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Magic; How does it manifest?
Topic Started: Nov 9 2015, 10:32 AM (976 Views)
Leadpaintchips
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Conjurer
Another question that, even though I've devoured as much lore (before the Great Ret-Con) as I could, either I forgot or didn't see, how does magical talent show itself? Is it something that pushes it's way out spontaneously, is it something that has to be cultured, both at the same time, or any of the above?
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Endgame125
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Bird Fanatic George
My own personal head-cannon says that it runs off Harry Potter rules. It will manifest itself while you are young, and it needs cultivating to properly channel it's abilities.
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XalkXolc
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Lightning Ball goes Boom
Vagueness!
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Kaynunot
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Kuronan Estimare, Psionic Psion of House Estimare
My headcanon is that your body isn't actually initially aware of it (unless you are born in a mage family) and unless someone senses your magical potential early on, you'll eventually find out you have magic through an Outburst of Energy. Now, this isn't some giant explosion that kills anything in ten meters, but it's a pretty loud and obvious display of something that clearly shouldn't happen (for example, a candle flame suddenly tripling in size and intensity for a few seconds) all magic users are, at first, Emotional casters because they have no idea how to properly channel their magic, so sometimes these displays can get even more drastic (some people burn their houses down...)

After the flare though, someone will obviously recognize someone magical did this, they are taken to someone who will teach them to either suppress their abilities (which results in the person slowly losing their magical abilities until it's entirely suppressed) or taught to utilize their talents (which doesn't inherently increase their magical power, it just lets them control it better)
Edited by Kaynunot, Nov 9 2015, 12:28 PM.
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ShadowKnight1224
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Every day is Lissandra Appreciation Day
Last time this issue came up, general consensus was that every intelligent being has the theoretical potential for magic, which can be developed through years of practice or study. Some people are born with a lot of innate talent for magic, so they can bypass all that.

Basically, magic is like writing or singing, it's something theoretically everyone can do, but it requires years of honing to be good at it. Your average peasant's "magic" may only go as far as mixing rudimentary herbal remedies and setting up some shoddy wards through superstitious means.
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Leadpaintchips
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Liking that a bit more, makes it so that my "late bloomer" type character can work.
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Crzymstrbkwrm876
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EVERY DAY IS A GOOD DAY TO TORTURE, MAIM, AND DESTROY
Ah, yes. The last time this came up. That was a glorious argument...
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AbiwonKenabi
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Sorcerer
I personally agree with me SK's interpretation, and I believe that is the one we generally use.
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Leadpaintchips
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Conjurer
Do you think we could probably put this somewhere helpful for RP, like in the Factions RPG book?
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Pinky Lotus
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Do I look like like a pushover?
Well Lead, the document we have up atm sort of assumes that you are a Summoner already, which by itself implies that you are magic capable in some way. So adding it to the PRESENT one is a redundancy. However do remember that if you are clever with it, there are many ways for your character to learn they can use magic aside from 'OHMYGERDIMAWIZARD' and can be used as a great means of examining just how your character really is as a person or the essential nature of their magic. It doesn't necessarily have to be both or even one of those. Just some food for thought.
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ShadowKnight1224
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Every day is Lissandra Appreciation Day
Leadpaintchips
Nov 10 2015, 03:44 PM
Do you think we could probably put this somewhere helpful for RP, like in the Factions RPG book?
It's already there, implied, by the fact that Mundane Non-Mage NPCs still have 1 point in Magic Learnt. This meant to cover "superstitions" or "folklore" or "hedge witchcraft" or whatever minor mystical thing peasants do. It can take many forms and I'm not going to try listing them all.
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CupcakeTrap
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ShadowKnight1224
Nov 9 2015, 12:46 PM
Last time this issue came up, general consensus was that every intelligent being has the theoretical potential for magic, which can be developed through years of practice or study. Some people are born with a lot of innate talent for magic, so they can bypass all that.

