Theurgy & Thaumaturgy (new Sorcery rules)

[William]

For a list of rituals somewhat suitable for a "White Sorcerer," scratch off the first couple of pages of rules I write here and just treat the skills as ones that Sorcerers can learn from the right traditions. Most of them are strictly about sensing things or being less noticeable.

[Omegonthesane]

Originally Posted by tHEhERETIC

An extremely strong correlation.

But not a perfect one, which is an absolutely critical hurdle you are deliberately ignoring in jumping from "X is a correlation" to "X Damns you".

Originally Posted by tHEhERETIC

That's where my real life gets in the way. Looking at the RL analog to an Oathtaking (and I suspect I'm not the only one here with this experience), I can very easily see an infernal oath slipped into the fine print. Let's say that during your ritual you're supposed to chant certain things, including promises to honor and serve a long litany of names. Now you've been told numerous times during your training that you don't ever promise something to a being you don't know, and you don't ever recite words you don't understand. Big Bozo no-no, yet here you are...in the middle of the ceremony, bonfire blazing, all your brother superiors around you with their ceremonial weapons, and you get handed a text that includes 20 names, only fifteen of which you remember reading about. Are you going to admit, in that place, that you didn't do your homework? Probably not. You're going to read the names, make the promises under peer pressure, and trust your (damned, all of them) brothers not to slip a Mickey into that list.

See how easy that was?

No, I don't. Not in the slightest.

Originally Posted by tHEhERETIC

The initiate is not an innocent

As far as the Symphony is concerned, yes he is. He did not have it thrust into his face; he did not willingly, wilfully, and in full knowledge of the consequences deliberately and directly sell his soul to Hell, and all the fine print in the universe means diddle-squat next to the Symphony's knowledge of the actual signing.

Because unlike RL legal contracts, the Symphony is fair, no matter how strongly Asmodeus is trying to make it otherwise. When it's judgment time, you get what the Symphony's rules say you deserve for deliberately opposing it or not deliberately opposing it or deliberately helping it.

[tHEhERETIC]

I'm think we're dealing with wildly different brightness/contrast levels here. I'm coming from darkish and low contrast—think Sin City meets Band of Brothers. (I'd say Supernatural but I haven't seen Season 6 and I hear it gets really hairy dark there.) Your Symphony is fair. Mine is merely impartial.

Originally Posted by Omegonthesane

But not a perfect one, which is an absolutely critical hurdle you are deliberately ignoring in jumping from "X is a correlation" to "X Damns you".

Yes, deliberately ignoring it. In my game angels are an embattled force in a bitter war, at this point a cold war. A sorcerer is regarded like a sick animal in a herd; many of my angels would kill him (or at least quarantine him) to save the others, even without 100% certainty that he has a deadly disease. There's a war on, and sometimes you have to make terrible decisions. To me, this is the essence of Dominic, and the theme I'm currently running with.

Originally Posted by Omegonthesane

No, I don't. Not in the slightest.

Again I think it's difference of contrast. There's also my belief that none but the most desperate or shallow will knowingly sign up for Hell in exchange for a few decades worth of power. Granted Hell will find plenty of those! I just hold that sin in general is gradual and enticing, not clearly spelled out ahead of time, and I think this particular form should follow suit.
There's also my RL analog again (Yes, I know it's a game, but I try to keep things credible). Nobody I know, and very few that I know of, will tell you they've sold their souls to the devil. Plenty work for gods of antiquity or very bluntly for themselves. It's hard for me to imagine what kind of nominally sane person would sell.
What I do like to play with is the idea of a guy who believes he's sold his soul, true or not, and discovers he's going to die. Repent, give up and pursue vice, or try to weasel his way out?

Originally Posted by Omegonthesane

As far as the Symphony is concerned, yes he is. He did not have it thrust into his face; he did not willingly, wilfully, and in full knowledge of the consequences deliberately and directly sell his soul to Hell, and all the fine print in the universe means diddle-squat next to the Symphony's knowledge of the actual signing.

It does get me thinking about the one way a sorcerer can possibly avoid Hell, by quitting sorcery utterly. What does that do? Maybe the demon in question has to keep track of its debtors, and if you keep Symphonic silence long enough your demon will forget, or let it slide, or get killed with his records in shambles...or maybe it really is leaving that Prince of the Universe mentality behind. I'm still tossing that one around.

Originally Posted by Omegonthesane

Because unlike RL legal contracts, the Symphony is fair, no matter how strongly Asmodeus is trying to make it otherwise. When it's judgment time, you get what the Symphony's rules say you deserve for deliberately opposing it or not deliberately opposing it or deliberately helping it.

