Origin of Magic

[Nightshade]

<p>I was recently contemplating my character's background, and the roles of both priests and crusaders from an RP perspective. After all, I believe Shadowknights serve a more interesting purpose than whacking stuff extremely well. *rolls her eyes*</p><p>I'll spare you my musings, but it did bring up an interesting question in my mind. Where does magic originate? Is it the innate power available in all people, but manifested only in those with the right talent? Is there something akin to D&D's 'Weave' where magic is drawn from? Is magic gifted directly from gods? Or is it something entirely different, or even unclarified to the playerbase?</p><p>Thanks for reading.</p><p>*Edit* Typos.</p>

[Cusashorn]

<p>The closest anyone has been able to even speculate is that magic is assiciated with Ro, the sun. In the very beginning, Solusek Ro was originally in charge of the influence of magic in general, but he didn't play much importance to it. He prefered to just be the god of the sun and an all around spoiled diva basking in the glory of his elemental father, Fennin Ro.</p><p>For reasons never quite explained, he decided to create lesser gods from his own power in order to cover various aspects better. He created Ayonae Ro as the Matron of the Arts- The Demi-Goddess of Music and artistic talents. Varig Ro, God of the Forge, and Druzzil Ro, Goddess of Magic.</p><p>Druzzil Ro is a full fledged Diety. She isn't an ascended mortal turned into a demi-god. Despite being a lesser god, Being the God of Magic actually gives her more power than the elemental gods themselves combined. She bluntly demonstrates this in the Plane of Time in Everquest- the series of events that lead to EQ2's timeline being created as an alternate reality.</p><p>To put it simply, she is Deus Ex Machina. If she wants something to happen, she can use magic to make it happen. It's Magic, she doesn't have to explain it.</p><p>After us mortals banded together and defeated Quarm- a Tiamat created by fusing together the four elemental gods - The gods who created all the other gods below them and rule over the physics of the universe itself - Druzzil Ro came in and told us that she cannot allow Zebuxoruk to be freed from his prison. It was for both their and our protection from learning what he knew. So she sends us back in time to a point where we hadn't entered the Plane of Time yet as if it were nothing at all.</p>

[Nightshade]

<p>Wow, thank you for the extremely fast and detailed reply. Very interesting.</p><p>So how does this apply to priests who worship a specific deity for their powers? Does the power come directly from Druzzil Ro regardless, or is it a sort of proxy process where the god grants power to the follower through Druzzil's voodoo awesomeness?</p><p>Or perhaps all gods have some basic level of magic that they can exercise, what with being gods, and thus can grant these boons to their followers without the need to go through Druzzil, unless they want to perform some sort of magic that she would frown upon.</p>

[Mary the Prophetess]

<p>In game terms magic is associated with power and with experience (levels).  As you gain levels your power increases and you learn new and more potent spells, which require the expendature of that power (magic).</p><p>Different games systems use essentially the same formula with different names (such as mana).</p><p>The question is from where does this magic power derive?  Is it inherent in all sentient beings?  Is it absorbed from some environmental source?  Is it bestowed by the gods?</p><p>Some clues might be gained by looking at who possess power.  All player characters possess power.  All player characters are sentient beings.  NPCs are sentient beings.  Do NPCs have power? (ie: can they use magic?)  Some can, some can't.</p><p>Can non-sentient beings use magic?  Again, some can and some can't.</p><p>Does this indicate that the source of magic is derived from something external, that all creatures on Norrath are exposed to?  The evidence is not conclusive, but I believe it leans in that direction.</p><p>If such is the case, what could be the external source?  Is there an unseen source? An 'ether' that permiates all things?</p><p>My inclination is to say that there is.  Unless and until we have a developer say with certainty, we are likely never to know, so one persons theory is as good as the next.  Go with whatever suits your fancy.  There really is no answer to the question.</p>

[Jaranna]

