View source for Post:Fam lore - 1/6/2011 - 13:41:48

{{Post
|a=DR-ARMIFER
|t=Re: Fam lore
|d=1/6/2011 1:41:48 PM
|n=8025
|f=The Warrior Mages (35) \ Familiars (8)
|c=r
|p=''>>I like that you have a dynamic where {{PRel|Moon Mage}}s impose order on irrational things giving them a name, and {{PRel|Warrior Mage|War Mage}}s do so by giving them a shape.''

Good catch. Elementalists and Lunar Mages are far removed from the Divine, the creative potential of existence, and instead focus on physical laws and structure where meaning is created by the magician-scientist who is theorizing and observing a largely incidental world. Elementalists do it "right," insofar as they observe and manipulate a universe that remains mostly comprehendable, while Lunar Mages go beyond structure and find Cthulhu-analog waiting for them in the depths Man Wasn't Meant To Know.

In contrast when we talk about Life and Holy Mages, we appeal to notions of active god-beings and a natural teleology (directly opposed to Moon Mages, who consider that a naughty word). The Immortals demand, nature requires, Empathy prohibits, and so on.

''>>Does that mean WMs who RP their {{PRel|familiar}}s as secondary characters or with personalities are Doing It Wrong? I always liked that approach.''

No? The idea provides an escape hatch that the talisman provides some consistency over manifestations that could lead to self-awareness.

A really geeky example of this kind of life, that I'm ashamed that I just thought of, would be the Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager. In a very real way he stops existing when you turn him off, but the pattern / program endures from one session to the next and can theoretically culminate in personality (though one that has a decidedly different outlook on death and being than we do).

''>>This just doesn't sit well, because you have to consider the Haemonculi experiments. After all those [[Aethereal Pathways|AP]] quests, the correlation is relatively clear as to the history behind them. I just hate to see the whole story idea trashed because I fairly enjoyed it.''

Bear in mind that in the midst of "{{PRel|Of Spirits and Spirituality}}," the author digresses from discussing his neat and orderly hierarchy of kinds to essentially divide Elanthians between the Master Races and the Mud Races. The nice thing about Elanthian books is there's often an insane current of subtext to be read into them.

Even if we accept that the book isn't IC gibberish on the circumstantial evidence, there's nothing in it that would explicitly conflict with this retcon. {{PRel|Elemental}} creatures will still exist out in the wild, it describes unformed aether elementals as "cruel" (which itself contrasts other stuff, but the 'unbound aether elementals are Bad' thing is consistent enough to get a pass), and finally arrives at an ethical dilemma around undefined "unwholesome shapes" which we independently touched on with the fam alteration stuff.

-[[Armifer]]
|sub=Extra-planar creatures,Warrior Mage,Moon Mage,Familiar}}