Beyond a sort of vague suggestion that they shape the spell lists at least. One of Mark's old posts gave a pretty interesting look into how they affected the background worldbuilding and I'm thinking of using the whole idea to generate a set of planes for future use, so it would be nice to know if there were anything more concrete attached to them (like if there were plans for associated rules, or if it is likely to remain primarily fluff).
| 34 people marked this as a favorite. |
They are primarily lore and don't appear in the playtest rulebook, even though they shape magic from behind the scenes.
Material/Physical Essence is on the Material Plane and much derives from the Elemental Planes.
Mental Essence is associated with the Astral Plane
Vital Essence is associated with the Positive Energy Plane and the First World, as well as the Negative Energy Plane at life's end
Spiritual Essence is associated with the Ethereal Plane and the Outer Sphere, like Heaven and Hell and such.
Incidentally, the druid's primal magical tradition, previewed at the Paizocon banquet, draws upon Material and Vital Essences. This means that primal magic is rooted in an instinctual connection and faith in the world around, a faith in the cycle of day and night, the cycle of the seasons, and the natural selection of predator and prey. It also means druids get great Material Essence attack spells and Vital essence healing spells, which is a potent and versatile combination.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I love this, especially mapping out the planar connections. This should be in the Core book when it's published. It opens up a lot of imaginative playspace for GMs to integrate into adventures and backgrounds.
It reminds me of that superb chapter on the planes in Occult Adventures.
The Ethereal Plane's influence being lumped in with the Outer Spheres instead of the Elemental Planes seems weird. It touches the latter but not the former, right?
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
The Ethereal Plane's influence being lumped in with the Outer Spheres instead of the Elemental Planes seems weird. It touches the latter but not the former, right?
The Ethereal Plane is an important part of a spirit's pilgrimage through the River of Souls. It's part of why spiritualist phantoms can get trapped in there.
Where do necromancy and shadow magic fall?
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'd imagine vital/spiritual or mental/spiritual depending on context.Where do necromancy and shadow magic fall?
That seems pretty plausible. There's also a touch of Material in some forms of necromancy, and that's where necromancer wizards establish their foothold, but they're not going to be able to wrench your soul back and raise dead, for instance. Some shadow that weaves it into quasi-real matter might also be Material. As you say, the context matters, and not every school is all one essence.
| 14 people marked this as a favorite. |
What essence is associated with the negative energy plane though? Seems like it's the only plane (excluding demi-planes) which doesn't have essence associated with it.
Poor negative energy plane. No magic wants to play with you.
In my mind, based on what I've read and worked on in Occult Adventures and other such books involving the NEP, it's the force associated with the ebb and waning of Vital Essence. It's not evil, it's just a part of life, unless you use it to create a twisted form of unlife, which is antithetical to its purpose...kind of makes me want to create some kind of creature or effect that twists Positive Energy to snuff life that is also evil.
Here's some more attached musings of mine (obviously, as I said nothing is directly in the book, but I like speculating about these intriguing essences and associated ideas ever since James and the others first mentioned the idea): Spiritual and vital essence are intrinsically linked to alignment. A creature completely without spirit has no capacity to change its alignment from the one ingrained by its basic instincts (which it gets from vital essence). Vital essence carries instincts that are capable of nudging or even catastrophically shifting a creature’s alignment; for instance, even a good creature almost always becomes evil when it becomes undead as its life is replaced by this twisted unlife antithetical to negative energy's role (these "instinctual cravings" for what is missing lead to things like ghoul hunger and vampire blood thirst, perhaps in a sense trying to get normal vital essence back inside). Creatures with neither spiritual nor vital essence (like many constructs, even some smart constructs like a mechanistic non-self-aware AI robot) are always neutral, as they have no instincts to push them to an alignment, nor the ability to change their alignment, but inevitables for instance would have spiritual essence, and androids have vital too.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
How's it been? It's been a while since Kineticists, I'm glad to see you're still keeping busy. I was honestly hoping the popularity of kineticist would have made it core in 2.0 I suppose I'll have to hold out hope for base. I could see some of the shadow conjuration being material, definitely. Anything that creates or alters a corpse too provided it doesn't actually generate life itself.That seems pretty plausible. There's also a touch of Material in some forms of necromancy, and that's where necromancer wizards establish their foothold, but they're not going to be able to wrench your soul back and raise dead, for instance. Some shadow that weaves it into quasi-real matter might also be Material. As you say, the context matters, and not every school is all one essence.I'd imagine vital/spiritual or mental/spiritual depending on context.Where do necromancy and shadow magic fall?
