Friday, June 28, 2024

Magic Like This

 I'd like to see a traditional fantasy rpg with magic like this:

Podmore picked up his fork and stood it on its end. Snaith stood, stepped over to the shelf behind Arthur’s head, and picked up a sharp knife. Moving by instinct, Arthur reached out and knocked over Snaith’s wine-glass. Snaith slipped on spilled borscht. He lay on his back looking confused, as if he had no idea what had just happened or why he’d stood up in the first place...

...Arthur said, “George—I’m sorry.” 

He snapped the stem of his wineglass, causing the leg of George’s chair to snap so that he fell on the floor and hit his head on the chair behind him. The dowager dame who’d been sitting in that chair gave a little shriek, then got to her feet and left, taking her party with her. A couple of waiters quickly came and led George off, bleeding from the head, in search of first aid. 

- Felix Gilman, The Revolutions

And this:

Her bedroom was still dark when Sadie woke up and there was a lump in her throat. She turned her head and coughed, and spat a stone into her hand. It was the size of her thumbnail, chalky white and light as a feather. Its dimpled surface was covered all around with tiny holes, and when she held it up to her ear she could hear wind in the treetops of a faraway forest.

She mixed a resin and coated the stone several times, until it was as hard and shiny as a nut, then took it outside where the morning sky had begun to turn pink along the horizon. She set the stone in the middle of the long trail that ran south from her house, through ruined cornfields and over the Arkansas River.

She left the stone there and went inside, laid back down in her bed and went to sleep.

- Alex Grecian, Red Rabbit

The last quote is the beginning of a sequence of events wherein the "stone" is picked up by a squirrel which is in turn carried away by a hawk, dropped and eaten by a fox, which is in turn killed and eaten by the man the stone is a message for. He chips a tooth on it before realizing what it is, putting it up to his ear, and hearing the witch's message.

In both of these works, magic isn't visually fantastic or flashy. Not at all like super-powers. But it is nonetheless powerful and mostly quick without a lot of ceremony. I suspect there are modern/occult rpgs with magic like this, but I'm unaware of any traditional, Medievalish fantasy with it, but I'd like to see it.

4 comments:

Dick McGee said...

The former example feels a lot like a more restrained Mage: the Acension to me, where everything seems to be random happenstance to an outside observer so the mage can avoid getting slapped down by paradox for using blatant magic.

The latter has a strong fairy tale vibe mixed up with folk magic. The message delivery chain of events reminds me of the hoops you have to jump through to get at Koschei the Deathless' soul where he's got it locked away. David Drake's Old Nathan stories feature somewhat similar magic, although it isn't quite as elaborate. Alan Dean Foster's Mad Amos is more fantastic, but still has some of that American folk tale feel. Can't think of an RPG system that feels very close to any of it, though.

Trey said...

Thanks. The second book has some examples similar to the one from the first, but also some more "magical" displays (plants growing quickly and enwrapping folks like some druid spell) so it's a bit wide-ranging.

Dick McGee said...

Thinking about it a bit, the more folk magic stuff might feature in "witchy" RPGs, which I know are out there but really aren't something I'm very familiar with. You might try asking Tim Brennan from The Other Side blog if he knows of anything that might fit the bill. If anyone knows about witches in games it's going to be Tim.

Trey said...

He's the expert.