Alchemy's place in Geas

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Naga
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Alchemy's place in Geas

#1 Post by Naga » Thu Feb 01, 2007 3:37 am

An obscure question, but I think it is relevant. What is alchemy in Geas, and how is it to be roleplayed?

According the helpfile "help magic," accessible after gaining access to scroll magic through the scribes:
The miracles of the clerics, the magical songs of the skalds and the potions of the alchmenist does count as real magic for the mages. Some called then and the other form of magic as the 'low path og magic' or how Ascalon mention:
more legerdemain and illusion as real magic. But it known the the deities can become very angry then their clerics use magic of the high path!
We have this, on the one hand, and on the other, a sort of scientific paradigm on the part of the players that extends to characters. Alchemy is an "early chemistry," a mixing of elements to create compounds. It is cookery. But we have a magical, medieval mindset is present in other areas: Gods are a certainty, their works are evident, spirits move in everything. Songs are rituals that can alter reality. Words on scroll, recited, are infused with meaning. They are more than words; they resonate, have a power of their own beyond immediate perception, and move the world.

Would it follow, then, that alchemy is more than cookery, but is more like what it was to our intellectual ancestors, who monitored the stars to time their distillations in accordance with the zodiac, saw metals as associated with certain angels, wore sigils engraved in lead, and even tried to create human life inside eggshells?

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#2 Post by Devi » Thu Feb 01, 2007 9:56 am

In my opinion, alchemy is a hard, well-tested science. As such, alchemists surely must apply the latest scientific theories concerning astronomy, geology, geography, and theology, especially if they're wrong.

I don't see a tension between science and magic at all. In fact, in a medieval setting, I think there is no distinction - magic *was* a science. The logic wasn't always sound and the theories weren't always well-tested, but there was at least evidence supporting them. Bloodletting, for example, was surprisingly systematic, tested, and codified. If a physician charted the moon before bleeding a patient, it was no act of reverence or magical rite, it was simply adherence to procedure and attention to current scientific thought, which interested itself in the tides of the body.

I think an alchemist who rejects the stars, gods, magnetism, latest theories on human creation, or whatever, should simply be considered an inept scientist.

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#3 Post by Naga » Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:19 am

Maybe "scientific" isn't the best word. Science, after all, is a modern idea and really just means knowledge. But alchemy seems to be approached in-game with a mindset I find a bit perplexing. It's materialist; I've been told in-character by more than one character that alchemy "isn't magic." That is, it's all just plant and animal parts reacting. But they still acknowledge that magic is out there.

Because it's been poorly defined, characters slip into what I described as scientific thinking: empiricism and reductionism.

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#4 Post by Devi » Thu Feb 01, 2007 4:42 pm

[tangent]

Alchemy was cookery. It just had different ingredients.

Medieval thought was (mostly) empirical. Medieval people were using the best knowledge they had at the time. This knowledge wasn't perfect for a number of reasons, but it was something. Personality disorders weren't magic. They were an imbalance of humours. The differences between men and women weren't magic. They could be explained by the effect of the moon. Today we scoff, but they did pretty well considering.

Only today do we consider it magic. At the time, it was genuinely respectable thought. Look at medieval medicine for example (something I'm interested in :) - if you take each part seperately, it appears to be invented nonsense. However, if you view the complete system, with all of its working parts, it's very systematic, rich, and even viable. Today, we scoff at most of it (such as Naga's list of apparent nonsense)

With that said, magic *was* at work, but I don't think it was as important as most people think. It was the last resort, perfect for the times when scientific progress went boink. I think saying spirtual = magic isn't exactly fair either.

[/tangent]

I don't think the problem is empiricism. I think the problem is that there aren't any systems of thought to explain alchemy in a more authentic way.

I also think it's more of an in-character problem than an ooc one. An ooc definition would be boring. It'd be more fun of a character invented his/her own system to describe alchemy, and then fought it out using medieval-era evidence. (It's much easier to argue things without microscopes!)

Devi the long-winded

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#5 Post by chara » Thu Feb 01, 2007 5:44 pm

I think it's also important what the help file says - the mages consider alchemy to be magic. Mages, by nature, have a magical bent. Whether alchemists, or common people, consider their own work magic or not is another question.

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#6 Post by Sairina » Fri Feb 02, 2007 5:55 am

I can't find the help file in question, but didn't it say that the mages don't consider alchemy real magic?

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#7 Post by Naga » Fri Feb 02, 2007 7:22 am

Right, but according to that definition, the songs of the skalds aren't "real magic." It was more a rhetorical device, I think, to distinguish between the high magic of the mages from other forms. The helpfile also refers to skald songs and alchemy as the "low path of magic," which implies magic to some degree.

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#8 Post by chara » Fri Feb 02, 2007 7:58 am

The help file says that the miracles of the clerics, the songs of the skalds, and the potions of the alchemists are considered real magic by the mages.

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#9 Post by Sairina » Mon Feb 05, 2007 6:32 am

Right, sorry, my fault.

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#10 Post by Delia » Mon Feb 05, 2007 7:53 am

I think it goes a long way for mages to decide if something is magical or not if the phenomenon "detects" as magical. Of course everything does not easily just give away their true nature, requiring more powerful divination magics.
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#11 Post by Devi » Sat Feb 10, 2007 10:10 am

I know this discussion is pretty much over, but I found this fun quote today.

Although I'm not a big fan (sexist, militarist pig), it seems appropriate:

"One man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word."

Robert A. Heinlein

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#12 Post by genesis » Sat Feb 10, 2007 11:33 am

And magic in this mud really is supernatural :P
Genesis the ideaSpawner

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