A History of Ideas and Philosophies Relating to the Shek-Pvar

[Note: This is an incomplete draft. Treat it accordingly. Last updated 07-01-9. Jamie.]

Assumptions and Biases

I believe that no work, particularly one such as this, can be written without a large number of biases and assumptions being inherent within it. While I cannot set forth all of these, I try here to make some of them explicit. With luck, this will make the rest easier to understand, and perhaps easier to adapt.

Perhaps the biggest single assumption in this history is that magic is not a cut-and-dried discipline. It is not fully understood by the scholars on Hârn, and it is not subject to any scientific analysis by which its workings might become clear. In this respect I have treated it much as theology was in the Middle Ages - everyone has different ideas of how it works, what the Absolute Truth is, and they all believe in God. That is, whether magic is organised into convocations or a set of paired principles, magic still works. I have further assumed that, as with theology in the middle ages, the fact of it still working does not mean no one talks about it or disputed its nature.

Here another of my biases becomes apparent: I have tended towards the complex, the ambiguous, and the undefined. There is plenty of scope for addition to what I have written - it is by no means meant to be the final and complete history of all thought of the Guild of Arcane Lore and the Shek-Pvar.

On a less abstract level, I have taken as the foundation to the philosophy of Pvarism the belief in elemental principles, derived from magic as an external (from the user) force which is a part of Kelestia (the universe). However, even this I have not held as sacrosanct, and several theories presented below take a direction in contradiction to this belief. It is to be expected that all such things change in the course of time.

Relation to HârnMaster Magic

While I originally intended this document to be what it claims to be, a history of ideas and philosophies, it has caused me to think about the actual workings of magic. My ideas have developed along very different lines from that of the official Hârn material, to the extent that there may well arise some substantial conflicts between the conception of magic implied in this document, and that of the HârnMaster mechanics. I make no apology for this, since I prefer my way.

Perhaps the greatest change is that spells no longer exist. Or at least, not in any form similar to the spells presented in the official magic system. Magic works as irreproducible results. No magical effect works exactly the same way twice. In fact, it is simply not possible to say "I want to cast that spell I cast last week." It is no longer last week, and with the change in circumstances comes a necessary change in any number of aspects of the magical workings.

Magic is also no longer something that a mage just does. Magic is not seperable from the world, from either its nature or its specifics. Magic is history, symbols, places, events, people, names, stories - magic is the world, at least on Hârn. Are the sites of the henges of magical significance because the henges are there, or was it magical before the henge existed?

As for mechanics for this magic - there are none. The Shek-Pvar have developed hundreds of rules governing what to do when you want to alter reality; that is the limit of my contribution to the subject.

Psionics

Psionics are not examined in any depth in this history. I do not like them, and they are not a part of my conception of Hârn. There is a brief mention of them, but I recommend that, if they are included at all, they be treated as a conception of magic very foreign to the orthodox Pvarism.

History of Ideas

This section, when written, will contain the history of the thought of the members of the Guild of Arcane Lore and, more particularly, the Shek-Pvar. It may also have some treatment of the institutional and political history of those two groups.

And what do you know, I'm actually writing this, in particular the institutional aspects...

The Shek-Pvar, as an organised body, began in 5?? when Genin met with a number of his friends and colleagues at ???. It was here, at the residence of Tobas, that the first official gathering of the Shek-Pvar took place. It is possible, even probable, that many of those involved in that historic gathering already had a good idea about what was going to happen there. Letters from Genin survive which contain references to an "organisation of fellows," and even a brief list of rules, a precursor to the eventual Mandates and Ordinances Governing the Enlightened Brethren of the Order of the Shekir, is found within one such. However, since the exact date of the meeting is not known, nor what exactly was discussed at it, it is not possible to tell if it occured before or after these letters were written.

Officially the Shek-Pvar are still the Enlightened Brethren of the Order of the Shekir. However, it was not long after the foundation of the Order that they became referred to (by the few that referred to them) simply as the Englightened Brethren. It was not until the 7th century TR that the order as a whole became known as the Shek-Pvar, in recognition of the fact that Pvarism had for some time been the only officially accepted philosophy.

