#divinity: magic

[dailyadventureprompts]

Deity: Boccob, the God of Magic for Magic's Sake

Artsource

It is strange (especially for those who view their relationship with the gods as transactional) that one might offer up prayers to a figure known widely by the epithet " The Uncaring". Why perform oath and ritual for a being that will not intercede on your behalf? Or grant you good favour in exchange for your sacrifices? Those that study the words of Boccob understand they have no need to beg for miracles when they have magic at their command.

Known to commoners as a god of magic, foresight, and balance, Boccob is not so much a deity as he was a great teacher, a philosopher-sage who's now ancient treatise on magic and council on it's use are as much an object of faith for many as a more ordinary god's scripture. In instructing his students how to be wizards, Boccob taught his students how to be good wizards, and these lessons form the ironshod foundations of innumerable magical traditions practised to this day.

Central to Boccob's teachings was the idea that magic was a path that must be walked to gain greater understanding, and that an adherent of this path should study, experience, and witness as much of its wonders as possible in order to become better arcanists, leading to the adoption of the open and unjudging eye as his symbol. Boccob himself followed this path to the outer planes and beyond, never to be seen again, leading many to credit Boccob with being the first mortal to climb the fabled infinite staircase, or perhaps even its architect.

Adventure Hooks:

Millennia after his (literal or figurative) ascension, a scroll containing hitherto unseen passages of Boccob's writings have been discovered in a crumbling library, setting off a disastrous chain of events as jealous archmages scrabble for the text like seagulls after a frenchfry. Their clashes are frequent, leaving the surrounding area scattered with hastily summoned servitors and all manner of misfired magic. Perhaps if the party is quick and clever they could sneak in and take the text for themselves, learning its wisdom or using it as a bargaining chip with one of these powerful spellslingers.

If it’s one thing Boccob’s Acolytes like almost as much as uncovering the arcane secrets of the universe, it’s proving their intellectual superiority by hiding their findings behind inscrutable riddles and logic games, the way The Uncaring did for his first pupils. Ledoran’s Labynthical Libram is an infamous example of this practice, a spellbook containing all manner of useful rituals and genuinely brilliant insights hidden behind a gauntlet of ciphers, mazes, and "gotcha" enchantments. Any self styled master of the arcane is likely to have a copy on their shelves, meaning that' it's only a quick looting spree away from ending up in the party's possession.

If "a wizard did it" is the answer to the age old question of "how?", "because they were listening to Boccob?" is the answer to the inevitable follow up of "why". Arcane crossbreeds, inexplicable puzzle dungeons, magical items amounting to bad jokes with bodycounts, all of these are created by The Uncaring's followers as a means of testing and expanding their abilities.

More of my adventures involving Boccob and his followers can be found HERE

Lets get into some philosophy...

While Ioun promotes the study of arcana for the sake of furthering knowledge, Mystra maintains and obscures the secrets of the weave, and Corellon glories in the wonders spellcraft might create , Boccob focuses on the pursuit of magical ability as a means and end of its own.

To Boccob, " I want to learn magic so I can be great/help people/make life easier" is a false start, because it ties the acquisition and understanding of magic to an external metric, encouraging the practitioner to take shortcuts with the magic to achieve their worldly desires.

Greatness, beneficence, and ease of living are but some of the infinite virtues that follow from being a great mage. Indeed, a reoccuring theme in Boccobian writing (especially in the ensuing literature made by his followers) is the idea of the Panexplicatic endstate of magic, where the perfect mage (and the body of wisdom they represent) has an answer for all things, specifically a magical awnser.

While some followers have taken this to mean that a mage's pursuit should always be towards omnipotence (Vecna's grasping eye motif can be seen as a direct response to Boccob's unjudging one) the largely more accepted thought is that arcanists should specifically dream small, creating a self sufficient life for themselves withdrawn from the world while focusing on the inward path towards enlightenment. That's why you'll so often find wizards at the top of spires in remote areas, interacting only with their apprentices or whatever travellers have gone far afield to seek them out for magical guidance.

