I'm not sure how you can say that they are "Content with" as a blanket statement for all (or even most) wizards. But even if you can, that suggests that they do in fact aspire to something greater, but acknowledge that it may be unattainable. Then it falls back on again, should you worship that which you covet for yourself?
If you want to pick and choose my words that's fine. They know their limits. Mystryl died and was reincarnated as Mystra who limited the weave to level 10 spells, and every mage knows they cannot achieve godhood by magic because of the example set by Karsus. The mages of the Forgotten Realms operate differently than do the mages of Dragonlance.
I'm not sure if I've given offense or not. Not my intention. merely discussing.
As far as "Every mage knows they cannot achieve godhood by magic", I respond with "Every single major advancement in science has been achieved by some poor fool who didn't realize that what they were trying to do was impossible." Just because it hasn't been successfully done yet, doesn't prove that it can't be done, nor that the mind set doesn't exist to try and do it. there are some pretty intelligent fools out there.
And as far as it goes, I think that the priests are quite self regulated by The Gods themselves. Firstly, The Gods can strip them of their power quite easily. "Turn My Power against me? Phah! I strip you of your abilities. After all, who do you think granted them?". And then there is the fact that devotional prayers which are seeded in self interest contrary to the Deity being worshiped is likely to be noticed.
Arcane Magic is less 'Granted' by The Gods in the way that Divine magic is. It's more a tapping into a supernatural force (the weave). Therefore, to extend the metaphor, Wizards don't need to ask permission to cast a given spell the way clerics do.
And that may be at the crux of my dilemma. If a wizard need not ask permission of the Gods to wield power, and that power is similar in nature to that OF the gods, why would they bother worshiping t the alter of those Gods?
I think our perspectives are just different. I'm looking at the question from a base of knowledge I have from reading the Forgotten Realms. I think you are looking at it without considering the rules and precedents that have already been laid down in the lore.
The answer to your question about why a wizard would bother worshiping a God, they don't. Plain and simple, wizards are not typically priests, (unless they dual-class). Priests derive their power through prayer to their god or goddess. Each night a priest asks the god they worship to grant them the spells they will cast. It happens completely outside of magic. It is not magic, it is divine. Mages simply tap the latent power of the weave and bend it to their will. They need not ask Mystra for permission or for her blessing. After a mortal attempted to achieve godhood through the Weave, she took steps to ensure that would never happen again, and it hasn't. Your analogy to science does not hold water: Mystra capped the Weave (she can do this, she created it). No god or goddess has capped science (that we know of).
As to the Gods regulating their priests and self-serving prayer, yea they know it but allow it anyway. Consider the evil divinities. They are self-serving and fully expect their priests and priestesses to be so as well. Shar is the goddess of despair and regret. Her faithful pray to her so that they can further that cause. Lloth is the goddess of chaos, and ALL her faithful are self-serving. Cyric's faithful...self-serving. The evil and to a lesser extent neutral-aligned gods fully EXPECT the devotional prayers of their priests to be seeded in self-interets. Mask, the god of thieves...grants prayers to his faithful so they can better steal and fatten their pockets. You cannot take a narrow view of the gods of the Forgotten Realms. For the evil-aligned gods, it is a catch-22. Their best priests can develop a cunning and evil that can rival the god themselves. To strip their most powerful priests of power weakens them, but to grant them power risks eventual usurpation. And it has happened. Mask lost part of himself to his most powerful priest, Kesson Rel. Bane died and was replaced by his most powerful, Cyric. It happens in the evil pantheon because evil breeds evil, and self-serving motives are unavoidable. In the good-aligned pantheon, there are no such problems, because as you say, the second a priest of Lathander's heart becomes tainted, Lathander will cast him out of his flock. The same with Torm or Helm, or Chauntea, or any of the good gods.
I do think we are talking at cross purposes. I'm again going to reiterate that Wizards may very well understand that Magic (capped at 10th level) might not do it, but that "Something LIKE it" is sure to exist. I agree that Magic probably won't do it on it's own, but someone who is of a mind set of exploring for ancient words of power, is more likely to put stock in that than anything else.
I do disagree that Divine power is not magic. It certainly is. It's just a different kind of magic and from a different source. If there are two types of magic, and clearly beings with abilities that are similar, but from a different source, there must be a third. That's science, or at least scientific method.
Oh, I agree that the more selfish and greedy gods would look for that same trait in followers. but being selfish and greedy, don't you think they would keep an extremely tight grip on these individuals? I'm not sure what the FR books say, but any God that lets a priest of theirs use their own powers against them, deserves to be overthrown. I don't think there are many that would last long with that kind of a fatal flaw.