Oh, very busy, not just a kineticist ;)
I've done a lot of work on every Pathfinder RPG line hardcover since then minus a few that James and John handled when we were too deep in the woods of PF2, plus Starfinder CRB as well!
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Unlike that other guy, I'm a kineticist.
They are primarily lore and don't appear in the playtest rulebook, even though they shape magic from behind the scenes.
Material/Physical Essence is on the Material Plane and much derives from the Elemental Planes.
Mental Essence is associated with the Astral Plane
Vital Essence is associated with the Positive Energy Plane and the First World
Spiritual Essence is associated with the Ethereal Plane and the Outer Sphere, like Heaven and Hell and such.Incidentally, the druid's primal magical tradition, previewed at the Paizocon banquet, draws upon Material and Vital Essences. This means that primal magic is rooted in an instinctual connection and faith in the world around, a faith in the cycle of day and night, the cycle of the seasons, and the natural selection of predator and prey. It also means druids get great Material Essence attack spells and Vital essence healing spells, which is a potent and versatile combination.
Since Arcane is Material/Mental, and Divine is Vital/Spiritual, and Druid is Material/Vital, that makes me suspect that Occult is Mental/Spiritual, which seems accurate.
But now It has me wondering, are we going to see Mental/Vital or Material/Spiritual anywhere?
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
They are primarily lore and don't appear in the playtest rulebook, even though they shape magic from behind the scenes.
Material/Physical Essence is on the Material Plane and much derives from the Elemental Planes.
Mental Essence is associated with the Astral Plane
Vital Essence is associated with the Positive Energy Plane and the First World
Spiritual Essence is associated with the Ethereal Plane and the Outer Sphere, like Heaven and Hell and such.Incidentally, the druid's primal magical tradition, previewed at the Paizocon banquet, draws upon Material and Vital Essences. This means that primal magic is rooted in an instinctual connection and faith in the world around, a faith in the cycle of day and night, the cycle of the seasons, and the natural selection of predator and prey. It also means druids get great Material Essence attack spells and Vital essence healing spells, which is a potent and versatile combination.
Since Arcane is Material/Mental, and Divine is Vital/Spiritual, and Druid is Material/Vital, that makes me suspect that Occult is Mental/Spiritual, which seems accurate.
Certainly the Astral Plane and Ethereal Plane were major focuses for the various occult classes. Magic that blends mental and spiritual, whatever it might be, would have spells focusing on thought and emotion, as well as those that influence the mind and elevate the soul, and it might involve an eclectic study of disparate esoterica rather than more scientific study of the physical world and the schools of magic common to a member of an arcane tradition like a wizard.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Here's some more attached musings of mine (obviously, as I said nothing is directly in the book, but I like speculating about these intriguing essences and associated ideas ever since James and the others first mentioned the idea): Spiritual and vital essence are intrinsically linked to alignment. A creature completely without spirit has no capacity to change its alignment from the one ingrained by its basic instincts (which it gets from vital essence). Vital essence carries instincts that are capable of nudging or even catastrophically shifting a creature’s alignment; for instance, even a good creature almost always becomes evil when it becomes undead as its life is replaced by this twisted unlife antithetical to negative energy's role (these "instinctual cravings" for what is missing lead to things like ghoul hunger and vampire blood thirst, perhaps in a sense trying to get normal vital essence back inside). Creatures with neither spiritual nor vital essence (like many constructs, even some smart constructs like a mechanistic non-self-aware AI robot) are always neutral, as they have no instincts to push them to an alignment, nor the ability to change their alignment, but inevitables for instance would have spiritual essence, and androids have vital too.
