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Jindael
Senior Scribe
USA
357 Posts |
 Posted - 28 Sep 2005 : 14:20:54
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Sorry I've been away for so long; work demands a lot of my time.
In a reply from Ed Greenwood, the following text below appears:
quote:
the Weave is the predominant and “most correct” (and thus, most powerful) means of harnessing natural energies: in other words, it is magic but it’s not the ONLY magic (as evidenced by the Shadow Weave and other, less-powerful alternatives to the Weave: table magic, pluma magic, etc.).
I remember Pluma magic, but I don't recall Table Magic? What is that, and where could I read more about it?
Thanks.
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"You don't have a Soul. You are a Soul. You have a body."
-- C.S. Lewis |
Edited by - Jindael on 28 Sep 2005 14:22:46
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ShadowJack
Senior Scribe
USA
350 Posts |
Posted - 28 Sep 2005 : 15:09:32
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Jindael,
Not a clue, but I am interested in hearing the answer... |
ShadowJack |
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Jindael
Senior Scribe
USA
357 Posts |
Posted - 28 Sep 2005 : 15:21:26
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I'm thinking that it's some kind of ritual magic, but I'm also really wondering how it's seperate from the weave.
For that matter, why is Pluma magic seperate? |
"You don't have a Soul. You are a Soul. You have a body."
-- C.S. Lewis |
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4685 Posts |
Posted - 28 Sep 2005 : 15:49:27
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"I was quite intrigued with the idea presented in Silverfall of an ancient and powerful type of magic (still currently practiced in Halruaa) called table-magic. Basically, for those who haven't read it, it seems to be the creation of magical effects (possibly specifically wards and trap-like effects) through the use of cards and a table. "
"There are two kinds of pieces involved in the magic that looks like solitaire, namely vedarren and gult. Vedarren are pieces that glow, gult are black pieces. Gult are simply pieces of stone, that dampen and bend magical flows, but vedarren are difficult to prepare, since they need the imprisoned life of a creature that can work magic. The exact ways of preparing vedarren may be forgotten already, but the wizards of Halruaa have at least some. "
"Pluma magic, and Hishima magic (or something vagely like), is detailed in the Maztica boxed setting. In Maztica there are no wizards and the Eagle Knighs and Jaguar Knights use it, if I am not wrong. "
Might be able to find more on these on REALMS-L or other places. At least found some starting points of information. |
"Small beings can have small wisdom," the dragon said. "And small wise beings are better than small fools. Listen: Wisdom is caring for afterwards."
"Caring for afterwards ...? Ker repeated this without understanding.
"After action, afterwards," the dragon said. "Choose the afterwards first, then the action. Fools choose action first."
"Judgement" copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Moon |
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ShadowJack
Senior Scribe
USA
350 Posts |
Posted - 28 Sep 2005 : 17:21:02
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The main people that use Pluma and Hishna magic in Maztica are the Pluma-Weavers and the Hishna-Shapers. (I think that is what they were called) It is sort of like Rune magic, in that you use natural materials and weave the spells into them. Pluma uses feathers and such, and Hishna uses claws and teeth, etc... (maybe also obsidian)
As for Table Magic, where is it detailed?
Correction to Above (I am very afraid of catching the Great Sages staff on my head...)
Eagle and Jaguar Knights cast Pluma and Hishna spells. Pluma and Hishna magic was worked into items by the two types of Artisans... |
ShadowJack |
Edited by - ShadowJack on 28 Sep 2005 17:24:57 |
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TBeholder
Great Reader
2385 Posts |
Posted - 15 Mar 2024 : 09:04:30
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My understanding is that table magic is supposed to manipulate magical forces purely via physical manipulation of already enchanted objects. If so:
- Complexity is limited only by the amount of components available, how much time the operator(s) can afford to spend on it and ability to create and follow "scripts" for component manipulation without errors.
- Being an indirect manipulation, it does not qualify as its own access method. If the operator manipulates vedarren enchanted with Weave magic, it works as Weave magic. If they were enchanted by a Shadow Weave spellcaster, it would be effectively Shadow Weave magic. If one could figure out how a Plumaweaver or Hishnashaper can create vedarren equivalent with their methods, using those would "count as" Pluma and Hishna.
- For the same reason, while R&D requires advanced understanding of magic, performing the process itself with a prepared script does not even require Gift, as the operator does not tap anything directly.
- Thus, it could be performed by a mechanism, perfectly following a single "script" much like a music box or deterministic chess automaton. While in pure cyclic rate this would be several orders of magnitude slower than Sammaster's Spellcaster (or a triggered spell made permanent, depending on the interpretation), it's not intrinsically limited in the number and complexity of its spells, only that nothing needs to be interactive.
