For Magic More Like Folklore/Fairytale/Myth Magic

[Doctor Xero]

split from Mysterious Magic http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9404

I apologize for such a long thread, but I'm interested in efforts to apply a more folkloric
form of magic to RPGs.

However, first a quick aside about definitions:
one of my university degrees is in folklore, so I'll show you the official definitive efinitions of
myth and mythology and magic and such -- there aren't any!  General notional definitions,
yes, but exacting definitions, no.  There have even been numerous articles and book
chapters discussing the elusive nature of myth and fable and fairy tale et al.  (A similar
inexactness occurs in defining fantasy as a genre or meta-genre.)

For that reason, a lot of folklorists just lump it all together under the umbrella term 'Folklore',
and when we have to differentiate myth from magic from fairytale, we present our
favored definitions as well.

I hope knowing the above helps.

Personally, I think we're overlooking a few elements of folklore in our discussions about
locating 'the mythic' and 'magical realism' in games.

I've really enjoyed all the threads thus far.  These are simply further ideas I would enjoy
discussion on.

1)
First is the suspension of disbelief.  The original audiences for the stories gathered by the
Brothers Grimm and for the tales penned by Perrault and Anderson no more believed that
cats can speak than do modern Americans believe that action heroes can outrun explosions.
They simply accepted it for the sake of the story.  It's as Harlequin wrote in the Mysterious
Magic thread: "Usually, in these, there's no 'mage' type at all; magic is just there, and
everybody interacts with it, whether that be via objects, places, or what have you."

With gamers it's a little more difficult because gamers are not a passive audience but
interacting with the story, and they need some sense of their campaign world.  Engaging
suspension of disbelief from the players requires that they know ahead of time the parameters
of the situation -- just as people unfamiliar with the traditions of superhero comic books
often balk at the physics and biology of superhero RPGs.

*)
The second, third, and fourth concerns deal with the interactive nature of the fairytale or
mythic reality.  Fairytales and myths involve a world which is alive, not dead (they live
on Mother Earth not on the third rock from the sun) and which is organically interactive not
mechanistically reactive.  Many magic-based game systems still use the assumptions of a
lifeless reactive reality as default assumptions, mechanistically listing the exceptions and
meticulously quantifying magic as merely a means for evoking reactions from this dead
reality rather than as a method of interacting with it.  Instead, what players need to know
for such a mythical/magical game is that the gameworld itself is alive and active and
that sometimes things occur sympathetically rather than causally.

2)
Second is that in many tales, monsters and magical devices are metaphors for something
else, to make the hidden truths more obvious and to deal with terrifying ideas one step
removed.  Jack Zipes writes that fairy tales have been used as "a means to conquer the
terrors of mankind through metaphor."  Iona and Peter Opie have noted that the purpose
of enchantment is not to improve someone but to make reality more obvious -- wishes
seldom work out in folklore, and fairy godmothers are there to make a person face the
truth about herself or his situation, not to provide an easy escape.  (I assume the
Campbellian aspect is already known to everyone these days.)

For example, in various versions of The Beauty and The Beast, the prince is made a beast
so that his cruel inner self is obvious, and when his inner self is changed, it requires that
an outsider recognize his new inner kindness despite his beastial appearance before the
enchantment is broken.  His beastial appearance also works as a metaphor for the sexual
threat of the animalistic side.  In various older versions of Cinderella, Cinderella is a
nobleman's daughter (or son in many versions!) forced to pretend to be a filthy servant, and
her magic helper's enchantments only make her inner nobility obvious -- they change nothing
about her.  In older versions, the Prince must fall in love with her while she's filthy before
he is worthy of seeing her true nobility unveiled.  One reason she (or he) is covered with
ashes and cinders in so many forms of the tale is that ash and cinder have been European
symbols of loss and mourning for centuries, and in many older tales Cinderella first lived
among the ashes because she couldn't stop mourning the physical death of her mother and
the subsequent emotional death of her father.

