| From: | The Deb Decker <RJR96326@****.UTULSA.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Witches |
| Date: | Mon, 4 Oct 1993 12:19:37 -0500 |
>to call people, let's bring back nigger, kike, spic, wop, Christ-killer,
You don't need to bring them back. They are, unfortunately, stil used by
members of our society. Furthermore, those terms are not so intertwined
with popular and classical mythology, as is the case with the term warlock.
>I've made it very clear that yes, I understand that this is a game world,
>and that it's different from ours, but people would not tolerate the
>language I cited above in a game and I flatly will not tolerate the language
>that Carter is advocating.
Ask me which game you're playing. I know a historian here running, for lack
of a better term, a GURPS Slavery campaign, with the characters (black & white)
operating as agents of the Underground Railroad. They face the first of those
terms quite often, in real life as well.
Furthermore, we are all aware that such terms are offensive to many people.
That is not the case with the term Warlock. Now that you have educated us, I
don't think it's too much to expect from others restraint from using the term.
Mage and Magician will do nicely.
Now, for the real deal:
>That's an awful term, but I suppose as good as any. If you look at
>'witch' in the mythopoeic sense, you will see that these soothsayers have
>often had access to what would be termed in SR sense to be the astral space.
I was thinking of Astral Perception, but not Projection.
As for the definition of a curse, I would call it a spell, not a spirit
service. Probably a variation of Locking or Quickening a spell, so that
the witch wouldn't have to sustain the spell over whatever period of time.
>The hardest part about this magic system is deciding exactly how witch
>magic would work. The witches of legends had very very little inherent
>magical power. They would almost always have to rely on herbs and rocks
>and animal parts to concoct a spell, although periodically they would
>whip something up off the cuff in an emergency.
Which is why I called them Focus Adepts (or Fetish Adepts if you prefer).
They are magicians, but limited in the sense that they require tools to
work most if not all of their magic.
I think we're coming back to the fact that you can emulate a witch with
the existing rules. But we can also come up with something different. I
love thi--it's how game companies make their money, by publishing things
that you don't need but which are nice to have anyway. :)
--------
How about saying the witch has a full Magic rating, but has to use materials?
Sort of saying she has Magic 0 but is technically active; she must uses
materials in order to work her magic.
>Now, each and every spell MUST be cast as a seperate entity and
>seperately considered (ie, if I cast invisibility with certain materials
>one time, and the next time I have different materials, the spell must be
>refigured).
Does this mean Karma must be spent to re-learn each version of the spell?
Or just that I have to use the same materials each time?
>Witches are going to have little combat use because they have to fumble
>with materials for nearly every spell, but where they can come into play
>is their ability to concoct powerful spells that take time and expensive
>materials.
I agree. In this sense you could call them "Ritual Sorcery Adepts"
>Of course, the difficulty is coming up with a table or way to quantify
>materials. Each spell must have components in it that are somehow
>related to the spell, either through actual use or through legend.
ACK! Let's stay away from tables, please. I'd like to keep this down to
the extent of other adepts; just a few paragraphs of rules, otherwise the
same as full mages/
J Roberson