Of course, we know magic conditions are not truly uniform. An operator without Gift would be "blind" to them, and an automaton could not meaningfully adjust for changes at all. Thus in such cases the process would remain generally reliable only if stationary and while nothing very peculiar happens to affect the true power source. |
People never wonder How the world goes round -Helloween
And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense -R.W.Wood
It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo. -Ed Whitchurch |
Edited by - TBeholder on 15 Mar 2024 10:28:21 |
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questing gm
Master of Realmslore
Malaysia
1157 Posts |
Posted - 16 Mar 2024 : 07:34:44
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My quick search on Table Magic from Ed's responses in Twitter:
https://twitter.com/TheEdVerse/status/1291797501977165824 https://twitter.com/TheEdVerse/status/1291803441799593984
Aug 8, 2020
@foggio
What’s table Magic?
@TheEdVerse
It's an alternative system of magic in the Realms, that involves placing specific (special) items on a specific (special) surface, joined by the right symbols and inscriptions drawn by use of the right (specific) substances. Very rare, very old, and known to few.
@foggio
Thanks! Why I didn’t know until now? Where it was written??? #128512;
@TheEdVerse
I've mentioned it in passing in several articles in The Dragon, and posts on Candlekeep and elsewhere, as well as GenCon panels and seminars, and podcasts. Can't recall if it's ever been mentioned in an official game "book" or boxed set.
https://twitter.com/TheEdVerse/status/1028427531454750721 https://twitter.com/TheEdVerse/status/1028427996569460736
Aug 12, 2018
@JediMyers
Hey Ed. In one interview, you mentioned something called Table Magic. I was wondering if you could give me a short summary on that.
@TheEdVerse
Ah. No details to share, but it's ritual magic that involves placing spell components (both enchanted items and things, such as herbs or beast teeth or organs, that will be consumed by the spell) in particular patterns on a table, then drawing circles around them, joining those circles with lines in particular patterns, and drawing runes in circles located along those lines, and writing "words of power" along the lines, AS a (usually rhyming for ease, but need not be) incantation is chanted or sung. In other words, static spellcasting.
And something to look forward to for Patreons:
Lucio — 02/26/2023 8:21 PM
@Ed Greenwood First of all thanks for the reply, that was absolute GOLD! Quick question. Can you tell us anything about Table Magic?
Ed Greenwood — 02/27/2023 2:51 AM
You're welcome! Likely near the other end of this year, a Patreon post should be coming up that delves into Table Magic. |
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Lord Karsus
Great Reader
USA
3737 Posts |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11696 Posts |
Posted - 23 Apr 2024 : 18:17:55
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so I see Kentinal's notes above, which led me to google vedarren and silverfall
https://bookreadfree.com/176969/4376766
From the above link I found some more about table magic, which I had totally forgotten any of this and probably should reread silverfall along with about half my FR novels.
The man seated at the black table wore garments of black and silver. One of his arms seemed to be more a thing of bladed metal below his elbow than an arm grasping the hilt of a blade whose upper works coiled around and caged his arm.
Spread out on the table in a careful array were cards, large, long and narrow plaques that seemed to be sheets of thin, polished quartz or some sort of ice hued, translucent stone, each one different. Their varicolored faces glowed and pulsed, seeming to respond in a quickening, dancing white fire as the man reached across them to touch one of the slender, spirelike pieces that stood here and there about the table. He moved it with all the care of a chess player, setting it down with a slow frown of consideration. In response, a line of flashing fire rippled across the cards.
It looked like a game of solitaire using enchanted cards and tokens, but at least one of those watching knew it to be magic as old as Netheril. "Table magic," some called it, but that was akin to a tutor one of the watchers had once overheard at Bonskil's Academy in Telflamm describing swordplay as "hitting sharpened sticks of metal together in opposition."
The man at the table moved another piece. It's something he'd never have done if he'd known anyone-anyone at all-was watching.
If he'd known just who was watching, and why, he'd have fled screaming from the room.
Irlmarren watched the cards flash as fingers gloved in black and silver moved another piece, and felt fresh excitement stir within him. If only he could obtain some of those plaques, somehow, and the vedarren-he knew, now, that the pieces that glowed were "vedarren." The "gult," the ones that were always dark, were simply pieces of particular sorts of stone that dampened and bent magical flows to serve as anchors for the spells being built. He could make his own gult, but each vedarren, it seemed, needed an imprisoned life-of a creature that could work magic-within it, to awaken its glow. Learning how to make those might take a lifetime, might even be something forgotten by the spellcasters of today. He must seize some vedarren, somehow. It would be best if no one knew he'd taken them, and came howling at his heels for their return. He would need time to master them, time undisturbed and in hiding, as this adventurer so foolishly assumed he was.
