Elves and Ogres, Oh My!

It's an area of the fluff and rules that is vaguely defined, I suspect with good reason. Each GM can do with it what they will.

In my world I have a hard time reconciling the idea that a human can master a single wind of magic, but go no further. Elves also can go no further in the Old World. My version of the fluff works for me in explaining that away.

By making them master each wind (Similar to the Avatar having to master each element before integrating them, although I have been thinking of High magic in these terms since before my exposure to that animated candy) they take a thousand years or more to make a single High Mage. With that sort of investment of knowledge and time and power, even elves would not risk them unless it was imperative.

Of course, I also think one of the reasons the elves left the Old World is their magisters foretold the inevitable fall of the Old World to Chaos so they built the leylines to suck as much power out of it as they could before it's eventual fall. They only get involved now to delay what they see as the inevitable loss of a vast natural resource. Obviously, my personal fluff is far from canon.

Feel free to use what ideas you like and disregard the rest. I share it mainly to stoke the imagination of others. In my campaigns though, High Magic is a pipe dream for the PC's at best. That much power in the hands of a seemingly immortal race blurs the line between Gods and mortals, and I really don't have any idea what sort of adventures I could run to entertain gods.

But I don't think the High Mages really master a 2nd then a 3rd wind. I think the simple fact of becoming a 4th-level Wizard makes them ready to open themselves to the High Magic. It's a question of... perception, of capacity to be open to the magical art. A Wizard Lord is open ennough to become learning the High Magic.

High Magic is a combination of many or all of the Winds of Magic.

To use many or all of the Winds of Magic together, you must know how to use each of them by themselves, no?

Paulus Maximus wrote:High Magic is a combination of many or all of the Winds of Magic.

To use many or all of the Winds of Magic together, you must know how to use each of them by themselves, no?

That is not something that always follows, many people know how to use a car but not it's component parts. Which may be a quite appropriate metaphor as Warhammer magic seems to be learnt by rote and spell rather than any spontaneous wielding of the winds themselves.

jadrax wrote:

Paulus Maximus wrote:High Magic is a combination of many or all of the Winds of Magic.

To use many or all of the Winds of Magic together, you must know how to use each of them by themselves, no?

That is not something that always follows, many people know how to use a car but not it's component parts. Which may be a quite appropriate metaphor as Warhammer magic seems to be learnt by rote and spell rather than any spontaneous wielding of the winds themselves.

True, but thats not how High Magic works.

According to the WFB background High Magic involves mixing the various colours of magical energy in a controlled manner, which may vary from spell to spell. So, unlike the car metaphor it has more in common with cooking, where the chef only produces the correct dish by understanding the nature and impact that all the ingredients will have on the end result.

So by implication all High Elf magic users must be able to identify and use all of the component colours of magic, and also by implication it must be possible for one mortal to learn how to use many colours of magic. The only thing preventing Colour Mages from doing so, are the teachings of Teclis and the Imperial Magic Code that enforces them.

Elves.
To pick up on Jon's point about Elves, my own views are slightly different from reading the WFB background about them.

In my game Elves are much more magically atuned than human's who in turn are more atuned than dwarves. Indeed reading the 'Birth of the Dark Elves' background its clear that Elves are shaped and transformed by their exposure to different mixes of magical energy, so one could argue that they are partly magical beings. Their lives and even their appearance is heavily influenced by their exposure to magic and they therefore need to be able to both control and regulate that exposure virtually from birth.

Therefore, far from learning the colours of magic one by one in some sort of college environment I would argue that Elves learn to manage and regulate their relationship to magic energy as part the process of growing up, being guided and mentored by their kin through the difficult early years of their lives when they are subject to violent changes of both mood and appearance.

The WFB background makes it clear that all elves are obsessed with the need to keep a balance to their magic exposure, simply because it has such a major impact upon their minds and bodies. The Dark Elves themselves are merely Elves that have chosen to standardise their own mix at much darker level that normal, and the Wood Elves have chosen a more heavy mix focussed upon the Jade spectrum.

We also know from the WFB background that High Elf warriors deliberately strengthen their aggression and combat readiness prior to battle by altering their exposure to magic energy closer to the Dark spectrum, and worshipping Khaine.

