From: [M--O] at [infoboard.be] (mathew lowry) Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy Subject: FE IIB. Magical Forms + Pantheon (LONG) Date: Sun, 28 May 1995 13:46:31 Summary: Magic forms + pantheon for Fantasy Europe Fantasy Europe: IIB. Magical Forms and The Pantheon PREFACE This posting follows on from my previous one (Fantasy Europe: IIA. Introduction to Magic). It explores what Forms of Magic could be put into a Fantasy Europe Campaign and what possible Pantheons that could fit in the gods of the Ancient world (Egypt, Greece, etc), the Christian God and Devil, and Allah. MAGIC FORMS What types of magic could be introduced into a Fantasy Europe campaign? In a sentence, how about Sorcery, Pagan Magic and Faith Magic (i.e., all monothesitic religions). Does my RQ heritage show through a little here? Well, are there any others? If so, add them to the picture. Here are these three in very brief summary: 1. Pagan Magic - this is the magic of the native peoples, local spirits, shamans, druids and barbarians. This does not just mean the Celts - it also means the faeries they believe in and which, in Fantasy Europe, definitely exist (see III. Non-Humans). - this style of magic will often be intensely bound up in the local environment and its spirits. After death the pagans spirits return to the local nature in some way, depending upon belief. They recognise no God as Superior to the rest. Whether they are right a\or not depends on your Pantheon (see below) - the nomadic barbarians (Goths, Vandals, etc) were certainly not Christians, and I don't see them as sorcerers. Perhaps they worshipped the Spirits from their homeland which they 'carried ' with them in totems, idols, etc. 2. Sorcery - The mechanics are up to your system, but this is the stuff of alchemy, grand rituals, chaps in evening gowns ("OK, OK, it's a robe ..."). - I personally see Sorcerers as the closest to what we would call scientists today - intellectual, studied, the product of advanced civilisation. Then you can play out the 'ole science vs faith, humanity vs science, 'Two Cultures' and other debates to your heart's content. 3. Faith Magic I originally wanted D&D-style clerics or RQ Rune Priests and Lords heading the congregations, directing the power from God. I soon realised that once the God starts dispensing magic like that it obviates the need for Faith. The God-Human relationship would become a deal for power, not worship; fraudulent priests would be exposed straight away; church corruption could not exist ... this would change the course of European history and culture utterly. Besides, I like having fraudulent priests ... Therefore God exists, but does not buy Believers with magic. There are some rewards on this Earth for the Faithful, but most are promised for the afterlife. But there has to be *some* sort of magic. Any good FRPer wants some, and anyway it is hard to see how the Church would have won converts without it, given that the pagan and the sorcerers had magic... There should be saints, miracles and angels, and Believers should have some magical powers as a result of their Faith (measured using 'Piety points', or something like that?) Before any details can be worked out, however, several questions needed to be answered regarding God, the Devil and other Spirits - in a word, how does your Pantheon work? Hence the next section. THE PANTHEON The Church as an institution plays a central role in Europe, and hence Fantasy Europe. Working out the nature of God, the Devil and any other Spiritual Beings - particularly the Ancient Gods and Allah - is therefore vital. The first question the GM has to answer (but not necessarily share with the players) is fundamental: Q1: Is God the only god? Are Allah, all the local woodland spirits and the gods of Egypt/Mesopatamia/ Greece etc all illusions? To create a starting point for further discussion I'm going to provide *an* (not *the*) answer to this question, see what new questions arise as a consequence, and try to answer them and stay consistent. The motives lying behind my choices are: 1) I want a God and Devil as similar as possible to the Beings that the Mediaevals believed in, making it easy to keep in line with European culture and history. 2) I want the relative powers/influences of Christianity, Islam, Pagan magic and sorcery to be roughly in line with European history. Essentially, this means that sorcery and pagan magic slowly fade away against the onslaught of Christianity, which is only resisted successully by Islam. 