Not-very-pointful Sorcerer Things

[lumpley]

1. Do you know Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer's song "41 Thunderer"? It's about a demon. He sings of his gun, his Colt, that she was "a cool yankee belle ... slender and wicked, with flame in her eyes" and so on, "a six-eyed Delilah, brazen and bold." He says, "but her hunger burned blazes 'til it felt like my own, and her wandering heart drove me wild and alone." But the best part is when "we set out from Canaan in search of our fortunes or something worth dying for, beauty or evermore." I want to play him as a Sorcerer.

2. A dream: I'm talking gaming with Paul, Mike and Scott in a fenced field with an abandoned stable at one end. There's also a convict and his warden. The convict's on some sort of supervised cultural release program and the cultural part is he gets to hang out with gaming geeks. So we're talking along, talking along.

Apropos nothing, the warden cop guy says that George W. Bush is the best president in history. I like look at him sideways but I don't really want to engage, so whatever. But he gets mad. "What's the matter, boy, aren't you a patriot?"

"Do I look like a patriot?" I say. And that really pisses him off. He starts screaming at me, shoving me, his face gets red and distorted. I'm scrambling backward. I look around for help, but y'all Paul, Mike and Scott have run for cover (or out of respect for my protagonism, thanks). My heel hits something and I fall back, even the convict's gone. Into thin air. "Wait," I say. "You made him."

And that's the binding. I identified the warden guy as a demon (and in fact, in that moment his face was inhuman with rage), I said it out loud, and now he's mine. My demon. I wake up going, Cool.

-Vincent

[Bailywolf]

You last nugget makes me think of an alternate sorcerer paradigme I had played with a while back (go figure, ME coming up with yet another Sorcerer riff...).  

Basicly, a 'demon' can be anything- a car, a guy you meet, a pocket watch, an idea etc.  As a sorcerer you can redefine a thing (basicly with a Contact ritual) as a demon- making its defining characteristics manifest symbolicly or magnified literaly- then bring those characteristics to the fore (with a summon)...  

Non-physcial, symbolic, and entirely relitive characteristics can be brought to the fore as easily as the literal...  

A disturned teen's long trenchcoat...  it conceals, it acts as emotional armor, it is black, it is comfortable, it serves as a symbol of identity...and as a warning- 'stay away'.  It could be made manifest as a protective, outwardly hostile demon, with Armor and Will boosting abilities.

The Mail Man... he brings the mail, he is a messenger, he is a faceless professional, his kind are popularly believed to be unstable and violent... he could be remade as a messenger able to travel instantly to deliver a message regardless of circumstance... he could be made into an assassin- a bringer of death... he could be de-diferentiated into a faceless drone-person, someone who could blend into any situation with an aura of the mundane...

Your cat Baxter.... he provides comfort, he seems wise and intelligent, he is cruel to smaller things, he has claws and teeth, he has superhuman senses, his kind have been attributed many supernatural powers... cartoon versions of him are nigh-invulnerable to harm...  he could be remade as into a gigantic version of himself- all his natural traits magnified- or he could be a calming, healing creature who's purr sooths pain, or he could be made manifest as a lithe cat-man who has cat charactertitics ect.


Basicly, you make a thing manifest the meanings it holds FOR YOU.  Your demons are unique signatures based on how you percieve the people and things around you.  The stronger your associations, the more powerful your demons.  

Fear the abused child-sorcerer...her Father is a horror to behold...

[lumpley]

Hey.  Cool.  I was working on a game years ago with a similar thing, where a person's unfulfilled potential had Power in the world.  Vampires, werewolves, ghouls, witches, all were violent or abusive people transformed by their victims' unfulfilled potential.  It was really about fairies: you owe favors to the people whose potential you use, but if you really make good, the people fulfill more of their potential and you have access to less power.

It might be worth picking that game back up again and looking at it in Sorcerer terms.

-Vincent

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Check out the Psyche Junkies material in Chapter 7 of the main rules. These guys' demons could be defined as that song that keeps running through your head.

Best,
Ron

[Voidwalker]

Hrm... I've always been a bit limited by not thinking in such terms, but yeah... it makes for a great paranoiac game, if you don't know what the hell a demon's going to look like...

Hrm... Possible demons...

A book of lore, perhaps? It seems to, when opened, magically flip to the most enticing page, essentially bonding itself with it's reader automatically? It's need, perhaps, being to summon demons much more powerful than the Sorceror, for a Faustian angle...

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Urb,

Yup, that book notion is another one of the famous "First notions to do with Sorcerer" that people have. I had a whole scenario set up about this when I was drafting the game, and then "In the Mouth of Madness" came out and I said, "Shit!" and tossed it.

As I've said before, the classic First Sorcerer Demon Concepts are (1) the black sword, (2) the mobile tattoo, and (3) the hot demon chick. The book notion comes up every so often too.

Best,
Ron

[Jack Spencer Jr]

A book of lore, perhaps?...

The trick is to riff on it from a different angle. The antique leather, possibly human hide, book has been done to death. But there are other demon books. Some of them may be nudie magazines.Others may be childrens books.

You know, I had a copy of Go, Dog Go! that just...didn't...seem...right

*shudder*

[Valamir]

Well...now Clifford the Big Red Dog makes perfect sense.

Of course, I've always suspected that "That's what I saw on Mulberry Street" was some ancient summoning and binding ritual.

But seriously, A demon who manifests by animating pictures of models in glamour magazines within the pages (think Harry Potter news paper) would be pretty cool.

[lumpley]

Urp.  Goodnight Moon, and on the "Goodnight Nobody" page, sometimes somebody's there.

[Blake Hutchins]

Mmm-hmm....  So if I have it right and not just a little droll,
Cat in the Hat ends on a successful Binding roll.

Best,

Blake

[Jack Spencer Jr]

And let us not forget the obvious: Grover in the "The Monster at the End of This Book."

I also recall a series of books that a parent could order and their child is the main character. I had gotten one where I had an adventure with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and another where I was some kind of detective and my friend wore an alligator suit (?)

There's just something wrong about putting your child in a book like that.
(maybe this belongs in the Little Fears forum)

[Mike Holmes]

And let us not forget the obvious: Grover in the "The Monster at the End of This Book."

Dude, synchronous moment. I had litterally forgotten that book until my mother purchased a copy at a rummage (hell, it's probably the same copy), and gave it to me for my son just a couple of weeks ago. Haven't seen that book in decades.

And, heck yes, that book scared the bejeezuz out of me when I was four. Little did I realize then the full implications.

:-)

Mike