For gaming, this means that the campaign must have a philosophical or spiritual grounding.
The problem is that this usually results in trite, uninspired moralism.

One solution is to have the metaphors be specific to each character.  Perhaps if each
player were to list a fear, a hope, and a confusion for each character, the game master
could create opponents which work as subtle metaphors for each fear, each hope, each
confusion.  The philosophical or spiritual grounding needs to come from the world interacting
with the player characters.  This helps avoid trite philosophical and spiritual generalizations.

Another solution is to ensure that all transformations and enchantments result specifically
from roleplay and reflect the character's personality.  Coldhearted princes become frogs;
daydreaming princesses fall into long sleeps.

Magical devices also function as metaphors, often enriching good people and harming
evil people as with the story about the salt mill and its misuse by the evil neighbor (the
same with the golden-egg laying goose as metaphor for the misuse of natural resources).
As neelk wrote in the Mysterious Magic thread: "I think the causal logic of a magical tool
reflects moral, social, and psychological concerns in a way that a mechanical tool doesn't."

3)
Third is that folklore magic works in a world where the laws of reality respond to human
intensity, whether intense emotions or an intense purity of character (as when unicorns
respond to the purity of virgins).  As neelk wrote in the Mysterious Magic thread: "When
people in engage in magical thinking, they believe that their beliefs have a causal impact
on the world -- a voodoo doll works because you hate the victim, whereas a gun can
go off accidentally."

This answers gobi's desire from the Mysterious Magic thread:
"I want to express this sort of magical realism in a more tribal/mythic context for
Gears & Spears. I want it to be possible for a coyote to suddenly speak a few words of
wisdom and a robot can cry so terribly that he forms a lake in the shape of his lost love."

In a world where the laws of reality respond to intensity, the scientific laws which state
that a robot could not produce enough liquid to form a lake in a certain shape are
bypassed.  Spontaneous generation may even populate that lake with fish and game.
The fairytale world is not coldly reactive -- the lake may even result from the earth's
weeping in sympathy with the robot.

A game striving for this needs to encourage game-masters to keep track of the more
intense behaviors of their player characters.

4)
Fourth, in certain types of folklore, the magic is the way the divine communicates with
mortals.  This happens frequently in Arthurian tales, with knights constantly encountering
magical events only to run into forest hermits who can explain to them the hidden meaning
behind their magical encounters.  It's like Harlequin wrote in the Mysterious Magic thread:
"If there's any 'mage' or 'wiseman' archetype it's invariably the counselor/guide figure,
not appropriate as a PC at all."

I've really enjoyed all the threads thus far.  These are simply further ideas I would enjoy
discussing.

Doctor Xero

[clehrich]

I agree with all your main points, Dr. Xero.  At the same time, I think there are a few somewhat dangerous assertions.  Given that the point here is to talk about all this in the RPG context, I'll restrict my remarks to those areas; the good doctor and I can go argue about other parts of this somewhere els!

1. I suggest that one needs to go further in avoiding "trite moralism".  In fact, much of the time you need to throw away conventional morality entirely.  Some types of folkloric tales do indeed make such moral points, or adhere to in-culture moral standards, but this is often the effect of a deliberate editor (e.g. the Grimms) rather than some sort of "natural" cultural effect.  Chapter 1 of Claude Lévi-Strauss's The Raw and the Cooked makes the point well, in that the hero of a Bororo myth rapes his mother but is never punished; indeed, he remains the hero throughout.  While conventional morality within the culture may be expressed overtly or "obviously", this isn't necessarily the case.  Consequently I would recommend that you throw away morality tales from the start, if you want a "mythic" or whatever feel in your RPG.  One of the things, in fact, that will make it seem most like mythic material is for morality to seem strangely absent.  This doesn't mean celebrating immoral behavior; it means discarding any moral structure whatever, as though it were obvious that such questions simply don't matter a whit.

