# What is arcane magic?



## Flobby (Nov 4, 2010)

Maybe a silly question but what the heck is arcane magic?
Other types of magic/powers/whatever make sense --
divine/primal magic can be explained by gods and spirits...
psionics can be explained by latent powers of the brain...

So what is arcane magic then? How to make sense out of a spell? Or do I just have too much free time?...


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 4, 2010)

The way I see it is that arcane magic is kind of like science.

Its practitioners have, by research or force of will, been able to figure out certain things about the way the (magical) universe works, and have applied that knowledge to create effects called spells.

Because they are not gods who created the (magical) universe or granted power by the gods through extreme devotion, their spells are not as efficient, and thus often require somatic components.

Divine casters have been given driving lessons and the keys to the car...arcane casters popped the ignition and hotwired it.


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## prosfilaes (Nov 4, 2010)

Words have power. So do symbols. You invoke the right words, you can make people feel like they've been slapped in the face. Yell fire in a crowded theater, you can kill a few people. You paint the right symbols on the ground, you can bring lines of cars to a screeching halt. 

In a word where some sort of hermetic-style magic works, this is not merely something that affect people; these things affect the world. Name fire properly and you can summon it. Draw the right symbol on the ground, and you can bring everything to a forcible halt.

Authentic Thaumaturgy: The Laws of Magic is a chapter from Authentic Thaumaturgy, an RPG supplement by Isaac Bonewits, including the rules for "real" magic. Bonewits really believes it; you don't have to, but it is a view as to how real people believe magic works, filtered for reading by roleplayers.


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## cavalier973 (Nov 4, 2010)

I highly recommend Jim Butcher's _The Dresden Files_, the first book is _Storm Front_.  It will give you an idea of how arcane magic would work if it were real.


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## Jhaelen (Nov 4, 2010)

Flobby said:


> Maybe a silly question but what the heck is arcane magic?
> Other types of magic/powers/whatever make sense --
> divine/primal magic can be explained by gods and spirits...
> psionics can be explained by latent powers of the brain...
> ...



I've always adopted the Rolemaster view for D&D. Rolemaster divides magic into three realms: Channeling, Essence, and Mentalism.
- Channeling uses the power of a deity or some other divine or external agency
- Mentalism uses the power within the spell user himself
- Essence uses the power of the surrounding nature

Channeling = D&D's Divine/Primal
Mentalism = D&D's Psionics
Essence = D&D's Arcane

The source of arcane magic is most obvious in the Dark Sun setting: Unless you're careful you destroy (plant) life surrounding you when drawing the power required for a spell.


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## Chrono22 (Nov 4, 2010)

Some people go with the "arcane magic as science" view. It never made much sense to me, but I guess the reasoning was that magic and science become indistinguishable after a certain point.

I ascribe to the view that arcane magic users are actually tearing away sections of reality every time they cast. See, the foundation upon which reality rests isn't as solid as most people would hope. It is held in balance by elemental forces, ancient laws, and the ignorance of the common man. Far realms beyond the ken of understanding (non)exist outside the laws of time and causality. In those (non)places, the thoughts, will and convictions of a being manifest power. Arcane casters punch a hole in reality, and through that hole are able to manifest their will. In this way, the ravaged physical laws around them are forced into subservience.
This is not without its own costs. Excessive use of magic has caused irreparable damage to the planes. In several instances, the very integrity of reality itself has been jeopardized.


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## TheClone (Nov 4, 2010)

Arcane magic is the DM's joker to any situation. Want to have something strange, something cool or anything else? Make it magic!

The ingame explanation is science-based most of the time. As the average guy is unable to understand what science is doing so is the average fantasy guy unable to understand magic. But both are working.


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## Merkuri (Nov 4, 2010)

Chrono22 said:


> Some people go with the "arcane magic as science" view. It never made much sense to me, but I guess the reasoning was that magic and science become indistinguishable after a certain point.




I see the connection.  Science can look like magic to people who aren't familiar with it.  Wizards are often portrayed as people who study long and hard to learn their trade (like scientists).  Supposedly they know the laws of the universe so well that they can bend and break them (like scientists seem to do sometimes).  They employ ancient languages in their work (like scientists).  They use lots of books (like scientists).


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## Saeviomagy (Nov 4, 2010)

The entire world is like the astral chaos: shapeable by thought.

The world only exists because people believe that it does, and it only behaves how it does because people believe.

And mages have convinced people that muttering obscure words and making arcane gestures makes the world behave differently... and since those people believe, it does.

Or, you know, whatever floats your boat. The FR version is basically "the gods make it work".


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## steeldragons (Nov 4, 2010)

Here's some snippets from how I define it on my world of Orea.

I'll be updating the thread, http://www.enworld.org/forum/plots-places/284160-orea-world-its-people.html with more specifics on the magic of that world later today if anyone wants to check it.

But specifically for "Arcane" magic here's what I have:

"Magic on the world of Orea is a form of all pervading energy that is  able to be harnessed and controlled to various effect in any number of  ways. The sources of magic on Orea are classified by the sages of Flin  into: _*Arcane*_ -the magic of wizards gained through study, practice and research, _*Divine*_ -the magic of priests and paladins gained through meditation, prayer and the divine favor of their respective deity, and _*Natural*_  (also called "Primal") -the magic of the druids and other classes and  creatures (like shamans, the Sorarynae, and the natural abilities of the  zepharim) gained through ancient teaching/practices, innate ability  and/or communion with the ambient energies of the cosmos."

and...

"*[SIZE=+1]Arcane Magic[/SIZE]*, also call Arcanum, is the  magic of study. The magic of wizards and sorcerers. The energy of Arcane  magic flows through the whole of the realm, like air. It is  self-perpetuating and replenishing, the energy is "built in" to the  world of Orea itself. These energies are capable of being harnessed  through spells and rituals."

To illustrate the distinction, this excerpt from the section on Natural Magic.

"[SIZE=+1]Natural (or Cosmic or Universal or Primal) Magic[/SIZE]  is the primordial power of the world of Orea itself. The residual  energies of the entities Ahl and Zho (who created the world and heavens  and then departed them and their creations (dragons and titans). If  arcane magic is an energy that flows throughout Orea like air, and  divine magic is bits of essence of the gods, then Natural or Cosmic  magic is more like a radiation that emanates from, with and through  everything, everyone, everywhere.  "

--Steel Dragons


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## Umbran (Nov 4, 2010)

the game's arcane magic is a (very, very) loose interpretation and amalgam of the magical traditions of late Middle-Ages and Renaissance Europe, and a lot of fantasy.  

Very broadly, there's magical energy loose in the universe that can be tapped and channled, if you have the right words, symbols, formulae, and state of mind.


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## Dausuul (Nov 4, 2010)

Flobby said:


> Maybe a silly question but what the heck is arcane magic?
> Other types of magic/powers/whatever make sense --
> divine/primal magic can be explained by gods and spirits...
> psionics can be explained by latent powers of the brain...
> ...




For me, the answer varies depending on the campaign I'm running.

Typically, I view arcane magic in one of two ways. One, which might be called "wizard magic," is that it's a kind of science. The arcanist has learned through painstaking study to use spoken words, written symbols, gestures, and material components to shape the universe. This is probably closest to the traditional D&D view.