<p>It's kind of weird, since there seems to be multiple sources of magical power in Norrath.</p><p>The first is the Divine, granted by the gods, usually the province of priests and paladins.  Then there's the Arcane, the source of which is intense study and scientific experimentation, which is the province of mages and shadowknights.  Then there's bardic music, which is thought by some people to be the oldest type of magic on Norrath.</p><p>We've seen weird combinations of both granted and arcane powers in Norrathian lore, though.  For example, in the Staff of the Four quest in EQ Live, you learn that Solusek Ro stripped three wizards of their powers at inopportune times, which is strange considering that wizard magic is arcane in nature.  And, in the intervening years between the withdrawal of the gods and the start of the EQ2 storyline, we learn that even the withdrawal of the gods could not fully cut off access to divine magic.</p><p>It seems that the actual source of magic in Norrath is arbitrary, depending on how the story is supposed to play out.</p>

[Cusashorn]

<p><cite>ToxicLullaby wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Wow, thank you for the extremely fast and detailed reply. Very interesting.</p><p>So how does this apply to priests who worship a specific deity for their powers? Does the power come directly from Druzzil Ro regardless, or is it a sort of proxy process where the god grants power to the follower through Druzzil's voodoo awesomeness?</p><p>Or perhaps all gods have some basic level of magic that they can exercise, what with being gods, and thus can grant these boons to their followers without the need to go through Druzzil, unless they want to perform some sort of magic that she would frown upon.</p></blockquote><p>As Jaranna mentioned above, there are numerous sources of magic in Norrath. Not all of it is clearly explained, some of it isn't even touched upon, and most of it in general is given a "It's better if you don't think too hard about it" type of explanation.</p><p>Druzzil Ro may have been given complete control over magic as a diety, but I think it's safe to say that, as you mentioned, every diety has access to magic because they are dieties. Priests and crusaders do recieve magic from worshipping thier dieties. It was established in EQlive as a technicality upon character creation that no Cleric, Druid, Shaman (except for the Vah Shir, who worshipped spirits instead of dieties), Paladin, Shadowknight, or Ranger could be agnostic. You had to follow a diety because it was part of your class. Obviously, the gods left us in EQ2 and over the last 500 years, priests began to question whether worshipping them made any impact or not. They still had access to magic, which means the gods didn't need to be around to supply it to you.</p><p>I believe the Warlock epic goes into some detail of just how warlocks are able to channel thier magics. It's a new source altogether that wizards and other mages had never considered. I think it involved channeling the Void in some way, but I haven't read into big detail about it.</p>

[Meirril]