2. Resist the temptation to see myth or folktales as explanations of anything.  This is certainly often true in some fashion, but almost anything you are likely to think of off the cuff as "explanation" will drive your game into a type of scientism that will not work well.  If you have read extensively in the debates about explanation and causal logic and such, go for it; otherwise, again, just reject the "explanation" thing from the start.

3. When setting up monsters, devices, people, etc. as "metaphors for something else," try to avoid a 1:1 relationship.  Usually it's facile to read the Beast as a representation of bestial nature; it's usually more complex, as in the interrelationship of beast and man within the one figure represents a similar parallel in male nature, as it plays out in the further relationship.... and so forth.  It's the relations that matter, not the objects.¹

3a. As a corollary, consider trying to develop metaphorical meanings for relationships rather than characters or objects.  Thus this character's relationship to that character is a thing, perhaps further symbolized by a more physical object.  Now if we see this all as a concrete thing, what does it represent?  Of what is it a metaphor?

Again, I agree with everything Dr. Xero suggests here, but I'm afraid that without his background reading the results will be disappointingly mundane.

Chris Lehrich

1. Some may recognize this as a principle of structural myth-analysis, which is indeed where I got it.  But while Structuralism may be dead as a method, that's because we have to go beyond it, not that it was wrong in the first place.  Until RPG manipulation of mythic/folkloric concepts begins to touch on the level of sophistication that the Structuralists achieved, whatever their flaws, we're not ready to transcend them.

[Doctor Xero]

I agree about throwing away conventional moralism, but that is why I made note
of an underlying philosophical or spiritual grounding rather than a moral grounding.

Remember, one philosophical ideal often reflected in much folklore is that bad things
happen to good people, period -- the spiritual perspective emphasizes not a divine justice
behind bad things but a perspective which acknowledges and accepts the general
unfairness of much of life.  It is not the hero who bemoans the unfairness of his/her
life but the hero who dusts the ashes off her rags, accepts the unfairness of his poverty,
or otherwise copes with his bad circumstances and moves on who succeeds.  In much
European folklore, virtue is linked to the ability to cope with life's unfairness without
losing hope.

I'd also purposely excluded folktales which existed only for the sake of humor and
burlesque (many of which embarrassed the Brothers Grimm) since they didn't seem
relevant to RPGs.

I suspect that the fairytales and myths and fantasies we still read today are those which
carry a sort of "yeah, that's it!" on an unconscious or psychological level or which give
us tools to express and personalize our inner feelings, fears, needs, ethical concerns,
etc.

I was probably too vague about metaphoric aspects of folklore since I'm studying that
and since I'd rather read what other people have to say or why they consider my
thoughts nonsense than go on about it overmuch myself.

Doctor Xero

[Shreyas Sampat]

I think one essential component of the fairytale feel is to abandon the notion of "magic"; when an out-of-the-ordinary thing happens in a fairytale, it is not because someone has supernatural capabilities, or because someone manipulated mystical tools in specific ways; it happens in an unnatural way because it is more expressive and meaningful for it to happen that way than it would be to happen mundanely.

That could just be the fajitas talking, though.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi all,

I don't know if we've got any Gloranthians reading this thread, but isn't HeroQuest's default setting of mythological Glorantha pretty much in line with the descriptions above?  We've got

objects and relationships bound by emotional ties;

magic that simply is;

a frequenlty amoral universe;

a universe unencumbered by the laws of physics;

main characters meeting and dealing with mystical events larger than themselves;

the intensity of the characters emotions being a driving force of magic and power;

a world that is MYTH, so that anything can happen, really, to reshape reality as it corresponds to the drive, needs, ambitions and passions of the people;

and so, in this manner, the "mundane" world is shaped by the magic beyond in the "other" world.

