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Dalor Darden
Great Reader

USA
4211 Posts

Posted - 27 Oct 2020 :  22:50:33  Show Profile Send Dalor Darden a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Look at the first quote you made and realize you are ONLY seeing what you want to see:

quote:
Mortals cannot directly shape raw magic. Instead, most who wield magic make use of the Weave. The Weave is the manifestation of raw magic, a kind of interface between the will of a spellcaster and the stuff of raw magic.(3rd Ed. FRCS, pg.55)


Your whole argument is consistently locked in your own thinking and not SEEING what others are writing. MOST who wield magic...not ALL who use magic.

After that your argument is moot.

The Old Grey Box and AD&D for me!

Edited by - Dalor Darden on 27 Oct 2020 22:59:40
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cpthero2
Great Reader

USA
2286 Posts

Posted - 27 Oct 2020 :  23:13:14  Show Profile  Visit cpthero2's Homepage Send cpthero2 a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Great Reader Darden,

Thank you for your reply!

quote:
Look at the first quote you made and realize you are ONLY seeing what you want to see:
quote:
Mortals cannot directly shape raw magic. Instead, most who wield magic make use of the Weave. The Weave is the manifestation of raw magic, a kind of interface between the will of a spellcaster and the stuff of raw magic.(3rd Ed. FRCS, pg.55)



There is no small amount of irony in there. Out of that entire rebuttal, you respond to one sentence of a quote alone. That point you are making is specifically addressed in my counter-claim throughout my rebuttal, which is heavily predicated upon the notion of "ever-present energies."

Effectively, it is evidence suppression, or colloquially referred to as "cherry-picking": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking#:~:text=Cherry%20picking%2C%20suppressing%20evidence%2C%20or,that%20may%20contradict%20that%20position.

quote:
Your whole argument is consistently locked in your own thinking and not SEEING what others are writing. MOST who wield magic...not ALL who use magic.


I am quite glad to address this rebuttal from you as well. Thank you for the opportunity.

The notion of
quote:
MOST who wield magic...not ALL who use magic.
was addressed by me in identifying that the OTHERS are not accessing another structure of magic, they are accessing the same platform of magic, using different forms.

I'd definitely interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

Best regards,

Higher Atlar
Spirit Soaring
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cpthero2
Great Reader

USA
2286 Posts

Posted - 07 Nov 2020 :  18:13:39  Show Profile  Visit cpthero2's Homepage Send cpthero2 a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Senior Scribe TheIriaeban,

I forgot to mention that I very much liked your consideration of garnering power from some other process of harnessing that energy. In fact, in another scroll I was just commenting on [Earth's Similarities to the Realms, http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=23657&whichpage=2], I was commenting on how cross-pollination, or rather the lack of it, was interesting. This just made me think if gaining access to magic from another location might be possible? That would be a huge issue with magic in the Realms for sure, from a power position perspective.

Best regards,





Higher Atlar
Spirit Soaring
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Naralex
Acolyte

1 Posts

Posted - 13 Nov 2024 :  13:23:59  Show Profile Send Naralex a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by cpthero2

Great Reader Darden,

Thank you for your reply!

quote:
Look at the first quote you made and realize you are ONLY seeing what you want to see:
quote:
Mortals cannot directly shape raw magic. Instead, most who wield magic make use of the Weave. The Weave is the manifestation of raw magic, a kind of interface between the will of a spellcaster and the stuff of raw magic.(3rd Ed. FRCS, pg.55)



There is no small amount of irony in there. Out of that entire rebuttal, you respond to one sentence of a quote alone. That point you are making is specifically addressed in my counter-claim throughout my rebuttal, which is heavily predicated upon the notion of "ever-present energies."

Effectively, it is evidence suppression, or colloquially referred to as "cherry-picking": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking#:~:text=Cherry%20picking%2C%20suppressing%20evidence%2C%20or,that%20may%20contradict%20that%20position.

quote:
Your whole argument is consistently locked in your own thinking and not SEEING what others are writing. MOST who wield magic...not ALL who use magic.


I am quite glad to address this rebuttal from you as well. Thank you for the opportunity.

The notion of
quote:
MOST who wield magic...not ALL who use magic.
was addressed by me in identifying that the OTHERS are not accessing another structure of magic, they are accessing the same platform of magic, using different forms.

