[Thaumatology] Divination as the Core of Magic

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

... that female wolf-shifters ought to be called wifwolves.

I'm gonna start doing just that...

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Similarly, "centaur" comes from kentauros, which was just the name the Greeks gave to a tribe of horsemen (that is, men on horseback) and that got used to refer to the horse/human hybrid creature we're familiar with (even with the Greeks). And now you have -taur being used as a suffix for any similar beast/human hybrid creature.

In my one game that did a lot of stuff with pseudo-Irish fae, it really irked me that a lot of the DFRPG fae use Greek names. So for my satisfaction, I had to come up with alternate names in dog-Irish, so dyngaffer[1] and dynfarch[2] for satyr and centaurs. I don't know if my players appreciated it or not, but sometimes the GM needs to be obsessive about the details.

[1] Very ungrammatical Irish for "goat man"
[2] Very ungrammatical Irish for "horse man"

[whswhs]

I looked it up, and the "were" in "werewolf" seems to be a cognate of the Latin "vir," meaning male human being. On the other hand, in the word "lycanthrope," the "anthrope" comes from a Greek root meaning human being of either sex. So it appears the two words are not quite synonyms.

[Prince Charon]

While I'm still not fond of the standard system, it occurred to me to try to see how many Colleges could just be converted straight to Manteia by changing a few prerequisites, and how many either don't work, or need to have spells from other Manteia as the first prerequisites, as some Colleges do already (e.g. Enchantment).

Fire is a fairly obvious one - Pyromancy leads to Seek Fire and Shape Fire, Shape Fire leads to Ignite Fire and Extinguish Fire, and the other prereqs probably remain the same.


Earth starts with Geomancy, which leads to Seek Earth and continues from there as normal. (You could also use Crystal-Gazing as the first spell, but I prefer that for others, and Geomancy works namewise.)


Water was trickier, but the description of Augury says that it varies by culture, and with magic, you might have several forms of it in the same culture. Thus, hydromancy could be Augury via watching a fountain, or the rain, or the waves, or it could be another name for Lecanomancy (divination by casting objects into the water). The Hydromancy spell leads to Seek Water and the rest follows normally.


Air is likewise another form of Augury, perhaps by observing the way wind blows objects around. Understanding of Aeromancy brings you to Purify Air and Seek Air.


If you want Weather to be a Manteia with it's own starting point, Kairomancy could be Augury by observing the weather. Knowing Kairomancy leads to Predict Weather, but there are so many Weather College spells that have Air or Water College spells as prereqs that it might need a dedicated post.


Both Body Control and Healing could be done by Physiognomy, which is divination by examining the body. So, the Physiognomy/Biomancy Spell leads to Lend Strength in one direction, and Climbing, Itch, and Touch, in the other.


Movement has a couple of options (and probably others): Dactylomancy is based on watching a pointer move and seeing where it stops, and Sortilege involves throwing things and observing ow they land. Either one could be called Kinetomancy, though there could be a better option that I'm not considering. Kinetomancy leads to Haste, and the rest follows as normal, I think.


Both 'Communication and Empathy' and 'Mind Control' work for two different forms in the book - Gastromancy involves putting someone in a trance and interpreting their babbling, so I would argue that it's a better fit for Mind Control, while Oneiromancy is dream interpretation (and with the Path/Book Magic version of this, would obviously be the start of the Path of Dreams), which I think works better for C&E. Not really sure, though.


Light and Darkness works well with Crystal-Gazing. This is another where it looks like only the first spell really needs to change prereqs (Light getting Crystal-Gazing as the prerequisite).


Any others, or changes to the above that you can think of?

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Movement has a couple of options

How about Measurement? Or Metromancy, for the sake of the naming convention: magically divining distances, weights, time, etc. Knowing enough about those properties to be able to manipulate them leads naturally to a lot of the Movement spells (Haste, Teleport, Slow Fall, Light Tread, Levitation, Flight, etc), as well as some of the Knowledge spells (Trace, Seeker, Echoes of the Past, Far-Hearing /Feeling / Tasting, Hawk Vision, etc.) You might also move or cross-list spells like Shrink/Enlarge in this college.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

How about Measurement? Or Metromancy, for the sake of the naming convention: magically divining distances, weights, time, etc. Knowing enough about those properties to be able to manipulate them leads naturally to a lot of the Movement spells (Haste, Teleport, Slow Fall, Light Tread, Levitation, Flight, etc), as well as some of the Knowledge spells (Trace, Seeker, Echoes of the Past, Far-Hearing /Feeling / Tasting, Hawk Vision, etc.) You might also move or cross-list spells like Shrink/Enlarge in this college.