<p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>ToxicLullaby wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Wow, thank you for the extremely fast and detailed reply. Very interesting.</p><p>So how does this apply to priests who worship a specific deity for their powers? Does the power come directly from Druzzil Ro regardless, or is it a sort of proxy process where the god grants power to the follower through Druzzil's voodoo awesomeness?</p><p>Or perhaps all gods have some basic level of magic that they can exercise, what with being gods, and thus can grant these boons to their followers without the need to go through Druzzil, unless they want to perform some sort of magic that she would frown upon.</p></blockquote><p>As Jaranna mentioned above, there are numerous sources of magic in Norrath. Not all of it is clearly explained, some of it isn't even touched upon, and most of it in general is given a "It's better if you don't think too hard about it" type of explanation.</p><p>Druzzil Ro may have been given complete control over magic as a diety, but I think it's safe to say that, as you mentioned, every diety has access to magic because they are dieties. Priests and crusaders do recieve magic from worshipping thier dieties. It was established in EQlive as a technicality upon character creation that no Cleric, Druid, Shaman (except for the Vah Shir, who worshipped spirits instead of dieties), Paladin, Shadowknight, or Ranger could be agnostic. You had to follow a diety because it was part of your class. Obviously, the gods left us in EQ2 and over the last 500 years, priests began to question whether worshipping them made any impact or not. They still had access to magic, which means the gods didn't need to be around to supply it to you.</p><p>I believe the Warlock epic goes into some detail of just how warlocks are able to channel thier magics. It's a new source altogether that wizards and other mages had never considered. I think it involved channeling the Void in some way, but I haven't read into big detail about it.</p></blockquote><p>While you did have to worship a god in EQ1 after PoP the dieties withdrew their divine power from their worshipers on Norrath due to adventurers running around the planes and slaying their avatarts for treasure. The adventurer response was the accumulate large amounts of magical items and strip them of their enchantments to provide power to keep not only their divine magic empowered, but to also create a whole new type of magic that affected the guild that made that particular source of power.</p><p>Druzzil Ro has a better understanding and control over magic than any other being. Druzzil Ro isn't the source of magic. I'm certain that magic has existed from the start of Norrath and is more or less universally accessable by all things. Not just beings, but any creature and some inanimate objects actually use magic. Some of those inaminate objects become creatures via magic (see naturally occuring elemental creatures) others just create a magical effect around them (such as velium, or any number of "glowing" crystals found lighting natural caves). Creatures have developed the ability to fly (such as flying wurms - no wings!), teleport, heal, or all sorts of other magical abilities.</p><p>Then there are people. All class abilities in EQ2 are actually forms of magic! Back in EQ1 warriors, monks, rangers and rogues didn't practice magic at all. But between EQ1 and EQ2 some monks developed a new style of fighting that incorporated some of their inner power (magic) being focused and channeled to enhance their physical attacks. This lead to what we call combat arts now. Combat arts actually are a form of magic. The only strictly non-magic attacks in EQ2 are auto-attack. This new form of combat used by monks was observed during the 2nd Rallosian Army's final battle outside of Freeport and adopted by all the other classes in EQ2.</p><p>The best guess for a source of magic would be one of two theories. Either magic is simply available due to the nature of the universe Norrath exists in and it is only restricted and affected by those that manipulate it (with dieties being the best manipulators), or the Nameless is the actual source of power and plays a neutral role in providing it. For all we understand, the Nameless actually could BE magic. Possible, but we understand so little about the Nameless that this is nothing more than a wild unsubstansiated guess. The only bit we know about the Nameless for certain is that he created the Elemental Gods, and probably Norrath itself (the planet, not the stuff on it that came much later).</p>

[Cusashorn]

<p><cite>Meirril wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Then there are people. All class abilities in EQ2 are actually forms of magic! Back in EQ1 warriors, monks, rangers and rogues didn't practice magic at all. But between EQ1 and EQ2 some monks developed a new style of fighting that incorporated some of their inner power (magic) being focused and channeled to enhance their physical attacks. This lead to what we call combat arts now. Combat arts actually are a form of magic. The only strictly non-magic attacks in EQ2 are auto-attack. This new form of combat used by monks was observed during the 2nd Rallosian Army's final battle outside of Freeport and adopted by all the other classes in EQ2.</p></blockquote><p>Ahh you're right. I almost forgot about Arcane Combat. Quellious herself blessed Master Puab Closk with the the gift of Arcane Combat. At first, he only shared this knowledge with the other monks of the Ashen Order. In time though, Qeynos would prove trustworthy enough to learn how to use it as well. For a time, Qeynos had more than enough knowledge and power to destroy Lucan's forces, but due to it's power, only those among the Royal Guard were shown how to use it.</p><p>However, Lucan's own forces were interested in learning the secrets behind this new weapon, and they torturered and interrogated certain monks until they finally revealed the knowledge. When Lucan took over Freeport for good, the Ashen Order willingly left so they didn't have to subject to Lucan's will. A few of the monks stayed behind because they found his offer of power tempting. They formed the Dreadnaughts and further shared the knowledge of Arcane Combat with Freeport. Now, it's become commonplace throughout all of Norrath.</p>

[Rezikai]