I'd definitely interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

Best regards,




I had to turn to the dark art of necromancy because I feel that this is an important topic that deserves a resolution. I have personally been researching the question of whether magic can be accessed through means other than the weave for a couple of days now, and this is how I discovered this thread.

The weave is merely a method, an interface to tap into the raw, ever-present energies, but it is by no means synonymous with those energies.

Like you yourself mentioned in the very beginning of your argument, Great Reader Cpthero2, referencing what Ed said -

"the Weave is the predominant and "most correct" (and thus, most powerful) means of harnessing natural energies"

To further reinforce - this is Ed's video dive-in topic, and he says explicitly at around 6:30 mark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXFbgsFy1Xc&t=399s

That there are other ways of accessing magic. Being that this video is from 2023 and coming straight from the creator of FR, this is a definitive and hopefully final ruling on the matter.

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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist

USA
11839 Posts

Posted - 14 Nov 2024 :  14:18:23  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
to add to this... someone will say "but Mystra banned all of Cyric's worshippers from the weave".

The quickest answer to that is "Yeah, because he didn't know HOW to reach into another source like other older, more experienced deities would know how to do... because he'd been a deity for all of a few years"

Then they will say "but X resource says that Mystra can do this"... and the best answer there should be "yep, she can deny them access to THE WEAVE .... so then they have to use something else".

The best way I've used to actually describe the weave is comparing it to an computer operating system with applications.... not necessarily as a power source as many think. Now the weave also HAS power sources (think Uninterruptable Power Supplies that hold a storage of magic energy that they constantly renew and feed to Mystra), and these are known as weave anchors. Some weave anchors are mortal (such as Chosen), and some are material (places, artifacts, etc...). But each "spell" is in essence an app tailored to her O/S. Thus, some spells/apps work differently in the realms than they might in other worlds. Her spells/apps are also able to work in many instances on other O/S's if someone knows how to call on those O/S's (for instance, accessing the O/S that Greyhawk mages may use), such that someone coming to the realms from say Greyhawk may be able to cast the "fireball app" by calling upon the "Greyhawk O/S" instead of the "Weave O/S". Then each "spell app" falls under the control of a consortium of deities who can lay claim to "that sort of magic"... for instance, Milil, Oghma, Finder, Mystra, and music deities of other pantheons might all be able to control some exclusively bardic spell... and these SAME deities can have input on a bardic spell that's also on other spell lists (for instance cure light wounds). You can picture all of this working without having to actually spell out all the rules for such and compare it to a change management process in our real world, especially since anyone that has ever dealth with a change review board will also know that their rules change, their rules are subjective based on individuals, and oftentimes the person approving changes don't even know what they are really approving. This madness is magic, and yet they try to "disguise" it as orderly, much like real world change management tries to hide behind a veneer of "we're the proponents of order" while being some of the most chaotic groups anyone can imagine.


So, how do we picture spellcasting working in this instance? The "weave anchors" are essentially the power sources running the "Mystra computers". The Mystra computer(s) is one of many servers running on behind a VPN/FIREWALL acting as a separate "corporation" on the "Interweave"... and they use a cool O/S name of The Weave which confuses people who hook into the "Interweave". These Mystra computer(s) act as a "server" for "remote apps/spells" that individuals "activate" via spellcasting. The spellcaster has also hooked into "the interweave" much like a user at home getting an IP address from their Internet Service Provider. If they activate the "remote app/Spell" with a "header" that says "go to the Mystra Computer" to process your "formula/app/program". The spell goes there to the "Mystra computer" for instance for the "fireball app", and the "Mystra Computer" reaches out to some source of fire energy, formulates it in the correct pattern, and uses the spellcaster's focus to translate the energy where they are directing it.

In this whole idea, the spellcaster is connecting to the "Interweave" to perform their "job".... if we add another layer into this and include VPN's and firewalls... a spellcaster accessing Mystra's weave from home could be seen as connecting through a VPN to "Mystra Inc" via a VPN. There is however a competitor also hooked up with its own VPN for people to work through known as "Shar Inc", and another one known as "Mulhorandi Southern Magic Inc", and another known as "Greyhawk Inc". There are in fact thousands of these "corporations" on the Interweave, and some "spells/apps" absolutely do not work with certain "corporations" and can't make it past their firewall/VPN... much less their internal computers.