The other view, "warlock magic," is that arcanists gain their powers from extraplanar beings such as demons and primordials. Using some combination of bribery (offering sacrifices or services in the material plane) and extortion (using a being's true name or other secrets to threaten it), the arcanist induces these beings to provide him or her with mystical abilities.


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## Flobby (Nov 4, 2010)

prosfilaes said:


> Words have power. So do symbols. You invoke the right words, you can make people feel like they've been slapped in the face. Yell fire in a crowded theater, you can kill a few people. You paint the right symbols on the ground, you can bring lines of cars to a screeching halt.
> 
> In a word where some sort of hermetic-style magic works, this is not merely something that affect people; these things affect the world. Name fire properly and you can summon it. Draw the right symbol on the ground, and you can bring everything to a forcible halt.
> 
> Authentic Thaumaturgy: The Laws of Magic is a chapter from Authentic Thaumaturgy, an RPG supplement by Isaac Bonewits, including the rules for "real" magic. Bonewits really believes it; you don't have to, but it is a view as to how real people believe magic works, filtered for reading by roleplayers.




I get that words do have power --- but invoking fire by naming it never made sense to me... With so many languages in the world what does it mean for something to have "true name"?

[MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION]
That kind of makes sense... that arcane magic is playing with the power of the gods/nature directly instead of being "granted" the power through worship or pact or whatever. But isn't doesn't a god have power because, well, they are a god? What is the "power of the gods"? If you are manipulating things mentally, doesn't that sound like psionics?


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## Flobby (Nov 4, 2010)

[MENTION=58197]Dausuul[/MENTION]
now warlock magic makes sense, its a lot divine magic but what are "magical words, components etc.?"


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## Flobby (Nov 4, 2010)

Chrono22 said:


> Some people go with the "arcane magic as science" view. It never made much sense to me, but I guess the reasoning was that magic and science become indistinguishable after a certain point.
> 
> I ascribe to the view that arcane magic users are actually tearing away sections of reality every time they cast. See, the foundation upon which reality rests isn't as solid as most people would hope. It is held in balance by elemental forces, ancient laws, and the ignorance of the common man. Far realms beyond the ken of understanding (non)exist outside the laws of time and causality. In those (non)places, the thoughts, will and convictions of a being manifest power. Arcane casters punch a hole in reality, and through that hole are able to manifest their will. In this way, the ravaged physical laws around them are forced into subservience.
> This is not without its own costs. Excessive use of magic has caused irreparable damage to the planes. In several instances, the very integrity of reality itself has been jeopardized.




Okay I can buy that, but then what does the mage do? Is he mentally accessing these forces?


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## Flobby (Nov 4, 2010)

Umbran said:


> the game's arcane magic is a (very, very) loose interpretation and amalgam of the magical traditions of late Middle-Ages and Renaissance Europe, and a lot of fantasy.
> 
> Very broadly, there's magical energy loose in the universe that can be tapped and channled, if you have the right words, symbols, formulae, and state of mind.




I know I'm saying the same thing over and over but what are "right words, symbols, formulae"?

I can see that arcane magic is like a science, and that you are directly accessing the power of the universe, but why would a special word or symbol help you in this? Why does gesture A + word B make a fireball (or whatever)?

And I know that its a game and all you need to say is "hey its magic!" 
I just got to thinking if magic did really work, how would it work?


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## Dausuul (Nov 4, 2010)

Flobby said:


> [MENTION=58197]Dausuul[/MENTION]
> now warlock magic makes sense, its a lot divine magic but what are "magical words, components etc.?"




The main idea is that in the D&D world, certain symbols (written and spoken) are not just arbitrary labels invented by humans for describing reality; they _are_ reality. The true name of a thing is not just a descriptor, it is part of the essence of what that thing is. Therefore, if you know the true name, you have power over the thing.

Try this analogy: Knowing a true name is like having someone's DNA sequence. The DNA sequence is not, itself, a person. It's just data. But with the proper tools, you can do a lot with that data--you can determine the person's parentage, find out their susceptibility to many diseases, clone them, make gene therapies or biological weapons tailored to their physiology, et cetera.

An even better comparison might be the source code of software. The source code is not itself software--you can't just dump a bunch of C++ files on your computer and execute them--but it contains the essential definition of what the software is. Given the right development environment, you can use the source code to replicate and change the software in fundamental ways.

As for how the sulfur and bat guano and other such implements factor into it... it's part of the "physics" of symbol-based magic. In some highly technical way that would likely take years of studying arcane theory to fully understand, these tools allow you to put true names to use, in the same way that the equipment in a genetics lab allows a geneticist to use a DNA sequence, or a development environment allows a software developer to use source code.

(I will add that I'm not a huge fan of magic-as-science, and I prefer arcane magic to be primarily "warlock magic" with just a sprinkling of "wizard magic" elements. But this is how I see "wizard magic" working.)


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## NichG (Nov 4, 2010)

If you consider an animistic world, then the symbols/words/etc would be the language of the spirits of nature, or if not a proper language then at least things that they respond to in a predictable way, like a dog can have a trained response. Or they're the words of a compact between the caster and the local spirits. Of course, Spirit Shaman takes up that idea somewhat.

I ran a campaign once where the entire campaign world was the dream of an entity outside reality (and this in fact wrapped around so that every world was the dream of someone in the next world, until it came back to the first, so if any of them 'woke up' the whole thing falls apart). It didn't highlight much, but there was a kind of magic you could do by knowing symbols or imagery that was meaningful to the dreamer, and by invoking those you could cause the dream to go in different directions. 

In that setting there was also standard D&D magic, based on the idea that the dreamer was having a dream about a world where saying certain words or writing certain symbols created magic, and so it was so. 

So there are a number of ways to go with a behind-the-scenes take on arcane magic.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 4, 2010)

> That kind of makes sense... that arcane magic is playing with the power of the gods/nature directly instead of being "granted" the power through worship or pact or whatever. But isn't doesn't a god have power because, well, they are a god? What is the "power of the gods"? If you are manipulating things mentally, doesn't that sound like psionics?




Yes, gods have power because they're gods, some of which they loan to their believers. That magic is part of their innate nature.

Psionics is, in some ways, a halfway point between divine and arcane, and as such, has features of both.


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## prosfilaes (Nov 4, 2010)

Flobby said:


> Why does gesture A + word B make a fireball (or whatever)?




Why does hitting two pieces of special metal together cause them to explode with enough power to level a city? It's part of the special properties of uranium, but why? If someone grew up in my culture, but didn't have high school chemistry or physics, that could be a very long complex discussion. (And it would take years of study to actually understand why you can do this with uranium and not radium.) If someone who grew up in the Forgotten Realms asked that question, I think it would be an exercise in futility to try and explain it. The list of concepts they'd have to internalize before understanding it, like atoms and the conservation of energy, is just too long and too alien.

Correspondingly, even if a wizard was here and willing to explain it, I think it would be an exercise in futility. Ultimately, that's the way it works, and if it were real, there would probably be some deep rules underlying it, but we'd have a hell of a time getting them through our heads.


