View source for Post:Proposed Scroll Focus Feat - 06/03/2014 - 14:31

{{Post
|a=DR-ARMIFER
|t=Re: Proposed Scroll Focus Feat
|d=06/03/2014 02:31 PM CDT
|n=3089
|f=Abilities, Skills and Magic \ Magic - Suggestions, Discussions and Thoughts
|c=r
|p=''>>Why do the emotions involved have to be dark?''<br />
''>>Unhingedness is fine with me, I suppose (Sylv is also RP'd a little on the crazy side sometimes), but I wouldn't consider harnessing your emotions a sign of being unhinged.''

{{PRel|Magic}}, minus various confounds, is rational. It works with geometric precision, as an expression of the magician's intellect and mental strength. Manipulating the mana streams is a psychic phenomenon, but one that the vast majority of the population is able to do if they have the training. Some confounds are more extreme than others, but that's the basic roots of magic. Part of the {{PRel|Magic Theory|Theory of Magic}} as Elanthians understand it is you attune to one frequency of mana and that's that. If someone attunes as a Paladin, that's it. They perceive Holy, they manipulate Holy, and that's that.

Then we get to {{PRel|sorcery}}, where everything goes to the pot. Society has complex opinions about it, and its practitioners have their own explanations and excuses, but at the cosmological level is is the skill of doing Something Which Should Not Be. Sometimes you get away with it and cheat the universe, and sometimes it takes its price.

The emotional aspect of sorcery is the abandonment of reason. It's engaging that same psychic power that allows people to do magic and plunging it into a world of unreason and pulling at the universe blindly. I'd certainly call it dark and unhinged.

This isn't to say it's beyond redemption or passionate argument in favor of some flavors of it. The [[Immortal]]'s don't care about most of it, and you could certainly argue that casting [[Clear Vision]] on yourself is as harmless as can be. But then again, the [[Philosophers of the Knife]] think what they're doing is for the benefit of humanity, too.

-[[Armifer]]
}}