[Thaumatology] Divination as the Core of Magic

[Prince Charon]

Something that annoys me for pretty pedantic reasons is the use of '-mancy' in fiction (Dresden Files is a notable offender) as a generic 'this category of magic' suffix, when '-mancy' is from the Greek word 'manteia,' which specifically means divination. I do understand why it happens - Necromancy, being 'divination though talking to ghosts/the dead,' became associated with Death Magic in general, and the usage expanded from there - but that doesn't make it much less irritating. However, the source of the problem inspired a potentially-interesting solution: As you study a branch of divination, you learn to affect things related to it (and to hide from or disrupt the perceptions of other soothsayers, which is important for gameist and storytelling reasons). This is also pretty consistent with the trope of wizards just knowing stuff that they shouldn't, and not giving a clear explanation of how.

Example: As a young necromancer, Jozef would seek out ghosts to talk to, at the places they haunted. Later, he learned to summon them, and then to convince them to perform various tasks, to bind hostile wraiths, or to help a spectre move one to what lies beyond. Eventually, he learned to manipulate existing undead, and then to animate the dead for himself.

Doing this as spell-based magic would probably involve rearranging at least the first few spells in each College (perhaps using a different name, to fit the mood of the system better), or making each Manteia a Magical Style. Either way, the Divination spell at the core of the College/Style/whatever would be the only one with no other spells as prerequisites, though especially with Magical Styles, the spell might have skills or other qualities as prerequisites (though making any level of Magery a prerequisite for that first spell would be much more limiting than it is in the standard system).

On the other hand, this works pretty well with Divination as Contacts: You start out just getting information from your spiritual Contacts, then as you learn more about them, you learn how to phrase requests for small favors, and as your relationship improves or you meet more or more powerful spirits (increasing the cost of the advantage in various ways, or adding new advantages or Alternate Abilities), greater favors are seen as 'small enough, if it's for you.' A similar progression fluffwise works for Divination as Spirit Allies or Spirit Patrons (or a given Contact might change over time to an Ally, or if powerful enough, a Patron).

Magic as Powers in general would depend a lot (mostly mechanically, but in some cases also fluffwise) on what advantage or meta-trait is being use as the core ability.

For Path/Book Magic, I see two main options: Firstly, the core skill is the divination skill - e.g. 'Ritual Magic (Tarot)' or 'Fortune-Telling (Numerology).' IMHO, this works better for Book Magic styles. For Path styles, I suggest that the Path (or Manteia) is arranged so that the 'skill-0/lowest energy cost' ritual is the Divination ritual for that Path (so for example, the Path of Fire starts with the ritual for Pyromancy; the other rituals would probably contain some things only conceptually-related to fire, like Passion or some form of Creation). Some types of divination work better conceptually as a core skill, and some as a ritual.

Adapting Symbol Drawing for this concept could also be mostly fluff: You start with just the core skill, and do Symbol-Casting (or e.g. Cartomancy or perhaps Astrology); I suggest that for this concept, you would need to learn the individual Symbol skills in a particular order, probably either Verbs first or Divination-related symbols first.

There are of course other systems and other ways of using the systems suggested above, but this seem like a good start.


Thoughts?

[whswhs]

I understand the reasoning, but it has the flavor of the way Marvel Comics used to retcon things to explain away Stan Lee's absentminded errors (for example, when he referred to "Bob Banner" they explained that his legal name was actually "Robert Bruce Banner").

My own preference is to use -urgy for magic that changes things: theurgy, thaumaturgy, you get the idea.

But the working out of the idea is ingenious.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Something that annoys me for pretty pedantic reasons is the use of '-mancy' in fiction (Dresden Files is a notable offender) as a generic 'this category of magic' suffix,

Thoughts?

First is that Dresden files is in accord with 40+ years of popular usage, including roleplaying games. Maybe Tolkien too. There was a Necromancer in Sauron's recent aliases.