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## prosfilaes (Nov 4, 2010)

Flobby said:


> With so many languages in the world what does it mean for something to have "true name"?




It's the name that has power. It's probably be taboo, since you don't want to casually invoke it, and it's probably nontrivial; fire probably wouldn't be faɪɚ, and if it were, faɪə or faɪəɹ wouldn't be good enough. ʙ̤ɴ̥ɶ̃ːʙˤɴ̰ːɶ̃ˑ is more likely and heaven help you if you underround a vowel or slightly palatalize the wrong consonant or hold something for too long or too short.



> If you are manipulating things mentally, doesn't that sound like psionics?



But psionics is a fancy 19th/20th century term for magic that sounds more scientific.


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## Corathon (Nov 4, 2010)

IMC, magic is the process of drawing substances, energies, or influences from other planes. In a D&D world the barriers between planes can be (temporarily) opened just by achieving certain mental states. Spells are just recipes for achieving the right mental state. The words, gestures. material components, etc aren't strictly necessary, they are just aids to getting to the right mental state. Wizards don't know this, believing the trappings to be necessities.


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## Merkuri (Nov 4, 2010)

Flobby said:


> And I know that its a game and all you need to say is "hey its magic!"
> I just got to thinking if magic did really work, how would it work?




If magic did work, it would be science.

I'm serious.  If you explain magic too much then it just becomes another science like physics or quantum mechanics.  

I once tried to come up with a whole explanation of what sort of energy magic was and how it could be channeled through things, and why certain things had certain effects, and I realized that it ceased to be wondrous.  It ceased to be magical.


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## Chrono22 (Nov 5, 2010)

Flobby said:


> Okay I can buy that, but then what does the mage do? Is he mentally accessing these forces?



Sort of. Imagine the reality of the multiverse as being a peaceful island in the eye of a massive storm. Causality and the flow of time allow for a sequences of events to transpire, so that paradoxes aren't constantly breaking things. The inner planes provide a tentative balance, so that the prime is composed of somewhat equal quanitities of elements. Some ancient laws afford the gods divine power, by allowing them to tap into the latent and subconcious beliefs of their followers. Primordial gods, by comparison, are able to draw power by epitomizing an element or ideal. But arcane magic... is a force that transcends reality.
Every mind is a gate to the unreal. The power of an idea is immeasurable- ideas can raise up great empires, and cast them into ruin. Thought can give rise to form, and form to function. Anyone can manifest their imaginings in the real world... but arcane casters cheat at it. They don't form their ideas out of existing materials. Instead, they break down the barrier between the real and unreal by bringing their force of will, their conviction, and their belief to bear against the passive laws of reality.

On a fundamental level, the reality of the D&D multiverse is not the same as our own. It does not so solidly rest in the real- that magic exists at all, is proof of that. If its foundations, so to speak, were more secure magic would be weaker, or it might cease to exist altogether.


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## Dausuul (Nov 5, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> If magic did work, it would be science.
> 
> I'm serious.  If you explain magic too much then it just becomes another science like physics or quantum mechanics.




Y'know, I sort of agree with this and sort of don't. Yes, explaining the magic takes away much of the mystery. But part of the reason it becomes science-like is that the people devising the explanations are steeped in a scientific worldview and bring in all kinds of assumptions from that worldview without realizing it.

Typical science-driven assumptions (all of which can be seen at work in the D&D rules) include:

Magic is a discrete force (often described as "magical energy"). The world works according to 21st-century scientific principles except where operated on by this force. Accordingly, magic can be dispelled, stored, detected, and so forth.
Magic is predictable. If you perform a spell the same way, you get the same result every time. It never works in unexpected ways; if you cast _Kill Toads 10' Radius_, it will not cause a man with the nickname of Toad to drop dead.
Magic is a passive, neutral tool. It can be used for any purpose with equal ease, and the act of wielding it does not affect the wielder. A necromancer can raise an army of skeletons and use them to till the fields and save puppies from burning buildings, and this will work out just fine--the necromancer will not be slowly twisted toward evil, the skeletons will not spread a pall of death across the land, no dark and malevolent powers will be strengthened by the necromancer's actions... in short, the only reason people don't do this all the time is that undead are yicky.
These assumptions are convenient for an RPG designer, since they make it possible to turn magic into a set of self-contained rules packages that don't have to be integrated with anything else and don't require a lot of DM adjudication. It's hard to imagine D&D without them. But they severely limit how "magical" magic can be.

(See Chrono22's post above for a good example of magic that doesn't turn into "just science" when explained.)


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## beepeearr (Nov 5, 2010)

For my campaign, I tie each of the various magic power sources to different planes.

Shadow magic would tie to the Shadowfell, plane of shadows
Divine to the Astral sea and the Gods who make their home there
Primal to spirits of the World, or prime material plane.
Elemental to the elemental chaos
Arcane is tied to the Feywild, where the Shadowfell is powered by death and shadow (negative energy), Arcane magic is vibrant and full of life positive energy).  Arcane casters each find different ways to harness this raw and chaotic energy.  Wizards use ancient formulas and rituals.  Warlocks make deals with others who can show them the way.  sorcerers just have an innate talent for bending it to their will.  Bards find tunes and melodies that lead the raw magic to the form they wish it to take (think pied pipers, but magic instead of rats and children).

Oh and Psionics ties into the Far Realm, and the madness therein, using focus and control, and using their own bodies to channel reality altering madness.


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## prosfilaes (Nov 5, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> If magic did work, it would be science.
> 
> I'm serious.  If you explain magic too much then it just becomes another science like physics or quantum mechanics.
> 
> I once tried to come up with a whole explanation of what sort of energy magic was and how it could be channeled through things, and why certain things had certain effects, and I realized that it ceased to be wondrous.  It ceased to be magical.




I see the point, but I note that you use the word energy, which is potent with scientific overtones. Part of this is D&D magic. In Diane Duane's "So You Want to be a Wizard" series, the magic varies on this axis, but at some points it's about talking to things; if you want a staircase made out of air, part of it is reminding that air of when it was out in cold space frozen into comets, and encouraging it to revert to that for a moment. If you want to form a gate between your fridge and someone else's to grab lunch, part of it is calming the ruffled feathers of your fridge that's upset because it's empty. You can't effectively use magic against cancer, because cancer is living cells, and life wants to live, and all the power in the world isn't going to talk a bunch of cancer cells down.

Or another example goes back to modern magic theory. If you had to invoke the laws of contagion and similarity, it wouldn't seem as scientific. Instead of pointing your <s>gun</s> wand at someone and <s>pulling the trigger</s> saying the command word to hurt them, if you had to have some piece of them, or something they wore or even just a doll that bore some similarity to them to affect them, it wouldn't feel nearly as magical. The voodoo doll theory, in crude layman's terms.


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## pawsplay (Nov 5, 2010)

In Dragonlance, wizardry is a form of divine magic.
In the Elric stories, arcane magic is raw chaos, shaped by the faintest influence of Order, giving it form.
In Vance's Dying Earth, it is a science of psychicism that bends space and time and reaches out to mysterious entities, and can defy even death simply through the mad convictions of a wizard.
To Shakespeare, it was an act of hubris, using wisdom to command spirits with an authority properly belonging only to God, or best left in the hands of the heaven-forsaken fairies.