So, the ability to channel and control multi-hued magic is a natural tallent for an elf, the only thing they need to learn is how to shape it into spells, and that again would largely be a matter of mentoring rather than college study. An elf witnessing an Colour College tutorial whould probably think it had wandered into a human kindergarten, as it listened to the ridiculous explanations of the most basic principles of colour channelling which it does naturally without really thinking about.

In my game elves view humans as dangerous children. Unlike the dwarves, who are just stupid, humanity has been given limited atunement to magic but are totally incapable of controlling it. As a result they are in danger of destroying themselves and anyone else close to them, hence the need to isolate the Elven culutre on Ulthuan as far away from them as possible. Teclis has attempted to limit the risks by persuading humans to focus on the control of a single colour of magic per individual, however, their short lives and lust for personal power make them impatient, unstable and untrustworthy. Were there not so many of them, and if they did not breed so rapidly then extermination would be a safer solution to the problem, but the elves do not have the ability to match humanity in either numbers or violence and so the current policy is one of damage limitation and guidance in the belief that eventually humanity will either learn to control itself or destroy itself in the process.

Didz wrote:According to the WFB background High Magic involves mixing the various colours of magical energy in a controlled manner, which may vary from spell to spell. So, unlike the car metaphor it has more in common with cooking, where the chef only produces the correct dish by understanding the nature and impact that all the ingredients will have on the end result.

That seems a rather bad metaphor, as unlike a chef, a cook can duplicate the exact same results by simply following a recipe, no understanding of ingredients required.

And to be fair cooking doesnt often try and devour your immortal soul if you forget the salt.

Artaxerxes has never eaten dinner at my mother-in-law's house obviously.

Artaxerxes wrote:And to be fair cooking doesnt often try and devour your immortal soul if you forget the salt.

You should cook more curry...

jadrax wrote:That seems a rather bad metaphor, as unlike a chef, a cook can duplicate the exact same results by simply following a recipe, no understanding of ingredients required.

Not really, the point is that even if you know what ingredients are required and in what quantities and perparations, you still need to be able to identify the ingredients, know how to measure them and how to mix them into the dish.

Even making a cup of tea would be impossible if you didn't know how to identify and obtain water, tea leaves and milk, or that the water needed to be boiled and that the tea brewed.

As Jadrax points out getting such things wrong can be quite interesting, not only in curry. I recall an old trick where salt was substitued for sugar in the sugar bowl to see the results.

I bet similar practical jokes at the colleges of magic are riotously funny...briefly.

Jon Shai wrote:I bet similar practical jokes at the colleges of magic are riotously funny...briefly.

"Of course this is lions testicle!"
*KA-BOOM*
"or was it cat? I forget..."

IIRC the ritual in RoS failed due to just such a thing.

Didz wrote:Not really, the point is that even if you know what ingredients are required and in what quantities and perparations, you still need to be able to identify the ingredients, know how to measure them and how to mix them into the dish.

Movingly away from the metaphor for a moment - Magic in WFB and WFRP is learnt spell by spell. If you learnt how to manipulate the Winds of Magic in general rather than how to manipulate them to create one effect then I think the argument about High Magic requiring all the winds would have merit.

However, as even someone who knows how to manipulate the Bright Wind is incapable of casting a Fireball unless he knows the actual Fireball spell, that would to me imply that you do not learn how to manipulate the winds in general or indeed any more than an actual spell requires.

This means that You could well learn how to construct the winds into the precise configuration of Fury of Khaine, but still have no knowledge of how to manipulate them in any other way.

jadrax wrote:

Didz wrote:Not really, the point is that even if you know what ingredients are required and in what quantities and perparations, you still need to be able to identify the ingredients, know how to measure them and how to mix them into the dish.

However, as even someone who knows how to manipulate the Bright Wind is incapable of casting a Fireball unless he knows the actual Fireball spell, that would to me imply that you do not learn how to manipulate the winds in general or indeed any more than an actual spell requires.

This is where the game breaks down, wizards learning a set selection of spells from the lore does indicate to me that they are able to shape specific effects by manipulation rather than learn the spells by rote. Its just that certain effects apply to different lores, a beast shaman cant manipluate the winds of magic to set fire to stuff, its not something his lore can do

Artaxerxes wrote:This is where the game breaks down, wizards learning a set selection of spells from the lore does indicate to me that they are able to shape specific effects by manipulation rather than learn the spells by rote.