@ZaknafeinBaenre While some of your points are valid, I need to add that some of your theories about priests are misguided. While they must, to some extent, follow a god's dogma, their alignment and actions do not need to match exactly that of which the god professes (for instance, there are quite a few Chaotic Neutral priests of Umberlee, at least in Waterdeep, where they constantly seek to calm the Bitch Queen's destructive nature), and they all churches have different sects which follow different dogmas (for instance, the controversial orders of St. Dionysus (drunks) and Weeping Friars (masochists) in contrast to the Alleviators (healers) and the Golden Cup (protectors of the weak), mind you, they all worship Ilmater, but have their own particular way of doing so), some orders even break the Arcane/Divine and single-god worshipping, prime example being the Wychlaran (Witches of Rashemen), which contains every single arcanist in the land as well as most priests, with both sides being treated equally when it comes to being granted their powers (Hathrans gain the same powers and an extra spell list regardless of whether they were mages or priests, but they keep still progress in their original spellcasting), as well as having every single member worship the Three at the sime time (Bhalla (Chauntea), Khelliara (Mielikki) and Diana (Selûne), and formerly the Hidden One (Mystra) - the sources I have are still a bit contradictory though, as Unapproachable East (3.0) suggests that they worshipped Diana even before the fall of the Hidden One, while the 3.5 Core Rulebook to the Forgotten Realms restricts them to Bhalla, Khelliara and the Hidden One, with no mention of Diana, which is only mentioned again in the 4e books, having replaced Mystra after her death), having all of their abilities, domains and classes open to them (i.e. as a Cleric you may be able to pick both the Arcana (exclusive to Mystra) and the Animal (from Chauntea and Mielikki) domains).
To quote the actual rulebook "Most hathrans are drawn from members of the sorcerer or cleric classes. Bards, wizards, and druids are rare but not unheard of among hathrans, but paladins and rangers are practically nonexistent within the sisterhood. Regardless of their original classes, hathrans consider rivalry between spellcasters to be utterly foolish, and they hold no grudge against any of their sisters for the origin of their spells."
Well what's actually happened disagrees with what you presume. It's happened a lot.
I think the problem is that I am postulating that 'the possibility exists' and then speculating on what the outcome "Might Be" given that premise, much like Schrodinger's Cat. You are trying to hammer that into hard and fast rules across the board and apply that to what you've read.
Just take the possibility as maybe only one wizard who's 'Crazy' enough to think that the gods are merely more powerful beings wielding a power that is similar to magic. Given that premise, is it logical to assume that an extremely intelligent and inventive mind would take past failures by potentially lesser fools as proof positive that something couldn't happen? Or would they that the more egocentric view that 'Those fools weren't ME'?
Given the Egos of the Mages in BG, Xzar and Edwin and Baeloth in particular, would they accept the theorem that anyone was their equal, let alone superior, and bow down before any being? Or would they instead attempt to wrest control of such power for themselves. And given that Charname is who he/she is, wouldn't that further exacerbate the situation? After all, Magic (in one form or another) is the cornerstone, the stuff upon which the universe flows.
Priests of Umberlee will work to calm the seas when paid by mariners. They aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts but as a service for payment, AND they also work to ensure that those who DON'T pay their proper respects to the bitch queen find themselves a watery grave. Controlling the seas ensures that prayer and tribute to Umberlee is observed, thereby strengthening her. As her priestess says "the bitch queen brooks no insolence." This in no way refutes my "theories about priests."
Ilmater isn't the only god who is worshiped in multiple ways. Even goodly gods such as Lathander have multiple sects that are at odds with each other. As priests of those churches will point out to one another, their prayers for spells are still answered, regardless of how they worship. That suggests that Ilmater values drunken masochistic protecters of the weak. I fail also to see how pointing this out shows that my thoughts on priests are misguided.
You are getting too technical, trying to create an error in my logic, but the point is, you won't find a sane, reasonable, empathetic priest of Cyric. You won't find a priest of Lathander who happens to also be a shade and worships darkness, or a priest of Shar that loves the sun. You won't find a follower of Chauntea that doesn't love nature.
Find me a priest of Gond that isn't proficient in lore and history and i'll stand rebuked.
I guess the reason why i'm trying to hammer it into hard and fast rules is because there are, in fact, hard and fast rules that cannot be broken. These are the core D&D rules, laid down by the creators of dungeons and dragons, and they're set in 4 editions. In order for a mage like Edwin to use magic to become a god, an actual god, he'd need Mystra to alter the Weave for him. I suppose if he could somehow manipulate Mystra into doing so, he could then seek to cast Karsus's Avatar again (a spell, using the weave, 12th level, that actually steals the divinity of a god). My point is that all of this theorizing has already happened, in the forgotten realms. Your talking about "is this possible" and the question was answered with finality in the Fall of Netheril Trilogy.
