Magic schools & their names

Who wants to talk about the names for the magic schools?

Back when the devs revealed the magic school names back in 2014, way back in preparation for Release 10, there was a big discussion over the chosen names, including controversy over a few of them. Since then, they haven't applied these names to the actual schools directly, but to gems cut for magic of those schools. One thing I suggested at the time were names with -mancy suffixes, like pyromancy, geomancy, and so on, because they were easily legible, and people would understand what was meant. They seemed to be considering this for a short time.

However, I kind of like the naming conventions they adopted from Ultima 8, so I'd like to see them stay. The thing that I like most about them is that they allow real life terms for magic to have some currency in the game. We can talk about actual "sorcerers" versus "tempests" and "theurges" out there in the world of Novia.

All of these titles don't match up with what the titles have meant historically -- so for instance, sorcerers were associated with summoning maleficent spirits rather than using fire, and theurges dealt with spirit in more of an abstract sense -- as in spirituality -- rather than a concrete way meaning air. Some of the original meanings of these titles were still there in U8 and have been lost in translation to this game. But they still work and make sense to some degree, and are better than the alternative, in my view, to referring to "pyromancers" and "aeromancers" -- which are kind of bland terms. Its so much more fun being a "sorcerer" than a "pyromancer", or a "theurge" than an "aeromancer." The -mancy titles aren't fully accurate themselves either, since the -mancy suffix refers to divination only, and not active magic, which would have the -urgy suffix.

What still sticks out are still the three added titles, "Lunaism", "Atenism", and "Gaiaism." These are very clumsy words to me. They recall very specific things in Earth lore, like Aten and Gaia, and its hard not to hear these things when hearing those words. Its not very fun to refer to Moon mages as "Lunaists" or Earth mages as "Gaiaists." While its fun for me saying I'm a "sorcerer", its not fun for me saying I'm a "Lunaist." It sounds lame to me!

Now, regardless of what the devs do as far as titles go, I plan to use some other real world words in my lore books. So, for instance, I'm writing a lore book called "An Augurer's Bestiary." Besides "augurers", I might refer to "wizards", "witchers", "tellurges", "druids", "demiurges", "hierurges", and so on. These titles have actually meanings and would be fun to use in the game; much more fun than "Lunaism" or "Gaiaism." It would be one thing if they just didn't use the titles for any schools of magic -- then players could use them at their fancy -- but they might as well offer us better terms to use.

So, I was doing a lot of thinking and some research, and I settled on some titles that I think work reasonably well.

First, I'll go over explanations for the existing schools of magic and their titles. Details of these these explanations will go into graphics I created for each of the schools ( they might take time to load ), and I'll include a short text summary.

SORERY (Fire)



Sorcery is connected to fire magic by way of demons and maleficent spirits. This latter element was present in U8 through the summoning of daemons. However, daemons are still connected to fire and both fire and daemons are connected to destruction.

THEURGY (Air)



Theurgy, as opposed to sorcery, referred to magic through divine aid. 'Spirit', though has a double meaning, in referring to both air concretely and spiritual matters abstractly. The connection was made a bit explicit in U8, which is why the theurges had healing spells.

TEMPESTRY (Water)



Tempestry could theoretically either refer to water or air, both. After all, the power of lightning is linked to creating storms. In U8, it incorporated both a bit, as the Tempest was responsible for rains. However, tempestry is only distinguished from theurgy by the water element.

THAUMATURGY (Life)



Thaumaturgy was connected to miracles like healing and repelling evil, so it makes sense here. There's a bit of a lore issue though, because Bentic, in the U8 manual says thaumaturgy means chaos. "Put quite simply, Thaumaturgy borrows and steals a bit from other magics, choosing the clear path of chaos rather than becoming too well defined and stagnant." Healing magic was in theurgy. In other places, the power of "working miracles" is said to be a creative act.

At any rate, it fits, and the other choices for Life magic aren't very good. One could suggest Chirurgy, which is where the word "surgery" comes from, and means magic from one's hands, as in "healing hands." Or "Hierurgy", which means magic from sacred objects. Another term might be "clerisy", as in "cleric."

