Magical Corruption and YOU

Magical Corruption and You! ((OOC))


Iralius 85 Night Elf Mage Salvation

So, while I came across this AGES ago, and have never seen it again, I liked the idea of what it presented. Now, all RPers generally know that magic has its side-effects, whatever they may be, but has anyone ever actually RPed it out? Let's break down the corrupt effects we DO know of:

Arcane - Arcane corruption is the most benign as far as appearance and mentality is concerned. Mages are more likely to just look old before their time and have a hunger for more power and knowledge.

Fel - This warps the body through extended Fel use, as we know magic is addicting and the Fel is more so of an addiction. You'll want to keep casting spells, but since the majority of your spells derive from demonic energy, everything you release of your energy can be regained by basically feeding off the Fel. This can cause drastic physical and mental changes.

Now there are other types of magic, which I'll get to shortly. We'll deal with the two common power houses above.

For the Arcane, and I believe this is derived from the RPGs, but I figured it would be interesting if these personality quirks came to light in RP for those magi who practice one type of Arcane magic over the others:

Abjuration - For those who don't know, this is defensive magic. This is the school that specializes in creating personal shields and wards, etc. For those mages who delve deeply into this, what if an emphasized bout of paranoia occurred? 'Everyone, everything' is out to get me' sort of mentality. This could lead to mages who shut themselves off from the world. Who if you looked at them would be positively glowing with personal wards and shields. The littlest thing frightens them.

Evocation - Battle magic. Combat spells. What have you. This would be rather simple, a quickness to overreact angrily to anything perceived as a slight. A short temper, more than likely a gruff attitude. Probably quicker to use unrelenting force to solve a problem than any form of thought or cunning.

Conjuration - Summoning of magical servants and items. The summoner would tend to trust no one but their own conjured allies and items.

Transmutation - Develops a stimulus against anything they haven't personally had a hand in changing. And basically would feel the need to transmute objects, so they are served a ham and transmute it into a turkey or something. Or they have a need with perfection, never content to let an item be considered ugly.

Enchantment - Will only use items they have personally enchanted.

Divination - Paranoia, once more, never willing to make a decision without seeing all the various outcomes possible.

Illusion - Similar to transmutation, except in the self. They must always maintain an illusion of perfection on their body. They might also have the need to use illusion magic far more often, being prone to using it to trick others, etc.

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Fel - Something I rarely ever seen played out is the physical corruption that will take over a person.

Fel will corrupt a person physically far faster than the Arcane will mentally. Now, I can't claim to know how soon these would take effect... but it'd be interesting to see warlocks who have been practicing this magic for twenty years to already be showing signs... maybe in this order (Expect ten years of practice between each):

1st (10 years)- Change in eye color.
2nd (20)- Change in skin - patches of scales.
3rd (30)- Small horns, more scales.
4th (40)- Slightly larger horns, enough scales to have to hide your skin.
5th (50)- Larger horns, developing talons and fangs.
6th (60)- Talons and fangs more developed and pronounced.
7th (70)- Budding wings.
8th (80)- Wings still vestigial, though slightly larger.
9th (90)- Wings fully grown.
10th (100)- Fully demonic.

Mileage may vary on the rate of transformation, I'd even like input on those who think it should take longer on some races or in general, etc.

~~

Necromantic

This is one that almost never is brought up, really, because it's a sub-school of the Arcane... However I think it's a power in its own right, well enough to stand on its own.

Looking at what Necromancy does in both its raising of the undead and its battle form... I'd be inclined to believe that prolonged practice of the magic by a necromancer will slowly revolve into this:

It'll begin with the person becoming unnaturally old and haggard. Followed by the flesh itself becoming necrotic, open sores and wounds not healing across your body and only serving to cause pain without actually effecting you in any other way.

Finally culminating in the change from living, though disgusting, human into an undead just to escape from the constant pain.

~~

'Chaos' magic. Though this has been officially axed, it still exists in the magic the Old Gods wield. These are creatures of madness, insanity, etc. etc. It's only fitting that their blessed servants begin to become like them, no?

For this... I think the best example for what I can give is similar to Warhammer.

The more one uses Chaos magic, the more they become effected by it. Growing extra limbs or tentacles, extra eyes or mouths, etc. Anything gruesome and hideous you can think of. Chaos corruption.

Main reason I decided to create this thread is that I have seen magic users far too often RP with all of the power, and none of the drawbacks... mostly because many of the drawbacks aren't widely known. So, maybe by creating this bit of 'fanon' more players will decide to add in these things, not only to give them a drawback but to give interesting RP opportunities.

Gives a plethora of unnatural personality quirks for mages.
Gives reasons to hide what you are even more than before on warlocks, necromancers, and Old God cultists.

The only things I didn't include, magic wise, are the Druidic, Light, and Shamanistic... as far as I know these don't have any corrupting effects but mostly 'enhancing' effects. Which have no place in a thread about Magical Corruption!



Iralius 85 Night Elf Mage Salvation

I remember when you made a thread similar to this back on the old RP forums, but -far- longer. Including all the RPG based side-effects of the various magics, and the different stages.

I actually remember it so well that I incorporated it into my only real 'caster' RP character... No. Delorath, Dethos, and Serrar (my 3 demon hunters) do not count as casters. : |

Anyway, Desh, my warlock, is a masterful summoner of demons, to the point where he suffers side-effects. His summoning spells are abnormally smooth, easily transitioning the demon from Twisting Nether to Azeroth without much turbulence, but he's got more than that.

When he feels extreme emotions, which are almost always grief or sadness, his particular demons might find themselves 'accidently' summoned into the world nearby without his knowledge. This can also happen when he's sleeping depending on his dreams, as particularly nasty nightmares can cause him to drag them into his realm without realizing it.

As far as Fel goes, he doesn't use it so much as shadow magic. And, out of boredum, I decided to basically have his style of magic be similar to Illidan's in the War of the Ancients series. I.E. it's not the conventional "bolts and blasts" things, but more brutal manifestations of shadowy power. The sort of thing where he'll extend a spike of shadow from his hands and impale someone on it, or do a similar trick but have it be more bladed and hack off a limb or a head.

*prepares himself for the inevitable backlash of people trying to poke hokes and ridicule the fact that he has a unique and questionable aspect to one of his characters*


I rather wish I could have found the original *sigh* but I had to do much from memory, and much of the stages were cut out from it. I do like that with your warlock, however, it being something of a double-edged sword when it comes to the side-effect. Good for how easy he can bring them in, bad for the fact he can bring them in without knowledge!


I rather wish I could have found the original *sigh* but I had to do much from memory, and much of the stages were cut out from it.

The main part that stuck with me was the Summoner bits. How, as they got more powerful, they'd summon more powerful (and more numerous) demons into the world when they had strong emotions / slept.

I remember a few other parts. Like those who religiously practiced conjuring would eventually eat and drink pretty much exclusively conjured food and dislike 'natural' things. The final stage of enchantment addiction was their physical features basically becoming wooden, and a few other bits.

I seem to have gotten enchantment confused with illusion, then... though for the life of me can't remember illusion in that case.

Kind of a shame I can't find it again, I'd rather have that posted up then what little I've done.