AlcarJust wondering if anyone here has given any thought to make a maguc Archetype. I know it’s been mentioned in the Statosphere book (or PoMoMa, forget which) … just wondering what people could see as channels, and taboos.
I’m leaning towards Clive Barker’s The Last Illusion from Cabal where the real magic user can only do magic if everyone thinks it’s a trick….
gamerchickIsn’t the same or a similar archetype talked about in The Ascension of the Magdalene? I’m off to check my books…
TormentYes, there is a “Magus” Archetype in _Ascension of the Magdalene_, along with a “Rake” Archetype.
I just gotted _Ascension_, it and PoMoMa are the 3 books I own, until my next batch arrive fr/ snailmail. Recent convert. 🙂
The _Ascension_ adventure states that, with changes in civilization and the mass unconscious, humanity has left behind the Archetype of the Magus; presumably, too many ex-Avatars went to the House of Renunciation and exited as Avatars of, say, an “Eccentric Scientist” Archetype, IMHO.
I don’t think, though, that either Archetype is necessarily dead; or it could be enjoying a resurgence with the “New Age”.
There’s an interesting quote by Leary in RA Wilson’s _Cosmic Trigger_ that he believed some of Crowley’s “baraka” was transferred to him. Maybe they were both Narco-Alchemists, or maybe both Magus Avatars …
AlcarHmm, yeah. I was thinking new age in the sense of being able to use magick IF it’s done in stage magician fashion in front of witnesses.
They’d get minor charges for a magical show where they make peope all happy (kids show) and a sig one for a show where they make the audience wonder “what if it was real?” and can’t use charges during said shows, naturally.
The big thing for them wouldl be that magick can only be done in ritual fashions, with wands, staffs etc. They aren’t adepts: their magic flows with the cosmos so would be limited to real versions of stage magic with no conscious witnesses (which could be powerful in and of itself).
Some idea for channels:
1-50%: They can spend a minor charge to make a stage magic effect be “real”, but it can’t be witnessed.
51-70%: They have a knack for learning and finding rituals.
71-90%: They can use sig charges for stage magic effects (again without witnesses) and can imbue items with magick.
91-99%: They cna do real magic in front of crowds, but everytime they do that and people believe it’s real they weaken their connection the achetype.
As it would be a dying archetype, there may be no godwalker for any length of time. (They keep tabooing or something.) Would make for an interesting opponent. And, of course, there would be someone wanting to ascend and replace it with Quantum Mechanics or something…
(And I’ll need to get a copy of Ascension of the Magdalene someday. *sighs*)
TormentFirst, I would change the name of the Archetype, to distinguish it from the one in _Ascension_, but also because it’s not wholly appropriate.
The term ‘magus’ originated from a caste of priest-astrologers in Babylon; since the term is used for an Archetype, and it has a strong traditional/practical/ritual magick meaning — I doubt anyone would ever call a stage magician a “Magus”, particularly in the OU.
Those qualifications aside, is “The Stage Magician” such a powerful symbol in the human psyche, that it appears in dreams and such, and is fairly easily distinguishable from any other Archetype? I think of Stage Magicians as the robbers of the mythic tone of the Magus, but without the actual powers.
Maybe what you want is a real ‘Magus’ who just uses the trappings of stage magick, but the players only gradually suspect that it isn’t just tricks.
Maybe invent a “cloaking device” ritual, item, or even Adept path, one that hides the energy behind the spells the Stage Magician bad guy casts, so it “feels”, to Aura Sight and such, like just ordinary sleight of hand.
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