[UA] Old groups and power

[Mario Magallanes]

WingedCoyote at aol.com escribió:
> 
> >There are relics of old-style magic still hanging around, like the
> >golems.  But the rituals used to create the first golem wouldn't work
> >these days.
> 
> I agree with what you're saying in general, but what about this? I
> mean, Blight Crops and Snowblinding work, they're old as dirt. Why not
> that one?

It depends what are we referring as "ritual". We could distinguish two
different kind

- Rituals which are part of schools of magic (like, say, hermetic
magic). These aren't really rituals, but   spells that take a large
amount of time to cast. These seem to make sense in the context of the
magic school they belong - they have some kind of simbolism.

- Rituals like Blight Crops and Snowblinding are not simbolic, or at
least they don't have a simbolism we can grasp. You go through the
motions and it works, regardless what you believe. They seem to tap into
some inner mechanism of the universe.  

Now, if rituals are linked to the Statosphere, maybe changes in the
Statosphere cause that some rituals are invalidated, and you will need a
new set of actions (this is, a new ritual) to cause the same effect.
Also, new effects may become available through specific actions. 

So creating golems through old hebrew magic might not work, but using
other rituals might work (i.e. the Comte can create golems). On the
other hand, there's a guy in Postmodern Magic who can work hebrew magic.

The thing is, UA is very vague about old school magic (which, IMHO, is a
good thing). Some schools won't work Other schools could work, but no
one is really interested in them, as there are ways to achieve the same
effects. Or maybe old school magic only works for people who learned
when it worked (the guy in Postmodern Magic is almost two thousand years
old). Whatever. At the end, what works and what doesn't work seems to be
GM's call.

Mario Magallanes
--
Save the kittens
http://home.adelphia.net/~ncavezze/sigs/kitteh2.jpg

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