I am curious about this.  Am I a) misreading what Glorantha is designed to be?; b) reading it correctly, but nobody is really playing it this way?; missing an issue of Color (people want deep Germanic forests and talking foxes, and Glorantha doesn't deliver); d) Glorantha is close, but with all its emphasis on different "cultures" and trying to build a "logical" version of mytholigical world, it kind of misses the boat we're trying to catch here?; e) (d) is correct, but with just the slightest tweaking, (by relaxing the decades old Sim agenda still running through the setting), Glorantha would work just find.

I look forward to any replies.

(Also, I think might tie to the Hesitation/Glorantha thread, but I'm not sure.  For this reason, maybe this post should be bounced down the HeroQuest board with a link to this thread.)

Thanks,
Christopher

[AnyaTheBlue]

Not that I'm exactly a card-carrying Gloranthophile or anything, but I do have an extensive collection, so I'll take a stab at it.

Yes.  Glorantha (and HeroQuest) is the first thing I thought of while reading Dr. Xero's post.

The second thing I thought of was Pendragon.

The third thing that occured to me was that you could model this fairly well with something akin to some (unholy?) combination of Pendragon traits, The Riddle of Steel Spiritual Attributes, and some notion of 'convincing' or 'influencing' the natural world.  Treat casting a spell like a social interaction, where you attempt to convince the Active World (Gaeia, frex) to do as you want, and your ability to be convincing would be some combination of "Pure of Heart" (traits), desire and motivation (spiritual attributes), and knowledge of the Arcane in some form (ie, wizards or fey who are just magical).

The fourth thing I thought about was the metaphorical angle.  I like this.  Slice the major campaign and/or scenario NPCs, particularly those who USE magic and assign them some metaphorical role or meaning.  This could be as generic as 'evil', or it could be more specific, like 'lust', or 'greed', or even 'honor' and 'love'.  Then, work out metaphorical relationships between these things and the characters, perhaps using something akin to the Relationship Maps from Sorcerer.  Oh, I would include magic items and spells as metaphorical entities in their own right, and in fact would treat them as NPCs, to the extent that I could.  A magic sword, or a magic spell, or whatever, would be, in some sense, an active and alive *thing*, with an agenda of some sort.  Again, Sorcerer provides *a* way of approaching this, although I'm not sure I'd make it quite that dark.

Anyway, not very well formed, but I definitely like it.  I think it would mesh with TRoS mechanics fantastically.

I'm very interested to see where this thread ends up...

[clehrich]

The fourth thing I thought about was the metaphorical angle.  I like this.  Slice the major campaign and/or scenario NPCs, particularly those who USE magic and assign them some metaphorical role or meaning.  This could be as generic as 'evil', or it could be more specific, like 'lust', or 'greed', or even 'honor' and 'love'.  Then, work out metaphorical relationships between these things and the characters, perhaps using something akin to the Relationship Maps from Sorcerer.

I like this, although I'm still not comfortable with the mostly ethical angle.  Perhaps if you added social factors, such as marriage, class, relatives, etc.?  The other thing would be to choose really vague parallels, not literal or obvious ones.  So for example, instead of having Thror's relation to the Diamond be Greed, have it be Marriage.  Then you're perpetually trying to make sense of the connection, and in the process adding scads of other connections.

It might be fun to have a stack of cards for these thematic elements, and then draw randomly every time you decide that a new connection has been formulated.  I suppose these could be called mythemes....

Oh, I would include magic items and spells as metaphorical entities in their own right, and in fact would treat them as NPCs, to the extent that I could.  A magic sword, or a magic spell, or whatever, would be, in some sense, an active and alive *thing*, with an agenda of some sort.

Most definitely.  I see no reason whatever, in fact, to distinguish between living things and others; after all, half the time the rocks end up talking.

I'm very interested to see where this thread ends up...

Me too.

Chris Lehrich

[Christopher Kubasik]

Dr. Xero,

Are you familiar with the ubiquitious HeroQuest and it's setting of Glorantha?  I'd love to hear your comments about it.