The Current Orthodoxy

This section, when written, will outline the currently accepted dogma and doctrine of the Shek-Pvar and Guild of Arcane Lore. It will also cover some of the current "heresies" and issues in the organisations as at 720 TR.

Ideas

This section is intended as something of a reference guide to the above two parts. It contains information on the ideas discussed previously. It will eventually be arranged alphabetically, with an index, no less.

Magical Ability Hereditary

That magical ability is transferred from parent to child is by no means a new idea, nor one restricted to the Shek-Pvar.

Traditionally the focus of this belief has centred on tracing lineage, and the possibility of an ancestral group. However, some scholars have tried to take the next step and look to the future, by arranging procreation between known mages. This is not widespread, but is generally successful - though whether this is because of genes or the simple fact that the offspring are guaranteed training as a Shek-Pvar is not known, and a matter of dispute. Others go so far as to say that Shek-Pvar should only be allowed to marry other Shek-Pvar.

In an even more extreme form, experiments have been theorised (though never, as far as is known, carried out) concerning the transfusion of the blood of the Elder Folk into a human, either through breeding or some more sinister means.

Tracing Lineage

Among those who hold the view that magical ability is hereditary it is common practice to try to establish the most complete lineage of one's forebears, mainly in order to gain prestige. Obviously the more Shek-Pvar there are in a lineage, especially those of Viran or grey mage status, the greater the status of the descendent.

It should not be thought, of course, that the Shek-Pvar approach the matter as someone of our world and time would. Within any decent family tree of one of the Englightened Brethren would be found references to legendary heroes, enchanted creatures, saints, deities, pets of deities, etc. The tree is much more than a record of parents, children and siblings, too. Even by those who hold that it is physically the blood which carries the "magical potency", remarks such as

"Ate the Burnt Apple from the Entwined Tree, causing himself and his brother to think as one; their children (conceived on different wives at the exact same moment, and born at the same hour) were great dullards, barely having a thought between them, and yet displaying an uncanny aptitude for magic of a involuntary sort."

are typical. In short, genealogy is an exact science, but a science in the mold of astrology. Speaking of which, birth charts and horoscopes and so forth are also a major part of any Shek-Pvar family tree - many members of the Order have delayed or hastened having children, or exposed unwanted infants, because the stars were not auspicious to true heredity.

The Ancestor

Often linked to the idea of herditary magical ability is the idea of a fouding group of magically gifted people. There are several such groups put forward as the source:

The Earthmasters: The Earthmasters are perhaps the most popular "founding group". Proponents of this idea believe that mages are descended from the Earthmasters, who as a race were all magically gifted. Many of those who hold this belief see the Shek-Pvar as rightful inheritors of the Earthmaster legacy - including their sites, artifacts, and world dominance.
The Elder Peoples: This is more of a popular idea than one that has much following among the members of the Guild of Arcane Lore. It holds that at some point or points in time cross-breeding between Sindarin or Khuzdul and humans took place. Popular myth also holds that being reared as a faerie gives the human child magical abilities.
A Divine Couple: Much like the idea of Adam and Eve. A divine couple, or a couple created by a divinity, produce a new breed of people. The two dragons Ahnu and Dhivu might also fall under this category.

Source of Magic

There are several theories as to the source of magical energy. The two main branches of thought are that the energy comes the Kethira/Kelestia, and that energy comes from the self. Each of these views have a number of different approaches, which are examined below.

