The Fear of Magick - An In Depth Look

[adgohan]

There has been incredible discussion about the fear of magick and how to properly roleplay it. That's not what this thread is about. I'd like to touch on a topic that is a little less commonly visited on these boards.

Most Zalanthians have a fear of magic, the sorceous ways of Old and the great elemental clerics. The destructive power of magic combined with the sheer convienence of use for what it brings about is -scary-. And then the thought that some of its effects can be, presumably, worse than death.

But what is that fear derived from? Are we afraid of the people that wield magick? These mages who, through their anger, can invoke this power? The choice they make to destroy us? Or are we afraid of magick itself, as a construct, entity, God (whatever we believe) that has some kind of supernatural control over the universe that we are powerless to stop? Is it both, or neither of these?

I often think in my roleplaying, if it is the fear of the mage himself that I am scared of, the power he wields, or the magick itself I'm afraid of. That mage could be powerless, a drunk, a fool, or someone who doesn't have a word of magick memorized. But he does have that connection, and at any instant, could he kill my character? Or is the that fear of the power itself, separated from him, that terrifies us?

I would like to encourage discussion about this topic. Please do not respond with "why magick is scary" - we know that. (As mentioned above, there's been a lot of talk about that) What we're trying to look for is who or what we should be afraid of. Thank you for your responses in advance.

[Larrath]

Most of my characters aren't afraid of the great cosmic power that is Magick and whatever is making it exist, and whatever it may or may not mean about life, fate and everything else.

They're afraid that that magicker over there might get up, look at them, and they'll suddenly lose their hair, or relatives, or genitals, or soul.  Or that they'll simply be hit with a fireball to the face.  Or that the ground will swallow their house.

I like the comparison of a gemmer with an unstable looking guy with an M16 hanging by their hip.  I'm not afraid of the company that's manufacturing it, or even the general concept of war.  I'm afraid of getting hit with a bullet.

[Ghost]

This looks like, being afraid of the knife, or the one who holds it, kind of debate.  Except, the knife can be useful, but the magick is -rarely- useful to -average- commoner.  (The characters that have experienced some IG effects of magick might have a different opinion)

Or instead of knife, maybe I should say, a gun, or a sword, or a nuclear bomb?  A man is wielding these, which one is scary?  Weapon?  Or the wielder?

[Whira's Luck]

I would think it would vary from person to person, since there are a lot of homicidal, unstable looking people in Zalanthas with weapons. Some people would fear the wielder, especially if they knew they wielded such an unstoppable force. Some would fear the magick itself, probably more than the magicker 'I could cut off that skinny, weak schmuck's head with my sword, but he might lob a fireball at my face!'

I just think it's a matter of the character and not something you can blanket, or even more accurately, both are feared but to which degree one is feared over the other is a matter of the character's own psyche.

[Bestatte]

I don't see it as a fear of the element itself, because my characters would have to be afraid to breathe air, drink water, light a torch, etc. etc. etc.

My characters know that these are the "manifestations" of those elements (though my characters probably don't know what the word manifestation means).

But my characters are uneducated, "unenlightened" like the vast majority of the population. They think these elements are better left to themselves and not played with. So for them, the fear is with the person who manipulates the element. Or rather, the very notion that there exists people who -can- manipulate the elements.

I've had a non-magicker character who recognized that the elements were there for the using, and had no problem with the idea that people can manipulate them. Her issue was more with individual mages who posed a threat to her person and to those she cared about. But she was an exception to the rule.

I've had a mage character who was frightened of her own abilities, and as a result tried to learn more about them so she could keep control over herself and not go crazy "like momma said magickers all did."

I've had a non-mage character who loathed the *idea* of people harnessing the powers of the elements, but recognized that some of these people can be useful, and would simply proceed with caution while taking advantage of certain mages.

So it really depends on the character's perspective, even though all of them had at *least* a deep, cautious respect for the elements themselves.

[JollyGreenGiant]

Hmm, I like the analogy of nuclear material.  Let's face it, under the best circumstances, fissionable materials are dangerous.  They're radioactive, difficult to handle, difficult to dispose of, and unstable.  When used in controlled reactions, they provide vast amounts of energy.  In controlled circumstances, they can do some good.  However, you can also use these same materials to create weapons of such destructive power that even in the hands of responsible, sane people, they're to be feared.

Magick is much the same in Zalanthas.  Magick in the hands of the sorcerer-kings and templars is accepted in the same way that we accept nuclear reactors for energy - with a degree of trepidation and wariness.  The majority of the populace isn't going to want anything to do with magick any more than your average US citizen would willingly pick up a lump of uranium with bare hands.  And continuing the analogy, magickers are the equivalent of anyone being able to get their hands on weapons-grade plutonium and make weapons, with no assurances that they're not going to use them in very, very irresponsible ways...