In the DMG (one edition, I'm not sure which) there's a paragraph that goes something like this.
"These rules are intended to be a guideline and nothing more. Take what works in your game and leave the rest."
The reason for that line to be included in the DMG was because the concept of the game was intended to be a fun and intellectually stimulating free form structure, not checkers.
Add to that the fact that this is supposed to be a Philosophical discussion about motivations, which by there very nature are in no way guided by the rules in the books.
As her priestess says "the bitch queen brooks no insolence." This in no way refutes my "theories about priests."
Wait, what? I'm not following. I stated that the priests of a given god, regardless of how devious and self serving they are, would still be monitored, controled and even rebuked by that god for working against their interests. You claimed "Well what's actually happened disagrees with what you presume. It's happened a lot." Now you state that Umberlee "brooks no insolence" as a direct quote. Which is it? Umberlee would or would not rebuke her own priests for insolence?
The bottom line is, the books are not the end all and be all of the game world. Far from it in fact. They are a backdrop, a starting point and background flavor, but nothing more, for gaming within the world. If nothing could happen in a PnP game that was outside of 'Canon', 99.99% of the games that occur would be invalid and that's not including the variances between BG and "Official" Forgotten rules.
Haha, the quote is from Baldur's Gate. When you go to talk to the priestess of Umberlee in Chapter 5 to get the geas scroll so you can get the cure from Marek, her voice command is "The bitch queen brooks no insolence." She's referring to outsiders, not her priests and priestesses, and says it to the player character. She's telling your player character to maintain the proper level of respect.
If you are jumping all over that quote, you are grasping at straws and it is tedious to explain such trivial things. You are being too literal with my words.
And the bottom line is you should read the books. You want to theorize about a mage wanting to use or using magic to achieve godhood.
It already happened! His name was Karsus. He died. The weave was altered to prevent it from ever happening again.
I despair. I do feel like I am chasing my own tail trying to get you to understand the rather large and considerable flaws in your logic, but... it's all good. And this has, I fear, terminally derailed the thread.
For my next trick, watch me pull a rabbit out of a hat.
Okay, I've minded my own business thus far, but I cannot just sit by and watch this injustice any longer.
@the_spyder There is no error on his logic, it is YOUR logic, if it exists at all, that is flawed. He pointed out all of the reasons why divinity is not as simple as you believe it is, yet you steadfastingly refuse to comprehed them! MADDENING! I am beginning to doubt that you even bothered to read all of the posts here. And yet you accuse him, that has most adequately answered your queries, of derailing the thread? Really?
Guys, passionate debate is fine, and trying to persuade somebody else to accept your point of view is okay. But I don't think there is a need to achieve universal acceptance on this kind of topic, let alone get personal/frustrated about it.
For example I have never insisted that @the_spyder accept my understanding of alignment where we have disagreed in the past.
*Copy-Paste something I said yesterday on a different lore issue* Having thought about this topic a bit more, and building on from what I said regarding AD&D 4th Ed, I think I am going to stop bothering too much about being particularly accurate about D&D lore. I mean I do love the richness, depth and sheer amount of content. I love how I could find a massive map of Faerun online, find any random named city like Phsant, and be able to find out some lore and history about it.
But there's also some things about the lore that I don't like, and I am going to take the liberty of interpreting it my own way, or just ignoring it. I think all players, to an extent, create their own versions of Faerun and its characters in their minds anyway, so I don't think it's important to fully understand the 'canon Faerun' as dictated by WotC and their writers. I am also certain that given the long history of D&D, there's probably loads of inconsistencies, retcons and contradictions, so there is no one 'undeniable' canon version of Forgotten Realms anyway.
Now I might be wrong, but even if I were, my ignorance on this topic does not negatively impact my enjoyment of BG and the Forgotten Realms, or anybody else's.
With the greatest of respect, this is intended to be a friendly discourse between members of the forum. Please don't degenerate into name calling.
My original intent in this thread was merely to discus Philosophically my perception of a line of parallel logic between the game world disciplines of Magic and Religion as parallel to the real world disciplines of science and religion. This may or may not exist but I was hoping to discuss it's relative ramifications from an abstract concept (loosely related to BG) by those who either agree with me, or disagree and have reasons why.