Christopher

[simon_hibbs]

I am curious about this.  Am I a) misreading what Glorantha is designed to be?;

No, I think you're spot on.

b) reading it correctly, but nobody is really playing it this way?;

Just because Glorantha contaions high powered mythic magic and heroes that change the face of the world doesn't mean all your games have to be about that. Glorantha also contains ordinary people that just get on with their lives. Nevertherless because Glorantha is build on mythic/folkloric foundations you see the efefcts of this everywhere you look. You can't realy avoid it because it's everywhere so even if you don't put in a huge effort to run a mythic game, mythic/folkloric influence is goign to be there anyway. It's then up to you how you deal with that.

missing an issue of Color (people want deep Germanic forests and talking foxes, and Glorantha doesn't deliver);

Well there are plenty of deep forests and talking animals in Glorantha, but I sense that I'm missing your point...

d) Glorantha is close, but with all its emphasis on different "cultures" and trying to build a "logical" version of mytholigical world, it kind of misses the boat we're trying to catch here?;

Perhaps in a way. Folklore doesn't necesserily have much in the way of cultural context. Ok for a tale involving princes and princesses you need to know what those are, but whether it's german, chinese or arabian, a folk tale generaly stands on it's own merits. Or an I talking horse puckey?

e) (d) is correct, but with just the slightest tweaking, (by relaxing the decades old Sim agenda still running through the setting), Glorantha would work just find.

Well I supoose that's what HeroQuest is all about.


Simon Hibbs

[Doctor Xero]

simon_hibbs wrote on Tue Feb 03, 2004 2:15 pm
> Folklore doesn't necesserily have much in the way of cultural context.
> Ok for a tale involving princes and princesses you need to know what
> those are, but whether it's german, chinese or arabian, a folk tale
> generaly stands on it's own merits.

Yes and no.  Campbell and Propp and company were able to identify
universal tendencies in folklore and mythology, but really, what they found was
the skeleton of this genre (proving universal structure) -- the flesh of a tale,
its particular form and style and even aspects of its meaning, tie in to the
specific culture.  When a folktale ceases to be relevant to a culture, it is
forgotten or revised until it becomes again a story to which they can relate.
That's why there are so many Cinderella tales yet each has its own regional
variant (the Chinese Cinderella focuses more on family loyalty, the German
Cinderella has revenge against the evil step-family, the later French Cinderella
converts her step-family with Christian forgiveness, etc.).

I think campaigns parallel this: house rules are ways each individual gaming
group edits and adapts the same gaming system to a group's specific interests
and needs.

clehrich wrote on Sun Feb 01, 2004 6:05 am
> The other thing would be to choose really vague parallels, not literal
> or obvious ones. So for example, instead of having Thror's relation
> to the Diamond be Greed, have it be Marriage. Then you're perpetually
> trying to make sense of the connection, and in the process adding
> scads of other connections.

A side comment: this reminds me of Hesse's glassbead game and Hipbone
Game's version of it http://home.earthlink.net/~hipbone/

One concern I would have with the metaphoric element of monsters and
magical devices in RPGs replicating folklore/myth is that it is too easy to
devolve from folklore/myth symbolism into trite allegory.  One thing I would
do is attempt to figure out the metaphor personally and then ~hide~ ~it~
~from~ ~the~ ~players~!  This would give that wonderful folklore sense that
there is something beneath the surface for those who want to look yet that
enjoyment of the tale is not dependent upon looking for that something more.
Knowing the relationship between The Beauty and The Beast and the fear of
male sexuality (only one of many aspects in that tale) may increase my
enjoyment of the story, but I can enjoy The Beauty and The Beast perfectly
well without knowing anything about its archetypal underpinnings -- knowing
them adds to my enjoyment but is not required.  I think the same thing would
be true for underlying metaphors in monsters and magical devices.