Ooh, very much thanks for this one. I'm not entirely sure how it would work given some of the planes stuff you mentioned earlier (astral, ethereal, elemental etc. as I like to look at alternative planar layouts and elemental is a frequent contender for getting folded elsewhere) but I was thinking of generating some planes that lacked one of the essences, and so one of them was to be wholly divorced from the spiritual and thus even the concept of an immortal soul. I was sort of thinking of a chaotic and toxic world of alchemy and artifice gone mad, wracked with disease and vermin. So the Chaotic Evil entities that dwell there being unable to even change their viewpoint to those of the deluded fools on the material could fit fairly well. Are there any other effects you think that you'd see in a world without the spiritual?
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
... A world without the spiritual?I could see a complete lack of ability to raise the dead, difficulty finding significant inspiration so technology advances more slowly except where mind magic is used to force the brain to work harder. Dilligence and repetition work to create new ideas rather than the creative spark. Love may be a foregone artifact of other realms, because living things are unable to change themselves enough to accommodate others beyond their own self interest or goals.
This doesn't mean good beings can't exist, supplied from the start with vital essence and positive instincts, but their enjoyment of good and life and everything else is strongly stunted by the lack of spirit, and motivation to change their unchangeable world is sharply lacking. This is akin to a person with a good heart and severe depression.
Oh, I like this exercise! Building off both of you, this world without spirit would bear some similarities to certain real-world religions that have "elect" good souls predestined for virtue, mainly because the lack of spirit is going to work that way: if your vital essence gives you instincts towards good, then you're going to act good and you can't really change, and so on. While agape, or spiritual love, as Shiroi says, would be impossible, lust is an amalgam of two of the others (the physical aspect is material, the instinctual reproductive urge is vital) and mental essence shapes emotions (usually in concert spirit for deeper spiritual connections, but you'll still at least get the surface-level mental effects from mental essence) so can lead to some surface-level early-love romantic love sensations.
How much of this reimagined/clarified metaphysics will be reflected in the upcoming "Planar Adventures" book, for which it seems fairly relevant? I'd hope that one is still plenty useful once the new edition lands.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
... A world without the spiritual?I could see a complete lack of ability to raise the dead, difficulty finding significant inspiration so technology advances more slowly except where mind magic is used to force the brain to work harder. Dilligence and repetition work to create new ideas rather than the creative spark. Love may be a foregone artifact of other realms, because living things are unable to change themselves enough to accommodate others beyond their own self interest or goals.
This doesn't mean good beings can't exist, supplied from the start with vital essence and positive instincts, but their enjoyment of good and life and everything else is strongly stunted by the lack of spirit, and motivation to change their unchangeable world is sharply lacking. This is akin to a person with a good heart and severe depression.
Oh, huh. I would have thought emotion was Vital and so made a couple of assumptions, but I guess I can see Spiritual being linked to inspiration or the creative spark. I suppose this begs the question of whether it would be better to have four worlds that were formed incomplete, or to have one world sundered into four -sort of in the vein of MtG's Alara.
Also I like the idea of these things being hopped up on magical neurotrophins so thanks for that.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Oh, I like this exercise! Building off both of you, this world without spirit would bear some similarities to certain real-world religions that have "elect" good souls predestined for virtue, mainly because the lack of spirit is going to work that way: if your vital essence gives you instincts towards good, then you're going to act good and you can't really change, and so on.
Born saints could totally be fun (esp for me if in conflict to the world as a whole)!
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Oh, huh. I would have thought emotion was Vital and so made a couple of assumptions, but I guess I can see Spiritual being linked to inspiration or the creative spark. I suppose this begs the question of whether it would be better to have four worlds that were formed incomplete, or to have one world sundered into four -sort of in the vein of MtG's Alara.... A world without the spiritual?I could see a complete lack of ability to raise the dead, difficulty finding significant inspiration so technology advances more slowly except where mind magic is used to force the brain to work harder. Dilligence and repetition work to create new ideas rather than the creative spark. Love may be a foregone artifact of other realms, because living things are unable to change themselves enough to accommodate others beyond their own self interest or goals.
This doesn't mean good beings can't exist, supplied from the start with vital essence and positive instincts, but their enjoyment of good and life and everything else is strongly stunted by the lack of spirit, and motivation to change their unchangeable world is sharply lacking. This is akin to a person with a good heart and severe depression.