[moab]

My take is that magick is present - at least elemental magick and the Highlord's magick (Sun King? Who's that?) is visible every day - the wind, that's Whira, the earth, that's Ruk.  Drov - visit it when you die.

The powerful marrage of Whira and Ruk in the sandstorm is something to fear.  The angry Suk-Krath glaring down onto the blasted landscape as it eats up the last of Vivadu's gifts in your waterskin are to be feared, respected and understood.

In my mind it wouldn't be uncommon to have little superstitions to moderate these fears the average uneducated commoner would have to deal with on a daily basis.

However, when the elemental forces or magickal forces are focused in an individual - now that is truly scary.  Like the sun focused with a bit of glass into a tiny beam that will burn up anything it touches, magick focused in an individual is an energy of tremedous danger - and it carries the Will of the mage.  I can't trust my neighbor, how much more if I can't trust my neighbor and he has all this awesome energy of the Sandstorm wrapped up in his head somehow?

[Twilight]

I'm of the idea that unless you are playing a mage, or in some specific tribal cultures, you shouldn't let too much knowledge from the web pages bleed into your character.  Let a mage...educate you.  Too much information meaning, for instance, that you as a commoner might not even know simple stuff like a Krathi's magicks generally revolve around fire.  Simple stuff.

Think of this analogy.  You are a member of a primitive Amazon tribe.  No reading, no writing, and what you do know was taught to you so you can survive.  In the middle of your village, there is a nuclear missle.  You've been told what this nuclear missle can do, in terms of raw damage, burning an area several miles square to the ground, and that it can be sent up into the air to follow you to wherever you may go, so there is no escaping it.  Of course, although you know the world is bigger, you've never been more than a few miles from your village, but it can burn everything you know, and you can't escape it.  So you fear the hell out of that missle.  And whoever can operate it.  This is without even understanding the effects of fallout, just the initial blast radius.  Then you meet the person who has a fair understanding of nuclear physics, and are told this person knows how to operate this missle.

That person is the mage, the missle is magick, and the poor, uneducated smuck is the non-magicker character.

Tek and Utep are nuclear physicists.

[Cuusardo]

People fear what they do not understand.

[Tamarin]

Fuck that.  People fear that magickers can make them explode from the inside out in the blink of an eye.  They've seen templars do it, and templars are basically the highlord's personal magickers.  They understand perfectly...if you fuck with a magicker, they will make you hurt.

[Gaare]

Vast popularity of Zalanthas lives under the fear of magick.

In Allanak everybody tells magickers are bad creatures, and only Highlord can control them. Also they know their Sorcerer King uses magick to hurt them.. So.. They are taught to fear from magick itself and anyone who possess.

In Tuluk, well it's a long story but one of the dynamics that makes Tuluk population, a society is the fear of magick. After the great cataclysm of magick all Tuluki people has great fear aganist magick. Of course in the hands of Tuluki Templarate which best at manipulating the crowd, they used that fear and turned this into harted and union aganist the enemy. (like US thing aganist the Iraq.. US citizens let the Bush to occupy a country, just US manage to turn the fear to hatred and used it.)

I heartly agree with Bestate fear of magick indeed depends on PC, but generally IMO almost all citizens are taught by traditions Magick is fearsome and can result with great harm. If you hear that from birth almost everyday, you would believe it by heart without even thinking about it clearly once. I guess that's 'naki children daily game to throw stones to gemmers and run away.

[joyofdiscord]

The way I see it is with magic, bets are off.  There are no rules, no way to know what to expect.  If an escaped mul walks into the room, my char is scared, but he knows there are limitations to what the mul can do.  The mul will have to get close to my character in order to hurt him, or else throw something.  My char knows that with some caution, keeping an eye on that mul, he can probably ensure his own safety, running away if things start to look hairy.  Then, once out of reach of the mul, everything is back to normal.

With magick, there are no such guarantees.  If a magicker looks at you cockeyed, you could be stricken with bad luck that would never end.  You might not even know the magicker -was- looking at you cockeyed either, because he might be invisible.  Of course, a Zalanthan might be able to conclude from this that if they're down on their luck, a magicker might have decided to torment them, and they might start looking around them among their acquaintances to see who might be the culprit.  If a magicker feels like it, she can make your whole family come down with crippling diseases.  Or if a magicker touches something, it could be cursed forever.  Better not touch it or else you might become a slave to that magicker, or become a magicker yourself, or your firstborn child might be born a magicker, etc. etc.