To be clear, there is no "Correct" answer to this question as it is metaphysical in nature. No amount of "But the rules say this" or "The books say that" is "The correct definitive answer" because (a) in the game world, as in reality, there are as many 'Right' ways of thinking as there are snow crystals in a Snow Storm. and (b) the game world itself is as shifting and nebulous as grains of sand in a sand storm and (c) it's about motivations and metaphysics, not about rules.
My point of view isn't "Right". Neither is anyone else's. It's Schrodinger's cat, or to put it a different way, it's a forum for DISCUSSING the concept, not saying "Your wrong". In fact the only thing that is 'Wrong' is to say 'the rules say...' as this isn't about the rules at all.
For my part, I apologize to anyone whom I may have offended. It just got frustrating when people say "The rules". I was trying to get past them as (in my view) they have zero relation to the concept I was trying to express/discuss.
@the_spyder Fair enough. Forgive me if I have overreacted, it's just that I took you for completely ignoring another's attempts to show you their opinion by silencing it. Furthermore, any topic linked to political, sexual and religious matters is bound to elicit some kind of controversy, it appears this one was no exception.
...Torm is the God of Justice, but Faerunian justice is not the same as our justice. It's not an absolute, but a relative thing.
It really isn't a relative thing. To say that their justice is not ours is to render the term meaningless--it is on "our" conception of justice that it is premised. But worse it is like saying that in farune 1+1=9. Justice is not a thing that could be relative.
You said it's about motivations and metaphysics, not about rules.
Does a scientist wonder why an apple falls to the ground from a tree? No, because someone before him already figured out gravity. So goes a mage. He does not try to achieve godhood through magic because he understands that he'd need to perform a 12th level spell in order to do that, and he cannot because the Weave will not allow it. He knows someone before him tried already. And his name was Karsus. It's in the books, which you don't find important at all and don't want to talk about.
So to answer you question, which is exactly what i've already done: No. Edwin and Xzar would not try to achieve godhood through magic. They're avid students of history because that's part of what being a mage is, so they already know about Karsus and the state of the Weave.
There is your parallel between science and magic. And your answer to the motives of mages.
The truth is you never read the books, didn't know the story of Karsus, and didn't accept that when it was brought to your attention and answered your question. The lore of the Forgotten Realms runs deeper then you think, and it has answered more questions then you think. It's not mere "backdrop" or "background flavor" as you so trivialize it. If you disagree, that's fine, but you attempted philosophical discussion about the Forgotten Realms without understanding its lore, and then trivialized that lore as fluff and nothing more when it was brought to your attention.
...Torm is the God of Justice, but Faerunian justice is not the same as our justice. It's not an absolute, but a relative thing.
It really isn't a relative thing. To say that their justice is not ours is to render the term meaningless--it is on "our" conception of justice that it is premised. But worse it is like saying that in farune 1+1=9. Justice is not a thing that could be relative.
On the hand, this is an impossible world...
Faerunian justice is based heavily upon medieval justice. In the middle ages, witches were burnt at the stake for the crime of casting magic curses on people. This was considered justice by the people involved. Would a god of Justice, who is a product of the world and civilizations that gave him form, be against such forms of justice? Keeping in mind that in our world, magic curses were not real, and these women who were burnt usually didn't even do anything wrong.
You said it's about motivations and metaphysics, not about rules.
Does a scientist wonder why an apple falls to the ground from a tree? No, because someone before him already figured out gravity. So goes a mage. He does not try to achieve godhood through magic because he understands that he'd need to perform a 12th level spell in order to do that, and he cannot because the Weave will not allow it. He knows someone before him tried already. And his name was Karsus. It's in the books, which you don't find important at all and don't want to talk about.
At the risk of turning this again south, the analogy is faulty. Figuring out ascension is not analogous to figuring out gravity. It is analogous to figuring out quantum string theory. To a Physicist, you can't prove that something Can't be done, only that it can. Just because people have failed to do it for decades, doesn't mean that it will never happen. Since the 40s when Einstein said that you can't break the light barrier, people have been trying to find a way to prove him wrong, and they will continue to do so until someone actually does it.
So, to bring that in focus to what you've been saying, just because Mystra found a way to prevent it from happening via the weave, doesn't mean there isn't another way that no one has thought of yet. Nor does it mean that an intelligent man (Wizard) might not be power hungry enough (or mad enough) to try to do it anyway. That is the essence of being a scientist. Nothing is ever proved impossible, merely beyond the reach of current methodology, so you try something different. you don't give up.
Besides, I'm talking in abstract. That's what the whole Schrodinger's cat analogy is all about.
