[UA] Old groups and power

[Greg Stolze]

>So your basically saying that there's some point in time that divides the
>'old'
>magic from the new? So a modern Jew studying the lore of his tradition has no
>chance of doing what his teachers could do? There's a fault in logic
>there. If
>a modern person, no matter how modern is studying a tradition that has
>existed
>unbroken for centuries then why would it be expected that it wouldn't work
>for
>him anymore?

It's only faulty logic if you assume an unchanged universe.  The NG
ascension in '96 could well throw lots of old style stuff into a crocked
hat.

Another reason the hypothetical modern Jew might have trouble is that he's
got a modern mindset (or a more modern mindset than his teachers).  He
reads the same texts and grasps the same explanations, but they're embedded
in a mental context that includes computers and The Simpsons -- or, more
likely, the "nothing is knowlable or proveable" notions we got from
Heisenberg, poststructuralism and Richard Nixon.

>Is it that the stratosphere is now modern and rejects all older magics? So
>that
>means at some point all of those tribes we know nothing about in South
>America
>have just up and lost their magic even though they have no connection at
>all to
>the 'modern world'.

You can play that one of two ways.  One is that they're sort of "magick
Amish" who can retain their old ways as long as they're untouched to the
modern world.  Of course, this makes them largely irrelvant to your
campaign unless your PCs start bushwacking through the Amazon (which could
be a real fun one-shot)...

The other way is that the Statospheric totem they revere changes and they
must either (1) change their ceremonies to get the same effects or (2) lose
them.  (This is discussed in Statosphere, when the old-school Hunter gets
replaced by a more modern Detective/Skip Chaser/Bounty Hunter type.)  The
fun with this is when your Amazon-trekking PCs run across an untouched
aboriginal tribe that's got carved wooden pagers and cell phones that don't
do anything but serve as foci for their Hunter channels...

>It just lacks something in my opinion.

Well, that's one reason it's left vague.  If you want old-style Hermetics
running around your UA campaign you can play it several ways without
contradicting canon.

1) They're magick amish -- their magick works because they're essentially
recluses who haven't been polluted by modern concepts like Relativity and
the Bill of Rights.

2) They're rememberers -- modern people who study the old ways.  The
easiest way to do this is just give 'em loads of rituals and Authentic
Thaumaturgy (from Hush Hush -- it'll be in UA2, too).  It's not as easy or
versatile as the postmodern schools, but it lacks taboos.

3) Something else.

-G.

As it turns out, my memory is far less detail-oriented than my imagination.

www.waylay.com
www.thehungersite.com



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