The Gods: Those who believe that the gods are intimately related to the nature of the universe (Kelestia), or are in fact the universe itself, often subscribe to this view; namely, that all magical energy comes from, or is a part of, the gods. As with most divine matters, the actual mechanics of any transfer of energy in such a case is not well understood. It is generally left at saying that if the gods are everything, than any energy belongs to, or is, them - hence they are the source of that energy.
Nor is it clear just who the gods referred to are - some say the First Gods, others the ten major deities mentioned in the Libram of the Pantheon; most who wrote on the subject, however, did not specify either way.
One thing that most Shek-Pvar who hold this belief are agreed upon is the vast difference between religious miracles and magic. This seems to rest solely on the fact that any magic takes some degree of effort by the Shek-Pvar casting it. This does not seem to be the case with miracles. However, given the rare occurence of the latter, and the confusing reports of them, makes this assertion difficult to prove.
Immanent Energy: Essentially the same as the Gods theory above, this view differs only in that the energy of the universe is not said to be related to the gods in any direct way. Rather, the energy is everywhere, and the gods are simply "higher beings" who live within the universe.
Material Components: This theory maintains that physical objects are a prime source of power. Whether this is in fact a distinct theory is unclear; some scholars have seen it as merely an example of one of the two theories above. Holders of this view point to the requirement in many spells for material components, and the generally beneficial effects of including them and/or a focus in a casting, as supporting evidence.

Creating the Form: The most widely held belief about how magic works identifies two parts in the creation each spell. First is creating the Form - the receptacle into which the Principle is summoned. It is held that creating the Form takes the caster's energy, while the Principle is the actual "magical energy" that comes from another source than the caster.
Psionics: This theory is a radical departure from most views of magic shared by the Shek-Pvar. It states, simply, that all the energy used in a spell comes directly from the caster, and not from any external source. It has only a minimal following - those scholars who are not simply contemptful of this notion typically see it as a misconception of the nature of the universe. Generally speaking all creatures on Hârn and elsewhere are not thought to be set apart from the universe in the way that this theory implies.
This theory is apparently not a native of Hârn, though its origin is difficult to track down. If it was exported from the mainland, it came to Hârn in a non-written form, presumably in the form of a master, or else the original text has subsequently been lost. While this is not an infrequent occurence, there is no listing of a volume containing this belief in the Cherafir Alienage records. The earliest written record on Hârn was by ...

The Soul

While it is agreed by all that there is in humans some form of "spirit" or "essence" which makes them more than inanimate bodies, there is a great deal of disagreement over almost every other aspect pertaining to the subject.

This concern over the nature of the soul - what it does, its relation to the gods, and the possibility of it being central to all life forms - is of particular importance to Shek-Pvar. There exist spells which appear to manipulate the soul in some fashion, whether of humans, animals or plants. The Shek-Pvar are always careful to avoid any conflict between their magic and the realm of the gods, and an understanding of the soul is of vital importance for this reason.

While such concern has meant there has been no shortage of debate on the subject, it has not led to any real agreement among scholars. It is not surprising that religious ideas dominate any treatment of the soul, more so than with many other aspects of Pvaric philosophy. Clerical scholars have so dominated, in fact, that some lay members of the Guild, and particularly Shek-Pvar, have adopted a different approach to the whole question. Instead of examining the question of the soul from a theoretical standpoint, there has been a recent movement towards practical experimentation (though not in a particularly scientific manner). Up until 720 TR such research has tended to concentrate on the matter of the distinction between soul and body, mostly by means of changing the physical form of a creature, and trying to determine whether its essential nature has also changed.

The Gods

The relationship between the gods and the practice of magic has always been an uncertain one. Broadly speaking, all Shek-Pvar admit of some connection between the two. That the gods are entities which have no connection with magic, and whose power is drawn from a different source, is not a wide-spread concept.

The Libram of the Pantheon makes reference to the First Gods, who left Kelestia, leaving the universe to the currently accepted deities (termed in the Libram the Lesser Gods, though this title is very rare among both religious and Guild writings). The identity of the First Gods, in as much as any can be attributed to them, is a matter of debate. Aside from those who believe that anything relating to the First Gods is unknowable, at least by mortals, most scholars currently make a connection between them and the Earthmasters. This is, in fact, the division between those who see the First Gods as even more "primal" forces than the current gods, and those who believe them to have been actual entities, manifest in the world. There is also the third view that the Earthmasters were avatars of the First (or perhaps even later) Gods.