This leads into one of the main critiques of Boccobian thought, which is that it alienates the practitioner from the world at large, not only focusing on magic to the exclusion of all else but also contextualizing magic as something that exists only to help the practitioner along their individual path, other people and consequences be damned. A hedgemage living a simple life in the forest may seem like they're hurting no one when they create a tree that grows a full crop of apples every day so they don't need to worry about stocking their larder... but what happens to the local ecosystem when these everladen trees start cross pollinating with others, to say nothing of the drain/disruption to nearby laylines and how such magic might have downstream consequences. To take a completely different tack with the same problem, the poor in the village nearby might LOVE to have a bottomless supply of apples, but the Boccobian adherent would say that because they haven't devoted the years of study required to create the tree, they're not entitled to its fruits.

Titles: The Uncaring, the Master of all Magics, Archmage of the Infinite

Symbols: An eye in a pentagram, often crowned with a crescent arc.

Signs: Light through a cracked open door, stars that seem longer than they should be, the appearance of inexplicable magical text.

Worshippers: Sorcerers, wizards, and any with an access to magic innate or otherwise. Adherents usually worship in private practice but occasionally band together into temples or schools.

[pocketss]

mmm soob

[theserpentspsalm]

[prokopetz]

Publishes a tarot deck that's 100% identical to the Rider-Waite pattern except that the Ten of Swords is doing the Family Guy death pose.

[allurahomeofbeauty]

[thvenchvntrxss]

Witch tip::

Eat a tarot card to gain its powers

[dangeroustaintedflawed]

[lunar-witchin]

coffee magic ☕️

a list of simple tips and correspondences for coffee magic

— sun water | energy, happiness

— new moon water | new beginnings, new projects

— full moon water | manifesting, calming

— cinnamon | love, happiness, money

— honey | friendships, relationships, protection

— sugar | manifesting, attraction

— nutmeg | legal matters, good luck

— clove | protection, clarity, abundance

— cardamom | love, lust, confidence, beauty

— anise | purification, protection, love

— ginger | quicken manifestations

— cocoa | grounding, prosperity

— vanilla | calming, good luck, love

— hazelnut | protection, fertility, wisdom

— milk I growth, fertility, strength

— oat milk | prosperity, abundance, fertility

— almond milk | love, prosperity, wisdom

— coconut milk | cleansing, protection, blessing

— stir clockwise | to manifest

— stir counterclockwise | to banish

— paint sigils on your coffee mug / glass

— read your coffee grounds / cream clouds

— scry using black coffee as a reflective surface

[saydesole]

Our story is forever

Black is history

History is Black ✊🏿

[von2dutch]

[mzbratzplug]

BRATZ VIBEZ 🌱💕

Vibe to a higher frequency.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Hello Mr. Dapper! Love this blog and your many reimaginings of classic dnd deities and creatures. I was curious about something: Considering your dislike of purely evil gods and DnDs future focusing on the guy, what are your thoughts on Vecna?

Deity: Vecna, the Whispered One

My task of overhauling d&d’s villanous pantheon was started by a simple critique:  that if god was evil, there still needed to be a reason for people to worship it. To go with one example,  So many of the death gods in d&d want to kill everything that lives, yet they’re still presented as having legions of followers who are happy to die for them in opposition to the party.   You can say “Oh they’re just brainwashed, crazy cultists” but that’s just bad writing and thematically empty, neither of which I want for the sort of games I run. 

Vecna is actually an interesting case study in that he’s an outwardly wicked deity that has a theme which people would actively want to follow:   As a god of secrets, Vecna is the patron of any who will sacrifice anything to learn the answer to their problems, or conversely, the ones desperate to ensure their own secrets will never be known.  The story of Vecna as a mortal mage who attained first lichdom, then godhood is an aspirational one for all those power mad occultists out there, a common enough demographic in the d&d world both as villains and as player characters. 