As you can see, taking our modern internet and comparing it to how this "functionality" works makes for a very good way to compartmentalize all of this. For instance, what happens when "Mystra dies".... well, that would be equivalent to a company on our internet like Google or Apple suddenly losing all of its internet presence..... and you're fine if you aren't using google or apple apps. Meanwhile, someone may introduce an insidious "virus" that infects the "servers" at google, apple, or "Mystra Inc" and when this happens their apps may act flaky but not die entirely.

There may be "weave anchors" that get their power from multiple sources, such that "suddenly" all of the "power" running the "Mystra Computers" goes away... The servers go down. Then one of the weave anchors automatically turns on its "gas powered generator", and suddenly the server reboots with all the settings from its last save... possibly different than the way it was running before the reboot.

Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas

Edited by - sleyvas on 14 Nov 2024 14:49:40
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Delnyn
Senior Scribe

USA
961 Posts

Posted - 15 Nov 2024 :  21:29:58  Show Profile Send Delnyn a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Would it be reasonable to assert any deity can grant Weave-independent spells and always could so? The Weave merely made spell-granting easier. So by that logic, any divine spell could be a non-Weave spell.

Edited by - Delnyn on 15 Nov 2024 21:32:35
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DoveArrow
Learned Scribe

121 Posts

Posted - 19 Nov 2024 :  01:27:59  Show Profile Send DoveArrow a Private Message  Reply with Quote
There are a few different forms of accessing magic in the Forgotten Realms that are canon, that are supported mechanically, and don't involve the Weave. Here are a few of the most commonly referenced forms.

-Divine: Your access to magic is channeled through your deity.
-Psionic: Your access to magic comes from your mind.
-Shadow: Your access to magic is channeled through the spaces and voids in the Weave.

There are other sources of magic that Ed Greenwood has named over the years, but they aren't generally supported mechanically. He discusses that in the following video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXFbgsFy1Xc

Edited by - DoveArrow on 19 Nov 2024 01:31:43
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Lord Karsus
Great Reader

USA
3743 Posts

Posted - 19 Nov 2024 :  21:12:28  Show Profile Send Lord Karsus a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Delnyn

Would it be reasonable to assert any deity can grant Weave-independent spells and always could so? The Weave merely made spell-granting easier. So by that logic, any divine spell could be a non-Weave spell.


-The slippery-slope of the existence of alternatives.

(A Tri-Partite Arcanist Who Has Forgotten More Than Most Will Ever Know)

Elves of Faerūn
Vol I- The Elves of Faerūn
Vol. III- Spells of the Elves
Vol. VI- Mechanical Compendium
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist

USA
11839 Posts

Posted - 21 Nov 2024 :  14:48:29  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Delnyn

Would it be reasonable to assert any deity can grant Weave-independent spells and always could so? The Weave merely made spell-granting easier. So by that logic, any divine spell could be a non-Weave spell.



In theory, yes. The "class" of these spellcasters in theory might need to be different (that being said, there are clerics using "weave equivalent".... operating systems... in other worlds and even within this world (Shar had the shadow weave, Lolth was trying to develop something called the demon weave which I know very little about). Just as a for example, on DMs Guild there's a product for an alternate divine caster called a "priest" (link below). The idea is that they MUST gather their spells through sacrifice at idols relevant to their deity OR their pantheon. The higher the level of spell, the more extravagant/large the idol required. So, getting higher level spells restored while in a dungeon is problematic, and even mid level spells require a lot of effort.

While I think this ruleset needs work, I think its a good foundation and have envisioned it being used in my own stories for civilizations transferring to Abeir.


https://www.dmsguild.com/product/192760/Priestess-Ancient-World-Divine-Class


Regarding Lolth's demon weave, I rely solely on what's written up on the wiki.... but in comparison to what I wrote up previously, I'd note it as "Lolth tried to take over some of Mystra's processing servers, but she needed to provide her own power sources "aka weave anchors" to fully power those processing servers that she was able hack into and gain shared admin access for .... she never got them powered by her own sources, and before she managed to obtain full control she got locked out of the servers by Mystra's admin account... and Mystra's forces seized control of the power sources that Lolth was setting up".

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Demon_Weave

Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas
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