I don't see the Symphony itself as sentient; it doesn't know anything. You get to the Pearly Gates and the beings there resonate you. If you've met your best or your worst potential (Destiny or Fate), or you have such a terrific sense of self that you hold it together by sheer will, you show up at those gates. Anyone else dissipates or reincarnates or a combination of the two.

[Omegonthesane]

Originally Posted by tHEhERETIC

Again I think it's difference of contrast [and brightness]. There's also my belief that none but the most desperate or shallow will knowingly sign up for Hell in exchange for a few decades worth of power. Granted Hell will find plenty of those! I just hold that sin in general is gradual and enticing, not clearly spelled out ahead of time, and I think this particular form should follow suit.

Honestly I agree about the gradual and enticing, but equally I strongly feel that the "gradual" has no point to it in- or out-of-game if you cross the finish line at the top of the slope. Sin in general is what leads you to your Fate. Sorcery is a technically neutral flag, but what the kind of people Hell feels are worth investing in will do once they have Sorcery will Damn them.

Soul-selling is an entirely different thing, and I feel Hellsworn should be nearly as rare as Soldiers of God compared to the rest of the population, and frankly, both sets include a fair number of clinically insane people even once you get past how they believe there are incorporeal beings who directly meddle with human affairs (i.e. celestials and ethereals).

Originally Posted by tHEhERETIC

What I do like to play with is the idea of a guy who believes he's sold his soul, true or not, and discovers he's going to die. Repent, give up and pursue vice, or try to weasel his way out?

I'm reminded of Mammon's canonical Right of Contract - you can lower-S sell your soul to Mammon without any supernatural powers gained, but it only means anything if you then achieve your Fate regardless, at which point he specifically nabs you. Presumably this is best done to people who would achieve dark, dark Fates if they suddenly got a lot of money.
This is also borne out in the idea of so-called Grey Soldiers, the majority of whom are Hellsworn who chickened out some time after getting the power.

Originally Posted by tHEhERETIC

There's also my RL analog again (Yes, I know it's a game, but I try to keep things credible). Nobody I know, and very few that I know of, will tell you they've sold their souls to the devil. Plenty work for gods of antiquity or very bluntly for themselves. It's hard for me to imagine what kind of nominally sane person would sell.

One who doesn't really believe there's an afterlife, and thus believes he is getting power for nothing. One who doesn't really think about the long game even when it's thrust in front of him. One who is planning from Day One to get out of the contract somehow. One who knows and accepts he's going to Hell but believes the conditions there are actually favourable to humans, or at least to some subset of humans he thinks he'll be able to enter (this one isn't even false... it's just that few Hellsworn actually get into the Not Quite As Screwed Club canonically), or that he'll be transformed into a demon and thus gain yet more power (that's a theological debate and a half with nothing to do with this discussion).

Or, of course, one who's frankly insane.

Consider also - would anyone you know, or anyone you know of, willingly put everything they care about, everything they have any desire to achieve, a strict and distant second to following a cause that will expect their service when demanded, without notice, will expect them to risk life and limb every day they are called upon, will put them in constant danger of reprisal from its enemies merely for agreeing to ever serve it, will rarely if ever give them tasks which obviously benefit others, and will give them no rewards whatsoever until they die? Because even in a Bright reading of canon that's what's asked of a Soldier of God, and that's the yardstick against which the plausibility of Hellsworn needs to be measured.

Originally Posted by tHEhERETIC

It does get me thinking about the one way a sorcerer can possibly avoid Hell, by quitting sorcery utterly. What does that do? Maybe the demon in question has to keep track of its debtors, and if you keep Symphonic silence long enough your demon will forget, or let it slide, or get killed with his records in shambles...or maybe it really is leaving that Prince of the Universe mentality behind. I'm still tossing that one around.

Leaving aside our divergent PoVs about sorcerers avoiding Hell...
If it's for an IN context, specifically - it would have to be that you are leaving the Prince of the Universe mindset behind. Demons keeping track of contracts has nothing to do with the damnation algorithm; otherwise Mammon wouldn't have to act to ensure those who sign 100% mundane contracts selling their souls to him for cash actually go Downstairs.

Originally Posted by tHEhERETIC

I don't see the Symphony itself as sentient; it doesn't know anything. You get to the Pearly Gates and the beings there resonate you. If you've met your best or your worst potential (Destiny or Fate), or you have such a terrific sense of self that you hold it together by sheer will, you show up at those gates. Anyone else dissipates or reincarnates or a combination of the two.