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## Merkuri (Nov 5, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Magic is predictable. If you perform a spell the same way, you get the same result every time. It never works in unexpected ways; if you cast _Kill Toads 10' Radius_, it will not cause a man with the nickname of Toad to drop dead.




This is when magic turns to science for me.  If action A plus words B always equal effect C then it's just another facet of the universe that can be studied using the scientific method.  At that point, magic is no longer _super_natural, it's just natural.  

Don't forget that people used to believe that magic was responsible for a lot of the things we understand today as being the predictable result of physics, or chemistry, or biology.  And a lot of what we do today would look like magic to someone from an older time period, or a very isolated part of the world.

Once you understand why something works, the magic is gone.


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## pawsplay (Nov 5, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> If magic did work, it would be science.




Pretty much. Wizardry would be impossible if it didn't have some science to it, some predictability. 

"Well, let's see, last week when I did this, I cast a fireball. Yesterday, nothing happened. And just now, I invented Gibralter. Hmm. Magic seems a lot less useful than I thought it would be."


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## tuxgeo (Nov 6, 2010)

Flobby said:


> Maybe a silly question but what the heck is arcane magic?
> Other types of magic/powers/whatever make sense --
> divine/primal magic can be explained by gods and spirits...
> psionics can be explained by latent powers of the brain...
> ...




First of all, you simply _don't_ "make sense out of a spell" -- in fact, wizards do that all the time: they _use_ arcane magic without making sense out of it. 

In fact, that's the main part of what makes arcane magic be "arcane" in the first place: nobody who is living (or undead) really understands it deeply. 

This is because arcane magic is so recondite that even when you study it for decades, some of the implications continue to elude you. This affects all mortals, and perhaps even some of the gods (to some extent). (Not that the gods would ever admit to not understanding it; but if they didn't understand it, they therefore wouldn't know that they didn't understand it.)

It's somewhat related to "arc," as in the "arc of the covenant," or "Noah's Arc": an "arc" is a container for holding something. Arcane magic, then: it is as though the magic is still inside a container, safe from your prying eyes, and from everybody else's prying eyes: recondite enough that nobody living (or undead) ever gets to see the whole truth of it.

Aside from that, arcane magic deals with (but is not identical to) the figurative chains and levers and pulleys and counterweights that make up the way the world works. Using arcane magic, therefore, is "messing with the works"; and if you do it wrongly, the Law of Unintended Consequences will apply grievously -- if not to you, then to some other poor schmuck (or some billions of) somewhere else.

That is one of the reasons for people's long-abiding mistrust of arcane magic: too much can go wrong. Divine magic, on the other hand, produces fewer unintended consequences, because the gods are better at using the raw energies and correspondences of the multiverse than lesser beings are.


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## Merkuri (Nov 6, 2010)

tuxgeo said:


> Aside from that, arcane magic deals with (but is not identical to) the figurative chains and levers and pulleys and counterweights that make up the way the world works. Using arcane magic, therefore, is "messing with the works"; and if you do it wrongly, the Law of Unintended Consequences will apply grievously -- if not to you, then to some other poor schmuck (or some billions of) somewhere else.




I like that metaphor.  It's like the universe is a car and an arcane wizard is someone who reaches under the steering wheel, yanks out some wires, and starts it without the key.  Wizards are reality hackers.


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## prosfilaes (Nov 6, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> This is when magic turns to science for me.  If action A plus words B always equal effect C then it's just another facet of the universe that can be studied using the scientific method.  At that point, magic is no longer _super_natural, it's just natural.
> [...]
> 
> Once you understand why something works, the magic is gone.




On one hand, if magic is cajoling the spirits that inhabit everything to do your bidding, I fail to see how it turns into science. Or if, as in Mage, magic is imposing your willing on consensual reality. If you drop the scientific aspects, it won't see so scientific.

On the other, the Power Gamer's 3.5 Wizard Strategy Guide reminds us that an empowered burning hands, at caster level 5, does an average of 26.25 HP damage, but a maximized burning hands takes caster 7 and does only 30 HP damage. Ooh, mysterious and magical! D&D, and most other RPG magical systems, don't come off as very wondrous in the first place.


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## Merkuri (Nov 6, 2010)

prosfilaes said:


> On one hand, if magic is cajoling the spirits that inhabit everything to do your bidding, I fail to see how it turns into science. Or if, as in Mage, magic is imposing your willing on consensual reality. If you drop the scientific aspects, it won't see so scientific.




It really depends on how much detail you get into.  Just saying, "Magic is talking to the spirits that inhabit everything," isn't very sciency, true, but if you start detailing the types of spirits, what offerings and words you need to cajole each one, and what you get when you cajole them, how is that any different than identifying different elements in the periodic table?

Science is the act of discovering and measuring things.  If you can count it, measure it, or weigh it, then it's science.

Magic is often defined as _super_natural, outside of the laws of nature.  But if there's a spirit that inhabits everything, and that spirit can be enticed to obey your wishes, what makes that outside the laws of nature?  Don't the laws of nature include that spirit?  I mean, the spirit is part of the world, after all.

I guess I'm just saying that if you think about magic too hard you realize it's not magic, it's just the way the world works.



prosfilaes said:


> Ooh, mysterious and magical! D&D, and most other RPG magical systems, don't come off as very wondrous in the first place.




Did anyone ever say that they did? 

I do, however, like some concepts I've heard about D&D magic, like the fact that the gestures and words used to cast a spell may change each time you cast it, or that the words written on a magical scroll are unreadable due to their very nature, and you don't so much read it as study it carefully to figure out what spell is written on it.  Things that make magic unpredictable make it more mysterious.

At the same time, D&D is a game, and games have rules, so by definition magic used in D&D must have rules.  That's just a fact of life.


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## prosfilaes (Nov 6, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> It really depends on how much detail you get into.  Just saying, "Magic is talking to the spirits that inhabit everything," isn't very sciency, true, but if you start detailing the types of spirits, what offerings and words you need to cajole each one, and what you get when you cajole them, how is that any different than identifying different elements in the periodic table?




But what says you can formulate that way? In the real world, how do you cajole a human, and what can she give you? As anyone can tell you, that depends on the person--and even breaking them down into groups doesn't help much--and all sorts of social cues, right on down to unmeasurables as whether she got up on the wrong side of the bed.



> Science is the act of discovering and measuring things.  If you can count it, measure it, or weigh it, then it's science.




But there's a reason physics is the archetypical science, and economics is called the _dismal_ science. Some things aren't quantified and mathematically processed nearly as easy as others. 



> Magic is often defined as _super_natural, outside of the laws of nature.  But if there's a spirit that inhabits everything, and that spirit can be enticed to obey your wishes, what makes that outside the laws of nature?  Don't the laws of nature include that spirit?  I mean, the spirit is part of the world, after all.




If you perceive the world through the lens of science, then of course everything falls under that definition. I'm sure most real world animists would object to that definition; the spirit world is an inherent part of nature to them.