NECROMANCY (Death)



This was originally Earth magic in U8. At any rate, the -mancy suffix isn't really objectionable here, because if you can talk to the dead for divination, you can also command them.

* * * *

So now on to the last four schools, including chaos magic.

AUGURY (Sun)



Augury here is my choice because augurers are diviners and divination is about seeing and revealing. They're also alternatively understood as seers, as explained in the text above. There are spells in the Sun magic school like Enlightenment and Reveal Hidden. Spells like Blind and Dazzling Rays are the other side of the blade. Light spells are more of a literal application of the figurative idea; revealing one's surroundings. Augury is also historically connected to reading signs from birds, which makes the Phoenix perfect.

This isn't a perfect word, since one doesn't associate augury with casting light spells, but its not worse than Sorcery for fire, and it covers a great deal of the Sun magic tree. The connection of augury to being a seer creates a closer connection, though, because of the re-emphasis on vision. A second idea was for Sun mages to be Hierurges, as Hierophants in Ancient Greece were associated with divining and revealing esoteric secrets, but its an application of the same idea of augury. Hierurgy could also be written as Hierophancy.

TELLURGY (Earth)



'Tellurgic' is a variant of 'telluric', which not only means Earth energy, but the vital energy from within the Earth that causes growth. This wasn't a real name for a type of magic, but has some currency in New Age mysticism when talking about the Earth as a source of energy. 'Tellus' is Latin for earth or soil.

The idea of 'telluric currents' is also in some modern druid literature, and Druidry is also another alternative name for Earth magic. However, a lot of people wouldn't be able to wrap their heads around the idea that being a Druid is about stone fists and earthquakes, so it might not be appropriate.

WIZARDRY (Moon)*

*Alternative is WITCHERY; see further explanations.



I actually came upon this idea based on the connection between 'wizards' in modern fantasy to 'witches', where one is the male and one is the female version of the same term. Witches in lore drew their powers from the Moon and were associated with 'bewitchment', or charming, like as in the Animal Charm and Moon Beams, and creating illusions. 'Witchery' is sometimes described as a synonym for fascination or charm.

Of course, one could suppose there would be a 'wizardess' and 'witch' can be made gender neutral in the form of 'witcher.' However, I just think 'wizardry' is cooler. There's actually a good argument that this should be 'Witchery', and 'Wizardry' should be reserved for something else, which I'll get to later.

DEMIURGY (Chaos)



Demiurgy is creative magic. In Greek philosophy and Gnostic theology, the demiurge was the craftsman of the universe, in subordination under the Supreme Being. However, there has also been a belief that there could be multiple demiurges, and that a sorcerer could aspire to become a demiurge, part of the creative process that shapes the world. Obsidians, who reshaped chaos into order, sought the role of demiurgy. Of course, the degree to which a demiurge can fashion chaos into order is all relative. As described in the text above, its matter of trying to master the process through fighting the natural tendencies of Chaos, trying to confront (or summon Chaos), and to redirect it.

If not thaumaturgy, then demiurgy would fit. Alternatives might be daemonurgy, or daemonomancy. Daemons, of course, were seen as embodiments of chaotic forces, ie spirits of nature, which, while in nature might be balanced against other forces, but could be 'unleashed' from this natural balance.

* * * *

So, this is how the magic wheel would look at first glance with these titles.



There would be Elemental Magic on the one hand --which refers to the elements -- and Astral Magic on the other hand -- which refers to the Sun, Moon, Life and Death schools. Light and Dark here refer to the developer terms for how the wheel is split between magic that does well in heavy armor and magic that doesn't.

However, a second thought that occurred to me here is that the whole 'Light' half of the wheel fits nicely under the label of Druidic magic. Healing, Vital earth forces, dealing with water. Some magics from Sun and moon.

If this is so, then the other side, the 'Dark' side could be renamed to 'Wizardry', and Moon magic can have the title of 'Witchery.'



Of course, this isn't to imply that Wizardry is 'dark magic.' That's just the developers' terminology for that side of the wheel. Whether there's really such a thing as 'Dark' or 'Light' magic is debatable. Personally, I don't think it makes sense to have suggestive language that implies some schools of magic are 'good' and others are 'evil.' The point is that control over Air, Fire, and Death, fits into the wizard's wheelhouse, while stuff like healing would normally be relegated to clerics or druids. Wizards also don't wear armor, while druids and clerics might. So, they might be better terms than 'Light' and 'Dark.'

