03-20-2023, 10:21 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: May 2014
Location: Indiana, United States
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Re: Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts
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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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"To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery." ~ Charles Baudelaire |
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03-20-2023, 11:51 AM | #12 | |
Join Date: Nov 2004
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Re: Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts
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03-20-2023, 11:56 AM | #13 |
Join Date: May 2014
Location: Indiana, United States
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Re: Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts
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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"To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery." ~ Charles Baudelaire |
03-20-2023, 12:11 PM | #14 | ||
Join Date: Nov 2004
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Re: Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts
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03-20-2023, 12:39 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Oct 2007
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Re: Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts
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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 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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03-20-2023, 01:15 PM | #16 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts
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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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03-20-2023, 01:35 PM | #17 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts
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03-20-2023, 01:56 PM | #18 |
Join Date: Nov 2004
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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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03-20-2023, 02:28 PM | #19 | |
Join Date: Oct 2007
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Re: Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts
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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. 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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03-20-2023, 02:37 PM | #20 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts
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