Doctor Xero

[John Kirk]

I've been giving this topic a lot of thought in the past months.  I've come to the conclusion, for RPG magic to have a "folklorish" feel, it needs to be more organic than current systems allow.  You should be able to nurture it and you should be able to kill it.  This is the kind of magic system I'm planning on developing for the next edition of Legendary Quest.

As a simple example, let's take an enchanted forest populated by elves, dryads, unicorns, and the like where the trees are continually blooming and the air is filled with the scent of nectar.  In a classical RPG system, this condition would be produced by a powerful mage casting a spell (this is the case now in LQ).  But, it now makes more sense to me that the enchantment is more of an ecology of magic rather than a simple (albeit potent) spell.  I would envision a group of nature-conscious elves moving into an ordinary forest and, through long years of sweat and toil, slowly improving the health of the forest until the magic naturally inherent in the trees and fauna would begin to exert itself.  So, the flowers would begin producing particularly potent pollens and the environment would evolve into a sort of "techno-color", pristine version of common forests.  Over time, pillywiggens and other sprites would be attracted to the area.  They would take up residence and lift the burden of tending the forest from the elves.  In other words, the forest would begin maintaining itself.  The elves, then, would be free to either enjoy the fruits of their labor and live blissfully in their idyllic woodland, or move on to repeat the process in some other mundane wood.  If someone then came along with a can of insecticide and sprayed for pillywiggins, the only immediately obvious effect would be a bunch of dead sprites littering the ground.  The long-term effect, though, would be the fading of the wood's enchantment.  Without the sprites to maintain the "upkeep", the fauna would have to divert more and more of its resources to simple survival.  Within a year or two, the forest would revert back to its original state.

In a magic system like this, there wouldn't really be any spells, just magic-like effects produced by living things.  The more "magical" effects could actually be interpreted as the inherent powers of the spirits of those things when the physical form no longer burdens it.  The specific effects would be nothing more than the natural abilities of any given species, taken up to and beyond what would be considered the "limits" of the thing's normal abilities.  The nectar of flowers, for example, would be particularly nutritious.  Honey produced from such nectar would provide remarkable health benefits to the consumer.  Magic would exist everywhere, but it wouldn't be undirected or random.  It would always have purpose.  It may be sentient.  It may even be insane.

A magic system set up in this fashion may or may not have mages, depending on the game designer's goals.  If it did support mages (LQ does and will continue to do so), then the only distinction between one mage and another would be the kinds of spirits they know how to bind and control.  Currently, there are many mage types in LQ, each of which deals with a different selection of spirits.  Wizards, for example, gain levels in lores concerning various types of dragons.  Spells based on these lores have effects similar to those produced by dragons.  The logic is that they control dragon spirits and these spirits have the same powers as when they were living.  Thus, a Wizard can cast a "Dragon's Breath: Flame" spell when he becomes powerful enough.  But, this kind of system is still very mechanical.  It has a slight flavor of folklore, because the various mage types are loosely tied to various spirit types, but it doesn't go far enough to satisfy my ultimate "organic magic" vision for the game.  

I'm thinking in the next version of LQ, mages won't have spells.  They will have specific spirits bound to them in some way.  Those bound directly will be "familiars" while those bound to objects (magic items) will be "fetishes".  Either way, a mage will direct the spirits and can produce spell-like effects, but a mage's power is all indirect.  When a mage gains a new familiar or fetish, he gains a whole group of related effects.  Thus, a magus gaining a naga fetish would gain some charming abilities along with control over rain and possibly lightning and thunder.  If he put his naga spirit into dangerous situations, then it might actually get killed and he would suddenly lose the abilities he formerly possessed.

The main requirement of this kind of system, obviously, is a wide repertoire of creatures along with the "magical" abilities they naturally possess.  I'm not really even sure how many creatures I've written up for LQ, but list is fairly extensive.  I hope it will prove sufficient.

