Faerie Becoming: Transformation of the Spirit

This really does not concern me. I am only concerned that he is not paying abeisance to any demon, and he's sincere in his outlook. His ultimate afterlife fate, some millennia in the future, in a theological setup that I grudgingly accept as appropriate for the setting, but I give no sympathy whatsoever outside of this game, leaves me utterly unfazed. It's no chance that I only play irreligious, secular, or pagan mages.

As for my character, as I said, he sees "advanced Chthonic magic" as an unpleasant but morally neutral tool. The dark forces he invokes for that, are not benevolent nor sympathetic to humans, the way a blizzard or the unrelenting desert sun are not, so it stands to reason that invoking them needs malevolent means, by sympathy. They are "wicked" the way the knives of a surgeon cutting up a patient is.

I would point out that there are ways of invoking Chthonic power, that while "wicked or malevelent" are not really "evil", such as invoking dark gods or spirits, cursing someone who was your enemy anyway, animal sacrifices, offering the lives of one's enemies in combat. etc. That ethical limit satisfies my PC, and his player, neither of whom really places any faith or sees any redeeming value in Middle Age Christian theology.

The judgement, while made "right" by overwhelming might, needs not be acknowledged as just. One may well be see the cosmos as unjust and tyrannical, and prefer to be true to one's conscience and free will, whatever the price. Insert quotations by Aeschilus' Prometheus, Milton's Satan, etc.

That is the only viewpoint that matters, IC and OOC, as long as I'm concerned.

For what it may matter (and it does, since I'm our group's assistant/counselor ST, in charge for rule system advice), that theory is utter crap IMO. Mages who undergo any kind of immortality transformation do not lose their souls nor really die, souls stick with the mind until consciousness is not snuffed out, and body & spirit only undergo a radical transformation. I'm a fervent believer in the theory that identity moves with consciousness, and souls (if such a thing ever exists) follow, and such a model applies to transformation of the body in ArM metaphysics. Transforming oneself in a faerie or magical creature does not "kill" you anymore than taking the shape of a wolf with a spell or power.

Also, while my character is a Merinita, he's not necessarily going to undergo the Becoming as immortality method of choice. He has some insights in the theurgic Philosophers of Rome too (even if that part of the background has not seen any real development in recent years of play), we have had some significant brushes with an alchemical-necromantic mystery cult which holds the secrets of the Philosopher's Stone (gold is flooding Northern Europe!) and the Great Elixir (which may just be an infernally-corrupted Norse offshot of the Green Cockerel), and we personally know an Archmage who was made immortal by tasting the fruits of the Tree of Life, and we went to the Garden of Eden and of the Hesperides ourselves.

Therefore, I do not lack the background justification to set my PC on whatever immortality path I fancy, be it Becoming or magical/alchemical immortality. I might just do the latter and pursue the Great Elixir, or choose incomplete Becoming, since the character is a thoroughout spontaneous magic specialist with serious limits to use formulaic magic effectively, and full Becoming is incompatible with that. Becoming an immortal is an important goal for my charcter and others in the group (personally knowing an immortal NPC tends to trigger such feelings), but it's a long-term one. With Unaging and Strong Faerie Blood, he has plenty of stopgap anti-aging measures.

You don't need to have a medieval Christian concept of evil to have a sense that Cthonic magic is morally wrong. If you are working Norse pantheon, using the magic of Hel's minions is morally an indefensible thing. If you are using Greek magic, then the magic of Hekate is morally wrong in most areas. Possible and useful, sure, in the same way that Satanism is possible and useful,but simply not the right thing to do.

The idea though that because you are a pagan you lack a concept of forbidden acts is, IMO, a dodge. IMC, you need to knowingly do evil to do Cthonic magic, and this means some Criamon simply can't do it, because they have no operative concept of "evil" because they are Helleno-Buddhist in their views.