On a sidenot/hijack, my personal feeling is that I'd like to see a lot fewer actual magickers in the game (since it's hard not to get desensitized when every second or third character you run across is obviously a magicker, plus too many magickers tend to overshadow mundane characters in plots, being so much more powerful), and a lot MORE falsely accused magickers being blamed for every misfortune.  As it is now, it's hard to justify accusing that creepy barfly of being a magicker when your character has met a handful of -actual- magickers already.

Of course, I haven't played in Tuluk in a long time, so perhaps things are different on that side of the world.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

Everyone so far has made a pretty good case that magickers ("the guy holding the knife") are scary. I'd like to argue, however, that magick itself ("the knife") is still quite scary. I think most of the time they'll be used in conjunction, so they'll almost always produce fear. But I think magick itself creates most of this fear, and not the sniveling halfbreed that happens to harness it.
Why? Because every once in a long while, you'll have a character that stumbles across some magickal artifact. Some magickal place. Maybe they'll enter a place where a particular element is very strong, or maybe even another elemental plane. Maybe they'll find magick in its purest form, untethered to some mere mortal that can channel it. Maybe they'll encounter demons, elementals, powerful effects of magick, without any magicker in sight.
And trust me. It's still pretty freaking scary.
I think an important thing to remember is that magick is an unknown. Comparing it to a knife or a machine gun or a nuclear bomb just doesn't quite do it. Those who've played magickers or played with magickers tend to think of it as skill_spell_fireball or skill_spell_invisibility way too often. Magick destroyed the world. Magick can do anything. Magick still lurks in the deepest regions of the Known World, whether there's a magicker to utilize it or not.

[Revelations]

Well, I agree that the reason magick is feared is due to the unknown. A commoner doesn't -really- know what a mage can do with his abilities, he may have heard of the destruction and pain that have been caused by magick, and also might have heard of the healing powers that some elementalists possess, and don't know which to believe.

Without any guarentee of what the next mage will do when you meet them, at least some fear will be present. You wouldn't want to trigger anything that might cause some of the destructive forces, after all, but then again, you might also realize that the person standing in front of you has powers to raise the dead, heal the broken bones, and cure your blood of poison.

So, what the hell are you suppose to act on? It's an unpredictable element that cannot be explained, and so what else can you do than to fear it, and make up your own generalizations to help your mind cope with the presence of magick.

[Maybe42or54]

Muk and Tek are 1 of those 35,000 unemployed Russian Nuclear Scientists. Those two scientists just happen to have more people than any other scientist behind them.

[Demonaire]

Muk and Tek are 1 of those 35,000 unemployed Russian Nuclear Scientists. Those two scientists just happen to have more people than any other scientist behind them.

Dirr would be another example of an unemployed without any followers.

[Vox]

Magick destroyed the world...

If we work with the Nuclear analogy which seems to be popping up here frequently we can say it would be as if World War III occured and the planet was ravaged by a Nuclear Holocaust.  The new societies that developed from this 'Armageddon' would undoubtedly possess an innate fear of the powers that already sucked the life out of the world.

Perhaps before our 'Armageddon' magick was treated differently.. Infact perhaps it was because it was openly studied and widely accepted that it grew out of control.

Regardless, the following facts contribute to what I feel should represent the exponential growth of fear on Zalanthas:
1.) World destroyed by magick.
2.) Society begins again with a healthy new fear and dread of magick.
3.) Sorcerers begin uniting tribes and slaughtering those in their way, fear increases.
4.) Tektolnes battles Luir Dragonsthrall in the Obsidian mines, uses 'incredible ' magick to bury him under ninety-nine feet of rock, fear increases.
5.) Over a quarter of Tuluk is destroyed by the return of the Dragon, more fear.
6.) Tektolnes destroys the entire city of Steinal with magicks, insert fear here.
7.) A rogue defiler is discovered and killed outside Tuluk and ancient texts detailing much of defiler magick are uncovered... fear.
8.) Tektolnes appears as a dragon and breaths death on the seiging army of dwarves in 1395. So much fear that they begin to WORSHIP the Dragon form of Tektolnes as He Who Rescued Us... The kind of fear that starts a quasi-religious order.
9.) Tuluk is left in ruins by a terrifying and presumably magickal cataclysm, over seventy thousand people killed. Fear and dread?
10.) A sorcerer calling himself the Lord of Storms takes over Luir's Outpost with a clutch of mantis and some undead... For fear, press 1. For fear and dread press 2.

Seems plenty reason enough to fear magick.  :shock:  

But that's just my opinion. :twisted: