Involution
Influences on one’s idea of magic
Obviously, my concepts of magic do not appear fully formed in my head. They have to come from somewhere. And I have been playing tabletop RPGs for more than 75% of my life, and reading fantasy fiction for slightly longer, so it’s not surprising that some of that creeps in. At the same time, I am aware of how much of magic in games is a matter of making sure that the magic-using characters don’t just take over the world and have the fighters and rogues and rangers as furniture. So there’s a constant battle in my head to work out whether a given “piece of magic” relates to “real” magic (for whatever value of real you’re having yourself, like) or if it’s game stuff.
This is pretty easy in terms of actual “spells” (for whatever value of spells you’re having yourself, like) because most game spells have an immediate, definite, measurable effect there and then, often by making something that’s impossible per our understanding of physics (for whatever value of physics you know how this goes) happen. Real spells, in my experience, do not do this.
But in terms of the way magic is constructed, the D&D concepts of material, somatic and verbal components are pretty strongly dug into my head. The concept I’m calling sensoria comes from the fictional vestigia. I’m pretty sure my idea of magical wards owes more to force-fields in Star Trek than anything any magic user on Earth had before the 1950s. When I think of magical objects, I think of weapons and armour, rods, staves, wands, crystal balls and carpets of flying, potions and rings and helms and leather-bound tomes.
I do not think of verses of old manuscripts calligraphed and put in a box to wear on your arm. I do not think of dead cats placed in walls, or the skulls of cows or horses buried under floors. I do not think of little bags of herbs worn as amulets or buried on thresholds or hidden in beds. I do not think of poppets stuck with pins. Inasmuch as I think of divination, I think of cards and maybe omens, but rarely tea leaves or clouds or indeed entrails. I don’t think of writing in and of itself as being magical at all.
And some of this is ok, because my concept of what things can be made to work as part of magic is my concept, and I don’t have to justify it to anyone else. I just wouldn’t want to be missing out on things I could be doing because they never had application in anyone’s game or fiction.