I have to disgree. Hekate or Hel are godnesses with a rightful place in their pantheon as fitting as the one of Apollo or Tyr. The other gods may find them unpleasant to deal with, and the forces they wield and incarnate troublesome and menacing or unfriendly to humans, but the other gods do not deny that their Chthonic peers are worthy of proper worship. Hence using their powers cannot be morally wrong by itself. Using the powers of the gods to malevolent and malicious ends, to inflict gratuitous or dishonorable wrongs (e.g. to perform a cowardly assassination from afar) that may be morally wrong according to Norse or Ancient Greek morality. But using the power of the dark gods for justifiable ends (e.g. to invoke assistance or protection or cursing one's enemies in the field), that holds no stain.

Respectfully, for I sense you may be a modern pagan and therefore we may be talking about your faith, rather than historical faiths, where this is simply not true. Priests of Odin did not go around saying "Sure: worship Hel all you like. It's not like that's going to make it harder for us at Ragnarok or anything." Odin himself had cast her out of the world. Now, I know that you may practice Asatru or something and so find this an objectionable idea, and I'm happy to quote sources back and forth with you if you like, but if this is a real-life religous thing for you, I'd like to know, so we can call the whole thing off, OK?

Similarly, even among neopagan circles I'm sure you'll find plenty of sources who tell you that the Romans supressed Hecate worship, which made a similar, further supression by Christians easy. This is because, well, they -did- supress Hecate worship. Now you may say they weren't doing it right or something, and sure, late Roman Hecate worship had very little to do with the initial Carian faith, but regardless the idea that in a pantheonic system you needed to worship everyone is false. You just need to worjsip the toughest guy and whoever his priests say you need to worship.

Regardless of this, I'd say this means your character can't use Cthonic magic: if you really can't sin, and you have made it really clear that basically you can't, then you can't pay the price for the magic, and so it doesn't work for you. All of the forms of higher initiation in game are about paying the price for power. Your character doesn't pay that price, so he doesn't get the power, IMC, unless there's some other agnet that gives his character some sort of parity to the other player characters.

But that's the thing, he can't!!!!

Then again: "This must be something that the caster himself knows to be wicked or evil"

Where do you read morally neutral here?
He may be delusionnal about the source of his powers, but he can't ignore the fact that he's doing things Man wasn't Meant to Do :laughing:

You may decide this works differently in your saga, no problem here. But by the raw, the caster just can't see these things as morally neutral, for morally neutral things won't activate the magic.

Actually, no. Nothing of that sort. I'm actually a deeply secular agnostic in RL. I simply happen to have rather more sympathy with paganism, modern or orherwise, or Eastern religions, than with Middle Age Christianity, which I regard as an horrible belief system, a tyranny of the mind. If anything, it's my antipathy for fundamentalist monotheisms that reaches an hard core intensity, so it is likely a lost cause to try and convince me that the Church in the age this game is set had any true redeeming value.

As it concerns your interpretation of ancient paganism, it is quite respectable, but I fear that you empasize too much the rivalries between the pantheons in the myths. Hel was not "cast out" of the world, the Asi appointed her to be the guardian and caretaker of Nifleheim and the non-glorious dead, just like the Greek Gods did with Hades. She was the respected (if feared) mistress of a part of the Nine Worlds. She was indeed prophetized to take the enemy's side at Ragnarok, but so was Loki, and he was allowed the company of the gods.

In a pantheonic system like the Norse or the Greeks, you paid respect and basic worship to every gods and goddesses (and you better to, unless you want plenty of curses and tribulations heaved on you and yours) then you are free to pick one or more patron to pay special worship. This gives you no right to lack respect to the others, and there were for each god specific portofolios where he or she had exclusive jurisdiction, and no other of the divine familiy had daresay, not even the leader of the pantheon. Do you want a safe sea-travel, sacrifice to Poseidon, not to Zeus, even if he's bigger than his brother.

I'm sorry to hear that, but I think we have reached the crux of an irreconciliable difference in the interpretation of the Chthonic rule. I'm confident to say, after many months of play with this character, that my group and I agree and are confortable with the idea that in order to invoke Advanced Cthonic powers, you need to perform "wicked" or "nasty" acts that are in mystical sympathy with the dark forces you invoke. But these do not need to be a technical "evil" or "sin" act, for the character. Magical sympathy suffices.