References to the gods in the works of scholars is often of a relatively vague kind, such that it is generally difficult to know whether the author means all gods, the current pantheon as laid out in the Libram of the Pantheon, or just the First Gods.

Gods Are Magic: This theory holds that the gods are, in a very real sense, magic. That is, the gods are either the source of magic, or an integral part of it. This manifests itself in different ways. The most common is that the gods encompass the entire universe, and everything within it, including magic, is literally a part of them.
Another theory along these lines is that the deities represent the combined elemental principles of Pvarism - that is, that the gods correspond to the convocations. This is not quite as bizarre as it sounds at first - not only are there some obvious correspondences, scholars who advocate this view can point to the First Gods, the metaphorical nature of knowledge about the gods, a warped transmission of religious information, etc, to make their case. Some of the more obvious correspondences are: Naveh/Odvishe, Agrik/Peleahn, Larani/Lyahvi, Save K'nor/Savorya, and Siem/Fyvria. This leaves, of the orthodox six convocations, only one unanswered for (and of course five gods left out in the cold).
Gods Are Separate From Magic: This is the view that gods are of a completely different nature to magic, and are to that extent unconnected with it. This is a highly controversial theory, but nevertheless one which has found, at different times, some favour among both priests and Arcanists; the wide distinction which it draws between the magical and religious spheres has made it useful in the clash between the two.

Casting Spells

Form and Principle

Form and Principle is the term given to the conception of spell-casting as a process of two main parts: the creation of a Form, and the summoning of a Principle into that Form.

Elemental Principles

The concept of elemental principles is the basis of Pvaric philosophy. They are generally thought to be the fundamental organisation of magic, essentially immutable where elsewhere change is frequent. Yet this very idea has itself seen a great deal of changes.

Convocations

Convocations are another important part of this theory. Essentially they represent groupings of common elemental principles, and often these classes are further organised (into wheels, pairings, etc; see below). They are also sometimes treated as principles themselves - it is sometimes unclear where terms such as "Fyvria" stops being a short-hand for a group of related principles and becomes thought of as a principle in its own right.

Needless to say, exactly which elemental principles belong to which convocation, as well as what convocations exist, has varied considerably over time. Some theories on the organisation of the elements do not have a place for convocations, though these have tended to be the less developed schemas. Below is an extrapolation based on the official information available:

Neutral: Energy, Fatigue, Personality Creation (Soul?)
Fyvria: Earth, Cycles of Growth and Decay, Life (Soul?)
Peleahn: Fire (Destruction?), Heat (Passion? Fire of Life? Soul?)
Lyahvi: Air (Sound?), Invisible, Ethereal, Insubstantial, Illusory, Light (Light of Knowledge?)
Odivshe: Slow Cool Darkness (Unknown?), Water
Jmorvi: Steel, Iron, Mineral, Between Fire and Earth, Abhors Spiritual/Soul
Savorya: Mind, Spirit, Aura, Knowledge, Soul, Perception

Principles: Always the most widespred view, and as mentioned above the basis of Pvaric philosophy.
Elements of Matter: More literal than the belief in principles, this view holds that the elements on which magic is based are actual elements of matter. That is, they are more or less tangible objects, rather than abstract concepts. For example, rather than the elemental principle of life cycles, living things is the "element" to which such magic properly belongs under this theory.
This view of the elements makes a very close connection between magical learning and "mundane" learning, as the two overlap even more considerably than is normally the case.
Personality Archetypes: This is a very fringe belief that magic is ordered along the lines of personality archetypes. ... This theory has been used to explain the sometimes radical differences between the magic of the Elder Peoples and that of humans. Others have taken it to further extremes and surmise that magic is a highly individual matter, and the each person's understanding and conception of it is different, and that this affects their use of magic.
The Universal Principle: Those who subscribe to this belief hold that Kelestia is best regarded as an indivisible whole. Any attempt to reduce this to component parts is doomed to cause a lack of understanding, and that only by being fully attuned to all parts of the world is true magic possible.