Basically, magic is like writing or singing, it's something theoretically everyone can do, but it requires years of honing to be good at it. Your average peasant's "magic" may only go as far as mixing rudimentary herbal remedies and setting up some shoddy wards through superstitious means.
What SK said. (I need a macro for that.) Just about anyone can learn magic; people aren't excluded for lack of midichlorians or whatever. However—and this is more my personal speculation than something we've hammered down—learning magic is not like learning math or calligraphy or whatever. Think less Hogwarts, more Dagobah. Learning magic requires messing around with your own psyche, and confronting wonderful and terrible forces seething beneath the surface of reality. Learning magic can kill you, literally (you explode into flames) or figuratively (your spirit gets "broken" in a way that probably can't ever be fixed). This probably increases public wariness of mages. Especially Summoners, who are usually "tryhards" who've risked quite a lot to develop their talents, and are now keepers of the "nuclear" magic of the Rune Wars era.

Although anyone willing to undergo the trials of magical training can become a mage, some people are more talented than others. I wouldn't be averse to a character showing "obvious" signs of magical aptitude at a young age, e.g., untrained telekinesis, but it's not like being Force-sensitive. It's important to remember that this is a high-magic setting, especially after the Rune Wars jacked everything up. Whereas in Harry Potter, most "muggles" will freak the hell out at the sight of magic, and I get the impression that's where the no-Rune-Wars mainstream continuity is going, in the traditional/Factions continuity, the existence of magic is not "rumored" or "thought impossible". When a Piltovian scientist sees an angry Noxian get shot and just keep on walking, even though the bullet "physically" should have gone straight through them, they don't freak the hell out and declare that their science has been disproven. Their science is techmaturgical science that acknowledges the existence of magical forces.

I don't want to exaggerate that. The average person without magical training (formal or informal) almost certainly can't "intuitively" throw a fireball, or glare someone to death, or fly. Without magical training, all this magical energy that people are suffused with tends to express itself in "natural" ways, amplifying physical and mental abilities. That is to say, without magical training, people can only "color inside the lines". Magical energy makes a strong person stronger, a quick person quicker, a creative person more creative. Magical training is what lets someone become consciously aware of that energy and bend it to new purposes, breaking the natural lines.

(That last paragraph especially is rather speculative on my part, but it's what my instincts tell me.)

As an RPG idea, I wouldn't be averse to having a "magic" stat/mechanic that works even for non-mages, perhaps tied in with "drama points" or "essence" or some other consumable "turbo boost" mechanic. The difference, I'd think, would be that non-mages can't really control their use of this energy the way mages can.
Edited by CupcakeTrap, Nov 18 2015, 01:40 PM.
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ShadowKnight1224
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Every day is Lissandra Appreciation Day
I still like the idea of Demacian/Freljordian/Noxian peasants banding together during the Harrowing and warding off weak shades and spirits by using holy symbols or plants/gems/metals. IMO it's a neat example of common folk using "magic" in a way that isn't really anywhere near what actual mages can do. Some mages might even think, in their hubris, that it's impossible for the peasants to have magic of their own; clearly it's the holy symbol/plant/whatever that holds the power to keep the weak undead at bay.

EDIT: CCT, we already have that, actually. There are variant rules for building non-Summoners, and even the "commoners" get 1 point in Magic Learnt, which means it lets them be "Trained" (i.e. basically apprentices) in a single magic type. We encourage creativity for this. A peasant Trained in Life or Nature magic might be a farmer, herbalist or alchemist. Another case is, in the case of "highly Elemental" nations like Shurima, Bilgewater or Freljord, that your average peasant might be Trained in Ice, Water or Sand magic and everyone might consider such basic rapport with an element simply part of being Shuriman/Freljordian/etc. And when in doubt, become Trained in Martial magic, which is completely unnoticeable.
Edited by ShadowKnight1224, Nov 18 2015, 01:49 PM.
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CupcakeTrap
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ShadowKnight1224
Nov 18 2015, 01:45 PM
I still like the idea of Demacian/Freljordian/Noxian peasants banding together during the Harrowing and warding off weak shades and spirits by using holy symbols or plants/gems/metals. IMO it's a neat example of common folk using "magic" in a way that isn't really anywhere near what actual mages can do.
Well, I actually think that might be pretty effective. Like Lux implies in The Harrowing, I imagine that all those people coming together amplifies the magical resonance of their sense of "community", and provides some measure of protection. The use of holy symbols and the like probably plays into it somehow, maybe even shaping the energy in a very rough way so as to direct it to the purpose of protection from malevolent spirits. But it'd be more of an "environmental" defense. In contrast, a mage would have a much clearer sense of how a shade is put together, and would be able to use technique and precision to ward one off with an efficient use of energy.