Yeah, that makes sense. Another one that occurred to me is that the first few spells in the Manteia of Knowledge could have something like 'any four Divination spells' as the prerequisite.


Looking back at Necromancy, I suggest that the College (whether in the spell-based system or Sorcery) would be split: 'Necromancy' would just cover the various 'Death and the Undead' spells, while the 'Demons and general Evil Stuff' spells would fall under Daemonomancy (or Diabolism), which isn't in the list from GURPS Magic pp108-109, but is a form of divination (getting information from demons) listed in various places under various spellings.


On another note, something that should have occurred to me for Light and Darkness (and also for Movement) is astrology, since you're studying the movements of lights in the darkness.

[mlangsdorf]

As ancient philosophers often considered the heavens to be a separate realm of material, I'd make Astrology into the foundation spell for Meta-Magic.

Crystal-gazing works better for Light & Darkness, and Sortilege is fine for Movement.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Crystal-gazing works better for Light & Darkness...

"Hmmm, crystal gazing the path of light is, orb pondering leads only to darkness."

[Prince Charon]

In a Horror, Urban Fantasy, or other Secret Magic setting (or just a setting where mortal magic is mostly subtle), the core ability for mortal spellcasters (or at least diviners) could be the Second Sight ability described in GURPS Horror (4e, p18): Mechanically, it's a combination of Precognition with one or two types of See Invisible, and the fluff is that you can see ghosts and faeries (who, depending on your folklore, may both be the same type of being), and they also tell you about the future; from the outside, it's like having a Contact Group of spirits, just without the Frequency of Appearance and such. Personally, I'd add Psychometry to it, but that could also be one of the first power stunts or alternate abilities, if you're using that (Second Sight also works pretty well as the core advantage for Path/Book styles and such, if you prefer).

Starting from Second Sight, the easiest abilities to justify are other information-gathering abilities like Detect (something related to the divination skill you're using), Psychometry, Danger Sense, Empathy, and so on; Visualization (Aspected and/or with other appropriate limitations) might come from this or the next branch. Depending on the Manteia you're using, enhanced senses with various limits might also be appropriate, as well as different limitations on the other advantages (e.g. hydromancy is great for dowsing, physiognomy is probably good for magical diagnosis, et cetra). In general, I'd say that information-gathering abilities should require less justification than other types of effect.

Another branch from Second Sight (or from Visualization) could lead to various forms of Aspected Serendipity (which aspects naturally depend on which forms of divination you've learned), with a higher 'level' adding the Wishing enhancement to Aspected Serendipity; from there, for both offence and utility purposes, you might use various Afflictions appropriate to the Manteia you're using, as most regular Innate Attacks seem less fitting for this type of setting, where mortals mostly can't deal direct damage with magic, or at least not without taking advantage of some specific Vulnerability or Weakness the enemy has. That said, there are options where an Innate Attack makes sense: indirect effects like using kairomancy to redirect a lightning bolt; a biomancy curse (or another Manteia, if you can justify it) expressed as a Toxic Attack with weird Symptoms; a Fatigue Attack with a thematically-appropriate Hazard or Side Effect (or both). Likewise, an attack with Side Effect and No Wounding, No Blunt Trauma, and No Knockback is basically another route to applying an Affliction, and may be the preferred method for some GMs (even if using an Innate Attack for utility or ally-buffing feels weird).

The defensive abilities most likely also branch off from Serendipity (apart from those based on Enhanced Defences, which could just be a form of precognition, or based on defence-aspected Visualization with 'Reduced Time 7, +140%'). Obscure with 'Anti-Targeting, -20%' fits here; Hard to Kill/Subdue fluffed as 'luck magic' is also potentially acceptable. Something like Insubstantiality sounds odd, here, but fits under 'buy the effects, not the name.' What's written on the character sheet would be Insubstantiality with some modifiers, but what's happening in-game is that things that logically should have hit your character instead hit the area around them (again due to luck magic, or possibly a magical kinetic effect that 'guides them off at an angle').


Thoughts?

[dataweaver]

I'd be wary of the Insubstantial one, because it isn't just about not getting hit; there's the whole “I can't affect anything that's not also Insubstantial” thing going on. And the +100% Affects Substantial enhancement doesn't actually let you affect substantial things on its own; it merely gives you permission to buy and use abilities that do. Even with severe limitations on it, the result is unlikely to be cost-effective.

Other than that, this looks pretty solid. The only thing I'd add is that you might want to look at the optional rules for Spirit powers found in GURPS Powers — not because this is a spiritual power, but because those modifiers are designed with the sort of feel that a GURPS Horror “mancy” ought to have. I'm referring specifically to the Ritual Modifiers found on Powers page 178: Affecting Others, Consecration, Regalia, and Ritual Length.