Irlmarren itched to touch, hold, and handle those plaques. If only he could work with them, experimenting alone as this man in the depths of his crystal ball was doing, long enough to learn to build many-layered enchantments.
He understood, now, why Halruaa had never fallen. Even all eight zulkirs standing together-and he could not think of anything beyond the rage of a revealed god that could make any eight zulkirs stand together-would hesitate in the face of spells built like this. A single table magic, if it was intricate enough and unflawed, could lash out like the spells of a dozen arch-wizards acting at once. Some would even outlast their first awakening, and respond to what had aroused them to lash out anew in specific, aimed ways. As many as seven of these could be hung on the edge of being unleashed, carried unseen and untouchable-so long as their tables, hidden elsewhere, remained undisturbed-as single words or symbols in a caster's mind, or in an innocent-looking bone token or earring.
If he could build enough of these, a zulkirate could be his. He could rule in Thay, he could build an empire, he could send mountains marching west to roll over Aglarond and fill in long reaches of sea and make Thay itself larger. Why, he could … wait for the treachery that was sure to unseat him.
Fresh fear stirred cold fingers along Irlmarren's spine. He'd found this man, a minor mage rumbling with things stolen from a tower in Halruaa, but still too well guarded for Irhnarren of Tyraturos to hope to reach, let alone overcome.
There must be scores-could well be hundreds-of mages in Halruaa who could work table magics as swiftly and deftly as a marketplace juggler. Hadn't he seen bone necklaces and pectorals and earrings in plenty in the depths of his crystal ball on the bodies of alert and ruthless Rashemaar witches? Who was to say the Witch-Queen of Aglarond herself didn't play with vedarren and plaques in hidden chambers?
Hmmm. That might well help to explain why the zulkirs never sent more than ambitious underlings, beasts, and sword-swinging armies against Aglarond. Irlmarren of Tyraturos sat back and sighed, letting his eyes wander from the glowing scene in the depths of his crystal. He was going to have to think about this. The world had suddenly become a darker, more complicated place.
"Go right ahead and ponder, idiot," murmured a man in another darkened room with a crystal ball.
He smiled a mirthless smile, then turned and grinned at himself in a nearby mirror. It reflected back a man in robes of purple, whose hair and beard were oiled and cut to razor sharp edges, a man whose thick, powerful fingers made a rude gesture to his reflection and grinned more broadly when it did the same to him.
Roeblen of Bezantur looked back at the crystal ball glowing before him, and smiled again at the thought of just how useful his trapped crystal balls were turning out to be. Whether looking in at what their user was spying on, or looking out to spy on that user, just two had brought him hours of entertainment and enlightenment in but a handful of days. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
Edited by - sleyvas on 23 Apr 2024 18:24:37 |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11696 Posts |
Posted - 23 Apr 2024 : 19:07:37
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So, based on the above... pulling some pieces...
Its a magic that uses "gult" stone pieces to "bend" or "dampen" magic flows. It also uses "vedarren" which are "devices" that hold the "imprisoned life of a creature that could work magic"
A single table magic, if it was intricate enough and unflawed, could lash out like the spells of a dozen arch-wizards acting at once. Some would even outlast their first awakening, and respond to what had aroused them to lash out anew in specific, aimed ways. As many as seven of these could be hung on the edge of being unleashed, carried unseen and untouchable-so long as their tables, hidden elsewhere, remained undisturbed-as single words or symbols in a caster's mind, or in an innocent-looking bone token or earring.
So, basically, it sounds like an advanced form of contingent magic of sorts. Unlike contingencies, some effects apparently could "renew" themselves and react again but only as a targeted effect (i.e. if an area effect, it would still have to be targeted against a specific "thing" which triggered it). It also could be used to release multiple effects at once (possibly a dozen or more) from a given table. It also sounds like these static tables are then "tied" to either a "stored" word that you have in mind OR tied to an innocent looking thing you might carry. So, innocent looking might mean that those things act as a conduit and don't carry the magic.
In many ways, it just sounds like another form of spell mantle, but one with more power. It also has a weakness in that someone can find your table and frack with it while you're carrying an item tied to it. So, for instance, you have your table to release several effects whenever a lich appears .... and someone goes to your table and changes the triggering condition to whenever a red haired person is nearby... and you have red hair. Or if not changing the triggering condition, they change the effect from spells which damage undead to spells which enhance undead. Obviously, this is all based on some guy who absolutely doesn't understand table magic making the above statements as well, so it could all be wrong.