Of course, they are still rather unpleasant acts, which are not always possible in every circumstances, and may draw social repercussions (try invoking dark gods or performing animal sacrifices in public...). That suffices as a price, just like temporary fatigue suffices to boost spontaneous magic by another avenue. There's no need for long-term stain of one's soul (or such may happen "behind the curtain", according to the metaphysic of the setting, as we have discussed previously; that's not important from my POV; only that the character has an untroubled conscience), no more than using fatiguing magic regularly creates permanent enfeeblement.

Also, we have reasoned out that Advanced Chthonic works very similarly to theurgic Invocation Magic.

As it concerns game balance, I can honestly assure you there isn't any significant problems in sight, after many months of play. Admittedly, my character is purposefully optimized to be a spontaneous magic specialist, and an Hermetic generalist, and is an effective utility spells workhorse and a good combat magic backup. Nonetheless, he has several weaknesses (he cannot use formulaic magic quickly or effectively, he deeply sucks in close combat relevant since we are an all-mage party, he's not very good at dealing with mundanes), and several other mages in the party are better than him at their respective Hermetic specializations.

We read "wicked" here, as possibly signifying "nasty, brutal, unpleasant, malevolent, harmful", not necessarily morally evil or sinful.

The interpretation was sustained by the examples the book gives to activate the magic:

"Cursing": not necessarily an evil thing. You may curse an awowed enemy, or someone that has wronged you.

"Invoking dark gods": they can be worthy of respect and worship, too, even if they are malevolent or hostile to humans.

"Doing a sacrifice": sacrificing animals is not necessarily an evil thing. It may be an act of worship.

We interpreted that if such things as sufficiently "bad" to invoke a mystical sympathy with the dark forces invoked, the magic works. The mage must know he does dark acts to invoke dark things, but does not necessarily has to "sin" according to his own morality, to do so.

If you have trouble with our interpretation, blame it on the fact that none of us is a native English speaker, and we interpreted "wicked" in this context to mean "dark, nasty, brutal, malevolent, unpleasant, harmful", not "sinful".

If it must be "evil", it may be a justifiable "evil".

Yes, I realize that. I'm an apatheist myself. I'll play indifferently religious or secular characters.

Yes, that is dark, not wicked and so you'll only get the basic benefits of Chthonic magic. You seem reluctant to accept that.

I'm not your SG, but I hope he's taking advantage of the beautiful hooks you're giving him. :slight_smile:

I suggest you give playing Vespers a try. It's short and you might enjoy it. You can use Windows Frotz if you don't already have a Z-machine interpreter.

Within Mythic Europe there are objectively measurable consequences. They are part of what makes the game interesting, in my opinion.

We've been disagreeing on the metaphysics of Mythic Europe since about when TMRE came out, remember? Since we're playing in separate campaigns, I don't think our viewpoints will ever be reconciled.

Me too, but I also hate the Middle Age Church. :wink:

I have no trouble at playing characters who follow liberal religion, but the fire and brimstone crap that was mainstream in the middle age ? No way.

IMC we have come to regard "wicked" as essentially equivalent to "nasty, brutal, and dark". We felt it was necessary and appropriate in order to make that Virtue usable by pagans.

You may find an analogue in the Witches of Thessaly Traditions described in the RoP:I on pp. 140-143 (actually, I used something similar to justify my character having Chthonic Magic):

My character toes that very fine line, has no Infernal Power, and is sincere in that assumption. He is reasonably selfish, mischevious, nasty, and brutal, but does not regard what he does as sinful. IMC, we have agreed that such is sufficient to justify all facets of Chthonic Magic.

Oh, sure. :laughing:

Or need to. :wink: :smiley:

I tend to agree, but I'm glad that you are enjoying your interpretation so much. That's a good thing, and you interpretations of wicked faerie magic may be of great use to our little community come the release of the Faerie book.

Glad to be of help. Indeed, as you may understand, I'm terribly curious and eager to get bot the Magic and Faerie books, since they both promise to provide all kinds of new shiny ideas for development and interpretation of this character concept. In addition to provide our SG with all kinds of new story ideas, given his taste (which I fully share and appreciate) for high-magic, outlandish quests in fantastical and otherwordly places. E.g. we have a standing plot hook to track down the goddess Juno and deliver a message from the dragon of the Hesperides.

I don't care much about sin in this context.