I also enjoy the trope of arrogant mages looking down on "salt of the earth" peasant magic, but somewhat ignorantly. They may not have much finesse, but there's something to be said for "old magic" grounded in an entire society, rather than the cleverness of an individual mage, and worked deeper and deeper into the pattern of reality by hundreds or even thousands of years of ritual.

ShadowKnight1224
Nov 18 2015, 01:45 PM
EDIT: CCT, we already have that, actually. There are variant rules for building non-Summoners, and even the "commoners" get 1 point in Magic Learnt, which means it lets them be "Trained" (i.e. basically apprentices) in a single magic type. We encourage creativity for this. A peasant Trained in Life or Nature magic might be a farmer, herbalist or alchemist. Another case is, in the case of "highly Elemental" nations like Shurima, Bilgewater or Freljord, that your average peasant might be Trained in Ice, Water or Sand magic and everyone might consider such basic rapport with an element simply part of being Shuriman/Freljordian/etc. And when in doubt, become Trained in Martial magic, which is completely unnoticeable.
Ah! Excellent. "One step ahead!" Apologies for my ignorance; I haven't yet read through the rulebook. I actually might take advantage of my ignorance by doing a "blank slate" sketch of how I'd imagine this stuff works, then comparing. It's sometimes interesting to see what ends up being the same and what ends up diverging. (I hope this goes without saying, but just to be crystal clear: I'm not proposing to overwrite what you already have. I just think it'll be interesting, and maybe helpful, to see what it looks like when we both independently draft this sort of thing up, then put the versions side by side for comparison.)
Edited by CupcakeTrap, Nov 18 2015, 02:02 PM.
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ShadowKnight1224
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Every day is Lissandra Appreciation Day
CupcakeTrap
Nov 18 2015, 01:57 PM
Well, I actually think that might be pretty effective. Like Lux implies in The Harrowing, I imagine that all those people coming together amplifies the magical resonance of their sense of "community", and provides some measure of protection.

[...]

I also enjoy the trope of arrogant mages looking down on "salt of the earth" peasant magic, but somewhat ignorantly.

-*-

Ah! Excellent. "One step ahead!" Apologies for my ignorance; I haven't yet read through the rulebook. I actually might take advantage of my ignorance by doing a "blank slate" sketch of how I'd imagine this stuff works, then comparing. It's sometimes interesting to see what ends up being the same and what ends up diverging. (I hope this goes without saying, but just to be crystal clear: I'm not proposing to overwrite what you already have. I just think it'll be interesting, and maybe helpful, to see what it looks like when we both independently draft this sort of thing up, then put the versions side by side for comparison.)
Agreed on both counts! I definitely like that take, especially on societies with a bigger education disparity between the wealthy and the poor (such as Demacia and Noxus). In societies like Zaun and Piltover, even street kids like Ekko, Vi and Jinx are educated enough to tinker with devices and weaponry, so it makes sense that while the more elitist folk can easily disparage such hextech as "crude, lacking finesse and elegance" and the like, they won't deny that it does the job. Meanwhile, it's easy to imagine a Demacian mage-priest or a Noxian acolyte looking down on peasant magic.

-*-

No worries, I know you've been busy and the gdoc IS like 80 pages (though like 90% of it is just "options for your characters! whee~!").

Also, forgot to mention, commoners count a Bronze for purposes of Drama points and Fame (so they have a -1 to Fame but +4 Drama points). That means commoners can afford to burn Drama points more often for crit successes, survive death narrowly, and so on.

Definitely appreciate the outsider eye, of course! Comparisons are quite useful. :D
Edited by ShadowKnight1224, Nov 18 2015, 02:12 PM.
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Pinky Lotus
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Do I look like like a pushover?
I have my own opinions on magic but that's not why I am here atm...80 pages though? Damn. You really put a lot of work into that, Batman XD
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rinsujo
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Winter's Claw for Life.
He's exaggerating, it's only 75. :P
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