Schrodinger's cat isn't a real experiment. No one is putting a feline in a box with a quantum level gas pellet to 'See' what will happen. They talk about the consequences of the wave packet both of the cat alive and the cat dead and how that applies to quantum mechanics. That is the essence of what I was looking for. There are no hard and fast rules surrounding this. I know you want there to be, but it isn't a "That's what the rules say" type of question.
Nuff said. If you care to continue to debate, please feel free. I am not getting sucked in again unless there is new material.
...Torm is the God of Justice, but Faerunian justice is not the same as our justice. It's not an absolute, but a relative thing.
It really isn't a relative thing. To say that their justice is not ours is to render the term meaningless--it is on "our" conception of justice that it is premised. But worse it is like saying that in farune 1+1=9. Justice is not a thing that could be relative.
On the hand, this is an impossible world...
Faerunian justice is based heavily upon medieval justice. In the middle ages, witches were burnt at the stake for the crime of casting magic curses on people. This was considered justice by the people involved. Would a god of Justice, who is a product of the world and civilizations that gave him form, be against such forms of justice? Keeping in mind that in our world, magic curses were not real, and these women who were burnt usually didn't even do anything wrong.
D&d assumes the truth of the witchhunters clam: that they were evil practitioners of magic. Though an offensive distortion of history, these are matters of fact that change gross injustice into something that might be justified. It doesn't change the nature of justice.
Take away the ignorance of the true believer; they know that this is not the punishment of the guilty, but the torture and murder of the innocent to sate the bloodlust of the mob and cynical ambitions of the hegemony. Do they still call it justice?
Who are evil practitioners of magic? Where? Do you have examples of witches being burnt at the stake in Faerun? If we're going with generalities, I would say that to my sensibilities, it would be an injustice to kill an innocent. And I suspect Torm would agree. But the reality is, there are limits to what gods can do on the earth. They can act through intermediaries(and often do), can occasionally take avatars, and they work to pursue their portfolios energetically. But the thing is, the other gods do, too. Cyric, Lloth, Shar and all the other dark gods are also working hard to oppose gods like Torm and Tyr.
Do you think a responsible god like Torm will say 'I don't like this system, change it or I'll take my toys and go home'? What if Ao calls his bluff? If Torm no longer participates in the 'system', that's tantamount to abandonment of his portfolio, and Ao would assign another to take his place. Or another god like Tyr would sieze it.
Who are evil practitioners of magic? Where? Do you have examples of witches being burnt at the stake in Faerun?
There's an encounter in the Nashkal Fair grounds where you walk in on a Wizard who is fighting with a Witch. The Wizard calls her a witch and calls upon Charname and party to support him in killing her. Now, clearly he's crazy, but... he also had apparently some reason to believe that the call to action "Because she's a witch" was a valid one and would solicit aid. That in itself suggests that, not only is it at least plausible that the attitude exists, but that it is prevelant enough for someone to assume a passing stranger would at least be amenable to the idea of lynching a Witch in Faerun. Just sayin.
...Do you think a responsible god like Torm will say 'I don't like this system, change it or I'll take my toys and go home'? What if Ao calls his bluff? If Torm no longer participates in the 'system', that's tantamount to abandonment of his portfolio, and Ao would assign another to take his place. Or another god like Tyr would sieze it.
This consequentialist argument cannot convince one who loves justice. I am saying that yes, he should abandon the pantheon. Principle would demand it. Inflexible adherence to principle is the defining feature of his portfolio (ie if it's Really justice)
edit: this is why, in real life, people "resign in protest."
Who are evil practitioners of magic? Where? Do you have examples of witches being burnt at the stake in Faerun?
Viconia. I suppose one could argue that she is being burnt at the stake because she's a drow, not because she's a "witch", but it could be equally well-argued that the people of Athkatla consider *all* drow to be "practitioners of evil magic". And, it is a quite literal example of someone "being burnt at the stake in Faerun.
It's completely because she's drow. Athkatla is run by the Cowled Wizards. There is a group of truly evil practitioners of magic, the Red Wizards of Thay, and nobody is burning them at the stake. No, they do most of the burning of people at the stake.
I'd disagree that it's "Only" because she's a drow. Killing a Drow hardly needs a pyre. Any old sword or bow will do the trick, and since they have them.... The symbolism of the lynching clearly says "Witch".
Comments
The ones you have to watch for are the priests.
As far as "Every mage knows they cannot achieve godhood by magic", I respond with "Every single major advancement in science has been achieved by some poor fool who didn't realize that what they were trying to do was impossible." Just because it hasn't been successfully done yet, doesn't prove that it can't be done, nor that the mind set doesn't exist to try and do it. there are some pretty intelligent fools out there.
