On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 7:08 AM, Craig Roth <[email protected]> wrote: > > The *system* is universal. Individual spells have limitations. This spell > wouldn't work on someone in a castle turret (something one might see at TL3) > either. Or someone in a cart, or on a horse, or on a (even slightly) raised > wooden floor, all of which can be found at TL 3.
Indeed. Remember also that spells are artifacts of culture. People living in differing environments with differing languages and technologies will necessarily apply magic in different ways toward their particular ends and contexts. I understand food plants differently than a hunting-gathering magician, and will approach plant-propagation spells differently because of that. Similarly, a fella who lives in a penthouse and works on the 15th floor probably has a different relationship with "ground" than a fella who was astonished to have once in his life seen a five-story cathedral. Now, if your setting includes a conservative or initiatory/mysteries-based magical tradition, it stands to reason that notions of reality in that magical tradition will retain systems of an older era - just as Wiccan circles and Catholic prayer today show remnants of medieval and early-modern worldviews, politics and science. But in any case, you can expect the spells of the mage to be influenced and perhaps reshaped by the contemporary world wherein he was raised and with which he learned to interact as a child. The system is universal. Each spell need not be. An "entombment" spell can very well be expected to behave differently in contexts for which it was not designed. -- Si hoc legere scis, nimium eruditionis habes. -- jl hatlen linnell - [email protected] _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