<p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>ToxicLullaby wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Wow, thank you for the extremely fast and detailed reply. Very interesting.</p><p>So how does this apply to priests who worship a specific deity for their powers? Does the power come directly from Druzzil Ro regardless, or is it a sort of proxy process where the god grants power to the follower through Druzzil's voodoo awesomeness?</p><p>Or perhaps all gods have some basic level of magic that they can exercise, what with being gods, and thus can grant these boons to their followers without the need to go through Druzzil, unless they want to perform some sort of magic that she would frown upon.</p></blockquote><p>As Jaranna mentioned above, there are numerous sources of magic in Norrath. Not all of it is clearly explained, some of it isn't even touched upon, and most of it in general is given a "It's better if you don't think too hard about it" type of explanation.</p><p>Druzzil Ro may have been given complete control over magic as a diety, but I think it's safe to say that, as you mentioned, every diety has access to magic because they are dieties. Priests and crusaders do recieve magic from worshipping thier dieties. It was established in EQlive as a technicality upon character creation that no Cleric, Druid, Shaman (except for the Vah Shir, who worshipped spirits instead of dieties), Paladin, Shadowknight, or Ranger could be agnostic. You had to follow a diety because it was part of your class. Obviously, the gods left us in EQ2 and over the last 500 years, priests began to question whether worshipping them made any impact or not. They still had access to magic, which means the gods didn't need to be around to supply it to you.</p><p><em><strong>I believe the Warlock epic goes into some detail of just how warlocks are able to channel thier magics. It's a new source altogether that wizards and other mages had never considered. I think it involved channeling the Void in some way, but I haven't read into big detail about it.</strong></em></p></blockquote><p>Correct, the warlock epic did touch on it. It was stated in the games lore waaaaaaay back near or at launch that warlocks channel power from the void and were unique to other mages for doing it. Sources of magic as Cusa said are from all over, alot were from Deities.</p><p>However if I rememebr correctly, Arcane Combat was created by the monks of the desert and when they assisted Lucan in defending Freeport he repayed them by luring them to make a station in the commonlands only to capture and torture their members until they gave up the secrets of learning the ways of arcane combat so his troops could use arcane abilities.</p><p>Something else we never hear much of anymore, but seemed to exist as a source of magic essence as a realm called Arcanum is <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=368844�" target="_blank">The Mana Flow</a> </p><p>Heh noteable others from this board posted in it.. as did Bard <span >Nostrolo</span> himself.</p>

[Origin_Elloyn]

<p><~~~ Origin</p>

[KniteShayd]

<p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The closest anyone has been able to even speculate is that magic is assiciated with Ro, the sun. In the very beginning, Solusek Ro was originally in charge of the influence of magic in general, but he didn't play much importance to it. He prefered to just be the god of the sun and an all around spoiled diva basking in the glory of his elemental father, Fennin Ro.</p><p>For reasons never quite explained, he decided to create lesser gods from his own power in order to cover various aspects better. He created Ayonae Ro as the Matron of the Arts- The Demi-Goddess of Music and artistic talents. Varig Ro, God of the Forge, and Druzzil Ro, Goddess of Magic.</p><p>Druzzil Ro is a full fledged Diety. She isn't an ascended mortal turned into a demi-god. Despite being a lesser god, Being the God of Magic actually gives her more power than the elemental gods themselves combined. She bluntly demonstrates this in the Plane of Time in Everquest- the series of events that lead to EQ2's timeline being created as an alternate reality.</p><p>To put it simply, she is Deus Ex Machina. If she wants something to happen, she can use magic to make it happen. It's Magic, she doesn't have to explain it.</p><p>After us mortals banded together and defeated Quarm- a Tiamat created by fusing together the four elemental gods - The gods who created all the other gods below them and rule over the physics of the universe itself - Druzzil Ro came in and told us that she cannot allow Zebuxoruk to be freed from his prison. It was for both their and our protection from learning what he knew. So she sends us back in time to a point where we hadn't entered the Plane of Time yet as if it were nothing at all.</p></blockquote><p>I thought it was Druzzil, who created Ayonae. Not Solusek. Which is why bardic magic works. Music is spawned from magic, as the sound is "magical".</p>

[Cusashorn]

<p>Oh yeah,  you're right. Druzzil is the only lesser diety to create her own lesser diety. That's how powerful she is.</p>

[shadowscale]