If you have one world that was sundered into four, it gives you some really compelling opportunities, like the ability to take an element from the "whole" world and incorporate it into all four of the "shattered" worlds and play compare/contrast between what that element becomes. Like, as two examples randomly selected, consider how elves or dragons worked in the "whole" world and then decide what became of them in each splinter world.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you have one world that was sundered into four, it gives you some really compelling opportunities, like the ability to take an element from the "whole" world and incorporate it into all four of the "shattered" worlds and play compare/contrast between what that element becomes. Like, as two examples randomly selected, consider how elves or dragons worked in the "whole" world and then decide what became of them in each splinter world.Oh, huh. I would have thought emotion was Vital and so made a couple of assumptions, but I guess I can see Spiritual being linked to inspiration or the creative spark. I suppose this begs the question of whether it would be better to have four worlds that were formed incomplete, or to have one world sundered into four -sort of in the vein of MtG's Alara.... A world without the spiritual?I could see a complete lack of ability to raise the dead, difficulty finding significant inspiration so technology advances more slowly except where mind magic is used to force the brain to work harder. Dilligence and repetition work to create new ideas rather than the creative spark. Love may be a foregone artifact of other realms, because living things are unable to change themselves enough to accommodate others beyond their own self interest or goals.
This doesn't mean good beings can't exist, supplied from the start with vital essence and positive instincts, but their enjoyment of good and life and everything else is strongly stunted by the lack of spirit, and motivation to change their unchangeable world is sharply lacking. This is akin to a person with a good heart and severe depression.
Fun idea, but how do you think that would work in a world without Material Essence?
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Fun idea, but how do you think that would work in a world without Material Essence?If you have one world that was sundered into four, it gives you some really compelling opportunities, like the ability to take an element from the "whole" world and incorporate it into all four of the "shattered" worlds and play compare/contrast between what that element becomes. Like, as two examples randomly selected, consider how elves or dragons worked in the "whole" world and then decide what became of them in each splinter world.Oh, huh. I would have thought emotion was Vital and so made a couple of assumptions, but I guess I can see Spiritual being linked to inspiration or the creative spark. I suppose this begs the question of whether it would be better to have four worlds that were formed incomplete, or to have one world sundered into four -sort of in the vein of MtG's Alara.... A world without the spiritual?I could see a complete lack of ability to raise the dead, difficulty finding significant inspiration so technology advances more slowly except where mind magic is used to force the brain to work harder. Dilligence and repetition work to create new ideas rather than the creative spark. Love may be a foregone artifact of other realms, because living things are unable to change themselves enough to accommodate others beyond their own self interest or goals.
This doesn't mean good beings can't exist, supplied from the start with vital essence and positive instincts, but their enjoyment of good and life and everything else is strongly stunted by the lack of spirit, and motivation to change their unchangeable world is sharply lacking. This is akin to a person with a good heart and severe depression.
Everything is formless and incorporeal in that world, and the other three essences can shape reality itself. Of all the four, it probably feels most like a weird plane (like the Dimension of Dreams) than a world with really messed-up inhabitants.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
They are primarily lore and don't appear in the playtest rulebook, even though they shape magic from behind the scenes.
Material/Physical Essence is on the Material Plane and much derives from the Elemental Planes.
Mental Essence is associated with the Astral Plane
Vital Essence is associated with the Positive Energy Plane and the First World
Spiritual Essence is associated with the Ethereal Plane and the Outer Sphere, like Heaven and Hell and such.Incidentally, the druid's primal magical tradition, previewed at the Paizocon banquet, draws upon Material and Vital Essences. This means that primal magic is rooted in an instinctual connection and faith in the world around, a faith in the cycle of day and night, the cycle of the seasons, and the natural selection of predator and prey. It also means druids get great Material Essence attack spells and Vital essence healing spells, which is a potent and versatile combination.
Since Arcane is Material/Mental, and Divine is Vital/Spiritual, and Druid is Material/Vital, that makes me suspect that Occult is Mental/Spiritual, which seems accurate.
