| From: | Jason Batchelor <jbatchel@*****.CS.DU.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Wyld Magick Pt.1 (LONG) |
| Date: | Tue, 13 Sep 1994 10:01:49 -0600 |
open, I'm going to provide a little bit of the background of _Mage_.
Assume that what we call 'Reality' is formed by the collective unconcious
beliefs of the majority of Gaia's inhabitants (that's us..stop me if my
writing gets too flowery, okay?). For example, most every person on the
face of the planet believes that what goes up must come down, and thus we
have gravity.
Mages, however, are able to break from the established paradigm (that is
the term I'll use for the consensual reality), and establish their own
'laws' in opposition to what would be considered 'natural'. In the middle
ages, many more people believed in the existance of magick, and so there
wasn't a lot of problem getting magickal effects to work, because it
didn't go against what was commonly accepted as 'real'.
The arrival of science made some drastic changes. Soon it was no longer
accepted that fire could spontaneously appear without a cause, because of
the Law of Conservation of Energy. The orders of Magi became roughly
divided in purpose; the Traditions worked for 'free magick', while the
Technomancers wished to rule the Reality with their iron grip of cold
tech. Some Traditions, such as the Virtual Adepts and the Sons of Ether,
worked for a bridge between magick and technology...in fact, there was a
Virtual Reality Web in place long before the year 2000, which mages were
able to access both mentally and in some cases, physically.
I propose that what we called the Great Ghost Dance was a last-ditch
effort by the Traditions to restore some of the magick to the world. Once
the entire world witnessed the effects of this small band of
self-proclaimed shamans (led, I believe, by the Dreamspeaker Tradition,
but supported by al the Traditions in some form), there would at least
be the seed of belief that magick was indeed possible. The Dance created
an immense amount of Paradox (an effect of Reality trying to maintain the
main paradigm...what we now call 'Drain' is just a diminshed form, since
magick is now part of the paradigm), which killed (or perhaps just
removed those mages involved from our Reality) most of the participants.
Got all that? Because now we get to the nitty-gritty: mechanics.
Mage, and its conversion, separate magickal effects into "Spheres" of
effect. A mage learns how to control those various Spheres, and through
combining their effects, can create various magickal effects. The Spheres
that I use in the conversion are:
/Mind---Effects involving the mental patterns.
Pattern{ Matter----Effects involving inanimate patterns.
\Life---Effects involving living patterns.
Forces--Control of forces such as gravity, electricity, kinetic
energy, etc.
Entropy-Control of the effects of randomness on any system
Ability to increase or decrease the amount of inherent
entropy in a system. (Speed or slow aging, find weak
spots, etc.)
Spirit--Conjuring and Astral Projection/Travel.
*Time---Ability to control the flow of time. It is possible
with this Sphere, to pull yourself from the timestream
for an amount of time, but time travel backwards is
_not_ possible without generating an impossible amount
of Paradox energy.
*Correspondence-Reality is actually just layered on top of itself.
Your 'location' is really just an appearance (kind of like
the effect found in decking...you 'appear' at different
'places' in the virtual world). The key thought is:
everything exists at the Correspondence Point. By
shifting your perception from 'where you are' to
another place through the CP, you can do such things as
Clairvoyance/audience, Teleportation, and more.
(Easily, this is one of the most misunderstood Spheres..
discard at your leisure).
*These Spheres I do not allow until the mage has reached an Initiat Rating
of 0 and higher.
---To Be Continued---
(I have work to go to...)
Moriarty
(jbatchel@***.cs.du.edu)
P.S. and for thoe of you familiar with _Mage_, translate "Nephandi" into
"Astral Entities/Threats" and you start to get a rather frightening
picture...more, later.