What I meant is that, by the raw, your character must do things he knows to be bad, you say so yourself. He may think of these as a nescessary evil, sure, but this doesn't change things one bit.

Read again: Advanced cthonic magic is an infernal power, recognisable as such even by hermetic magic. Anyone investigating one of your spell will see it as infernal.

Then again, all this is mileage issues, there's no real problem here if your group is fine that way, what worried me more is that you sometimes seemed to present your view as the right and only one, or to be oblivious of these points.

It ought to matter much from a psychological POV, I easily agree it may cause social problems, so cautions are necessary, and I hope I clarified that the "emperil your soul" issues I do find distasteful to care about in my RP, so I built the character's psychology to be willfully oblivious or defiant about.

True, true. but it still isn't a pure Infernal power, they way Infernal Methods and Powers are. It's the power of the Magic realm, tainted by the Infernal.

Please be a forgiving person and bear with me. It's the typical negative effect of my type of rethoric. No matter how I try, it slips on me all the time. I suppose it's the unavoidable side-effect of being a very self-confident, willful person. :blush: :frowning:

Not oblivious, no. Rather, from my character and our groups POV, these points were rewieved rather long ago (many months of play since) and built interpretations, justifications, and countermeasures against. It was old tripe, so to speak. It's something like being asked explanation on how the rocket engine works, when the astronauts are already walking Mars. :wink: [/b]

I've been catching up on this thread. I don't have access to "Realms of Power: The Infernal", and thus I can't comment directly regarding its proposed interpretation of various "Dark" vs. "Infernal" forces. I can say a few things about sundry pagan belief systems.

It is entirely possible for a member of pagan belief systems to "sin" against their pantheons and/or patron deities. Nifleheim has a special place for those who have offended the Norse deities, and one must never forget the role that Tartarus plays in Greek mythology. The nature and type of these transgressions are not, however, necessarily the same thing as in the various JCI moral codes, but there are frequently parallels. Incest, for example, which is an extreme taboo in both Greek and Norse society, and which is the center of epic "divine" punishments.

One must also consider the fact that Hellenic (Greek) and Norse belief systems were largely shame-based rather than guilt-based in terms of their taboos. "Dishonour" is a very rough and inexact attempt to translate the term into modern-day English. If one brought ill repute and disfavour on one's family, ruler, people/community, culture, nation, or deity then one has transgressed against them and must seek to make amends. It is more about the relationship of the believers to others than about an internal "stain" on the soul.

Now, expand on this to the sacred clowns and tricksters of many cultures. Loki is an outstanding example. He regularly violates the accepted social norms and virtues of the Norse, making him a reviled figure and frequently an outsider. He performs other acts to get back in to good graces of Odin and others, but he is, essentially, a very "Dark" trickster figure embodying most of the things which Norse are not supposed to be or do. I would argue that a member of the Norse belief system seeking to invoke Chtonic magic--as it appears to have been defined--would have to perform deeds which are reprehensible to the Norse. Defiling sacred places, engaging in passive sodomy (or breaking gender roles completely; Loki is infamous for this, even if s/he did produce Sleipnir in this fashion), acting with cowardice, betraying a benefactor or a guest, or, perversely, denying the gods their due would all count as deeds which would move the individual away from Valhalla and toward Nifleheim.

In the Hellenic belief system, things are a bit less clear-cut. The multiple aspects of many deities and the stature of Hades as a major player in the pantheon allows for a greater degree of "darkness" without engaging in complete transgression. Greek deities were often primal, elemental beings, and their actions were frequently deemed almost "beyond Good and Evil"--yet even they could be held to account. Ouranos and Cronus both paid for their refusal to accept their progeny in bloody and savage rebellions that destroyed them. Zeus is hounded by Hera for his infidelities. Apollo was made to dispatch his beloved Asclepius for his son's raising of the dead (without special dispensation). Prometheus is tormented for bestowing multiple gifts (Fire and healing being the most famous examples) on humanity--and for refusing Zeus' demand that he reveal the circumstances of Zeus' ultimate overthrow.