And as far as it goes, I think that the priests are quite self regulated by The Gods themselves. Firstly, The Gods can strip them of their power quite easily. "Turn My Power against me? Phah! I strip you of your abilities. After all, who do you think granted them?". And then there is the fact that devotional prayers which are seeded in self interest contrary to the Deity being worshiped is likely to be noticed.
Arcane Magic is less 'Granted' by The Gods in the way that Divine magic is. It's more a tapping into a supernatural force (the weave). Therefore, to extend the metaphor, Wizards don't need to ask permission to cast a given spell the way clerics do.
And that may be at the crux of my dilemma. If a wizard need not ask permission of the Gods to wield power, and that power is similar in nature to that OF the gods, why would they bother worshiping t the alter of those Gods?
The answer to your question about why a wizard would bother worshiping a God, they don't. Plain and simple, wizards are not typically priests, (unless they dual-class). Priests derive their power through prayer to their god or goddess. Each night a priest asks the god they worship to grant them the spells they will cast. It happens completely outside of magic. It is not magic, it is divine. Mages simply tap the latent power of the weave and bend it to their will. They need not ask Mystra for permission or for her blessing. After a mortal attempted to achieve godhood through the Weave, she took steps to ensure that would never happen again, and it hasn't. Your analogy to science does not hold water: Mystra capped the Weave (she can do this, she created it). No god or goddess has capped science (that we know of).
As to the Gods regulating their priests and self-serving prayer, yea they know it but allow it anyway. Consider the evil divinities. They are self-serving and fully expect their priests and priestesses to be so as well. Shar is the goddess of despair and regret. Her faithful pray to her so that they can further that cause. Lloth is the goddess of chaos, and ALL her faithful are self-serving. Cyric's faithful...self-serving. The evil and to a lesser extent neutral-aligned gods fully EXPECT the devotional prayers of their priests to be seeded in self-interets. Mask, the god of thieves...grants prayers to his faithful so they can better steal and fatten their pockets. You cannot take a narrow view of the gods of the Forgotten Realms. For the evil-aligned gods, it is a catch-22. Their best priests can develop a cunning and evil that can rival the god themselves. To strip their most powerful priests of power weakens them, but to grant them power risks eventual usurpation. And it has happened. Mask lost part of himself to his most powerful priest, Kesson Rel. Bane died and was replaced by his most powerful, Cyric. It happens in the evil pantheon because evil breeds evil, and self-serving motives are unavoidable. In the good-aligned pantheon, there are no such problems, because as you say, the second a priest of Lathander's heart becomes tainted, Lathander will cast him out of his flock. The same with Torm or Helm, or Chauntea, or any of the good gods.
And no, no offense given or perceived.
I do disagree that Divine power is not magic. It certainly is. It's just a different kind of magic and from a different source. If there are two types of magic, and clearly beings with abilities that are similar, but from a different source, there must be a third. That's science, or at least scientific method.
Oh, I agree that the more selfish and greedy gods would look for that same trait in followers. but being selfish and greedy, don't you think they would keep an extremely tight grip on these individuals? I'm not sure what the FR books say, but any God that lets a priest of theirs use their own powers against them, deserves to be overthrown. I don't think there are many that would last long with that kind of a fatal flaw.
While some of your points are valid, I need to add that some of your theories about priests are misguided.
While they must, to some extent, follow a god's dogma, their alignment and actions do not need to match exactly that of which the god professes (for instance, there are quite a few Chaotic Neutral priests of Umberlee, at least in Waterdeep, where they constantly seek to calm the Bitch Queen's destructive nature), and they all churches have different sects which follow different dogmas (for instance, the controversial orders of St. Dionysus (drunks) and Weeping Friars (masochists) in contrast to the Alleviators (healers) and the Golden Cup (protectors of the weak), mind you, they all worship Ilmater, but have their own particular way of doing so), some orders even break the Arcane/Divine and single-god worshipping, prime example being the Wychlaran (Witches of Rashemen), which contains every single arcanist in the land as well as most priests, with both sides being treated equally when it comes to being granted their powers (Hathrans gain the same powers and an extra spell list regardless of whether they were mages or priests, but they keep still progress in their original spellcasting), as well as having every single member worship the Three at the sime time (Bhalla (Chauntea), Khelliara (Mielikki) and Diana (Selûne), and formerly the Hidden One (Mystra) - the sources I have are still a bit contradictory though, as Unapproachable East (3.0) suggests that they worshipped Diana even before the fall of the Hidden One, while the 3.5 Core Rulebook to the Forgotten Realms restricts them to Bhalla, Khelliara and the Hidden One, with no mention of Diana, which is only mentioned again in the 4e books, having replaced Mystra after her death), having all of their abilities, domains and classes open to them (i.e. as a Cleric you may be able to pick both the Arcana (exclusive to Mystra) and the Animal (from Chauntea and Mielikki) domains).