[clehrich]

John,

Your image of folkloric magic is of course quite specific; it's not a generalizable view of all folklore.  But that said, I think your inclination to construct lots of different kinds of critters may be going in the wrong direction.

In essence, I think that what you have to create -- and I'm not quite sure how you go about this -- is an aesthetic of how magic "feels" in the game-world.  If magic is just a continuation of natural forces, such that (as in Tolkien) elves don't even really understand what mortals mean by "magic" in the first place, then what you have to instill in the players is a sense of how nature extends itself and can be extended.

I think that the best thing in your description was the complicated forest itself as an ecology.  For me, this hits the nail on the head: you're constructing a world that has its own logic, and doesn't really require a lot of rules or mechanics to make it function.  It just does.  In the same way, our own world can be described biologically and all, but for most folks it's just the way it is, period.  Then people interpret nature in terms of their own aesthetics and whatnot, and some people end up thinking of forests and so forth as a wonderful thing, and others think they're a nifty source of extra oil to support impoverished Halliburton executives.

What you're trying to create, I think, is a world in which the choices are just quite a bit different from those in our world.  But if you simply detail it all out, you will provoke envelope-pushing.  This is an extension of one of Mike's Rants, in which he points out that having an elaborate combat system provokes fighting.  Similarly, did you ever notice that Ars Magica for example provokes people to push the edges of the system?  I think the world you have in mind is one in which such envelope-pushing is emphatically not the point.

Again, I'm not sure how you should go about creating and instilling an aesthetic, but I doubt very much that lots of stats for beasties will help.  Sorry to sound so negative, but I'm afraid that if you go in that direction you will get something radically other than what you want.

Chris Lehrich

[Doctor Xero]

I would envision a group of nature-conscious elves moving into an
ordinary forest and, through long years of sweat and toil, slowly improving the health of the
forest until the magic naturally inherent in the trees and fauna would begin to exert itself.

If someone then came along with a can of insecticide and sprayed for
pillywiggins, the only immediately obvious effect would be a bunch of dead sprites littering
the ground.  The long-term effect, though, would be the fading of the wood's enchantment.
Without the sprites to maintain the "upkeep", the fauna would have to divert more and
more of its resources to simple survival.  Within a year or two, the forest would revert back to its original state.

I think you're on the start of something good.  May I push it a little further?

In Peter S. Beagle's magnificent novel (and film script) The Last Unicorn, he successfully
captures the folkloric feel of the magic of  The Forest.  The Unicorn in the story causes
eternal springtime in the forest ~simply~ ~by~ ~her~ ~presence~.  She makes no
conscious effort to enchant (or disenchant) the forest.  On some levels she seems no
more aware of the effect of her presence than you or I might be aware of the effects
our respiration has on nearby plants and insects.  She does not evoke magic.

She IS magic.

Or, to use the more theoretical language of my original posting, she is (among many
things) a metaphor for springtime/life blooming/growth/youthful energy.

To anthropomorphize for an example: worker bees do not gather pollen from different
flowers specifically to cross-pollinate -- they gather pollen for the "pleasure" of creating
honey, and they are oblivious to the side effect of pollination and cross-pollination.  In the
same way, in much folklore the nature spirits/fae/kami/elvenkind are oblivious to their
"ecological" functions of bringing about spring or autumn or fecundity or stormy weather --
these are side effects of actions they undertake for pleasure (not so much enlightened
self-interest as "flow" or self-actualization, to apply modern terms -- in some folklore,
sprites evoke blossoming from flowers in the same way that a lover evokes a sigh from
his/her sweetheart as an unintended byproduct of loving him/her).

To translate from the folklore mindset to the modern mechanistic science-is-god mindset,
the closest parallel to the function of a nature sprite could be a theoretical physics particle :
just as a photon is said to be the carrier particle for light and a graviton is said to be the
carrier particle for gravity, so a type of faerie creature might be said to be the "carrier
particle" for fertility or spring thaw or the force of falling to the ground (a dryad might be
the "carrier particle" for the tree's "biology", a river nymph the "carrier particle" for a river's
"hydrodynamics" and "marine ecology").  So the act of killing off all the sprites would be the
equivalent in modern day thought to "killing off" all the expressions/manifestations
of the laws of physics!

