RuneScape Forum Archive | On Chaos Druids

Last Prophet

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I'm going to be travelling for the next month or two and unfortunately won't be able to respond as I'd like to, but I'm going to take a look at your posts, Attila. I already have a lot to say about them.

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Last Prophet

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~Creator of

Ikadia the Exile

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15-Jul-2016 08:38:08 - Last edited on 15-Jul-2016 08:38:38 by Last Prophet

AttilaSquare

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I look forward to it!

15-Jul-2016 14:41:21

Last Prophet

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Your concept of mysticism is fascinating and would have certainly piqued the interest of Urval's cultists, especially considering his unique brand of druidic necromancy.

You see, he had a strange obsession with the afterlife and the gods' (perceived) roles as shepherds/masters/nirvana of the dead. The man didn't fear death, but rather spent his life enslaving spirits and demons to come to understand it. His was, despite the religious focus, a death cult.

Also, I would really like to hear more about these alternative forms of magic, sorcery and mysticism. We should chat in-game whenever I return from hiatus.

P.S. - I am truly honored to have your commentary in my thread. I've always admired your work.

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Last Prophet

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~Creator of

Ikadia the Exile

~

22-Jul-2016 02:59:24 - Last edited on 22-Jul-2016 03:13:06 by Last Prophet

AttilaSquare

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Thanks, man. I'm really glad you've enjoyed my threads. I really like the character you've developed.

Our thoughts really do coincide here. I've been working on a thread on The History of Magic in fits and starts all year and haven't yet been able to pull it together. I worked on it a lot this week - so I think I'm close. Below is a messy draft of it all - please forgive the extreme length. I do not address the chaos druids explicitly here, but I think you will see how nicely they fit in.

This is not firmly established lore, but it isn't exactly headcannon either. (I'll color code the most headcannon-y.) First, I go back to the 1st age and ask, "What was humans' conception of power? What did they fear? What commanded their attention?" Since Guthix was friendly to them and Gielinor was largely devoid of intelligent enemies, their greatest threat came from among themselves. In a new world full of opportunity, all humans had to do to succeed was stick together, to cooperate, to choose to bear with each other and get along.

Therefore, what they needed most was to maintain the right spirit among themselves - a spirit of prudence and balance so that the nascent structures of authority earned the respect of the governed, a spirit of generosity and patience so that they did not splinter and fight among themselves. Should their communities have been infiltrated by spirits of jealousy and suspicion and competition and cruelty, they would have collapsed.

Therefore, the most powerful forces demanding the attention of humans were spirits, spirits that lived among them invisibly, spirits which could hold them together or tear them apart. It is likely that humans dealt with the spirits through communal ritual - meant routinely to orient the community to the same good spirits and to drive out the bad. In addition, some gifted humans would have had the sensitivities to discern the spirits on their own - these were shamans and sorcerers.

24-Jul-2016 03:31:58

AttilaSquare

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I define sorcery as the reflectively self-aware use of or participation in spirits - I'll explain more of what I mean by spirits in the thread to come. The concept of spirit is important because I think it underlies all of the later ages of magic.

I expect that the 1st age also saw the metaphorical development of the concepts of light and shadow. To be in the light was to live according to the spirits of the community. To live in the darkness was to live without their guidance. This lays the foundation for the later concept of the shadow realm. At the same time, spirits themselves, because they are invisible most of the time, belong to the shadow, even when we live by their light.

Also in the 1st age, humans made use of the runestones provided for them by Guthix. I think it's likely that ancient runic magics differed from modern runic magics in important ways, but I will not be able to indicate the essential differences until we reach the account of magic in the 4th age. For now I can say that I think they treated runestones as a gift and used them for relatively simple magics which served the same purposes as their sorcery - they used magic as a community for the good of the community.

In the late 1st or early 2nd age, V discovered the rune essence mine on Lunar Isle and a way to craft more runestones. If my lore is correct, the Moon Clan set up altars throughout the world. It is likely that they also discovered Zanaris and its portal system at this time. Although this threatened to change humans' conception of magic, since now the power to create runestones lay in their hands, I don't think it would have made a great difference.

24-Jul-2016 03:32:25

AttilaSquare

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I think this for two reasons. First, they chose to construct altars - an altar indicates a basic attitude of receptivity - this is further enforced by the altars' simple construction, open archways, and relation to their environments. Magic was still seen as a gift to the human communities of Gielinor. Second, the altars were cared for by the Moon Clan under the leadership of V, and cultural change happens very slowly under an immortal leader.

Finally, I do not know if the early ages had any concept of anima . But if they did, I expect that anima meant to them a receptivity of visible things to invisible things - in other words, the capacity of things for life, for responding to the promptings of spirits.

It is likely that human culture changed dramatically during the 2nd age. I expect that all the human populations had tales of the world gate through which their ancestors had entered the world, but the world gate and old worlds must have been something of an anomaly to them - known just once in the story of their origins. But in the 2nd age they regularly encountered new races and powerful gods coming through interdimensional portals from foreign worlds.

I expect that humans understood the gods as powerful sorcerers, able to command spirits that they had not known before. Previously, humans had known only spirits native to Gielinor, the spirits which directed its life and gave purposes to their communities - spirits which ruled their communities from the shadow and spirits which threatened their communities from the shadow. But the gods came with purposes and plans from other worlds. They were not sensitive to the seasons and rhythms and native spirits of Gielinor, or were only partially influenced by them.

24-Jul-2016 03:32:55

AttilaSquare

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Therefore, humans had to rethink reality. Gielinor was one world among many. The model according to which there was simply shadow and light - the realm of spirits and outsiders (shadow) versus their own communities (light) - was insufficient.