To quote the actual rulebook
"Most hathrans are drawn from members of the sorcerer or cleric classes. Bards, wizards, and druids are rare but not unheard of among hathrans, but paladins and rangers are practically nonexistent within the sisterhood. Regardless of their original classes, hathrans consider rivalry between spellcasters to be utterly foolish, and they hold no grudge against any of their sisters for the origin of their spells."
Just take the possibility as maybe only one wizard who's 'Crazy' enough to think that the gods are merely more powerful beings wielding a power that is similar to magic. Given that premise, is it logical to assume that an extremely intelligent and inventive mind would take past failures by potentially lesser fools as proof positive that something couldn't happen? Or would they that the more egocentric view that 'Those fools weren't ME'?
Given the Egos of the Mages in BG, Xzar and Edwin and Baeloth in particular, would they accept the theorem that anyone was their equal, let alone superior, and bow down before any being? Or would they instead attempt to wrest control of such power for themselves. And given that Charname is who he/she is, wouldn't that further exacerbate the situation? After all, Magic (in one form or another) is the cornerstone, the stuff upon which the universe flows.
Ilmater isn't the only god who is worshiped in multiple ways. Even goodly gods such as Lathander have multiple sects that are at odds with each other. As priests of those churches will point out to one another, their prayers for spells are still answered, regardless of how they worship. That suggests that Ilmater values drunken masochistic protecters of the weak. I fail also to see how pointing this out shows that my thoughts on priests are misguided.
You are getting too technical, trying to create an error in my logic, but the point is, you won't find a sane, reasonable, empathetic priest of Cyric. You won't find a priest of Lathander who happens to also be a shade and worships darkness, or a priest of Shar that loves the sun. You won't find a follower of Chauntea that doesn't love nature.
Find me a priest of Gond that isn't proficient in lore and history and i'll stand rebuked.
"These rules are intended to be a guideline and nothing more. Take what works in your game and leave the rest."
The reason for that line to be included in the DMG was because the concept of the game was intended to be a fun and intellectually stimulating free form structure, not checkers.
Add to that the fact that this is supposed to be a Philosophical discussion about motivations, which by there very nature are in no way guided by the rules in the books. Wait, what? I'm not following. I stated that the priests of a given god, regardless of how devious and self serving they are, would still be monitored, controled and even rebuked by that god for working against their interests. You claimed "Well what's actually happened disagrees with what you presume. It's happened a lot." Now you state that Umberlee "brooks no insolence" as a direct quote. Which is it? Umberlee would or would not rebuke her own priests for insolence?
The bottom line is, the books are not the end all and be all of the game world. Far from it in fact. They are a backdrop, a starting point and background flavor, but nothing more, for gaming within the world. If nothing could happen in a PnP game that was outside of 'Canon', 99.99% of the games that occur would be invalid and that's not including the variances between BG and "Official" Forgotten rules.
If you are jumping all over that quote, you are grasping at straws and it is tedious to explain such trivial things. You are being too literal with my words.
And the bottom line is you should read the books. You want to theorize about a mage wanting to use or using magic to achieve godhood.
It already happened! His name was Karsus. He died. The weave was altered to prevent it from ever happening again.
There's your backdrop.
For my next trick, watch me pull a rabbit out of a hat.
@the_spyder
There is no error on his logic, it is YOUR logic, if it exists at all, that is flawed.
He pointed out all of the reasons why divinity is not as simple as you believe it is, yet you steadfastingly refuse to comprehed them! MADDENING! I am beginning to doubt that you even bothered to read all of the posts here. And yet you accuse him, that has most adequately answered your queries, of derailing the thread? Really?
Guys, passionate debate is fine, and trying to persuade somebody else to accept your point of view is okay. But I don't think there is a need to achieve universal acceptance on this kind of topic, let alone get personal/frustrated about it.
For example I have never insisted that @the_spyder accept my understanding of alignment where we have disagreed in the past.
*Copy-Paste something I said yesterday on a different lore issue*
Having thought about this topic a bit more, and building on from what I said regarding AD&D 4th Ed, I think I am going to stop bothering too much about being particularly accurate about D&D lore. I mean I do love the richness, depth and sheer amount of content. I love how I could find a massive map of Faerun online, find any random named city like Phsant, and be able to find out some lore and history about it.
