Nostalgia

[jeregenest]

One of the things about occult fantasy, and as a result occult fantasy gaming, is that the past always had the super-duper secrets. The core idea seems to be that long ago the secrets of the cosmos were know the magicians (or priests or poets) who manipulated spiritual powers to achieve mighty ends. With this magical technology they connected heaven and earth.

It’s the Aegypt of John Crowley (and which chlehrich has a wonderful manuscript that I really, really owe him a letter on) that we see in just about every author that is out there.

And it is rife in gaming. From Nephilim to Witchcraft to Mage (and every point in between) the greatest magic is gained from the past. Power is found in nostalgia.

This thought was brought to mind most recently by looking at some of the stuff for the mage game, which drips nostalgia – prisca magia. Everyone seems to say its all about Nostalgia, harkening back to a golden era when the secrets of the universe were known to an elite. Not an uncommon theme really.

In tantanea I must admit I’ve used a lot of that too. But I’m hoping that the thread of the characters being responsible for so much of the prisca magia (creation of alchemy for one) this will free the players to think big and that not all secrets are contained in a golden age. I’m hoping to see if I can forge a balance.

Comments

[jadasc.livejournal.com]

And, of course, the reaction to that in the original Unknown Armies, where there was no golden age... but you and the other PCs might create one now, for the future, if you were so inclined.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Sure, though to be honest the game very quickly strayed from that viewpoint.

[sben.livejournal.com]

Actually, the most recent supplement -- I think it's To Go -- is a broad story arc where the PCs basically choose which of two or three candidates get to ascend to the Invisible Clergy, or decide to do it themselves. So (to use a verb tense implying future supplements) it seems to be getting back to that notion.

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

Unknown Armies is a real kitchen-sink-and-fried-eggs kind of game, though, inasmuch as the various contributors' artistic visions were often at odds with one another's. Greg Stolze and John Tynes saw things two different ways, which is one reason the first edition core book was so muddy. Compare James Palmer (Did "Garden Full of Weeds," right? Am I thinking of the right guy?) and Chadu, et cetera.

[sben.livejournal.com]

Totally. Just noting that there's still some "official" sign of that, i.e. there's some straying back.

(Yeah, James Palmer's the one you're thinking of.)

[jadasc.livejournal.com]

It did. Which is something of a disappointment, and the reason I preferred first edition to second.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

What 2nd edition had going for it was the beautiful "how to play this game" material. I wish it could have been better married to the fascinating, and refreshing, vision of the 1st edition.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Actually it is a common theme found throughout much of history, including ancient greece, ancient china, and even within modern mythology like Christianity and Islam that believe that there was some 'golden age' where their beliefs and culture was the supreme and powerful one in the world and that they held sway over vast powers that could control the world that were somehow lost.

To paraphrase:

"We are not now those powers we once were that moved both heaven and earth..."

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Sure, which goes back to prisca theologia, etc. Eliade's illud tempus. Which isn't a bad place to do roleplaying, look at Glorantha.

One of the defining traits of fanatsy over SF is nostalgia and I think this trend is especially rampant in gaming. My thinking is that its not encessarily the only way to do occult fanatsy however.

[seborn.livejournal.com]

You can't really say they're wrong. At the time, "the world" was a lot smaller, and "vast powers" could be a lot less vast. If back in the golden age the only place that mattered was within your borders and everything outside was by definition a sea of barbarians barely worth writing home about, of course you were supreme and all-powerful at the time. It's a matter of perspective. And the belief they had vast powers fuels the belief they deserve vast powers "again".

Ulysses reminds me of what I don't like about nostalgia, prisca magia, etc. No, we don't remember everything from earlier ages, and some of what we lost was probably important. But in addition to the problem of perspective, past golden ages are human development and aging projected onto history. The middle aged man remembers being a young man, strong and believing himself invincible and all-knowing, and imagines the past like that. The young man gets smacked down by his elders, and glumly suspects they might know more than him in his rational moments. The old man, master of knowledge and secrets, realizes what he knows doesn't measure up to the wisdom he imagined his own elders had, and imagines crucial bits lost each generation. It's human decline and every back-in-the-day story rolled up and painted onto civilizations, and as beautiful and seductive as it is it feels like there's something rotten underneath.

It's a common premise, and a decent one, but I have to cheer any fantasy that puts it to the side.

[ivan23.livejournal.com]

While Deleria is more fairy tale than occult fantasy, Brucato begins from the assumption that this is an age of magic. You can chat with someone as far away as Constantinople from the comfort of a room that has cool air piped into it and invisible musicians playing whatever you want to hear, whenever you want to hear it, as you eat fruit that never goes out of season.