Second is that this idea probably doesn't work nearly as well for other divination methods and colleges. Ones that wouldn't have intelligent entities attached to them for example there's Molybdomancy which divines things in the shapes of molten metal cast into water..

If I was going to do something "new" I'd stop trying to rehabilitate necromancy. Leave it to people cursed with that One College Magery (and probably severe mental problems) .

[Varyon]

This is a very good example of making lemonade out of lemons. Ritual Path Magic may also be worth a look for a basis, as in that the Sense <Path> effect is indeed the cheapest.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Maybe Tolkien too. There was a Necromancer in Sauron's recent aliases.

I don't think Sauron's guise as the Necromancer ever had any association with what's currently called necromancy. He was a relative non-entity - a mysterious, evil sorcerer who captured, tortured, and murdered Thorin's grandfather (Gandalf got the map and key from him while he was imprisoned and Gandalf was infiltrating and investigating the keep IIRC), and who was stated to have been driven out by the Istari after the events of The Hobbit. I don't think what powers he displayed in that form were ever mentioned - it's entirely possible he was indeed practicing classical necromancy, learning information by speaking with the dead.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

it's entirely possible he was indeed practicing classical necromancy, learning information by speaking with the dead.

Not the spirits of deceased Men. those departed the world by the will of Eru to go to somewhere unknown to any who remained behind.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Not the spirits of deceased Men. those departed the world by the will of Eru to go to somewhere unknown to any who remained behind.

The oathbreakers Aragorn got the assistance of (freeing them to depart the world) were stuck in Middle Earth; maybe Sauron bound the souls of the dead before they could depart by similar means (probably has to be done while the person is still alive) and then forced information out of their spirits? Or he spoke to the spirits of deceased... Others (elves, orcs, dwarves, ents, etc). Or he interrogated existing undead, like the Barrow-Wights. My point is, I don't think we can blame Tolkien for "Necromancers turn corpses into servants." Unless there's some bit I haven't read that has the Necromancer sending out undead servants to do his bidding (other than the Nazgul, at least, but I think Sauron avoided using those while he was the Necromancer), anyway.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I don't think we can blame Tolkien for "Necromancers turn corpses into servants." y.

"Necromancers turn the spirits of the dead into servants" should be just as big a departure from the classical mancy.

[ravenfish]

My tendency is just to accept that the meaning of words can change over time, and a word's meaning needn't strictly map to its etymological roots. The 'wer-' in 'werewolf' specifically means "male human" in Anglo-Saxon, but it would be silly to go around complaining that female wolf-shifters ought to be called wifwolves.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

"Necromancers turn the spirits of the dead into servants" should be just as big a departure from the classical mancy.

Did the Necromancer do this? There's a difference between "servant" and "bound spirit you torture for information" (if he indeed even did that; the issue with the Necromancer is that what he does is never, to my knowledge, explored - we just know he's an evil sorcerer who even the Hobbits have heard of, he had Thorin's grandfather captive in his dungeons, he was driven out by the White Council, and in The Lord of the Rings we learn that he was actually a guise for Sauron).

Originally Posted by ravenfish

My tendency is just to accept that the meaning of words can change over time, and a word's meaning needn't strictly map to its etymological roots. The 'wer-' in 'werewolf' specifically means "male human" in Anglo-Saxon, but it would be silly to go around complaining that female wolf-shifters ought to be called wifwolves.

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.

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

My tendency is just to accept that the meaning of words can change over time, and a word's meaning needn't strictly map to its etymological roots. The 'wer-' in 'werewolf' specifically means "male human" in Anglo-Saxon, but it would be silly to go around complaining that female wolf-shifters ought to be called wifwolves.

Quite.

It could easily be the case, for instance, that JRRT picked "Necromancer" for the simple reason that there is a lack of widely known English-language words meaning "scary naughty magician," the same way that "-mancy" can come right down to the simple reason that there is a lack of widely used English-language words meaning "branch of magic." If you don't like the constructions, come up with something else.