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## Sorrowdusk (Nov 6, 2010)

Flobby said:


> I know I'm saying the same thing over and over but what are "right words, symbols, formulae"?
> 
> I can see that arcane magic is like a science, and that you are directly accessing the power of the universe, but why would a special word or symbol help you in this? Why does gesture A + word B make a fireball (or whatever)?
> 
> ...




Well maybe I'm wrong here for taking it into an Anime/Manga example; but in Full Metal Alchemist everything they do with Circles to most common people LOOKS like magic, but they repeatedly remind lay people that it is a science. (Even though it basically is Functional Magic.)

Whether using Alchemy or Alkehesty in the setting, it involves channeling energy and shaping or directing from the earth or from a source and using the circle to (a symbol) that can be simply drawn in chalk, blood, or written on the body in tattoo or even carved/scratched into material and using that to change something. Activating the circle involves clapping your hands once, and then making physical contact with it. The EXACT details of how a circle works or what elements of the design do what is never actually discussed, but some symbology such as specifc symbols for the sun, god, and other things have ocassionally come up.

Still, it obeys laws of conservation/mass densisty unless you use human souls which lets you appear to make something 'out of nothing' or transmute any material into ANY other material, not just similar ones. Those who have performef the hubris of human transmutation have seen "Truth" -and though they lose a part of their body in the process, they gain an almost "Arcane" or intrinsic, unexpressable secret knowledge that lets them perform Alchemy without a circle simply by clapping their hands and using their force of will. Some circles have specific purposes, but many transmutations can be performed with just one so it seems to me that some "mental" effort is still involved.

In Naruto the source of power for "ninja magic" or "jutsu" is personal, bodily and spiritual "chakra". The hand seals/signs they use shape and concentrate that energy in a specific way to result in a specific effect. Also in Naruto are Blood Seals which are tattooed on the body or written on Scrolls, and then marked with blood, and activated with further hand seals.

Basically in similar fashion, this is why I think in fantasy settings, why symbols and gestures function in magic, it involves drawing energy into your body or into drawings and shaping/directing it with either on or both. IIRC in Complete Arcane there is a chapter whose opening pictures show some arcane somatic components, and they make me think of Naruto's hand seals.

EDIT:
My bad, its in Spell Compendium; Spell Lists (Part 2). My table biched at me once when I was playing my sorc and randomly did a fast string of Naruto Seals (I'm a nerd) -but THATS what they look like to me! Albeit to be fair, somatic gestures probably involve a fair amount of arm waving since armor gets in the way. But the fact you can IDENTIFY a spell by its somatic compants obviously means that each spell has its own which MAY be TOTALLY UNIQUE to that spell, or else as in Naruto, there is a "set" gestures, used in varying combinations.

On a side note for those of you who watch Last Airbender series, all their martial arts moves in reguards to "bending" elements are basically full body somatic gestures.

It should also be NOTED that Arcane Verbal Components (its mentioned SOMEWHERE; IDR) that they are NOT and are NEVER mistaken for intelligble speech. These sounds essentially do the same thing as somatic components (In contrast, at least IMC divine spells may invoke prayers in various languages). I will also call attention to various mythology where god or gods "spoke" the universe into existence. In this case I would look at the universe as a kind of computer perhaps, in which case a special word or command might exist (although simply knowlede of the word/sound is probably not enough by itself, there's probably a great deal of mental effort involved, and high ability scores that normal Farmer Joe doesnt have).

Focus components aid in focusing and channeling arcane power, while material components are consumed and aid in materializing the effect.


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## cattoy (Nov 6, 2010)

In the context of D&D, Arcane Magic is:

A power that gradually saps your physical life force in exchange for a tappable reserve of 'energy' that can be used to bend the laws of physics over a table like a five copper whore.

Entirely lacking in moral structure or direction. Divine magic cares greatly what you do with it, arcane magic - not so much. The only real goal in learning arcane magic is using it to get better at it.

The ultimate measure of power at the high end. An epic wizard can change the course of rivers, raise or lower mountains, alter the world. An epic fighter can hit things really hard. (and typically relies heavily on equipment enchanted by, you guessed it, a wizard)


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## Dausuul (Nov 7, 2010)

prosfilaes said:


> But what says you can formulate that way? In the real world, how do you cajole a human, and what can she give you? As anyone can tell you, that depends on the person--and even breaking them down into groups doesn't help much--and all sorts of social cues, right on down to unmeasurables as whether she got up on the wrong side of the bed.




I must spread some XP around before giving it to prosfilaes again. Despite what purveyors of books like "The Rules" and "The Game" would have you believe, human interaction is not reducible to a simple set of rules, and there's no reason to believe that interacting with arcane spirits would be any less complex.


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## Sorrowdusk (Nov 7, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> I must spread some XP around before giving it to prosfilaes again. Despite what purveyors of books like "The Rules" and "The Game" would have you believe, human interaction is not reducible to a simple set of rules, and there's no reason to believe that interacting with arcane spirits would be any less complex.




But the whole cajoling spirits thing sounds more like a Druid Deal by d&d standards, doesnt it?


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## Dausuul (Nov 7, 2010)

Sorrowdusk said:


> But the whole cajoling spirits thing sounds more like a Druid Deal by d&d standards, doesnt it?




Depends on the spirit in question. Primal spirit of the oak tree--yeah, that's a druid thing. Orcus, Demon Prince of Undeath--not so much.


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## Flobby (Nov 7, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Depends on the spirit in question. Primal spirit of the oak tree--yeah, that's a druid thing. Orcus, Demon Prince of Undeath--not so much.




I was going to say the same thing as Sorrowdusk there. When you are talking about working with spirits of any kind (in D&D) as a power source, wouldn't that be divine or primal magic?


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## Flobby (Nov 7, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> The main idea is that in the D&D world, certain symbols (written and spoken) are not just arbitrary labels invented by humans for describing reality; they _are_ reality. The true name of a thing is not just a descriptor, it is part of the essence of what that thing is. Therefore, if you know the true name, you have power over the thing.
> 
> Try this analogy: Knowing a true name is like having someone's DNA sequence. The DNA sequence is not, itself, a person. It's just data. But with the proper tools, you can do a lot with that data--you can determine the person's parentage, find out their susceptibility to many diseases, clone them, make gene therapies or biological weapons tailored to their physiology, et cetera.
> 
> ...




But then what is a true name? The language of the gods?


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## Flobby (Nov 7, 2010)

NichG said:


> If you consider an animistic world, then the symbols/words/etc would be the language of the spirits of nature, or if not a proper language then at least things that they respond to in a predictable way, like a dog can have a trained response. Or they're the words of a compact between the caster and the local spirits. Of course, Spirit Shaman takes up that idea somewhat.




I finally figured out how to multi-quote!

i think that would be primal or divine magic wouldn't it?



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Yes, gods have power because they're gods, some of which they loan to their believers. That magic is part of their innate nature.
> 
> Psionics is, in some ways, a halfway point between divine and arcane, and as such, has features of both.