They then distinguished between: spirits native to a world and spirits which transcend worlds. The latter they named 'principle spirits' or 'principles.' While the native spirits were known through communal life and the seasons of the world, the principles were constant, fixed and abstracted from any particular world.

They likewise drew a distinction within what they had previously called 'shadow.' On the one hand, there was the shadow realm of Gielinor. This contained the native spirits of Gielinor, as well as those people and places which had become lost, unattuned to the spirits of the human communities. On the other hand, there was the abyss - the place of principles, fixed ideals which provided the gods with their purposes.

This perhaps sounds like just the opposite of what we know of the abyss. We know it as a realm of chaos, where nothing at all is fixed. I will address how the human concept of the abyss was transformed below.

Near the end of the 2nd age, humans had probably developed a model of reality like this: There were many worlds - which we might call, following Alathazdrar, the "realms of light." Each world also had its own shadow realm, populated by its native spirits as well as by lost people and places (pocket dimensions). Travel among the worlds required crossing the abyss, which one could only navigate by being attuned to the principle spirits which lived there.

24-Jul-2016 03:33:24

AttilaSquare

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Around this time, sorcery gave way among humans to mysticism. Mysticism builds upon sorcery. It involves explicit participation in native spirits but for a further purpose - mysticism is the search for native and principle spirits. It is largely a matter of searching, for although a human may discover and learn from a principle spirit it is less likely that he will be able to make use of or participate in it as he might make use of or participate in a native spirit through the practice of sorcery.

Several factors led to this development. First, because of the advent of the gods, humans watched much less for the native spirits they knew but came to anticipate the influences of spirits from beyond Gielinor. Many of the traditional rituals and governmental institutions among the human communities were replaced with new technologies and forms of governance in the complex empires of the gods; thus, human mages had to grapple with the influences of many more spirits than before.

Second, wherever great sorcerers had arisen among humans, there had already been raised questions concerning deeper spirits which governed all the native spirits of the world. Thus, according to my own headcannon, schools of mysticism developed in various places throughout Gielinor.

Within and around the empires of the 2nd age, the academic life of these schools (Muh, Fremennik, Lesarkus, maybe the Academic School if it was founded that early) flourished, for humans encountered magics from many worlds. The Church of Zaros also became especially powerful, since its teachings concerning self-control demanded close attention to the spirits at work in one's own heart. As I mentioned before, the community which would become the School of Streit remained in hiding after the destruction of Aidos and would later become a powerful critic of the Church of Zaros.

24-Jul-2016 03:33:54

AttilaSquare

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If great sorcerers were few among humans before the advent of the gods, great mystics were even fewer, for discerning the work of principle spirits is even more difficult than discerning the work of native spirits. These mystics led the schools and became counselors to the gods. Under the guidance of the schools and with the help of magics from foreign worlds, more humans were practicing sorcery than ever. Humans adopted a more technological approach to magic - they understood magic as an aid for playing their parts in the complex lives of the empires in which they lived. But while humans had become more technological in their approach to magic, they still did not exhibit the extremely technologically-minded attitude of our magical scientists today.

In addition to their pedagogical and technological developments, the schools were home to countless debates - concerning the relations among native spirits, principle spirits, realms of light, realms of shadow, and the abyss; concerning the nature of mysticism itself, whether it was a theoretical or practical discipline, whether it should serve the purposes of gods or of humans, whether it should continue to train its students in sorcery or not, whether certain forms of magic should be encouraged or discouraged, etc.

One particularly interesting debate emerged after humans were introduced to the art of golem construction. Humans had long been familiar with the practices of necromancy, of better and worse quality. But, while necromancy animates material natural fit for life, golem construction animates - i.e. makes receptive to spirits - matter without any natural aptitude for it. And, while necromancy restores, to some extent, natural processes, golem construction makes matter receptive to whatever purposes the mage desires.

24-Jul-2016 03:34:28

AttilaSquare

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In light of this discovery, human mystics had to consider the possibility that the shadow realm and abyss contain many more sorts of spirits than they had ever expected. They reconceived the shadow realm not as a hidden sliver of the realm of light but according to the spatial metaphor of a vast space of spirits in which the realm of light is embedded. Likewise, they reconceived the abyss not as a hidden connection bridging the realms of light but as a vast space of principle spirits in which worlds themselves are embedded.

Certainly this was a development of metaphors and images more than of concepts. But it impacted popular conceptions of the shadow realms and abyss significantly. People no longer associated the shadow realm with the invisible components of daily life but with a vast expanse of hidden possibilities and alternatives to the way things are. Likewise, people no longer associated the abyss with unchanging principles but with every possibility they could imagine, even possibilities indifferent to the existence of Gielinor.

Returning to the historical account, this situation continued from the late 2nd age well into the 3rd. Zamorak's rebellion threw the Church of Zaros into disorder, but the other schools endured. Even in the 2nd age there had been pressure upon the schools to support the imperial militaries, but this increased dramatically in the 3rd age. More and more the schools included the arts of war in their curricula - magic for combat, for scouting and scrying, for portal construction, etc. The Academic School especially became a powerful asset for Saradomin.

As the battlelines became increasingly entrenched, communication among the schools dwindled. We know little of the technical knowledge gained and lost during the millennia of the Godwars. But some important conceptual developments occurred.

As human mystics watched whole cities, nations, and races destroyed by the Godwars, they became dissatisfied with the principles of the gods.

24-Jul-2016 03:35:20 - Last edited on 24-Jul-2016 04:07:22 by AttilaSquare

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