Certainly the Astral Plane and Ethereal Plane were major focuses for the various occult classes. Magic that blends mental and spiritual, whatever it might be, would have spells focusing on thought and emotion, as well as those that influence the mind and elevate the soul, and it might involve an eclectic study of disparate esoterica rather than more scientific study of the physical world and the schools of magic common to a member of an arcane tradition like a wizard.
Mark, I'm pretty sure this is going to be one of those "I can neither confirm nor deny" moments (which is fine), but your description of the Mental/Spiritual blend sounds rather... Bardic. :)
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
What essence is associated with the negative energy plane though? Seems like it's the only plane (excluding demi-planes) which doesn't have essence associated with it.
Poor negative energy plane. No magic wants to play with you.
In my mind, based on what I've read and worked on in Occult Adventures and other such books involving the NEP, it's the force associated with the ebb and waning of Vital Essence. It's not evil, it's just a part of life, unless you use it to create a twisted form of unlife, which is antithetical to its purpose...kind of makes me want to create some kind of creature or effect that twists Positive Energy to snuff life that is also evil.
Here's some more attached musings of mine (obviously, as I said nothing is directly in the book, but I like speculating about these intriguing essences and associated ideas ever since James and the others first mentioned the idea): Spiritual and vital essence are intrinsically linked to alignment. A creature completely without spirit has no capacity to change its alignment from the one ingrained by its basic instincts (which it gets from vital essence). Vital essence carries instincts that are capable of nudging or even catastrophically shifting a creature’s alignment; for instance, even a good creature almost always becomes evil when it becomes undead as its life is replaced by this twisted unlife antithetical to negative energy's role (these "instinctual cravings" for what is missing lead to things like ghoul hunger and vampire blood thirst, perhaps in a sense trying to get normal vital essence back inside). Creatures with neither spiritual nor vital essence (like many constructs, even some smart constructs like a mechanistic non-self-aware AI robot) are always neutral, as they have no instincts to push them to an alignment, nor the ability to change their alignment, but inevitables for instance would have spiritual essence, and androids have vital too.
If you expanded the NEP to be associated with the ebb and waning of all four essences, then you could tie things like entropy, anti-magic (and some other magic disrupting abjurations like dispel magic), spheres of annihilation, etc. to the NEP.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Here's some more attached musings of mine (obviously, as I said nothing is directly in the book, but I like speculating about these intriguing essences and associated ideas ever since James and the others first mentioned the idea): Spiritual and vital essence are intrinsically linked to alignment. A creature completely without spirit has no capacity to change its alignment from the one ingrained by its basic instincts (which it gets from vital essence). Vital essence carries instincts that are capable of nudging or even catastrophically shifting a creature’s alignment; for instance, even a good creature almost always becomes evil when it becomes undead as its life is replaced by this twisted unlife antithetical to negative energy's role (these "instinctual cravings" for what is missing lead to things like ghoul hunger and vampire blood thirst, perhaps in a sense trying to get normal vital essence back inside). Creatures with neither spiritual nor vital essence (like many constructs, even some smart constructs like a mechanistic non-self-aware AI robot) are always neutral, as they have no instincts to push them to an alignment, nor the ability to change their alignment, but inevitables for instance would have spiritual essence, and androids have vital too.
This is something I've thought about, particularly in relation to necromancy, negative energy use and alignment.
I'd have thought Mental and Vital would be the two essences that inform alignment. As you said, the Vital is those core instincts and probably where sin and sin magic resonates strongest. The Mental essence is what takes sentient beings above the beasts and allows conscious thought and self-determination, those attributes being what permits the changing of alignments. Spiritual essence would certainly be affected by alignment, like magnetic pull for the soul's journey in the afterlife. Spiritual essence is the substrate on which alignment is coded.
This is particularly relevant when it comes to mindless undead, which are typically 'programmed' by their creator and devoid of instinct, according to the mechanics of the game at least. To me, they have more in common with constructs than intelligent undead. The justification for their alignment has been more on the process that creates them than the entity itself and that doesn't make sense to me.