How so?



prosfilaes said:


> Why does hitting two pieces of special metal together cause them to explode with enough power to level a city? It's part of the special properties of uranium, but why? If someone grew up in my culture, but didn't have high school chemistry or physics, that could be a very long complex discussion. (And it would take years of study to actually understand why you can do this with uranium and not radium.) If someone who grew up in the Forgotten Realms asked that question, I think it would be an exercise in futility to try and explain it. The list of concepts they'd have to internalize before understanding it, like atoms and the conservation of energy, is just too long and too alien.
> 
> Correspondingly, even if a wizard was here and willing to explain it, I think it would be an exercise in futility. Ultimately, that's the way it works, and if it were real, there would probably be some deep rules underlying it, but we'd have a hell of a time getting them through our heads.




I like that explanation best so far I think...



prosfilaes said:


> It's the name that has power. It's probably be taboo, since you don't want to casually invoke it, and it's probably nontrivial; fire probably wouldn't be faɪɚ, and if it were, faɪə or faɪəɹ wouldn't be good enough. ʙ̤ɴ̥ɶ̃ːʙˤɴ̰ːɶ̃ˑ is more likely and heaven help you if you underround a vowel or slightly palatalize the wrong consonant or hold something for too long or too short.
> 
> But psionics is a fancy 19th/20th century term for magic that sounds more scientific.




But I was asking what arcane magic would be IF  psionics as a separate power source also existed.




Merkuri said:


> If magic did work, it would be science.
> 
> I'm serious.  If you explain magic too much then it just becomes another science like physics or quantum mechanics.
> 
> I once tried to come up with a whole explanation of what sort of energy magic was and how it could be channeled through things, and why certain things had certain effects, and I realized that it ceased to be wondrous.  It ceased to be magical.




But whether it is wondrous or not is not the issue. The question was how would you explain it if it were real -- so you have make it into a science to some extent.


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## prosfilaes (Nov 7, 2010)

Flobby said:


> I was going to say the same thing as Sorrowdusk there. When you are talking about working with spirits of any kind (in D&D) as a power source, wouldn't that be divine or primal magic?




I don't speak D&D 4, if that's what you're referring to. Certainly talking to spirits does not require invoking deities. "So you want to be a wizard" feels like arcane magic in many cases, but is done "in Life's name, and in Life's sake" and a wizard who can't bear the weight of the world on their shoulders loses their power. Harry Dresden, on the other hand, is pretty clearly arcane magic.

It wouldn't be that hard to justify arcane magic as talking to spirits, though some changes might be needed to be made for flavor.


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## Flobby (Nov 7, 2010)

prosfilaes said:


> I don't speak D&D 4, if that's what you're referring to. Certainly talking to spirits does not require invoking deities. "So you want to be a wizard" feels like arcane magic in many cases, but is done "in Life's name, and in Life's sake" and a wizard who can't bear the weight of the world on their shoulders loses their power. Harry Dresden, on the other hand, is pretty clearly arcane magic.
> 
> It wouldn't be that hard to justify arcane magic as talking to spirits, though some changes might be needed to be made for flavor.




Well not necessarily 4E, but my original question was (or at least want I MEANT to say if it wasn't clear) that assuming that there was 3 or 4 kinds of "magic" -- 

divine/animistic/primal/druidic -- where you get your power from gods or spirits.

psionics-- mental powers that can potentionaly be explained physiologicaly

arcane-- powers you get from directly manipulating reality with words/symbols/components

then how would you explain what arcane magic is? the first too make sense... but what are magic words?


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## questing gm (Nov 7, 2010)

The bendable laws of physics.


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## Merkuri (Nov 7, 2010)

Flobby said:


> But then what is a true name? The language of the gods?




"True names" or magical languages are often portrayed as being in the One True Language.

Think Tower of Babel.  It's a language so old that it was not invented - it just IS.  All other languages are derivations of the true language.  Mortal languages cannot compare to the descriptive power of the true language.

Because the language is a part of the universe it is connected to things deeper than ordinary words are.  The English word "fire" is just a bunch of sounds that someone put together to represent fire, but the True Language name for fire IS fire.


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## steeldragons (Nov 7, 2010)

Flobby said:


> Well not necessarily 4E, but my original question was (or at least want I MEANT to say if it wasn't clear) that assuming that there was 3 or 4 kinds of "magic" --
> 
> divine/animistic/primal/druidic -- where you get your power from gods or spirits.
> 
> ...




You did just answered yourself, didn't you?

Magic words are what you use to directly manipulate arcane magic to effect reality.

They are the words (and/or gestures, components, rituals and basic magic-working practices) that wizards spend years and years to learn and master.

I'm sorry if I'm being dense, but I've been following this thread and I _truly _don't get what you are not getting. You want someone to give you an exact definition for the undefinable?  You want a real answer for something, *in a fantasy game*, that is "unreal"?

There simply ARE no answers better than the metaphors and "fantastic" definitions people have already offered you. Pick one you like and roll with it. Ideally in a fantasy world, you should make up your OWN definition for whatever works for you.

What are the words? Some call the "magical alphabet" (in a D&D setting) "Arcanic" or "Arcana" or just the "language of magic." It is whatever you decide they are. What are the words in the Orcish tongue in the Forgotten Realms? What's the language of gold dragons in Eberron?  

Unless you want to sit down and write out your OWN magical alphabet, a magical syntax and grammatical spell structures to form an entire language (like Quenya or Klingon) and _then_ combinations for each spell effect I don't understand how you expect ANYone to be able to tell you "what the magic words are."

Good luck and happy gaming (and spellcasting).
--Steel Dragons


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## Flobby (Nov 8, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> "True names" or magical languages are often portrayed as being in the One True Language.
> 
> Think Tower of Babel.  It's a language so old that it was not invented - it just IS.  All other languages are derivations of the true language.  Mortal languages cannot compare to the descriptive power of the true language.
> 
> Because the language is a part of the universe it is connected to things deeper than ordinary words are.  The English word "fire" is just a bunch of sounds that someone put together to represent fire, but the True Language name for fire IS fire.




I guess that makes sense, we just have assume that there is a first language created by God/gods.


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## Flobby (Nov 8, 2010)

steeldragons said:


> You did just answered yourself, didn't you?
> 
> Magic words are what you use to directly manipulate arcane magic to effect reality.
> 
> ...




That's not what I meant. I wasn't asking what the magical alphabet was. What I didn't get was why a magical language made sense.
Okay, if arcane magic is based on language than that means there has to be a special magical language right? 
Many people suggested that arcane magic would be manipulating reality directly through special formula/words/and mental states, which i think makes sense. But for magical words and symbols to work it would mean that 
something like True Names existed, and my problem with that originally was that in the real world language is arbitrary, so equating a word with the essence of something seems so nonsensical. But I guess since it is a fantasy world we could say magic a like the First Language maybe created by or of the gods/primal entities whathaveyou... 

So I guess you can't start with the assumption that language is arbitrary, created by humans for arcane magic to be 'real.' Does that sound right?


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## Merkuri (Nov 8, 2010)

Flobby said:


> I guess that makes sense, we just have assume that there is a first language created by God/gods.




The language doesn't necessarily have to be created by anyone.  It could just be _there_.  It might be more like the words created everything, the words _are_ everything.