I see it more as the advantages of a Collage education making sure you have a basic grounding in spells. Witches, on the other hand, often do learn only one spell from a given lore.

jadrax wrote:Movingly away from the metaphor for a moment - Magic in WFB and WFRP is learnt spell by spell.

Thats true unles you are using the Teclis Catalogue but that only applies to Colour Mages, and then only if your using the V2 rules. Elves and other races don't use the Teclis catalogue, nor do non-colour human magic users, so they will learn their magic spell by spell.

But before they can even begin to learn how to cast a spell they must first learn to channel and control warp energy and shape it appropriately to form the spells and magical effects. In the case of Elves they have to gain the ability to manage the combination of multiple hues of magical energy, not just to be able to cast spells but also to be able to control their own magical balance.

Artaxerxes wrote:This is where the game breaks down, wizards learning a set selection of spells from the lore does indicate to me that they are able to shape specific effects by manipulation rather than learn the spells by rote. Its just that certain effects apply to different lores, a beast shaman cant manipluate the winds of magic to set fire to stuff, its not something his lore can do

The way I see it its not the game that's broken, merely the concept of Lores as the basis for magic class.

I keep the Lore concept purely as background fluff and academic waffle perpetrated by the Colour Colleges to explain to naive apprentice wizards why they can't dabble in other forms of magic.

Non-Colour Magic users don't bother with Lores at all, most will have never heard of them, and mention the idea to an Elf and it will probably just give you a condescending smile, whilst and Elementalist or Witch would probably just laugh at you.

For non-colour magic users in my game what matters is your channelling theory. Different classes of magic users have different theories about the nature and source of their magical energy, where it comes from, and how it gets shaped into spells. Elementalist believe they are harnessing the natural power of the elemental forces around them, witches beleive they are tapping the powers granted to them by beings from another plane of existence. whilst Orc's beleive they are invoking the support and assistance of Mork and Gork.

Mastering your channelling skills is what defines you as a magic user rather than a magic victim. Failing to do so leaves you at serious risk of being overwhelmed by the uncontrolled energy that surges around you. Elves in particular have no choice but to master their channelling skill as all of them are magically atuned and so even those who do not learn any spells would be at risk if they did not learn to control the magical energy that is attracted to their bodies. Humans are slightly more fortunate in that only a minority are significantly atuned to magic, however, those that are can be horribly mutated, and a danger to everyone around them, if they don't develop some method of controlling it. Dwarves and halfings have the least trouble because they are natural poor magic conduits and dwarves in particular can work with magical imbued materials without much risk of harm.

So, I put much more emphasis on channelling theory and leave the whole Lore concept out of the rules equation as in my opinion it's far too abstract and contrived to provide a reliable foundation for the rules of a magic system.

I find this discussion of magic and Elves to be not only interesting, but important to my game.

I am fairly new to WFRP (running The Enemy Within using v2 rules), and one of my players is a Wood Elf magic user. He is approaching the end of his first career. We started him off as a Wizard's Apprentice, lacking any other info on Elves -- though I have since discovered the unofficial Elves of Laurelorn "supplement" for v1. He and I are now wrestling with what to do with his next career.

We could follow the RAW and press him into a Journeyman Wizard career, in effect making him a human with pointy ears. This would be the simplest, though least interesting option. Or we could adopt one of the careers from the unofficial Elves book. But the magic system is now totally different, and I find myself attempting to port them into new v2 career(s) to provide the Wood Elves with more flavor. At the heart of my dilemma is the nature of magic in the new system. Thus my interest in the tail end of this thread.

So I ask all you veterans out there: If I wanted to play a Wood Elf magic user in your game, what options would be available to me?

Starry Wisdom wrote:So I ask all you veterans out there: If I wanted to play a Wood Elf magic user in your game, what options would be available to me?

My game, either learn Human Magic from the Humans around you, or go back to the woods and learn Wood Elf Magic as an NPC. (Essentially, Empire Colour Magic, Bretonnian Grail Magic, Necromancy, Chaos Magic, Hedge Magic/Witchcraft or possibly Ice or Hag magic with a good enough back story.)

Although this would change once I had Written rules for Wood Elf magic, which is on my list of things to do, (Along with up-to-date Djed-hi Magic, Old Faith Magic and Araby Elemental Magic.)

The thing that gets me a bit with elven magic is that, from what I understand from Core and RoS is that the winds concept elves dont realy see it the same way as they taught humans.

