfell]

Yes, as some here have already noted.

I actually really like the idea Winged Kagouti suggested, with PI starting a its highest level with its highest religious rank, then PI diminishes as it is bestowed on progressively lower ranks. So Religious Rank is intertwined with PI as PI is bestowed ritually by a priest with a higher rank. Each circle you ascend, gives one an initiation to a ritual that grants one increased level of PI.

Now comes one good question about the start of the whole thing then. I imagined the earliest founders were especially holy men and women whose access to divine spells resulted from very strong belief in them by the people. But perhaps not.

But to borrow a bit more from the Fear & Hunger video game, perhaps the earliest founders were people who embarked on an epic quest for enlightenment and attained a portion of cosmic power as a result. In Fear & Hunger, *spoilers* humans could become gods by sitting upon a golden throne in the hidden lost city of the gods. The trouble is, these human gods would eventually tire and get replaced. And as gods existed outside of time and space, their time as divinities gets rewritten and replaced with a new timeline. It's a neat concept, though I'm not sure I want to go that way fully.

That said, I find the very idea of socially constructed magically powered religions that lack direct cosmic guidance to be something really interesting.

Another idea that I'm playing with is perhaps it starts with wizards. Ancient wizards who were powerful enough to get people to believe they were god-kings. As a result these first human-based religions were a result of these early wizards accessing shared belief as a new power source. They didn't become literal gods, but socially and politically were that in ancient times. In turn their power changed them, allowing them to pass down their power to successors who became the first high priests who carried on their religion passing the spark down the generations.

Yet another third idea I'm playing with, goes back to the pre-human old gods. Perhaps the first human-based religions started when certain humans quested and stole a portion of that cosmic power (not becoming true gods), but founding their religions based on their ideals opposed to the cruelty of the inhuman old gods.

Then an extension of that. Perhaps holding on to that cosmic power is ultimately corruptive (metaphorically and physically) as the human body isn't meant to hold that kind of power directly. So highest ranking priests pass their power down to the next in line on their death. PI secretly becomes part of a training hierarchy. It not only spreads the power around a little bit, but prepares the next in line to progressively handle more and more cosmic energy with each step up the ladder. With the highest ranking priest passing on and keeping the secret original source of the power (and the lack of real human gods) for the good of the people with the passing of a "sacred" spark.

This is turning into some really interesting world building!

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Arith Winterfell

. . . I wanted to figure out a good way to use the default magic system to explore ideas of magic that religions forbid, but aren't directly crippling to player characters.

To do that, you need to decide what magic the various religions forbid, and why they do so. That might be as simple as forbidding duplicating the aspects of a deity: the church of healing claims a monopoly over Healing magic, and the church of agriculture claims Food magic, and so on. The spells of those colleges exist, and can be learned by non-religious magicians, but are illegal.

Originally Posted by Arith Winterfell

At the same time, I'm fascinated by the idea of "Forbidden Knowledge" in the vein of Lovecraftian Horror and would like to capture some element of that. At the same time I don't want to create a situation that disincentivizes actually learning and using Forbidden Knowledge/Magic.

There's the Demonic Contracts and Black Magic material on p. 156 of Magic. If those rules bite magicians too hard for your taste, you can reduce the penalties.

[WingedKagouti]

Fantasy religions are usually backed by actual gods with very real power, which makes atheism and agnosticism silly notions for those worlds. Many of them are also polytheistic, which essentially means that no single church can lay public claim to having the "one true morality", but instead have to acknowledge that their chosen god is just one aspect of the world. There will certainly still be those who are too dogmatic to acknowledge non-believers as people.

On the other hand, a church or deity can certainly ban their own priests from using certain types of magic. If the church is against it but the deity isn't, the repercussions will be purely social. But if the deity is against that type of magic, things might be really bad for any faithful that breaks a ban.

Additionally, mages will probably also be at least a bit religious themselves in such a world. If there is no god of magic (or mages), they'll probably lean towards a god of knowledge or mysteries if they don't have reasons for worshipping a different god (eg. a mage who grew up as the child of farmers might worship an agricultural deity). In most settings, mages and priests will understand that the power of a mage comes from a non-divine source, without magic itself being more inherently evil than any other tool or weapon.

Take something like the ancient Egyptians, Greek or even the Norse. While an individual might favour a specific deity, (or at least close to) everyone acknowledged the other deities and offered sacrifices of some sort to ask for favours or placate them. Greek epics often touch upon people who worshipped one deity and forgot to offer a sacrifice to another before undertaking some task, which was then punished by the ignored deity.

City- and nation-wide bans on various types of magic are more likely to come from whatever government is in place than from religion(s) (theocracies being a special case). From them you're likely to see bans and heavy restrictions on any type of magic that has a risk of causing major damage, disrupting the economy or otherwise usurping the minds, abilities or wealth of those in power.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

Fantasy religions are usually backed by actual gods with very real power, which makes atheism and agnosticism silly notions for those worlds.

Not necessarily. Depending on the details, someone could easily adopt a position that the power claimed to be from the gods isn't, or that the beings that claim to be gods aren't. A lot of people believe Prince Philip existed, but only a small portion of them believe he was a divine being.