Some people have argued that, in modern folklore-based fantasy tales, the biggest
difference between faeriefolk and gods is that faeriefolk don't care about the "magical"
effects they have on ecology and the world and have no sense of duty to humanity as
a whole whereas gods are very aware of the "magical" effects they "bestow as blessings"
on ecology and the world and have a paternalistic relationship towards humanity as
a whole.

This might be brought into a folklore-based fantasy RPG through treating the magical
forces of a particular type of faerie creature NOT as its powers or magical talents but
instead as side effects of its presence, primarily outside its conscious awareness (not
uncontrollable, but something it would seldom notice enough to control).  Therefore,
player-characters in the presence of a muse might become more inspired (bonuses to
creativity-based roles in the mechanics?), player-characters in the presence of a unicorn
might find themselves healing faster, and player-characters in the presence of a spectre
might find themselves slowly withering away even if the spectre has no interest in
harming them.

This is the reason why, in many folktales, the wise woman or wizard often knows more
about the functioning of a faerie creature than the creature does about itself!  Faeries
simply live while humans instead orchestrate and manipulate . . .

Similarly, it is why in many folktales, only those who are half-faerie blood may cast
spells and are often more powerful than the full-blooded fae -- they have the innate
magicality of a faerie yet the human mentality which enables them to manipulate this
consciously.

A folklore-based fantasy RPG would probably work off very different assumptions than
RPGs based off the more familiar late medieval/early modern visions of magic as more
metaphysical proto-science and of faeriefolk as the class ex miscellania of the Great Chain
of Being or as simply a beautiful class of monsters to be conquered/killed off/annexed
(the AD-&-D model).

Or so it would seem to me.

Doctor Xero

[John Kirk]

In Peter S. Beagle's magnificent novel (and film script) The Last Unicorn, he successfully captures the folkloric feel of the magic of The Forest. The Unicorn in the story causes eternal springtime in the forest ~simply~ ~by~ ~her~ ~presence~.

I agree that this movie gives a good "folklorish" feel (I haven't read the book) and that the magical nature of the unicorn is inherent in its nature, rather than being a conscious effort.  But, I would also think capturing the unicorn would diminish its "magical" qualities.  A unicorn just wouldn't easily take captivity.  A unicorn imprisoned would be analogous to an enchanted forest without sprites, IMO.  In other words, the further a creature is taken out of its native environment, the more "stress" it would suffer and the more its inherent magic would be suppressed.  So, capturing a unicorn would not only be exceptionally difficult, it would also benefit the captor far less than he might expect.  The magic would probably take a while to fade, however.  So, keeping a unicorn captive for any length of time would constitute a true accomplishment.

Or, to use the more theoretical language of my original posting, she is (among many things) a metaphor for springtime/life blooming/growth/youthful energy.

I like the metaphor concept and I think it would have a place in an RPG game.  But, I don't think they need to be explicitly stated or detailed by the game itself.  As you say, a unicorn can be a metaphor for a great many things, including one of its original metaphors of sexuality (it is no accident that a unicorn has a single horn and can only be ridden by virgins).  I think players and GM's are perfectly capable of coming up with their own, although some guidance on the appropriateness of doing so and/or techniques of coming up with them is probably in order.

[Mike Holmes]

FWIW, I've been watching John's game deveopment, and one thing that I can say is that he's an expert in the field of folklore.

That said, it's interesting, John, that we're having very much this same discussion on the HeroQuest rules group in regards to animist magic, and the viability of the concept of captivity. Notably the idea of fetishes being objects into which spirits are bound. Isn't this a case of captivity? But isn't this a primary tool of the Shaman?

Mike