That's a massive divergence from canon, wherein there is no hint that the Pearly Gates or their attendant angels even see you unless you go to them as a Blessed. As far as canon is concerned, sentient or not the Symphony is the sorting algorithm of destiny and fate, and as it is everything, it is no conceptual leap at all to say it knows everything and can thus feed everything into its sorting algorithm.

Also, the concept that you can "hold it together by sheer will" is straight up contradictory to canon. Someone who has Will 10, Sorcery, and uses it to get Spirit Jars and spend lots of Essence on Predict Winning Racehorse rolls is not really doing enough with his life to go anywhere.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Omegonthesane

Consider also - would anyone you know, or anyone you know of, willingly put everything they care about, everything ...and will give them no rewards whatsoever until they die? Because even in a Bright reading of canon that's what's asked of a Soldier of God, and that's the yardstick against which the plausibility of Hellsworn needs to be measured.

That's not quite true;you get superpowers. Soldiers commonly learn Songs, and will sometimes receive Attunements as well, moreso for Heaven than Hell. For that matter, intelligence agents in deep cover have a pretty similar job description to what you describe, and there's not even the promise of reward in any life beyond maybe a pension if you live that long.

[Omegonthesane]

Originally Posted by DAlillama

That's not quite true;you get superpowers. Soldiers commonly learn Songs, and will sometimes receive Attunements as well, moreso for Heaven than Hell.

I see those as tools of the trade, not rewards.

Originally Posted by DAlillama

For that matter, intelligence agents in deep cover have a pretty similar job description to what you describe, and there's not even the promise of reward in any life beyond maybe a pension if you live that long.

I'll take your word for that - the point was that very few would sign up to be a Soldier of God, and thus you don't exactly need to make the Hellsworn bargain attractive to normal people to get as many, even more Soldiers working for Hell than for Heaven.

As of CPG at the very least, though, the mechanics and setting as written don't actually allow for how I would expect "Hell Soldiers" to work in a setting that's using them to emphasise that sin is subtle and corrupting. No need to know you're working for demons - but no supernatural flag of "you got powers from demons, you're going to Hell", merely the fact that your part of the deal happens to include your Fate...

[Ramidel]

Originally Posted by tHEhERETIC

Yes, deliberately ignoring it. In my game angels are an embattled force in a bitter war, at this point a cold war. A sorcerer is regarded like a sick animal in a herd; many of my angels would kill him (or at least quarantine him) to save the others, even without 100% certainty that he has a deadly disease. There's a war on, and sometimes you have to make terrible decisions. To me, this is the essence of Dominic, and the theme I'm currently running with.

I don't think there's anything in canon to prevent Malakim from ramming a sword up a sorcerer's arse and not bothering to resonate him, unless his oaths say otherwise, or he serves Novalis (duh) or Yves (actively preventing the guy from using his sorcery to achieve his destiny). But that also has no bearing on whether a sorcerer is actually damned. The actual Final Judgment pretty much needs to be fair, unless you've abandoned the idea of any contrast at all.

I also disagree with your reasoning behind Dominic going into auto-purge mode; Dark Low Contrast Dominic would kill a sorcerer because he's a sorcerer and because Dominic forbade sorcery, not because he's probably damned. I cannot imagine Dominic being utilitarian in his judgments; he's far more Old Testament than that. Making terrible decisions for the greater good is more Michael's schtick; a Malakim of War would be the one to look at sorcerers and say "Kill them all; God will know his own" without any irony whatsoever.

[tHEhERETIC]

Originally Posted by Ramidel

I don't think there's anything in canon to prevent Malakim from ramming a sword up a sorcerer's arse... Michael's schtick; a Malakim of War would be the one to look at sorcerers and say "Kill them all; God will know his own" without any irony whatsoever.

Where's the "like" button? Well put. And I'm totally enjoying this whole thread.

[dataweaver]

A long time ago, I submitted a Pyramid article on a closely related subject…

The basic concept here was to introduce another kind of human "magic user", one that's built on a Perception-based model rather than the Will-based one that sorcerers use (thus, "seers"). I gave them skills like Channeling, Communion, and Divination rather than the Summon/Banish/etc. model used by sorcerers. Different attitude, different powers; but some strong parallels intended to imply that seers and sorcerers are two halves of a whole.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

A long time ago, I submitted a Pyramid article on a closely related subject…

Well done! I'm keeping this one in my hip pocket.