Re: Introduction and Backstory Noodle

Bill Swears schrieb:

Tim S wrote:
on 21/04/2006 8:58 am, David Friedman at ddfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
wrote:
[...]

An excuse to discuss an idea I have played with for the fantasy without
magic (unconnected to _Harald_) that is one of my other projects.

All magic is earth, air, fire and water--or, of course some combination.
[...]
Could something similar be true of magic? Could one have a system where
everything can be resolved in terms of four basis vectors--but
everything can also be resolved in terms of a different four that span
the same space? So you might have one time or place where everyone took
it for granted that a serious mage, or serious spell, was either earth,
air, fire and water. And another time or place where they took it for
granted with a different list? And both were right?

If so, any obvious candidates for the second four? Third four?


The hot, the cold, the wet and the dry?

The good, the bad, and the cute furry creatures who tickle you to
death and steal your small change?

Both the humours and the four elements have been mapped to these axes
since days of yore (n.b. i'm not sure i got the humours right) -
hot: Fire, Air, Sanguis, Cholé
cold: Earth, Water, Phlegma, Mela cholé
dry: Fire, Earth, Cholé, Mela cholé
wet: Air, Water, Sanguis, Phlegma

Second and third four could be polarized. Are there opposite numbers to
the horsemen of the apocalypse? That might be an interesting track to > take.

Death, War, Plague and Famine... Life-Death is a nice pair, but folks
like Plague i'd boil(hoho) down to something more fundamental, like
Expansion-Contraction (the latter being Famine).

You could do something with colours: brightness, saturation etc. Might
work better when stipulating beings with only two colour receptors.

Also: tastes; we have five 'classical' ones _and_ one that could serve
as quinta essentia. And as a really odd one, we could take the 'taste'
which triggers the heat receptors.
Hm: 'Whoa! Watch out! Bitter-sweet magic!' <scribble>

--
Een koe is een merkwaardig beest; wat er ook in haar geest moge zijn,
haar laatste woord is altijd boe.

.

Relevant Pages

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