Speaking on the Vital 'instincts', in the examples you gave, the lore at some point has noted that those types of undead could spontaneously generate if the person was particularly depraved in life. I guess their vices, left unfettered, invite the undead state instead of being conferred by it. Undeath would certainly amplify the expression of those vices. It be interesting to only being able to create certain types of undead where predispositions of sin are already prevalent, not including 'create spawn' where a biological or supernatural (curse) agent informs the mechanics.
The planar expressions of alignment, Angels, Devils, Demons, etc. would be all Material and Spiritual. Those alignments given form and function. I don't think there'd be much disputing that those entities don't have self-determination in the grander sense. Barring the odd exception, they are hard-coded by their alignment.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As the four magic types for full-casters confirmed/existed in PF lore is somewhat like...
Cleric: Spiritual/Vital
Druid: Material/Vital
Wizard: Material/Mental
Psychic (?): Mental/Spiritual...,
...what kind of "new" magic types can the two leftover combos be?
<A>: Material/Spiritual
<B>: Mental/Vital
----
And another thing, would it be better if Sorcerers be the catch-all class for all kinds of innate full-caster class for all 6(?) types of magic?
Including Oracles, Arcanists, and other spontaneous full-casters, without the spell level (better change this word fast, realy) delay, of course, in that regard...
And as such, no need for V and S components?
Well, it's "innate" so, and many other creatures get to cast spells without a visible hand equivalent nor a mouth...
As the four magic types for full-casters confirmed/existed in PF lore is somewhat like...
Cleric: Spiritual/Vital
Druid: Material/Vital
Wizard: Material/Mental
Psychic (?): Mental/Spiritual...,...what kind of "new" magic types can the two leftover combos be?
<A>: Material/Spiritual
<B>: Mental/Vital
I had a similar wondering. I can't seem to come up with what either of those would be, but I think it would be a shame if those concepts were left out
And another thing, would it be better if Sorcerers be the catch-all class for all kinds of innate full-caster class for all 6(?) types of magic?
Including Oracles, Arcanists, and other spontaneous full-casters, without the spell level (better change this word fast, realy) delay, of course, in that regard...And as such, no need for V and S components?
Well, it's "innate" so, and many other creatures get to cast spells without a visible hand equivalent nor a mouth...
I don't think this would be right. To me, I see Sorcerers as very different from Oracles, in flavor. Were they the same, I would lose a lot of interest in both. And as for V and S components, I feel like I'd rather keep them be. Given that Somatic components require a free hand, and Verbal components are... well... noticeable, even around a corner, I don't know that I'd like for Sorcerers to be just spontaneous casters with upside. I'd rather them have the same limitations as wizards, but their benefits would be more based on class feats that grant them extra benefits, akin to bloodlines.
...what kind of "new" magic types can the two leftover combos be?
<A>: Material/Spiritual
<B>: Mental/Vital
Mental/Vital sounds the most "Bardic" to me. Charm and invigoration, intellectual crafting of performance to energise. I can't remember if we found out how the bard list works out.
Material/Spirtual just sounds like the whole premise of the Occultist from first, which is awkward if Occult is mental/spiritual, ha. So Im leaning more towards witch/shaman vibes.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A world without mental would be a lot of plant life, constructs with no conciousness, creatures would run at best on pure instincts and at worst simply catatonic (failure to exist unless brought from other places due to the lack of thought). Things which don't need to think would probably operate fairly normally, so you'd see bacteria and oozes and perhaps non-responsive or barely aware elementals who exist only in their natural habitat fed by location, and die if you ruin their little feeding/breeding ground.
A world without vital would be shockingly normal, using undead and intelligent constructs in place of living beings. It would be far from a pleasant place, but in many ways would be understandable from a human perspective without any real understanding of how the planes worked. Low knowledge check for an commoner to realize that while actively wretched to exist there it could still easily have all the things we have.
A world without material, definitely dreamlike. I think Mark nailed that one. Unfortunately the most complex and interesting world definitely by a long way seems to be spiritual.
Mental was described as specifically capacity for rational and higher thought, right? If so I can see a world of wild beasts, driven purely by instinct and overbearing emotion. Then the question is if the essences shape anything other than purely their thing (e.g. if they make the others work in a way that they agree with), such as patterns in nature comprehensible to the rational mind. A wild world, with patterns of growth and geography overbearing and hard to take in.
