Gaming Guide

The Magic and Religion chapter of the Golden Bough will set the historical evolution of magic and religion.
 * 1) In this concept the human's race existed initially in an Age of Magic. During this stage religion did not exist and men were considered equally capable to control the wolrd around them through magical practice.
 * 2) The inefficacy of magic led to the assumption that concious beings control the world according to their will, makinbg humans powerless in the control of nature.
 * 3) Most of humans since have recognised a mixture of both Relgion and Magic.

The Worlds
The principle in the game will be the hostility between religion and magic. This hostility will translate into a diision between the material world, and the spirit world (the home of beings that can bend the natural laws at will, to different degrees, according to their will.)

The Mage vs the Religious practitioner
Every human exists partly in the Spirit World, yet most are not able to perceive this while alive. The awakening is exactly this procedure of understanding this and the ability to extend physical rules into the spirit world.

The mage will thus be a practitioner that (due to his awakening) is able of bending the physical laws of the universe, in a stable and reliable way. The Religious practitioner on the opposite side will be the person who seeks to communicate with the beings of the Spirit world (all gods fall in this category) to seek their help in bending the rules of the universe.

''For example both a spirit mage and a religious practitioner would be able to communicate with a demon in the spirit world, yet the religious practitioner would merely beg the demon's help, while the awakened, will be able to do this under certain reliable rules, in the context of a medieval demonologist. Thus the result obtained by a religious practitioner (who is not an awakened) will be dependent to the spirit's will, while the mage's results will be reliable, even if less impressive when achieved.''

In a somewhat simplistic definition the mage extends reliable rules to the spirit world, while the religious practitioner extends the whimsical and unreliable nature of the spirits into the material world.

Paradox
The Paradox will represent the missunderstanding of the common men, that tend to missinterpret the effects of magic as acts of sentient Spiritual beings and bending of the rules.

Such observance will contain the danger of attractig the attention of beings from the Spirit world and causing manifestations of such beings.