<p>does this make <span >Druzzil Ro the wizard that did it in all the "oh a wizard did it" explenations for strange/unexplanable events?</span></p>

[Garnaf]

<p><cite>shadowscale wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>does this make <span>Druzzil Ro the wizard that did it in all the "oh a wizard did it" explenations for strange/unexplanable events?</span></p></blockquote><p>Not just the wizard, but the Enchanter, the Conjuror, the Necromancer, and the Warlock too.  Yea, she's a Lesser Deity on the same level as (or higher than) the Elemental Gods in terms of power given that she can manipulate all forms of magic (and is the only deity AFAIK that can influence the Plane of Time without the help of others, well aside from Zebuxoruk, and that's only in EQ1 due to his eternal imprisonment there, which simply never happened in EQ2)</p>

[Foolsfolly]

<p>I believe there were some NPC conversations that explained some of how magic works around the mage guilds of qeynos and freeport, back when you had to complete a series of quests to choose your class. Unfortunately these quests and the associated conversations have been lost to us.</p><p>From what I recall, there is a force called the Manaflow, a field of pure energy which exists everywhere, slightly out of phase with our reality. The study of magical arts involves tapping into this manaflow, and learning how to channel it's energies and bend them into the many forms of magic we have seen.</p><p>Back in EQ1, only a limited selection of classes actually learned how to utilize mana. However in the centuries between EQ1 and EQ2, several groups discovered that they could channel the manaflow to bolster physical strength, which led to the development of many martial techniques which utilize mana. In modern times all adventurer classes use mana.</p><p>I'd have to disagree with Cusa's assessment that Druzzil is able to do anything without explanation simply because she is all powerful. From what I understand, the manaflow is linked very closely to the timeflow. Because Druzzil's area of speciality links her very closely to the manaflow, she therefore gains some limited ability to manipulate time, such as resetting the events which occured in a limited area over a short period of time. Temporal manipulation is something which several mortals have attempted in both eq1 and eq2, so it's not really anything all that significant.</p>

[Meirril]

<p><cite>Foolsfolly wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I believe there were some NPC conversations that explained some of how magic works around the mage guilds of qeynos and freeport, back when you had to complete a series of quests to choose your class. Unfortunately these quests and the associated conversations have been lost to us.</p><p>From what I recall, there is a force called the Manaflow, a field of pure energy which exists everywhere, slightly out of phase with our reality. The study of magical arts involves tapping into this manaflow, and learning how to channel it's energies and bend them into the many forms of magic we have seen.</p><p>Back in EQ1, only a limited selection of classes actually learned how to utilize mana. However in the centuries between EQ1 and EQ2, several groups discovered that they could channel the manaflow to bolster physical strength, which led to the development of many martial techniques which utilize mana. In modern times all adventurer classes use mana.</p><p>I'd have to disagree with Cusa's assessment that Druzzil is able to do anything without explanation simply because she is all powerful. From what I understand, the manaflow is linked very closely to the timeflow. Because Druzzil's area of speciality links her very closely to the manaflow, she therefore gains some limited ability to manipulate time, such as resetting the events which occured in a limited area over a short period of time. Temporal manipulation is something which several mortals have attempted in both eq1 and eq2, so it's not really anything all that significant.</p></blockquote><p>Most classes in EQ1 use mana and magic. Only 4 classes didn't. If you didn't use mana somehow, you didn't even have a mana bar. And I covered how magical combat was developed by the monks first.</p><p>All of the gods have their own specialty. A niche in which other dieties would be extremely foolish to compete with that particular diety. If your fighting against Fennin Ro, you expect fire and to get burnt. If your fighting against the Rathe Councle your expecting to get smashed by stone and earth. If your fighting against E'ci your expecting frostburn. If your fighting against Cazic you expect fear. If your fighting against Rallos your expecting a knockdown drag out fight...and that eventually he'll take the tactical advantage somehow. Each diety has a strength in their paticular specialty. They can also manipulate magic to do what the other dieties do...but not as well as the diety that owns that specialty.</p><p>Druzil Ro is unique in that her specialty is the manipulation of magic. Simply put, as long as there isn't a diety that represents something she will do it better than any other diety. There is no god of time. There are ways to use magic to manipulate time. Therefore, she will be the best at it. Also if you consider use of an aspect of the god as worship, she has the most worshipers. In EQ2, everything uses magic. Therefore, everything worship Druzil indirectly. It puts her on a plateu where she can arguably be as important as an elemental god. Definately the most influential of the Gods of Influence.</p><p>That doesn't make Druzil all powerful. It does mean that she has the most options at her disposal. Also she can deny any mortal the use of magic. Possibly other dieties too but most likely she can't do that. Fortunately Druzil is mostly used as a Deux Ex Machina and not one of the plotting dieties that starts trouble so we'll never really know.</p>