This also lines up with the D&D division that's been drawn between clerical magic and non-clerical magic, as mages in D&D are often referred to as 'wizards.' Druids in D&D have fallen under the broader class of 'priests', which also includes clerics. Wizardry and Druidry here are given tripartite symbols representing the three schools which fall exclusively under their dominion. The sun and moon are excluded from these symbols, since they're shared by both dominions of magic.

This is a second version of that wheel, which also breaks things down for magics that are under the influence of the sun and those under the influence of the moon.



Life and Death are in the middle, because during twilight hours, the barrier between life and death are the weakest, and this makes sense.

Any thoughts are of course welcome !

Keep in mind, the idea is not to force an precise 1:1 meaning between the etymology and source of the words and the magic schools, which might be difficult to do, and might give us names that aren't fun. Its just to come up with names that fit well, feel well, sound good, are fun to use.

 

Very nice work, love the history lesson and the effort put into this. I'm not sure I like the suggested changes anymore than what we have now though.

 

Cool stuff. I like your ideas.

But I also am afraid that complex names imply a robust system of truly differing schools. Alas, I don't feel any individual tree our spell system has now is complex enough, at least yet, to warrant names that imply that. Not saying that is a negative. Just that I think the devs made a good call going with simpler names for the system we have because of this. Magic in this game feels more like one thing with various components, versus truly different and opposing schools. To me at least. Maybe one day it will be different.

 

Great work!

 

~"Amazing"~!'

~Time Lord~

 

granted that the system we have now is easy and non historical in a sense so I do think the devs need to go back and restudy the concept from old Ultimas but at this stage in development with there small team I don't think changing this is fesable

 

The change proposed in the OP only affects the names of the magic skill trees to make them pose as "schools", so i don't think it took too much time to implement this. What may cost more is to wove the terms appropiately into the lore, but that's no rush and players can greatly help to that by writing in game books (as redfish says he's planning to do).

 

Well done!

I supported Druidry as a name of one of the schools of magic back in the original "discussion". But was shot down.

Thank you for the wheels. I may incorporate some of this info for my own understanding and for Dara Brae's druids. Ok?

EDIT: Fix spelling

 

Perhaps the different magic schools will come into their own if the magic skill trees expand down the line. Right now it's advantageous to be a fire/earth/life/water/air/etc mage all at the same time, especially as there aren't enough single flavor magic skills to fill out a combat deck.

I would love the option to have a mage be more specialized in one school but right now I'd be gimping myself.

Still, love the ideas!

 

No you can't ! Just kidding... (go ahead -- but I'll be watching)

@Beaumaris,

Yea, I said way back during the original discussion that I'd be okay with just "Fire mage", "Air mage", etc. Very simple. But they are using the names, though, at least in naming the gems... Sorcery cut gems, Theurgy cut gems, etc. I was just suggesting replacements for a few names they added over the original ones in U8 that I don't think are very good and which could be better.

 

Portalarium should have hired Redfish consulting in the early stages of the game.

BTW. Anyone that does moon magic will be called a Lunatic.

 

being a druid myself I was planning on making a build specifically druid orientated once final wipe happens so ill let you all know what I come up with

 

Great post!

FWIW, I've tried to use the actual magic school names a few times in my book submissions and in dialogue. I will continue to do so.

 

I've got my take on the subject here. (Sorry I didn't see this thread until now.)

 

If it matters, your link is in the Dev+ forum and can't be read by a majority of users.

 

Ahh... right. Sorry I had forgotten about that. Well it only matters to the degree that I've gone back and clarified a couple of things from the OP. I don't want to include references to other people's posts in the Dev+ forum, but I can paraphrase the clarification here, since it is relevant to the OP..



I opened the OP with calling myself an "armchair occultist" it was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that I am not a "serious" occultist.

I just want to make sure it is clear that I am not proposing some type of rigid adherence to a magical system, or to try to turn SotA into a primer for IRL magicians.