But there's also some things about the lore that I don't like, and I am going to take the liberty of interpreting it my own way, or just ignoring it. I think all players, to an extent, create their own versions of Faerun and its characters in their minds anyway, so I don't think it's important to fully understand the 'canon Faerun' as dictated by WotC and their writers. I am also certain that given the long history of D&D, there's probably loads of inconsistencies, retcons and contradictions, so there is no one 'undeniable' canon version of Forgotten Realms anyway.
Now I might be wrong, but even if I were, my ignorance on this topic does not negatively impact my enjoyment of BG and the Forgotten Realms, or anybody else's.
With the greatest of respect, this is intended to be a friendly discourse between members of the forum. Please don't degenerate into name calling.
My original intent in this thread was merely to discus Philosophically my perception of a line of parallel logic between the game world disciplines of Magic and Religion as parallel to the real world disciplines of science and religion. This may or may not exist but I was hoping to discuss it's relative ramifications from an abstract concept (loosely related to BG) by those who either agree with me, or disagree and have reasons why.
To be clear, there is no "Correct" answer to this question as it is metaphysical in nature. No amount of "But the rules say this" or "The books say that" is "The correct definitive answer" because (a) in the game world, as in reality, there are as many 'Right' ways of thinking as there are snow crystals in a Snow Storm. and (b) the game world itself is as shifting and nebulous as grains of sand in a sand storm and (c) it's about motivations and metaphysics, not about rules.
My point of view isn't "Right". Neither is anyone else's. It's Schrodinger's cat, or to put it a different way, it's a forum for DISCUSSING the concept, not saying "Your wrong". In fact the only thing that is 'Wrong' is to say 'the rules say...' as this isn't about the rules at all.
For my part, I apologize to anyone whom I may have offended. It just got frustrating when people say "The rules". I was trying to get past them as (in my view) they have zero relation to the concept I was trying to express/discuss.
Nuff said.
Fair enough. Forgive me if I have overreacted, it's just that I took you for completely ignoring another's attempts to show you their opinion by silencing it. Furthermore, any topic linked to political, sexual and religious matters is bound to elicit some kind of controversy, it appears this one was no exception.
On the hand, this is an impossible world...
Does a scientist wonder why an apple falls to the ground from a tree? No, because someone before him already figured out gravity. So goes a mage. He does not try to achieve godhood through magic because he understands that he'd need to perform a 12th level spell in order to do that, and he cannot because the Weave will not allow it. He knows someone before him tried already. And his name was Karsus. It's in the books, which you don't find important at all and don't want to talk about.
So to answer you question, which is exactly what i've already done: No. Edwin and Xzar would not try to achieve godhood through magic. They're avid students of history because that's part of what being a mage is, so they already know about Karsus and the state of the Weave.
There is your parallel between science and magic. And your answer to the motives of mages.
The truth is you never read the books, didn't know the story of Karsus, and didn't accept that when it was brought to your attention and answered your question. The lore of the Forgotten Realms runs deeper then you think, and it has answered more questions then you think. It's not mere "backdrop" or "background flavor" as you so trivialize it. If you disagree, that's fine, but you attempted philosophical discussion about the Forgotten Realms without understanding its lore, and then trivialized that lore as fluff and nothing more when it was brought to your attention.
So, to bring that in focus to what you've been saying, just because Mystra found a way to prevent it from happening via the weave, doesn't mean there isn't another way that no one has thought of yet. Nor does it mean that an intelligent man (Wizard) might not be power hungry enough (or mad enough) to try to do it anyway. That is the essence of being a scientist. Nothing is ever proved impossible, merely beyond the reach of current methodology, so you try something different. you don't give up.
Besides, I'm talking in abstract. That's what the whole Schrodinger's cat analogy is all about.
Schrodinger's cat isn't a real experiment. No one is putting a feline in a box with a quantum level gas pellet to 'See' what will happen. They talk about the consequences of the wave packet both of the cat alive and the cat dead and how that applies to quantum mechanics. That is the essence of what I was looking for. There are no hard and fast rules surrounding this. I know you want there to be, but it isn't a "That's what the rules say" type of question.
Nuff said. If you care to continue to debate, please feel free. I am not getting sucked in again unless there is new material.
Take away the ignorance of the true believer; they know that this is not the punishment of the guilty, but the torture and murder of the innocent to sate the bloodlust of the mob and cynical ambitions of the hegemony. Do they still call it justice?
Do you think a responsible god like Torm will say 'I don't like this system, change it or I'll take my toys and go home'? What if Ao calls his bluff? If Torm no longer participates in the 'system', that's tantamount to abandonment of his portfolio, and Ao would assign another to take his place. Or another god like Tyr would sieze it.
edit: this is why, in real life, people "resign in protest."