It's something Telics and his fellow elves basicaly came up with that style of thing for humans to grasp the concept, so they could learn how to weild magic as to reduce the chaotic effects and increases control humans could exert over the winds when wielding magic. I could be wrong in my view though.

I honestly dont see any reason why elves are better at magic given the RAW, other than being told they are, and have generaly always felt that they do it very differently to humans. I also was a bit disapointed not to see any information about elven magic in RoS, even if no hard rules were given.

Starry Wisdom wrote:So I ask all you veterans out there: If I wanted to play a Wood Elf magic user in your game, what options would be available to me?

I had a Wood Elf magic user in my game so I'm familiar the problem.

I would support the views already expressed by Jadrax and Loswaith the gist of the problem being that Elves in general and Wood Elves in particular don't view magic in the same way as humans.

In my own game I occassionally fed Elywyn (the Wood Elf in question) a peice of human magic text. At one point she was handed a pretty basic description of a petty magic spell, but she (or more accurately her player) merely glanced at it and discarded it as rubbish. Her own magic abilities were atuned to the natural forces of the forest and had taken 80 years to evolve naturally through the careful mentoring of her father, she had no interest in the cheap tricks the humans called magic. This made perfect sense from a roleplaying viewpoint and the player having studied the background of the Elves earned big bonuses for delivering such a characterisation. Unfortunately, it created a big problem from the point of view of character development as nothing the Elf came across in Nuln was going to meet her expectations of value, and she was in fact little more than a tourist looking at all the quaint human magic ethnic trinketts she came across.

The problem went beyond even the magic issue as she was also unwilling to wear any human manufactured clothing, which at best was heavy and uncomfortable and at worse made out of dead things. Human weapons were useless to her as they were made out of dead materials with no magical atunement and she had no idea how the human exchange system worked with the little tokens.

It is important to note that in my game the Teclis system was a High Elf invention, so even that is alien to a Wood Elf, and Elywyn had never even heard of Teclis, let alone understood the principles behind his ramblings. She was actually handed a book on the subject by a human professor who thought she might find it interesting but she discarded that as trivial too.

The conclusion I came to in the end was that the only way forward for Elywyn was to treat her as a sort of Druid and to base her future development on the same principles as the druidic faith. This actually tied in nicely with the idea that the Wood elves had originally nurtured humanity in the study of nature and had helped to give rise to the Druidic faith in the first place. This effectively put Elywyn's magic career on hold whilst she was in town, but I intended to start employing the idea's in Mad Alfred's Druids and the Old Faith, once she got out into the wilds.

http://www.madalfred.darcore.net/Articles.html

The intention being to develop something closely akin to a divine magic career but without the gods per see, although the Wood Elves do beleive in magical beings such as Orion, Naestra and Arahan. I intended to link this all into the concept of places of power where gifts and knowledge can be gained by meditation and through vision quests.

Mind you how the hell Elywyn would persuade the others to co-operate with such activities was a major issue especially as one was a dwarf trollslayer who main interest was finding something big to fight.

Its probably worth pointing out that the lady who was playing Elywyn had never played WFRP or WFB before and knew nothing about the game or background. Her main inspiration was the Lord of the rings film and in particular the character of Galadriel played by Kate Blanchett. So, she came to the game with a number of pre-conceptions about elves and did a hell of a lot of her own background research to support her characterisation. Even to the point of submitting dialogue in Elvish at one point.

Fortunately. most of her idea's matched my own understanding of elves from reading the WFB source books so there were not too many clashes of idea's. In particular we both agreed that Elves are magical beings and that there appearance and personality can change with exposure to dark or light forces. Elywyn's player quoted as proof of this the scene where Galadriel is exposed to the tempation of the ring of power and the momentary revelation of scary Galadriel to Frodo. My own understanding of this is based upon the background description given of the transformation of Malekith and his followers in the article on the Birth of the Dark Elves.

This was another reason why I monitored the alignment of all the PC's in the party, as not only did their past behaviour need to influence the interest taken in them by various gods, it also needed to affect the appearance and personality of Elywyn. The point being that in theory at least she could become a Dark Elf, though in practice that was unlikely, even though she did have her scarey moments.

We desperately need an Elf sourcebook, inclusive of their magic system for wood elves.

Who's got it covered?

Jon Shai wrote:We desperately need an Elf sourcebook, inclusive of their magic system for wood elves.

Who's got it covered?

Working on it....