Cults of Vecna worshippers likewise make sense as the whole point behind the historical practice of mystery cults was that those at the upper levels maintained their power through control of information and access to secret learnings.  You want to learn how to do magic? To speak to the dead? To protect your secrets from being known? Put on this ominous robe, learn the secret handshake, and don’t forget to drop your tithe intto the altar’s collection skull. Think of it like a forbidden knowledge based MLM. 

 Here’s some adventure hooks: 

While many of the whispered one’s acolytes dedicate themselves to discovering to the delving of arcane mysteries, others focus their attention on more worldly secrets. A powerful noblewoman is being blackmailed by a worshipper of Vecna not only for personal enrichment but also as an act of devotion, after he uncovered proof of indiscretions that would ruin her reputation.  While she’s too afraid to go for help herself and risk exposure, a devoted servant has seen her hidden suffering and has contacted the party for aid. 

Barely disguising its fiendish nature, a devil in service to Vecna approaches the party with an offer to reveal the secret intents or weaknesses of their enemies, if only they will deign to meet its terrible price.  While this information could do great good, or even save lives, just how low are the heroes willing to stoop? 

Seeking out the aid of a powerful mage, the party discover the old man on the brink of nervous collapse, having looked to deeply into the void and filled his mind with visions best left unmentioned.  Haunted by nightmares both real and imagined, he needs their help in quieting his mind through the gathering of rare ingredients and the distillation of a potent elixir. The process is not without risk however, are the party willing to help if it means erasing the information they need from his head, to say nothing of potentially lobotomizing the poor wizard? 

Art

[otaku553]

I am going to be So Insufferable about this man in 2 days.

[thecupidwitch]

Types of Divination

🌙Aeromancy

A means of divination through the interpretation of atmospheric phenomena such as cloud formations, wind currents, rain, fog, lightning, thunder, cosmological events, and positions favorable or unfavorable to the planet.

🌙Cartomancy

A form of divination where you use cards to get the answer to your questions. There are different forms of cartomancy like playing cards, tarot, lenormand and oracle cards.

🌙Osteomancy

Or bone throwing. It's an ancient form of divination used by many cultures. This method consist of throwing the bones and then interpret the results and pattern.

🌙Pendulum

This method consist of observing the subtle movements of the pendulum to gain information about a question, object, or situation.

🌙Scrying

Scrying is divination by seeking a vision while gazing into a transparent, translucent, or reflective object and it's often done by crystal ball gazing, fire scrying, water scrying, mirror scrying, etc.

🌙Astrology

This type of divination interpret movements and relative positions of celestial bodies, and how they influence us. Astrology gives an understanding of situations in our lives, based on our individual astrological birth chart.

🌙Lithomancy

Also known as stone divination, is a form of divination that uses stones or crystals to gain insight into an individual’s future or to provide guidance on a specific issue.

🌙Necromancy

Necromancy is divination through communication with the dead. In this method the practitioner summons or communicate with spirits of the dead in order to gain wisdom.

🌙Ceromancy

The practice of reading the flames and wax of a candle. The candle is lit and the flame examined for clues to the mood and energy surrounding the situation and then the wax is allowed to drip into a bowl of cold water or sometimes onto a piece of paper. The practitioner examines the shapes formed by the melted wax and makes predictions based on his or her interpretation of the shapes.

🌙Tasseography

Is a method of divination where you read pattern and symbols from tea leaves or coffee grounds sediments.

🌙Arithmancy/Numerology

Arithmancy is known as divination using numbers, while numerology is divination through using dates and words turned to numbers. Numerology doesn't require any psychic abilities, instead the method use calculations involving name and birth date numbers.

🌙Palmistry

Palmistry is also referred to as palm reading and is divination through reading and interpreting the lines and structure of the hand. It is common to read the dominant hand as a characterization and also predicting the future.

🌙Bibliomancy

is the divination by randomly chosen passages in books, often religious books or Grimoires. This method consist of picking a random passage from a book to answer a question.

🌙Conchomancy

is a form of divination using sea shells. Placing a seashell on your ear and analyzing the sound counts as Conchomancy. You can also use seashells in Casting divination.

tip-jar

[babypludo]

the one they could never beat!

[sir-illmatic]