From server@wizards.com Tue Oct 19 05:30:25 1993 Received: from walker.u.washington.edu by mail.nada.kth.se (5.61-bind 1.4+ida/nada-mx-1.0) id AA25040; Tue, 19 Oct 93 05:30:23 +0100 Received: from ginkgo.omnigroup.com by walker.u.washington.edu (5.65/UW-NDC Revision: 2.29 ) id AA25412; Mon, 18 Oct 93 21:26:29 -0700 Received: from tapir.wizards.com by omnigroup.com (NX5.67d/NX3.0M) id AA05561; Mon, 18 Oct 93 21:26:23 -0700 Received: by wizards.com (NX5.67d/NX3.0M) id AA10196; Mon, 18 Oct 93 21:26:22 -0700 Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 21:26:22 -0700 Message-Id: <9310190006.AA21550@corpse.ecst.csuchico.edu> Comment: Mailing list for "Mage: the Ascension" Originator: mage-l@wizards.com Errors-To: netsec@wizards.com Reply-To: mage-l@wizards.com Sender: mage-l@wizards.com Version: 5.5 -- Copyright (c) 1991/92, Anastasios Kotsikonas From: Tom Talley To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Theory of Paradox Status: RO I would like to present my take on what paradox is and how it effects static and vulger magic. I have been thinking this theory over during the last few weeks and believe that this is an accurate description of what is going on. With no further ado. Tom's Theory of Paradox! ;) To understand paradox we need to look at what situations cause paradox points to accumulate. According to the rules casting static spells, vulger (with and without witnesses) spells, both will cause paradox points to accumulate. Nothing else does though, and it should be noted that paradox spirits appear to be a seperate phenomena from paradox points. Interestingly the term paradox may be inapropriate at it more describes the side effects of accumulating paradox points than it does actual cause of paradox. To find a consistant theory I started with the one case where by logic a Mage should not be able to accumulate paradox, the Umbra. The Umbra is in many ways a realm of chaos were the Mage may impose her will on it without penalty. I.e. all spells cast by a Mage are treated by paradox as if they were static. This makes sense in the Umbra there are no rules for the Mage to violate so paradox should not be invoked. Ah, but I hear you going wait there is a case where a Mage will gain Paradox in the Umbra. This is the clue that reveils what paradox truely is. The one case where you can gain paradox in the umbra is if the Mage botches a spell. No other way causes paradox to accumulate. If you look at what happens when a Mage gains paradox, you will find something interesting. The paradox points go on the same track as Quintessence points. Further paradox points can even prevent the gain of Quintessence if enough paradox points are gained. My theory is that paradox points are actually Quintessence points that are channelled into the mages avatar by mistake and that these points can not be utilized by the mage in a deliberate manor. Supporting this theory is what happens both during quiet and when paradox points are burned. If this accumulated quintessense is leaking out of the Mage in a form of uncontrolled wild magic we see what is called burning paradox. Quiet on the other hand is more the raw quintessence leaking into the mages perceptions and effecting the mages personal reality. Now to see how the theory holds up when known examples of paradox gain are studied. If the Mage is in the Umbra where no rules but what the Mage chooses to impose govern, paradox is only gained during a botch. If the Mage is in a realm, any realm, there are local laws or beliefs governing that reality. If the Mage chooses to cast a vulger spell he must violate the local "laws of reality" to do so. Here we can begin to get a better feel for how reality is built. The Mage casts his vulger spell but because she is violating local reality he must channel energy from somewhere. At least part of this energy comes directly out of the local reality and becomes trapped in the Mages avatar. This is were the 1 point of automatic paradox for vulger without witnesses comes from. It is now also possible to attract the attention of "paradox spirits" when this spell is being cast. A more likely explanation of the paradox spirit is that it is either an agent of the weaver or an aspect of the weaver seeking to maintain the existing order. If the Mage is standing before sleepers and casts a vulger spell, it is possible to gain even more paradox than any other case. What is going on here is that the sleepers act as locuses maintaining the local realms laws. Thus any attempt to violate local reality will have even more realm energy that must be dealt with usually by having it stuffed into your avatar in the form of paradox points. More importantly it appears that the gaining of paradox points or raw quintessence whichever you care to call it is caused by fighting the local reality. Reality is actually quite flexible and willing to help any Mage willing to work with it. If the Mage determins an effect that they would like to produce and feeds energy to the local reality. [ie static or coincidental magic] Reality will activly aid the Mage by proforming feats well beyond the Mages power. ------------------------------------------------ Ok that ends the theory part lets see how well this works in practice. I see a few nice features allready like it explains why Vampires, Werewolves, and the old Order of Hermes don't experience paradox. Mages are the only being who work magic by rearranging reality, everone else must use the powers that they can find within the local reality. They trade the limitless power of a Mage for the assurance of continued power. It also seperates Paradox from Paradox Spirits which looks like a very good idea. This way they are unrelated phenomena. Paradox spirits are either agents of the Weaver or aspects of the Weaver seeking to maintain the local laws of reality. The Weaver being a very ordered being. I would suspect that a Mage with a large amount of paradox points (raw quintessence) would stand out like a spotlight to such a spirit. Also the act of botching on a large scale would atract there attention. >From the above observations I would probably do a few things different than White Wolf does it. Lets go to an old example of shapechanging into a dragon while inside a werehouse (vulger without witnesses). Then going outside before the city. Most people are of the opinion that you would start racking up paradox points. From the above theory of paradox that would not happen. What would happen instead is a very good chance of attracting a very nasty Paradox spirit, unless you could provide one hell of an explanation to it of cover (ie a bunch of friends around with movie cameras filming) the spirit would most likely fry you or something equally nasty. Hmmm this would also cover the case of turning invisable and then going out in public. When you perfomed actions that people could not see any cause for a paradox spirit would most likely be attracted to the site to see what is going on. Now for some reason these spirits don't really bother the garou or kin, but thats for a differen't theory to cover. _______ Any comments, questions, flames :) welcome. Tom Talley greyfire@ecst.csuchico.edul