[Lodrelhai]

<p><cite>Jaranna wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It's kind of weird, since there seems to be multiple sources of magical power in Norrath.</p><p>The first is the Divine, granted by the gods, usually the province of priests and paladins.  Then there's the Arcane, the source of which is intense study and scientific experimentation, which is the province of mages and shadowknights.  Then there's bardic music, which is thought by some people to be the oldest type of magic on Norrath.</p><p>We've seen weird combinations of both granted and arcane powers in Norrathian lore, though.  For example, in the Staff of the Four quest in EQ Live, you learn that Solusek Ro stripped three wizards of their powers at inopportune times, which is strange considering that wizard magic is arcane in nature.  And, in the intervening years between the withdrawal of the gods and the start of the EQ2 storyline, we learn that even the withdrawal of the gods could not fully cut off access to divine magic.</p><p>It seems that the actual source of magic in Norrath is arbitrary, depending on how the story is supposed to play out.</p></blockquote><p>Yeah, it's a minor point in all this, but from the Ethernaut stories, I think we can extrapolate that bardic music is not the oldest type of magic on Norrath - may even be one of the newest.  Roadyle/Myragul says he knows some about magic of all kinds, and is already so powerful a mage he is able to defend the group from dragons.  The dark elves are creating magical artifacts like the Scryona, and even key them to a particular genetic signature.  Eylee's magic, however, seems a mystery to her, sometimes acting without her volition.  Perhaps it's only that she hadn't trained much yet.  Perhaps her bardic magic wasn't so much acting on its own through her as being triggered as needed by her foresight, before she was conciously aware of what was needed.  It just seems to me the elven bard was making it up as she went along.</p><p>Also, if bardic magic was the oldest magic on Norrath, I'd expect it to feature prominently in Miragul's studies, since it could reasonably be considered the root from which the more purified arcane studies stem.  I don't think there's ever been any mention of him taking any interest whatsoever in it.</p>

[Pyra Shineflame]

<p>Playing a harp to take down baddies arguably wouldn't be appealing to the walking ego Miragul/Roadyle was/is.</p>

[Meirril]

<p><cite>Zulaika@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Playing a harp to take down baddies arguably wouldn't be appealing to the walking ego Miragul/Roadyle was/is.</p></blockquote><p>Also bardic magic is "plays well with others" type of magic. Miragul is more of a solo act/my way or the highway kinda guy.</p><p>But bardic magic seems to be a form of sympathetic magic. What you do has a direct relationship to what the magic does. In EQ1 you needed certain instruments to play certain songs (back in the old old days). If you wanted to run fast, you needed drums. Songs ment to inspire in combat needed a lute. I think the damage song needed chimes. I didn't play a bard so I could be off on that.</p><p>The point is the instruments and what songs you played had a direct relationship to the magic. It is more like your inspiring magical forces around you rather than controlling them. Bards did have a few spells and they generally affected a single target, like their charm spell. Bards only used mana when casting their spells, songs took no mana.</p><p>I think Miragul would turn his nose up at this kind of magic mostly because it isn't really controlled magic. Not something that you master so much as coax.</p>

[Tordal]

<p>we stoles ours</p>