A History, Thoroly Research'd, of the Phenomenon Known to Some Mortals as "Magic"

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BelgarathMTH

@subtledoctor , Interesting post. Kudos on your creativity, and on role-playing the presentation of your "thesis".

When I hear that idea of "the Weave is "inside us", "in the grass and the tree, and the worm and the bird", I can't help but think "Star Wars" and "the Force". And as both a Star Wars and a D&D fan, of course, the same connection had occurred to me as well. I also have had the idea for all "deities" in fiction, influenced by being a "Stargate" and "Star Trek" fan, that supposed "deities" in fantasy and sci-fi realms are actually just more ancient, more "technologically" advanced beings, who choose for whatever reason to attempt to amuse themselves by becoming patrons of less old, less advanced beings.

OlvynChuru

One thing that has always perplexed me about magic in the Forgotten Realms is, what exactly does it mean to be skilled at magic? If it's possible for an archmage to kill people with a single power word, does that say more about how skilled the mage is or how powerful the spell is? I would expect that if all it takes to cast the Power Word: Kill spell is to utter a single word of power, an amateur mage would be able to cast it very easily.

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BelgarathMTH

@OlvynChuru , I think the reason that advanced Power Word spells are so advanced, is that the Power Word must be spoken with perfect pronunciation in order to work, without any trace of accent. And, the Power Words are from an ancient, long dead language, which would require years of study and extreme intelligence to even begin to understand in writing, much less to speak even a single word of it as the ancients would have.

@subtledoctor , The problem I see with this thesis about the Faerun gods is that they apparently can force us to live eternally in some kind of "afterlife" of their choosing. How does the afterlife work, exactly? Are they preventing us from ever really dying? Are all we mortals imprisoned in some kind of "Matrix", where our entire lives are but projected images, and our true physical bodies are held in some kind of stasis by the Machines, err, I mean "the gods", in order that we might serve as power sources, or "batteries" for their existence, and amusement, and to serve their whims?

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Sceptenar

Pfff... hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good longsword at your side kiddo...

Onestep

I like this thing. As the various Mystra's have got a good hold of magic in the Forgotten Realms, it's easy to forget that magic is a universal force, far beyond the ability of any one god to control as a whole.

It's even easier to forget that even gods are relatively bit players in the eternal wars of the time lords (these are a real, official thing) who fashion neutronium golems (again a real thing) for their proxy wars.