I can see a world without vital taking the role of an apathetic underworld, sort of like Dolurrh from Eberron, but where the newly arrive inhabitants slowly turn themselves into constructs to replace their stagnant undead bodies, while their impulses and sense of purpose slowly drain away.
Definitely agree Mark nailed that one, it seemed the hardest to mentally picture and I couldn't really work out how it might leave a lasting influence on the material (unlike the other planes, which could have artifacts).
Somehow this thread, especially talk about "worlds without X essence", reminds me of the world axioms from TORG.
|
|
So many excellent musings from all posters here. Greatest thanks to the OP for capturing Mark's interest so keenly
In my mind, based on what I've read and worked on in Occult Adventures and other such books involving the NEP, it's the force associated with the ebb and waning of Vital Essence. It's not evil, it's just a part of life, unless you use it to create a twisted form of unlife, which is antithetical to its purpose...kind of makes me want to create some kind of creature or effect that twists Positive Energy to snuff life that is also evil.What essence is associated with the negative energy plane though? Seems like it's the only plane (excluding demi-planes) which doesn't have essence associated with it.
Poor negative energy plane. No magic wants to play with you.
Are you familiar with Marvel's Cancerverse ? This made me think of it
Here's some more attached musings of mine (obviously, as I said nothing is directly in the book, but I like speculating about these intriguing essences and associated ideas ever since James and the others first mentioned the idea): Spiritual and vital essence are intrinsically linked to alignment. A creature completely without spirit has no capacity to change its alignment from the one ingrained by its basic instincts (which it gets from vital essence). Vital essence carries instincts that are capable of nudging or even catastrophically shifting a creature’s alignment; for instance, even a good creature almost always becomes evil when it becomes undead as its life is replaced by this twisted unlife antithetical to negative energy's role (these "instinctual cravings" for what is missing lead to things like ghoul hunger and vampire blood thirst, perhaps in a sense trying to get normal vital essence back inside). Creatures with neither spiritual nor vital essence (like many constructs, even some smart constructs like a mechanistic non-self-aware AI robot) are always neutral, as they have no instincts to push them to an alignment, nor the ability to change their alignment, but inevitables for instance would have spiritual essence, and androids have vital too.
I hope this opens the way for Animals and maybe Vermin to not always be True Neutral, which is one of my pet peeves, knowing cats and horses that have personality traits which can be categorized along both axes
|
|
Mark, I'm pretty sure this is going to be one of those "I can neither confirm nor deny" moments (which is fine), but your description of the Mental/Spiritual blend sounds rather... Bardic. :)They are primarily lore and don't appear in the playtest rulebook, even though they shape magic from behind the scenes.
Material/Physical Essence is on the Material Plane and much derives from the Elemental Planes.
Mental Essence is associated with the Astral Plane
Vital Essence is associated with the Positive Energy Plane and the First World
Spiritual Essence is associated with the Ethereal Plane and the Outer Sphere, like Heaven and Hell and such.Incidentally, the druid's primal magical tradition, previewed at the Paizocon banquet, draws upon Material and Vital Essences. This means that primal magic is rooted in an instinctual connection and faith in the world around, a faith in the cycle of day and night, the cycle of the seasons, and the natural selection of predator and prey. It also means druids get great Material Essence attack spells and Vital essence healing spells, which is a potent and versatile combination.
Since Arcane is Material/Mental, and Divine is Vital/Spiritual, and Druid is Material/Vital, that makes me suspect that Occult is Mental/Spiritual, which seems accurate.
Certainly the Astral Plane and Ethereal Plane were major focuses for the various occult classes. Magic that blends mental and spiritual, whatever it might be, would have spells focusing on thought and emotion, as well as those that influence the mind and elevate the soul, and it might involve an eclectic study of disparate esoterica rather than more scientific study of the physical world and the schools of magic common to a member of an arcane tradition like a wizard.