Regarding the deities specifically discussed, one must remember that Hekate is also an aspect of Artemis/Diana, and that Diana was worshipped at Lake Nemi with orgies and human sacrifice during the heyday of the Roman Empire. Indeed, one could say that Merinita the Founder was a remnant of a religion with highly questionable practices (from a JCI perspective, and certainly from the view of the post-revision Tremere). Many Greek deities had cults engaged in bloody worship in which taboos were broken in ecstatic fervour. These acts could certainly fuel Chtonic magic under the right circumstances.

Which takes us back to the False Powers. Radegaast, according to "Guardians of the Forest", is a greater Demon who has been posing as a pagan (Slavic) deity. Many of his rites sound very familiar. Any practitioner of Cthonic magic who pushes things to extremes must be considered (in the broader context of the milieu) to be at risk of serving the goals of a genuine Infernal Power who has been masquerading as a pagan deity--or who may have once been a pagan deity who has subsequently signed on with the Inferno.

Separately, there's the metaphysical implications of serving dark deities in pagan pantheons. Namely, one may get to spend an afterlife in close service to said deity, but most do not have a "happy" ending. The Norse gods are all headed for Ragnarok, and, presumably, their servants will be annihilated in that same confrontation, living and dead alike. The Hellenic/Greek gods are going to undergo another successful rebellion at some point in the future, and there's no knowing where one's patron will wind up in the new scheme (unless one can get Prometheus to talk--though freeing him would also be a transgression of "divine will"). BOTH carry with them a more implicit and pernicious problem: neither allow for a full exercise of Free Will. The Norse are bound by the Norns, who set the Wyrds (destinies) for all, Gods and Men alike. The Hellenes by the Morae (Fates), whose edicts are, apparently, absolute, irrevocable, and even more thorough than those of the Norns (though loopholes may exist).

Of course, Sunni Islam also espouses "Divinely-appointed fate" (Insh'Allah), but at least it promises Paradise for the fortunate. Christianity and Islam (Judaism, less so) are notable for offering an Eternal, positive afterlife for those who obey their respective (often highly similar) tenets. Very few pagan belief systems offer anything so marvellous, and certainly not to the broad masses of the population, who were frequently consigned to ignominious tedium in their afterlives (think about the bulk of those who wound up in Hades' domain, including Achilles himself). A special, devoted servant of the Underworld might win a decent place, but, theoretically, the lowliest serf or slave could earn the same or better in Heaven/Paradise. Which could help explain the spread of both Christianity and Islam. For the common people, it gave them better options in the life after this one. For the rulers, the prospect of signing on with a "guaranteed" winning side in the grand struggle of eternity.

The Criamon just want out. Their ethics and practices (if not their cosmology), as well as their "reward" of Hypostasis bear an uncanny resemblance to Buddhist doctrines. The Manicheans also want "out". It would be interesting to see a Chtonic practitioner of either pursuing a goal that would keep people locked in to the endless cycle of reincarnation.

A few ideas of mine on the subject.

Hi all,

I just thought I would chuck my oar in too.

One could approach the issue of cthonic magic with an almost technical mind and say that in order to reap the maximum benefits of this association with unpleasant forces one is required to provide an input in the form of unwholesome acts. The Mythic European metaphysics could simply be rewarding a person who trangresses against personal and societal taboos.

I imagine that a cthonic magician from and Islamic tradition might have different ideas about what is willingly evil than a person from a Scandinavian tradition (although obviously there will be many points of congruence as well!). Perhaps an Islamic magician who practices cthonic magic might regularly becoming intoxicated, and that this intoxication and rejection of religious commands is what suffuses them with power?

A Tytalus with cthonic magic might willingly pay this price, cynically exploiting a mechanism present within the cosmology (i.e. that doing willful evil grants a villain greater power) and hope to escape repercussions of this through apotheosis. This character would be playable, although perhaps a bit mordant, even though - in my opinion - it would not escape any Judgement that might occur during the game.

I personally think that making Cthonic Magic a safer choice for characters is a loss of opportunity. I like the idea that the temptation is always there - for player and for character - to just go that bit further to achieve a goal. it is great that people can dabble with murky powers, and also give in temptation and embrace them for greater reward - in return for greater peril.

Hurrah for doomed protagonists I say! :slight_smile:

Cheers,