I just meant in a very simple sense- for example- the word Thaumaturgy means "miracle work"... it most definitely refers to healing others, up to the point of the reversal of death, or resurrection. Therefore, based upon this commonly accepted definition of the word, it seems to most closely resemble the school of "Life Magic" in SotA.

What I'm proposing is like this: Take 9 index cards and on each one write a brief description of the 9 schools of magic in SotA. Now take another 9 index cards, and write out the current (secondary) names for the 9 schools of magic, along with a very basic definition... the kind one might get by simply typing the word into their search box and seeing what comes up in the first few results.

Now play a matching game. Which terms/definitions ones are the best match to the magic schools?

I should also clarify- I wasn't proposing to actually change the names Fire/Earth/Air/Water/Life/Death/Sun/Moon/Chaos magic as the primary names of the magic schools and as inscribed on the magic sigil.

What I'm talking about has more to do with item naming like a "Staff of Thaumaturgy"... what I'm asking/suggesting is if we are going to use the words "Thaumaturgy", "Theurgy", "Sorcery" as secondary names for the magic schools (most notably as they connect to Enchantments), then why not make the closest match we can to what those words actually mean in modern English?

 

Seems like a crime not to use the traditional names.

Witchery would be better for moon magic than Wizardry - wizardry is more generic; mesmerise spells exist in the moon tree.

I like Druidry for earth magic. I'm not completely sold on Augury. Maybe Wizardry?

 

~Name Calling~
If a man dwells on the past, then he robs the present, but if a man ignores the past, he may rob the future. The seeds of our destiny are nurtured by our past. (Master Poe from Kung-fu )

I don't mind any new name because the past cannot exists in the future or the now. If we did cling to the past with names, then it is confined to what it was then. If something is confined, then it cannot escape a preset destiny which leaves little doubt because it's a well know confinement to a well known ending. Each time something was named in the past, it was always called something else before it became known by that new name. Most things are building of knowledge, which must change it's name to conform to it's new wider meaning, or different meaning.

The way I see this subject, is that by looking at the past and what has been ignored, we can make better guess where the now is heading, yet not know how or why it will get there, if it shares the same progression. So I look at them all as "hints of suggestions" in order to guide it's new path. These Novians are also a very simple people, so basic names seem to apply, because we learn everything from them. Magic back on Earth is David Copperfield stuff or style adapted from old beliefs and practices. The Seer, became the coincidence, which became the psychic, which became the remote viewer or the time shifting seer.

It's a problem in perception when it comes to Earthly perspectives and presumptions. It was assumed by the remote viewers that they could see the future, and thus many futures they predicted never came true, because the remote view is in the now, where the future require totally different ways of predicting it which most are not psy-mentally alone achieved. This was tragically displayed when the Hale-Bop comet was said to contain an alien within it's tail. This so called "psychic news" caused a cult to kill themselves. These predictions went on to say that the aliens were coming here to earth. Then when the comet began it's pass by us, with no landings of any psychic predicted landing of any, that cult thought it was reason for them to "hitch a psychic ride" by offing themselves. This is an example of misguided perceptions and concepts, when we assume that old knowledge must be true ... in this case, that death is somehow linked to travel and that remote viewers could somehow see into the future. This is where assumption of fact instead of tests is a dangerous thing to any future. The cultist live in their own little world rejecting facts through tests and trusting that which has never been tested and found to be true. Science has proven that remote viewing has better chances than guessing with things in the now, yet it's never been indicated in any study that remote viewing's ways have had anything but random results at the same level of chance as guessing.

With all this in mind, then if we called anything by a name in science that had never been proven in science, then we are as lost as the person was that was experimenting with it, who named it in the first place. Bogus magic needs no regard, other than to question if it was real or not.

This being a game, then fictional things can happen, yet even if we confine it by names from some false book, then we condemn it to always follow that path of that book.
Personally I like artistic freedom of the producer to decide such things, because they are the artists making our game. Sure we can suggest anything, but suggesting that we create our game based on some failed and flawed fiction is not the way to go if we are to preserve the element of "wonder" in our game. But each to their own opinion aye? Yours suggestions are as good as mine...
~Time Lord~

 

I have no idea what you're talking about sorry

 

We have become the establishment and not the innovator of controversy in facts...

