[UA] Post-Modern Greek and Latin

[Ian Young]

James Palmer writes...

> Hmmm. Thought for a new school of magick. Magicians who work on 
> the power given by names - but not the old concept of names 
> representing True Forms or Power or whatever a la Ars Magica or 
> Earthsea. Instead they'd work on the manipulation of names, the 
> changes, the discrepancies between languages, etymology. Cool.

Ahh...great minds think alike, I see (wink-nudge).  This sounds *very*
much like an idea I've been meddling about with for the last month or
so, tentatively (and probably wrongly) called Spuriomancy - the magic of
spurious logic.

The general gist of my idea is an outgrowth of clanging, a verbal
symptom of some kinds of affective disorders, something roughly akin to
a stutter, but the speaker is fixated on rhyming and alliteration, often
expressed in nonsense words.  Essentially, it's free association gone
wild.  Here is a rough outline of how I might see a Spuriomancer
performing his craft:

- You start with a word, the identity of your target
- The word rhymes with a second word
- The second word is an alliteration with a third word
- The third word is a synonym for a fourth word
- The fourth word rhymes with a fifth word
- The fifth word is an alliteration of the a sixth word
- The sixth word represents a radically different final state of being
for the first word.

Thus, through a series of rhymes, alliterations and puns, a Spuriomancer
can transmute the identity or state of being of his target.  The paradox
is that, as he gets better at his craft, he ceases to make linear,
un-affected sense when he speaks -- eventually he becomes, in effect, a
babbling loon.

As you may guess, this concept may prove a real impediment to
roleplaying, so I've been hemming-and-hawing over it for a while. 
Granted, it's an un-finished thought thus far, but any constructive
criticism is welcome.

Gone,
Ian