Imagine that you live inside a computer game.  If you learned to speak magical words of "code" you could change the world however you wanted, as long as you knew the right words.  In a way, all a computer game is is code.  This is the same sort of way that this magical language could BE the world.



Flobby said:


> So I guess you can't start with the assumption that language is arbitrary, created by humans for arcane magic to be 'real.' Does that sound right?




Exactly.  There are very few magic systems where the words used were invented by mortals.  Remember that ideas like this came from a time when people didn't realize where languages came from.  There are quite a few myths where language was handed down by gods.  

Also, at the same time most people couldn't read, and the idea that symbols on paper could hold meaning seemed a bit magical to them, so it was a short step from there to the idea that symbols on paper could be used to do magic.

I think this was the part where you and everybody else talking about languages were getting signals crossed.  I'm pretty sure we all assumed that magical languages were not the same as languages spoken by mortals.  Magical languages are something different.

Though the Dresden files take on using words in spells is a big different.  Let's see if I can explain it right... The words themselves don't have power, but they act to shield the caster from his own energies.  He needs to use words that he associates with the power, but he can't associate the words too strongly or the protection will be gone.  So an English caster doesn't want to say "fire" to cast a fire spell (he can, but it won't provide him much protection), but he can say "incendia" (Latin for "fire").  Most casters use archaic languages, like Latin or ancient Greek, but even gibberish will do, as long as you know what the made-up words mean.  I thought it was an interesting take on it when I read it.


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## ourchair (Nov 8, 2010)

I've noticed that the problem that most people (not myself) have with the idea that arcane magic is science is the fact that it's tangible representation within a fictional world, doesn't actually resemble anything scientific/empirical we know of.

And that's regardless of whether or not you subscribe to the idea that magic can at some point become indistinguishable from science and vice versa.

In any case, Edward Elric will always refer to his alchemy as a 'science' despite the fact that its physics are kind of wonky and involve conjuring melee weapons from the earth and Dresden Files shows a systematized body of knowledge that does things we can't conceive of.

But as far as I'm concerned the tangible manifestation of magic -- whether it's Dungeons & Dragons, Fullmetal Alchemist or Dresden Files -- is actually irrelevant as to whether or not it IS a science. What things look like IN the world are not necessarily the same as what they ARE. 

So, to my mind, if magic can be studied, analyzed and its effects reproducible and can be taught to others, then it IS a science. It does have laws and a degree of empiricism. Sure, it's not OUR science here where we live, but it's A science.


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## Dausuul (Nov 8, 2010)

Flobby said:


> I was going to say the same thing as Sorrowdusk there. When you are talking about working with spirits of any kind (in D&D) as a power source, wouldn't that be divine or primal magic?




Warlocks explicitly gain their power through bargains with spirits or other forces, and 3E and 4E have both identified them as arcane casters.

Gods and angels provide divine magic. Spirits of nature provide primal magic. D&D has never been very consistent on what kind of magic demons, devils, elementals, and other such beings provide. In 4E, for instance, Asmodeus is a deity with paladins and clerics; yet there are also warlocks who receive their power from the Nine Hells.



ourchair said:


> So, to my mind, if magic can be studied, analyzed and its effects reproducible and can be taught to others, then it IS a science. It does have laws and a degree of empiricism. Sure, it's not OUR science here where we live, but it's A science.




Well, there's the rub--are the effects reproducible? If, for instance, we're going with "warlock magic" (where magic comes from arcane spirits in one form or another), the effect depends on the intervention of a sentient being with its own free agency. You can offer the spirit things that it likes, and it will _probably_ respond favorably, but there's no guarantee--it might be in a bad mood that day, or dislike you personally, or have prior obligations, or any of a dozen other things which might or might not be enough to make it reject the offer.

Is that reproducible?

(In D&D, all this tends to be handwaved, mostly because it's a pain in the neck to create RPG rules for magic where the effects are not reproducible. Even divine magic, which certainly comes from the intervention of sentient beings, tends to gloss over the question of the god's willingness to intervene.)


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## prosfilaes (Nov 8, 2010)

ourchair said:


> So, to my mind, if magic can be studied, analyzed and its effects reproducible and can be taught to others, then it IS a science. It does have laws and a degree of empiricism. Sure, it's not OUR science here where we live, but it's A science.




That doesn't accord with the definition of science I'm familiar with, which label science as "the collective discipline of study or learning acquired through the scientific method". It's not the inherent nature of something, it's how humans treat it. 

To take up the example of True Names, it may well be beyond safe human study. Maybe sometimes someone mispronounces one and instead of doing nothing or wiping him from existence, it does something new (unrelated, as far as human minds can see, to what he was trying.) But that's chance; most study is done in ancient texts, recordings of the overheard words of the gods, or material Boccob handed us.


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## NichG (Nov 8, 2010)

On the subject of the language of magic, here's a story:

What if originally magic were something different? A primal magic based not on communication, words, phrases, etc, as those things did not exist in those times. First there was nothing. Then from the nothing came the first wills. These wills were aloof, apart from matter and even such things as life and death. Yet as time passed, these wills constructed concepts in their ponderings, concepts that gave rise to thought. This is where Psionics comes from - it is the power of will alone. 

These concept evolved and grew until came the concept of that which belonged to a will and that which was without. And so came into existence the separation between substance and mind. This is where Science comes from, the rules delineating the behavior of substance absent will.

Now from substance grew mockeries of the true wills of the universe - things of clay that lived and died, and thought small, isolated thoughts. The necessities of their existence, of life and death, passion and sorrow, gave rise to a new mode of being, that of emotion, or irrationality. It was a thought that was not thought as the ur-wills knew, and it had power in its own right, for it lent one strength to deny the bonds of substance in times of need or desire, to grasp a bit of that power that was held by those who envisioned the cosmos. Yet this wild power was uncontrolled, chaotic, and destructive. This was primal magic, the magic used innately by supernatural creatures.

There came a time when these early beings developed the means to communicate, to take their feelings and surround them in a bottle of words, so that they might be transmitted to each-other without the direct contact of minds that was the purview of the psions. And so words became a new vehicle, a new form of life, but one that was hollow without those who spoke them. As thoughts and emotions were linked to words, a melding occured between psionics and primal magic, the creation of something new, something whose power was that of context. This is arcane magic, and the language of magic has evolved ever-since. 

There is no one magical language, because for words while grammar gives structure, context is king. The training a wizard undergoes creates a set of links between the magical language they learn and the thoughts and emotions of their mind. These links lie deep below the surface of the wizard's consciousness, and tap into primal aspects of their being that have long-since been dormant. Study of magic opens up more possibilities, makes more links, and so the practitioner becomes able to create an increasing variety of effects. The study of another wizard's spellbook is the establishment of translation between one's own concept map and that of the author's, and so it is never an easy matter. Scrolls are words that have had their concepts bound into them, given small wills of their own - a wizard who studies a scroll to learn a spell allows those words to write themselves into their mental library.

If one makes a study of magic across many prime material worlds, one finds a hierarchy of these magical languages. It is possible to trace the evolution of the language of magic back in time, looking for places where the lexicons have small variations from eachother and reconstructing dead versions. This study leads one back to an ancient progenitor tongue, one that has wormed its way into every corner of the cosmos. Even more significantly, it is a language which every immortal supernatural creature is familiar with at some level, something from the times of their origins. And so it can bind them, its words recalling memories of that distant past. One who learns the intricacies of this lost language can bind and command such creatures, even to the point of influencing the first wills whose thoughts comprise the cosmos. This is true speech.