At the same time, we also have statements from Ed in the first response in this thread also calling it "less powerful alternative to the weave" and comparing it to Pluma. So, it might instead be a way to take a given "table" and having it "store" like a memorized spell(s) in a wizards mind... and unlike a wizard that can just take a book and reset the spells in his mind... he'd have to go to the table and modify it to have new "spells"/"effects" available.
Finally, the ties to spirits and runes and such remind me of binding magics and incarnum magic as well. Binding might be the closest comparison, as a given binding might give you numerous effects, and each binding is to a different "vestige" or magical source.
In the end, I truly wonder if Ed has fully laid out these rules in a fully documented form as yet. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
Edited by - sleyvas on 23 Apr 2024 19:29:08 |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7970 Posts |
Posted - 23 Apr 2024 : 20:32:12
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I know I've read about this "table magic" in one of the Ravenloft of Masque of the Red Death products. Practiced by the vistani or gypsies or their counterparts. Mostly by their women, especially their mothers and grandmothers and matriarchs. It involves cards and crystal balls and gaming tokens or dice or runes or other trinkets which may or may not be enchanted.
Useful for divinations of all sorts - palmistry, tea leaves, countless varieties of sortitions - seeing details about the people who sit at the table or about other people who touch their lives, or their futures, or their secrets, or their magics. And for casting curses, removing curses, warding or protecting against curses - and about seeing who cast these curses, what wizards or gods or demons or monsters interfere with a person's fates.
This isn't Realmslore. But maybe it was influenced by Ed's "table magic" thoughts and writings. |
[/Ayrik] |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11696 Posts |
Posted - 23 Apr 2024 : 20:49:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
I know I've read about this "table magic" in one of the Ravenloft of Masque of the Red Death products. Practiced by the vistani or gypsies or their counterparts. Mostly by their women, especially their mothers and grandmothers and matriarchs. It involves cards and crystal balls and gaming tokens or dice or runes or other trinkets which may or may not be enchanted.
Useful for divinations of all sorts - palmistry, tea leaves, countless varieties of sortitions - seeing details about the people who sit at the table or about other people who touch their lives, or their futures, or their secrets, or their magics. And for casting curses, removing curses, warding or protecting against curses - and about seeing who cast these curses, what wizards or gods or demons or monsters interfere with a person's fates.
This isn't Realmslore. But maybe it was influenced by Ed's "table magic" thoughts and writings.
Yeah, see THAT is what my first thoughts were too... but then the various descriptions we see all seem a bit different. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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George Krashos
Master of Realmslore
Australia
6646 Posts |
Posted - 25 Apr 2024 : 10:58:37
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There is more on Table Magic that Ed posted on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheEdVerse/status/1360650997924835329):
To work Table Magic, you need a particular sort of flat, smooth stone surface to be the table (it can be bedrock in the landscape, or a cut slab). You need cones, pillars, and other geometric shapes of specific substances acquired in particular circumstances and then shaped in exacting ways (this is the hardest part; getting some of these can involve dangerous quests/adventures).
You must use natural chalk (or the caster’s own blood) to draw the right glyphs in the right places on the table, circling each one and then joining the circles with lines along which words (silent incantations) are written.
When the pattern is complete, a rune of activation is drawn, the final stroke of which severs one of the lines (of the pattern) drawn earlier.
If any of these preparations has been done wrong, nothing at all happens.
If everything’s been done right, the severing of the line calls on the Weave for energy, which ignites the chalk lines at the severing-point. Then blue flame rushes along all of the written chalk marks (burning with an acrid smell, and very little smoke) and leaping to the shapes of substances (e.g. pillar of salt, cone of ebonwood, piece of ivory or an entire dragon or whale tooth) upon reaching the circle around each shape. As this is happening, a spell forms, as a glowing, roiling smoke above the table, and the caster can feel the energy building (it builds in the smoke, which will resist all winds or other intrusions, and they can feel it resonating through their body/tingling to thrumming), and can also feel when it’s ready to be unleashed; they direct/hurl/aim the spell from themselves just as a wizard or sorcerer does.
Regardless of its success or failure, and regardless of the usual flammability or inflammability of the chalk and the substances, they are all consumed.
So, one spell per table “setting.”
If the table is washed clean and more chalk and ingredient-shapes are set on it, another spell can be cast.
Yes, this is slow and static, not suited to mobile or battle use. Hence its rarity in the Realms today.
I note that the description of Table Magic in "Silverfall" points to a slightly more sophisticated version of Table Magic than the one presented in Ed's Twitter post above. Likely indicative of the fact that Halruaa has mastered this form of magic, enhanced it, and made it more usable.
-- George Krashos
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"Because only we, contrary to the barbarians, never count the enemy in battle." -- Aeschylus |
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Table Magic?
