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Old 03-20-2023, 10:21 AM   #11
Arith Winterfell
 
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Default Re: Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts

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Can he draw on this pool to cast "divine" spells in general? What about when specifically slaughtering a demonic witch? Why or why not?
Yes and Yes. I think. This is assuming said caster has Power Investure in order to cast divine spells.

Power Investure could be granted as part of a ritual entering the priesthood. In turn it could also be taken away by a ritual to punish heretical priests.

It would be the church who judges their actions. So if a priest acts too far out of line (like killing red headed girls) then they'd be arrested, judged by an ecclesiastical court, and probably punished by stripping them of their PI and rank in the church.

But before such punishments, yeah he could use such power, as in reality there is no divine being doing the judging to withhold power. But in society, it could be seen as a priest abusing a divine gift rather than a divine approval or disapproval.

That kind of makes for an interesting setting design choice, I think. People in setting would still believe. The church or churches would be (usually) a stabilizing force in society.

Yet at the same time we have room for worldly corruption to occur.
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Old 03-20-2023, 11:51 AM   #12
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Default Re: Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts

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Originally Posted by Arith Winterfell View Post
Yes and Yes. I think. This is assuming said caster has Power Investure in order to cast divine spells.

Power Investure could be granted as part of a ritual entering the priesthood. In turn it could also be taken away by a ritual to punish heretical priests.

It would be the church who judges their actions. So if a priest acts too far out of line (like killing red headed girls) then they'd be arrested, judged by an ecclesiastical court, and probably punished by stripping them of their PI and rank in the church.

But before such punishments, yeah he could use such power, as in reality there is no divine being doing the judging to withhold power. But in society, it could be seen as a priest abusing a divine gift rather than a divine approval or disapproval.

.
There is, though. That's the difference between Magery and PI: Magery is intrinsic to the character, Power Investiture is granted by an external force. If Power Investiture exists, there must be a real deity (or equivalent being) providing it, otherwise it's Magery.
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Old 03-20-2023, 11:56 AM   #13
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Hmm. What about the priesthood and the power of collective faith granting that investment of power into an individual?

I could call it Magery. But Magery is inherent in people when they are born. This is granted by the investment of power by the church(es).
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Old 03-20-2023, 12:11 PM   #14
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Hmm. What about the priesthood and the power of collective faith granting that investment of power into an individual?.
You could certainly rule that way in your campaign setting, (Indeed, I might, if that were the type of setting I were making) but it's far from the default expected by the RAW.

.
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But Magery is inherent in people when they are born.
That's also a setting switch. (The prevalence of which in fiction I find rather annoying, but that's another matter). It's totally feasible for Magery to be acquired via some ritual initiation, ordeal, vision quest or similar.
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Old 03-20-2023, 12:39 PM   #15
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Default Re: Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts

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Originally Posted by Arith Winterfell View Post
Hmm. What about the priesthood and the power of collective faith granting that investment of power into an individual?

I could call it Magery. But Magery is inherent in people when they are born. This is granted by the investment of power by the church(es).
It's not impossible to make something like that work (both Planescape and Discworld have examples of belief dictating reality), but you should write down the exact rules for how it works.

Having the upper echelon of the church decide who gets the PI seems unrealistic in the vast majority of scenarios for most types of belief, with something like Belief in Authority being a notable exception. As you describe it, the power itself comes from the combined belief of the faithful and not exclusively from the leaders, so the leaders have no actual say in who is empowered. Even so it is likely that whomever gets access is inducted into the leadership ranks.

It seems more plausible that the ones to get Power Investiture are the ones the followers of the belief feel are worthy. Someone who is following both the letter and spirit of the belief and is public about it would be a candidate, as would someone who performed some significant task of benefit to the followers or someone who was persecuted for following the belief. You could look towards Christian Saints for examples of candidates for belief powered Power Investiture. While achieving sainthood often involved a lot of politics (and almost always posthumously), it's worth noting that quite a lot of them were not church leaders, yet they would certainly all have had some sort of PI in a setting like you describe.
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Old 03-20-2023, 01:15 PM   #16
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Having the upper echelon of the church decide who gets the PI seems unrealistic in the vast majority of scenarios for most types of belief, with something like Belief in Authority being a notable exception. As you describe it, the power itself comes from the combined belief of the faithful and not exclusively from the leaders, so the leaders have no actual say in who is empowered. Even so it is likely that whomever gets access is inducted into the leadership ranks.
Not all churches will go along with such things.

In early Christianity, there was a belief called Donatism. It held that if you were faced with martyrdom for your faith, and accepted it, and then were saved, you had proved your faith and thus were automatically a priest—in effect, you were a living saint. It was declared a heresy.

On one hand, the church wanted to have control over who became a priest; they made priestly office a function of the church administration and not of inspiration. On the other hand, Donatism tended to inspire the idea that priests had to be, well, holy, and the church wasn't prepared to be put in the position of having to guarantee the spiritual status or moral character of its priests. So it went in for "you salute the habit and not the man."

Such issues seem likely to arise if there is a way to be empowered, either by God or by the faith of the worshippers (which in Christian times might be identified with the Holy Spirit, which of course is part of God).
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Old 03-20-2023, 01:35 PM   #17
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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.
There can also be those who recognize the "gods" have powers that they can share with their chosen without considering such to be worthy of worship. In Order of the Stick, there's an exchange where the gods are described as being "just fancy alien wizards who figured out how to crowdsource their magic" - which really isn't an inaccurate description for the gods of that setting, honestly.

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Having the upper echelon of the church decide who gets the PI seems unrealistic in the vast majority of scenarios for most types of belief, with something like Belief in Authority being a notable exception. As you describe it, the power itself comes from the combined belief of the faithful and not exclusively from the leaders, so the leaders have no actual say in who is empowered. Even so it is likely that whomever gets access is inducted into the leadership ranks.
It could be something like a delegation effect. Essentially, part of the belief system would edge on Belief in Authority, where the faithful believe that, rather than their god directly empowering individuals, their god empowers the leader(s) of the faith both with abilities of their own and with the ability to empower those they choose as well. It might even be a case where the supreme leader of the faith (the pope-analog) delegates the power to empower to lower-ranked members, who delegate the power to empower to lower-ranked members, and so forth, probably with those who are so empowered becoming less powerful (lower Power Investiture) the further removed they are from the supreme leader. Indeed, given it appears most faiths in the setting are artificial constructs, it would have been useful to whoever initially came up with a given faith (who undoubtedly would have been its first supreme leader) to set things up this way, to insure they got the fullest benefit of it.
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Old 03-20-2023, 01:56 PM   #18
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Default Re: Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts

Alternatively, the church has access to spells/rituals/whatever that can grant and remove Magery, and the whole business about collective faith powering holy casters is just a smokescreen.
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Old 03-20-2023, 02:28 PM   #19
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Indeed, given it appears most faiths in the setting are artificial constructs, it would have been useful to whoever initially came up with a given faith (who undoubtedly would have been its first supreme leader) to set things up this way, to insure they got the fullest benefit of it.
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.

The main way I could see it work is if you somehow have an emperor who manages to set up a belief that they're blessed with divine power.
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Not all churches will go along with such things
It is much harder to deny someone who can demonstrate actual mystical abilities powered by shared faith. The main reason the early Christian church could put a cork in this type of promotion to priest/saint-hood, was that the proposed saints/priests did not actually have any mystical ability.
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Old 03-20-2023, 02:37 PM   #20
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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).

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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.
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