Message no. 1

From:	Luke Kendall <luke@********.CANON.OZ.AU>
Subject:	A model for magic (Was: Re: Quickening + Anchoring =
Date:	Fri, 8 Jul 1994 13:39:06 +1000

Rat> Yet another of the weirdnesses from Paul Hume.

Luke> No. Astral space is a place where life force and emotions are solid
Luke> and real. That's what you see with, and work with. You don't see
Luke> with light, you see by the magical energies that emanate from living
Luke> things and spirits.

Rat> Yeah, but here's where it gets weird. Any living thing has both a physical
Rat> presence and an astral presence. A thing with both a physical presence and
Rat> an astral presence is dual-natured. But there are many things, like plants
Rat> and mundanes, for example, which contradict that rule. That's why I call
Rat> it a weirdness.

No, it's simple. You can't move through a life force. If you travel
astrally to a place that is coincident with a life force in the physical
world, then you can't move through that space. Nor can you move through
spirits or mages on the astral plane. That's how you can have astral
combat, with them or with spells. And it's why you can move through
things with no life force. And maybe it's weird that the Earth is alive,
but it's a good weirdness, and only adds to the game.

Luke> And that interpretation makes sense of a whole lot of things. Until
Luke> you get to the part where they wimp out and let astral beings see
Luke> through glass, or see in enclosed areas that are dead dead dead and
Luke> scoured clean of all life.

Luke> _That's_ one of the weirdnesses from Paul Hume.

Rat> No, that's a fuckup, plain and simple. By all other definitions, glass
Rat> should be opaque in astral space.

Agreed, and that's how we play it in our game. I can't imagine why they
chose that ruling; it needlessly complicates the logic of magic and screws
up game balance.

Another local ruling we made before the Grimoire came out, and which makes
much more sense (in our opinion) than FASA's rule, is that you can't travel
astrally through waters of the living earth. I mean, that stuff is crammed
full of microbes and bacteria for a start, and is _at least_ as alive as
`living rock'. Sheesh. This also makes mages less than godlike, since by
taking to scuba, you can avoid their otherwise omniscient purview. Not to
mention Sendings, etc. Only water spirits and elementals have the ability
to move through it (and fish! :-) ), much like earth elementals and living
rock.

luke