And Occult too :-)
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Oh, I like this exercise! Building off both of you, this world without spirit would bear some similarities to certain real-world religions that have "elect" good souls predestined for virtue, mainly because the lack of spirit is going to work that way: if your vital essence gives you instincts towards good, then you're going to act good and you can't really change, and so on. While agape, or spiritual love, as Shiroi says, would be impossible, lust is an amalgam of two of the others (the physical aspect is material, the instinctual reproductive urge is vital) and mental essence shapes emotions (usually in concert spirit for deeper spiritual connections, but you'll still at least get the surface-level mental effects from mental essence) so can lead to some surface-level early-love romantic love sensations.... A world without the spiritual?I could see a complete lack of ability to raise the dead, difficulty finding significant inspiration so technology advances more slowly except where mind magic is used to force the brain to work harder. Dilligence and repetition work to create new ideas rather than the creative spark. Love may be a foregone artifact of other realms, because living things are unable to change themselves enough to accommodate others beyond their own self interest or goals.
This doesn't mean good beings can't exist, supplied from the start with vital essence and positive instincts, but their enjoyment of good and life and everything else is strongly stunted by the lack of spirit, and motivation to change their unchangeable world is sharply lacking. This is akin to a person with a good heart and severe depression.
All these concepts strongly remind me of the future setting in HG Wells' The Time Machine with the Eloi and the Morlocks
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If my math is right, there should be six combinations of two essences. Not to get too deep into grid filling, but will we see all six?
Not in core; there are only four spell lists.
If my math is right, there should be six combinations of two essences. Not to get too deep into grid filling, but will we see all six?
We know that we are getting four spell lists in the playtest and there seems to be a skill and two essences associated with each spell list.
Arcane Spell List -> Material/Mental -> Arcana Skil
Divine Spell List -> Spiritual/Vital -> Religion Skill
Primal Spell List -> Material/Vital -> Nature Skill
Unconfirmed:
Occult Spell List -> Mental/Spiritual -> Occultism Skill
So that's probably all we will get in the Playtest and CRB. Of course that still leaves the door open in the future for a Material/Spiritual and a Vital/Mental Spell lists though they wouldn't have a skill ready for them so it might not happen at all.
A point of difference,
Mental/Spiritual is speculated the 'Occult' list.
That seems very Psychic really.
The occult/Bard list may be Vital/Mental
Mental influence is certainly a Bard them, but Vital may link to their connection with living for life's sake, the joys of life.
Also Vital/Mental would give healing, mind influencing, and probably illusion. Not super occult sounding so if that's a thing I personally doubt that it's this list, but I'd suspect this is related to the bard list. Thematically it also fits, as music taps into instinct but is the product of the conscious mind.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
One thing I am curious about is how, assuming we can split Material into Fire, Earth, Water, and Wind, we can split the other three.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
One thing I am curious about is how, assuming we can split Material into Fire, Earth, Water, and Wind, we can split the other three.
Vital has positive and negative, at least.
Vital is probably Positive (living), Negative (the undead) and Neutral or Force (representing gravity, kinetic energy and other animating forces that are not elementally derived).
Mental has thought and emotion.
Considering the Material/Spiritual question, I asked myself what needs the spark of inspiration and affects the material world? The obvious answer to me is Technology.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Mental has thought and emotion.
Considering the Material/Spiritual question, I asked myself what needs the spark of inspiration and affects the material world? The obvious answer to me is Technology.
Who was the idiot that suggested Material/spiritual is technology! Of course it's not. Spiritual is all about alignments, and material is about the shape of things, what's representative of alignment and has a shape? Demon's/devils/angels, etc. (including the denizens of Mechanus, ironically) and also deities. It is the source of domain magic.
Also Vital/Mental would give healing, mind influencing, and probably illusion. Not super occult sounding so if that's a thing I personally doubt that it's this list, but I'd suspect this is related to the bard list. Thematically it also fits, as music taps into instinct but is the product of the conscious mind.A point of difference,
Mental/Spiritual is speculated the 'Occult' list.
That seems very Psychic really.
The occult/Bard list may be Vital/Mental
Mental influence is certainly a Bard them, but Vital may link to their connection with living for life's sake, the joys of life.
I suspect that witch (when it comes out) will have a list from the vital/mental essences.