3) I want to allow as much flexibility as possible. Other answers are *welcome and sought* - I'd be fascinated to see other people explore other possibilities. Here goes: GOD - The Earth was created just as in Genesis, by God, the Universe's Creator. - God lives in Heaven, surrounded by angels and saints. All Christian souls go to Heaven (St Peter bars the Pearly Gates to everyone else). Heaven is an impenetrable fortress at the 'summit' of the Spirit World. - Angels could be Spirits (see below) which have converted to Christianity, or they were created by God as part of His Court or Family. I'd lean towards the latter, and then also have Spirits who have converted to Christianity - Saints are humans who are so devout they became powerfully magical and joined the Angels after death. Like all Christian souls, angels and saints reside in Heaven, but are on 'active service' for God, working in the world. - Christians are not perfect, just forgiven, so Christians can still do Bad Things. As long as they Believe and love God, God loves them. However only believers with real piety, who follow the tenets of the Faith, can expect anything more. THE DEVIL - the Devil is a fallen Angel who tempted Adam and Eve from Eden. he is the distillation, if not the cause, of all the Evil of the world, and is the sworn enemy of God and the Church, converting people to the Dark Side of their soul with his Evil Powers. he does his best to block the onward progress of the Church because he's in direct competition for their immortal souls. - he has his minions - demons, sprites etc (what's the demonic version of a saint?). They all hang out in Hell - the place with the toasting forks, not the town in Norway. On Earth, his followers are known as Diabolists, they receive powers from the Devil just as Christians do from God. FOLK SPIRITS - there are neutral Spirits (big S), the Local Spirits who are worshipped by the Pagans and/or do bargains with sorcerers. Some Spirits may be nasty, some nice, most both and difficult to understand, but they're not Diabolic. Maybe Spirits don't understand the distinction between good and evil, and when they look at the struggle between God and the Devil all they say is 'A Curse Upon Both Your Houses'. However, maybe some Spirits could be Converted to Christianity, others to Diabolism... - then there are 'Monsters' - basically magical creatures. Bears are not monsters, they're just dangerous creatures. A fire-breathing dragon, however, is inherently magical. Most monsters could be like the Spirits - inherently neutral - but some could truly be Godly (e.g., Unicorns), and others Diabolic (uuuh ..., Balrog?) Well and good, but these answers leave us with more questions: Q2. Where did the Folk Spirits come from? Perhaps they are the results of leftover magic, spinning off and coalescing from the Magical Event of Creation. Perhaps they are in fact the creation of pagan peoples, who willed them into creation before discovering the One True God (ie they were Converted). Any other ideas? Don't forget, some Folk Spirits are supposed to be immortal - but you could stretch that by making them just very long-lived. Q3. What about the Ancient Gods and Allah? - There's not much chance that the Egyptian or Greek civilisations would have succeeded to the extent they did if Ra, Osiris, Zeus and Aphrodite were complete illusions! They're also pretty powerful for Folk Spirits, even if they did fade away... - Equally, it strains credibility to call Allah, the God of such a sophisticated and successful civilisation, a 'local Spirit'. Even more so, because Islam, unlike the worship of Zeus, did not and has not faded away. The Church's answer to all of these questions would be simple: All non-Christian forms of magic - Folk Spirits, the Muslims, even members of other Christian sects - are all Diabolic, the work of the Devil, and must be crushed (and would be if we were all more Christian). This is reasonably historically accurate. But is it true? Is that what I'd want as a GM? No thanks! Having the Church wrong about the Folk and sorcerers is an excellent plot device, and making everything non- Christian automatically Diabolic cuts out too many grey areas. What we need is a Pantheon that explains why God is Supreme in Europe and Allah in North Africa, while permitting the Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom to gain magic from Ra and Athenians from Zeus. One answer is to postulate that all Spirits gain in power as people believe in them. Worship, sacrifice etc all boost a Spirit's power. Thus the occasional snowball gets rolling as a tribe wins a few battles, converts the captured, boosting their god further which helps them to win more battles, etc. There can be groups of Spirits, all related in some way in the Spirit World. These groups form polythesitic pantheons, sharing the power around. Allah, however, did it all on his own. Thus God is still the True God, but other gods can spring up if the people stray from the True Path. God lets people stray in this way because they have to find Him - He's not going to buy their Belief with a miracle every Sunday. Or, one could say that the whole lot - God, the other gods and Spirits - reached their status in this way. In this picture, all the gods (Greek, Christian, Allah) were born with the Earth and were boosted to their station by human belief alone. But that's another Pantheon entirely....the classical gods fade away simply because people lose belief in them, being converted to Christianity. Then you'd have to explain why. Any thoughts, other answers, impressions and suggestions ...? The next posting continues on the above line of thought, asking more detailed questions about this approach to the Pantheon and the Church, as well as exploring some alternatives.