One other intriguing possibility put forward by some scholars is that the elements vary among the worlds. Very little besides speculation has been written on this subject, and it is mainly encountered as part of arguments concerning the nature of the magic of the Elder Peoples, who perhaps inherited their unique conceptions of magic from their original world.

The Number of Elements

One of the factors that has exerted some influence on the organisation of the elements is a tradition of importance attached to their number. This applies also to convocations. There are three main sources for significant numbers. These are religion, the Elder Peoples, and, a more recent tradition, the Earthmasters (necessarily largely as interpreted by those studying their legacy).

While there are undoubtedly some few numbers which stand out even among those regarded as significant, it appears at first that almost any number less than fifteen has some connection which makes it important. This is indeed the case; however, once again the groupings are of at least as much importance as the individual elements.

Individual "Truths": This is arguably the earliest form of organisation of the elements. Such a claim is made open to doubt by the poor records that survive of the earliest times of widespread, organised magic-use. However, by the time of the official foundation of the Shek-Pvar, schemes along these lines were mostly the product of an earlier age, and most scholars of the time were dealing with the complexities of Genin's Wheel of Convocations.
Pairings: Another of the early forms of organisation, pairings of elements have since retained a recognised place in the orthodox wheel of convocations of 720 TR. Many pairings were suggested by scholars over the course of many years - perhaps as important as a list of these individual pairs would be a study of in what combinations they were put together. Some more frequently mentioned pairings are: light/dark, truth/deception, hot/cold, alive/dead (alive/inanimate), solid/liquid, substance/spirit (body/mind, nomos/phusis), static/dynamic, male/female, conflict/harmony, young/old.
The "Wheel": A relatively late development, the wheel structure is most often applied to convocations rather than individual principles.

Grey Magic

The pinnacle of achievement among Shek-Pvar, a Grey Mage occupies an ambiguous position with respect to the rest of the ... hmm

Most debate on grey magic concerns not only what it is, but also how it relates to the organisational framework of "normal" magic. Two major theories as to what grey magic is, in relation to the convocations, are firstly that it is a mastery of the principles of all the convocations, and secondly, that it is a "deeper truth" - that the Grey Mage has transcended the convocations and is in some way connected with a different or underlying reality of magic.

A connection has naturally been made between grey magic and the nature of so-called neutral spells, which some hold also point to a deeper truth.

Neutral Spells

Is there a fundamental distinction between common spells and neutral spells, a distinction which goes beyond the mere vagaries of an organisational schema of the convocations? If neutral spells belong to no convocation, what principles do they embody? Is it a deeper truth that they represent? If they are simply like common spells, why have they been classified as being outside the convocational system? Is there actually a conception of common spells as constituting a class of their own, or are the different forms these spells take in each convocation sufficiently different as to make such a connection between them unlikely (or not useful)?

How much overlap is there between the convocations - do common spells represent this overlap? Are they merely a symptom of a natural overlapping of some of the principles, or do they again possibly point to a deeper truth?

Creation Myths

Or rather, more what comes out of them. I'm thinking of "regions" in the universe, which might form different realms within which magic works differently. For example, heaven, air, earth, and sea (pinched directly from Ovid :). This might take shape as "elements", or as physical domains. The former is already largely expressed within the Wheel of Convocations. The latter is probably simply theory - how many mages can fly around in the air, or stay underwater for long periods, and so on. Might be interesting to speculate on "border" regions, though: the surface of the earth, shores, floating on the surface of the sea, being on top of a mountain, and so on.

Tangentially, many obvious laws of physics probably find expression in semi-mystical forms, resulting in some interesting beliefs. For example, gravity works, it happens all the time, but isn't seen as gravity. Rather, it could be that things made from an "element" belong to that element. Or that earth is simply the home for mundane things - thus making birds perhaps somewhat "holy", since they do not fall to earth, and remain close to the heavens. And so on. I'm beginning to think there's no way I can get a single orthodoxy out of all this - there's simply too many good ideas, and they can't all be fringe.