Divine magic is much simpler, and is somewhat newer in nature. With the development of wills made of substance, a vast number of wills were introduced to a cosmos that had previously known only a few. The thoughts of these wills were weak compared to the first ones, but they made up for that in number. With time, the power of these thoughts collected in commonalities, things that everyone at some level believed in. With time, people made their own names for these ideas, and thought of them as entities in their own right. And thus were born the gods and spirits. Divine casters tap into their power by establishing a relationship with them, and then using their own belief as a conduit. The words of divine spells are not part of a magical language, they are simply rituals of the caster's religion, things to focus their belief. Divine scrolls are different than arcane scrolls - their power is not that of words with a will of their own, but is instead contained within the ritual significance of the object. A divine scroll is made by performing the proper blessings and rituals. What the scroll says is established by the traditions of the deity it calls upon, but does not bear the scroll's actual function. This is why divine casters do not (generally) learn from scrolls - the blessed object has power, but the ritual text does not have meaning to a believer in a different deity.


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## Flobby (Nov 9, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> The language doesn't necessarily have to be created by anyone.  It could just be _there_.  It might be more like the words created everything, the words _are_ everything.
> 
> Imagine that you live inside a computer game.  If you learned to speak magical words of "code" you could change the world however you wanted, as long as you knew the right words.  In a way, all a computer game is is code.  This is the same sort of way that this magical language could BE the world.
> 
> ...




The Dresden files magic sounds really interesting. I've only seen the series, which doesn't go into too much detail on what magic is. So in Dresden files arcane magic comes from within?


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## Merkuri (Nov 9, 2010)

Flobby said:


> So in Dresden files arcane magic comes from within?




Kinda.  They explain it in bits and pieces across the series, and I've only read the first two books so far.  I get the picture that you're harnessing some sort of energy (whether it comes from yourself or from elsewhere, I'm not sure) using tricks like speaking nonsense words and drawing circles.  Circles are very important in Dresden Files magic.

Also, note that "arcane magic" is kinda redundant in the Dresden files.  There are different schools of magic, but not different kinds.  "Divine magic", "nature magic", and "arcane magic" aren't terms they use.  It's just "magic".


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## Hungry Like The Wolf (Nov 9, 2010)

4E kind of screwed things up. All power sources are magic in a more defined (real world) cultural way but arcane is kind of left out in the dark.

Primal = Mana
Divine = Theocratic prayer
Psionic = ESP etc

Arcane, I guess is a catch-all for everything else. The whole pact thing reminds me of a kind of a mixture of Solomon or Crowly's style of magic were demons are summoned and then bound.

In a broad (real world) sense, all magic consists of manipulating or being in contact with the spirit world. So perhaps Arcane magic is as simple as that, the manipulation or contact with other planes. 

Pacts require negation with entities of different planes. Why couldn't fireball be the combination of ritualized hand gestures and elemental speech to tap the energies of the elemental plane? That's why Mages typically study, in order to learn all the different aspects which grants them the ability to manipulate these energies. Sorcerers are granted such abilities naturally because they possess other-worldly blood etc.

I think that's how I would explain the Arcane power source in game.


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## ourchair (Nov 9, 2010)

prosfilaes said:


> That doesn't accord with the definition of science I'm familiar with, which label science as "the collective discipline of study or learning acquired through the scientific method". It's not the inherent nature of something, it's how humans treat it.



That's what I thought I was referring to. Insofar as a fiction-world's inhabitants can apply the scientific method to arcane magic -- that it can be observed, tested, analyzed and then replicated (falsifiability) -- then it is a science, even if it doesn't apply the known laws of our world.


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## I'm A Banana (Nov 9, 2010)

I am fond of the idea of Arcane magic as words, runes, and symbols (which is part of why I'd like to classify the Warlock as divine, or 4e's _shadow_ power source, which also seems sort of pact-based). 

Take, say, an Astrophysics textbook. Imagine that instead of _describing_ the way things worked, it _made things work that way_. 

Words that move planets.

If someone else writes something contradictory, well, then,  you have a magical contest.

Arcane magic is the old Alchemy, is the old Heiroglyphs, is the Old Tongue. Check out Islam's grand calligraphic tradition, or the symbols used in mathematics. 

That's my favorite version of Aracne magic: a pattern, a _language_, a system that the user can manipulate.


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## inkpenavenger (Nov 14, 2010)

There's always the "Harry Potter" system for magic words: like a computer program.

The spell is somehow "encoded" in the very fabric of magic. Speaking the incantation is like typing in the filename on DOS (yes, I'm old enough to remember DOS) or selecting the file from a menu or list. Then you "press return" by channelling your will thorugh your implement, and BOOM! The program runs.

As long as your machine meets the program's system requirements (i.e. You possess suficient skill and power to enact the spell), and you entered the program execution command correctly (i.e. you said the incantation and moved your hands the right way), the program will run as expected (i.e. the spell functions properly).

By this explanation, it makes sense that spells be ranked at advancing "levels" because more powerful spells require greater skill and power. It also enables the possibility that one could cast a spell without acutally knowing what it does first (as Harry does when he casts _sectumsempra_ in HBP).

On a side note in regards to the actual words of an incantation: the language the incantation is based on seems to suggest the relative age of the spell. In the world of Harry Potter, most spells used today were probably standardized by the wizards of the Roman Empire, so Latin forms the basis for the incantations. Other spells, like Voldemort's spell to conjure the Dark Mark (morsmordre) and the "four-point spell" to use your wand as a compass (point me) are in modern languages (French and English, respectively), suggesting a more recent invention. Snape used Latin for his "sectumsempra" curse in order to make it "feel" more important, like a grand spell of old.

As for _avada kedavra_, the Killing Curse, it is actually based on the word abracadabra which, in ancient Hebrew, meant "strike with god's thunder" or "let the thing be destroyed". This very ancient incantation makes sense, due to the fact that, when harnessing a new power or technology, the first thing humans learn to do with it is to kill each other.


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## CurseOfTheMoon (Feb 20, 2022)

Chrono22 said:


> Some people go with the "arcane magic as science" view. It never made much sense to me, but I guess the reasoning was that magic and science become indistinguishable after a certain point.
> 
> I ascribe to the view that arcane magic users are actually tearing away sections of reality every time they cast. See, the foundation upon which reality rests isn't as solid as most people would hope. It is held in balance by elemental forces, ancient laws, and the ignorance of the common man. Far realms beyond the ken of understanding (non)exist outside the laws of time and causality. In those (non)places, the thoughts, will and convictions of a being manifest power. Arcane casters punch a hole in reality, and through that hole are able to manifest their will. In this way, the ravaged physical laws around them are forced into subservience.
> This is not without its own costs. Excessive use of magic has caused irreparable damage to the planes. In several instances, the very integrity of reality itself has been jeopardized.



thanks. This is a really nice view on arcane magic. I am stealing it.


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