Lunar Mages

[soc_puppet]

Idea I had while napping today:


Lunar mages have their magic associated with the moon (obvs). They come in eight main(?) flavors: Waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full, waning gibbous, third quarter, waning crescent, and new. Much of their magic is associated with light and shadow, but the light = good and dark = bad dichotomy can go suck a lemon, so their powers are a bit more complicated than that. Anyway, these designations say how much light vs shadow magic they have/can control, though I haven't figured out what waxing vs. waning signifies, except that their powers tend to be strongest when the moon is in the phase they are most most closely associated with. That may be the only difference, really. So a waxing crescent lunar mage's magic is one quarter light-associated, and one quarter shadow-associated, and so forth. (I may change "light" to "shine" to avoid the aforementioned annoying dichotomoy.)

Light magic: Has to do with things that can be seen/normally touched by light. Truth spells are good here. Illusion magic, mostly creating visible things. The visual spectrum of clairvoyance.

Shadow magic: Has to do with things concealed from light/normally found in shadow. Invisibility. Concealment. Healing, especially internally; visible aspects are best done by someone with at least some Light magic, but can be done by all Lunar mages with at least some Shadow; it it out of reach for Full Moon casters. The aural spectrum of clairvoyance.

New moon and full moon practitioners are the most powerful of either shadow or light casters, respectively, but need someone who shares at least a little bit of their power type if they want to team up with anyone. The best combined/most complete clairvoyance spells are done with either a Full Moon practitioner working with at least one Crescent practitioner, or a New Moon practitioner working with at least one Gibbous practitioner. Some of the very best is done by a trio or quad of New Moon, Full Moon, and one or both of either First and Third Quarter practitioners. (There are some theater troupes that work exclusively with illusionists, creating masterpieces not unlike movies through the combined work of various lunar mages.)

First and Third Quarter mages are skilled at balancing their and others' talents, but when working with other mages, do best when the magic types are equally represented. Crescent and Gibbous mages are better at working with perceived or real imbalance; they are skilled both at making sure their dominant magic type does not overwhelm their less dominant(?) magic, and also at drawing out and focusing their less dominant magic type in contrast with their more dominant type. They are very sought after for group projects.

The existence of Lunar mages may suggest the existence of Solar and Stellar mages as well, but I have no idea about their talents at all. Maybe Solar mages excel with plantlife and Stellar mages with navigation? IDK. Would have to think on the existence of Planetary mages and Constellation mages as well.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

I still wish the Harry Potter movies had gone with white Death Eater robes, partly because they seemed to be taking a number of other points of inspiration from the KKK (and, handily, standard Hogwarts robes are black)

this sounds awesome! *sits on astronomy-based critique*

*sits really hard on trying to cross-pollinate this worldbuilding with Operation Make Betas Sexy worldbuilding*

[soc_puppet]

Urgh, so much yes to the Harry Potter thing. I mean, even if we're going with "It has more to do with Hitler and WWII!", Hitler got a lot of his ideas from the US, so.

🤣 Astronomy-based critique welcome! This is still very much in the development stages, and I came up with most of it when I was half-asleep anyway, so. Besides, I don't have to use any of it, and it'll prepare me better if I do end up doing anything with this 😉

Yes, that did also occur to me as I was getting it written up 😉 This is also welcome, though I don't particularly think I would be fusing the two universes at all. Edit: Or at least not on an official level. There can be some Venn Diagram universes that have both, but there are also universes that only have one or the other, is what I mean.

[alexseanchai]

there's gonna be some overlap between adjacent phases, just, unavoidably

to what extent RL astrological stuff is causative, correlative, and/or coincidental, I do not know, but for this-worldbuilding purposes, probably ought to figure it out. it seems to me that Solar and Lunar will work okay as is, though how those relate (given moonlight is reflected sunlight) is another question to consider, but a major materialistic-scientific argument against the validity of planetary astrology is, by what mechanism does this work? because it is…let's say non-obvious. not least because for anything both less massive than the sun and farther away than the moon (which is all the gas giants, almost all the smaller rocky and/or icy things, and a lot of stars), or at least as massive as and also farther away than the sun (which is all the other stars and stuff, excepting only the gravitational center of the Milky Way), gravitation ain't it.

*nodnod*

and I don't wanna look deeply enough to find out when the KKK started using the white robes and hats, but the first KKK was founded in 1865, which is uh kinda before WWII

[soc_puppet]

Naturally. While various phase lunar mages are strongest at their associated phase, they start getting stronger at the peak of the previous phase, and return to normal at the peak of the next phase. So a first quarter lunar mage would start getting stronger at peak waxing crescent and return to standard power levels at peak waxing gibbous. Or something like that. Maybe a corresponding dip in power levels at their opposite phase?

Stellar mages and planetary mages would largely have the same power sets, with the planetary mages maybe having a few quirks here and there that stellar mages don't, and losing out on a few bits and bobs in exchange. It's very difficult for the average layperson to tell the difference between a stellar mage and a planetary mage, and for most people it doesn't make a lot of difference in their everyday lives. The big exception would be planetary mages aligned with Terra, who probably have powers more aligned with atmospheric control and weather stuff than stellar or other planetary mages. (The nature of this magic is very much "From the POV of people on Earth." The very nature of the magic would probably be different for anyone on a different celestial body, though hardly anyone would ever experience that.)

It's been a good decade or so since I took an Astronomy course, but I do remember bits 😉

[soc_puppet]

I should add that astronomers are very important in this universe. Everyone learns the basics, and having a career in astronomy is well respected and good job security.

[izzet_bedtime_yet]

Couple of thoughts about waning/waxing:

* Waning/waxing could be about the user's preferences for one type of magic vs. the other, regardless of which came easier. Like, a waxing crescent would be someone who had more access to dark but felt more drawn towards light. It wouldn't necessarily effect the nature of their magic, just their relationship with it.

* The different parts of the moon's face could be associated with different specific spells/magical abilities, so a waning gibbous mage and a waxing gibbous mage would have the same amount, approximately, of light/dark magic, but only some overlap in the spells of each type they could do.

[soc_puppet]

I like both of these, but I think for the latter I might simplify down to one specific magic feat or one school of magic, or have the different phases be the only ones able to perform a specific feat/school perfectly. That way I can be extra cheeky and give Full Moon mages the power of full animal transformation 😉