The way I see naming things is that we have yet to experience these magic properties as they will be during planetary effects. If this will intensify the effects or negate their effects, then we haven't see the animal of their nature. It's like trying to name a music before the music is played and before it's rhythms are heard. Naming things also effects their future, just as if a boy named Steven is future life shaped much differently than a boy named Sue.

In many ways SOTA world is currently like a dream, where there are familiar names. If it becomes too familiar, then it looses some flavor of being like a dream world and more mimics a real one, yet a real fantasy instead of having qualities of the more modern, which our characters Avatars are said to come from. We can see this effect even with those like @Bowen Bloodgood ,Richard Garriott, and @DarkStarr , where they cling to terms which don't fit what they are attempting to create, with their uses of the word "Astronomy instead of Astrology". Though astrology on steroids is what we see coming, they still insist on a term which does not in any way apply, other than the planets travel through the sky.

Astronomy;
The science that deals with the material universe beyond the earth's atmosphere.
Astrology;
The study to interpret the influence of the heavenly bodies on human affairs.

Being a game, we old players of games tend to relate the terms used when things like wizardry were hip or coming back in resurgence from the 1970's-80's, yet gaming also then trended further into calling things alchemy, which is a more modern word than the later to describe gaming magical effects. Will this be hip and Kool to the newer gamer, we will not know, yet trends often ebb and flow, "yet they morph as well", into pop-culture of the times which has proven more successful. It's knowing what that modern pop-culture now sees as hip which holds the key to improvement. Sometimes what terms have not been used, such as when wizardry changed to alchemy in gaming popularity, now we have Astrology as an example of a name which disturbs us to use. Cabalist terms also have been coming back into gaming to replace the term alchemy, because it has been fading from the modern pop-culture of gaming. We seem to be at the end of a dictionary of names that have been used and no longer hip, unless we deepen the Cabal to better frame our Cabalists NPC's world. If this is an avenue to pursue, then we need to embrace the terms of astrology which are of the Cabalist nature within that real world history.



By replacing the Hebrew with the Runic and replacing the Earth's planets with the those of our game and replacing the names of the paths with names from our own quest's paths... by doing all of this we become unique as our skills do have trees and not circles, which are an old relic from an extreme many of past games.

Stepping into something old and familiar such as circles feels comfortable, yet that comfort comes from ourselves being a bunch of old people bringing old ideas with us, which does not have anything striking to interest anything but the fandom of other games which are similar. Currently our own producers can't use the word astrology alone in a sentence, "because they wish to seem smart" and not have to argue whether they actually believe in astrology in their real lives. This is extremely similar to those old people who called D&D a game of the devil. The defense of those games was what caused those game's increased popularity. Now we find ourselves on the other side of that same coin, where we denounce what we are creating in refusing to stand by it's actual description. The D&D became the normal and institutional which is now not in any way controversial. We now stand next to it as if it is now the new church calling all else the devil.

"Controversy sells games and is the new normal way to advertise and make popular anything". One look at the USA's current rise to fame of 2 controversial personas, instead of those that made us more comfortable and made more sense to fill the mission or office. We here now within our game reject anything controversial, which only adds to the yawn of the world's gamers when hearing about our product, because it's just like other games... unless we embrace it's controversial Cabalists and their association with the planets in our astrology.

When our Richard Garriott was his most famous and successful, he wore his medieval cloths, held magical demonic parties and had us all cutting up body parts in a game with pentagrams and devil like monsters, which were all controversial things of their time. Now we reject what is controversial which I will never understand why we do it, other than having become a cult of the greater world, where change is rejected from anything we have come to know as comfortable.

Therefore, the consideration of cutting our ties with comforting things such as astronomy being used over astrology and magic circles over Cabalist trees.
Magic circles & Astronomy = old and lame as a selling point of advertising impact of our game.
Cabalist Trees and Astrology = controversial and therefore more attractive for a more talked about game where there's actually something new.

There's allot of old people around here who are stuck in their ways, just like those that called D&D a devil's game back when it was controversial.
~Time Lord~