Subject: moral philosophy
From: Hal Carmer <[email-masked]>

Greetings students,
  Today's seminar is about the morality of magic within a society.  The 
question that I propose to bring before you, and discuss at length is 
what place in civilization does magic have?
  Before I get on with the meat of the seminar, I wish to define some 
terms that I am bringing before you, so that you can understand what I 
mean when I say what I say.

  First off, I want to point out that for those who can cast magic, a 
spell is a tool effective in bringing about a circumstance that the mage 
desires to bring about.  Let us examine this concept a little closer.  If 
a man purchases a hand ax, it is almost certain, that he intends to use 
that ax as a means of cutting some material, wood most likely.  He 
"desires" to shorten the wood, or change it's shape such that the wood is 
either more useful to him, or less of a hinderance or danger to him.  In 
this case, the ax, a tool, is neither good nor evil - for it is nothing 
more than an inanimate object weilded in the hands of a person.  Now, if 
that ax were to be used for murdering a child at the altar of a 
bloodthirsty god, does the ax's aligment change such that the ax is 
"evil"?  Does the subsequent use of that ax implicate it's user such that 
the user is now evil - regardless of what that user's moral convictions 
are?  The answer to that is no, for the ax has no choice in what "evil" 
actions it participates in.  I am aware that an arguement can be made 
that the particular ax, used in such a sacrifice, could become resonant 
to evil, but this does not make all axes identical in shape and purpose, 
evil.  Therefore, the use of a "tool" does not in and of itself, make the 
tool evil.
  Having said that, what does make a "tool" evil?  What defines the term 
"black magic"?  I will not stand before you all and state categorically, 
that magic is or is not black, nor will I state that anything as morally 
questionable as "there are no evil tools, just evil tool users".  I think 
the answer lies in the grey area of something in between those two 
schools of thought.  For example, is the spell CONTROL PERSON an evil 
one?  There are many who would state categorically, that such a spell 
denies a person, his GOD(s) granted right to be able to chose between 
right and wrong, and essentially rapes the person of his free will.  On 
the other hand, a mage who never uses this spell for anything other than 
practice for counter spelling the application of such spell on other 
victims by other mages - is he engaging in the practice of an evil 
spell?  To further confuse the issue, what if a man is about the slit the 
throat of an innocent child with a knife.  No one can get to the man in 
time to keep him from killing the child.  The pristine pure mage who has 
never cast CONTROL PERSON other than as a practice on willing targets, is 
now faced with the moral delema (spelling?) of either casting a 
potentially "evil" spell, or allowing an evil man to kill an innocent 
child.  
  The exploring of the aspect of magic, whether it is "evil" or "black" if 
you will, or of another aspect entirely, is a difficult path to follow.  
In two different societies, where their morays clash, one would say that 
it is evil to bring into the world, a mouth that cannot be fed.  If an 
attempt is made to stretch the meager resourses beyond capacity, the risk 
is run of killing two people instead of saving one.  The other society 
thinks it is cruel to set a baby out to die of exposure, just because 
there is only enough food to feed a set number of people.  This second 
society feels that an effort must be made where all of the group must 
sacrifice some of their food, so that an extra mouth could survive.  
After all, if it takes 24 bushels of wheat to feed a person, but such a 
person would survive on only 20, then the sacrifice of the 4 bushels from 
5 people will allow an extra person to survive, right?
  Ok, now, this extra one mouth brings into existance another child.  The 
resources remain the same, but the sacrifice must be greater to keep the 
extra child alive.  In addition, others feel they can bring in an extra 
life, and so stretch the group's ability to survive even further.  The 
males upon whom the society depends upon for defense, are weakened such 
that any predator group of people can attack and destroy the now 
overpopulated "tribal group".  Disease strikes more often, and death can 
come earlier due to malnutrition.  Also, it is natural for a group, 
experiencing a shortage of something, to make an effort to get more of 
the "limited" resourse - thus being the cause of more strife between 
neighboring tribes.  So, I ask again, is the act of putting a limit upon 
the number of children evil?  Is the death sentence imposed upon extra 
children evil?  
  Back to the concept of Black magic.  If you suppose that a man who has 
no magic aptitude, and consequently, has no ability to cast magic, makes 
a pact with some evil enterprising agency, are the spells that he casts 
with the help of an evil agency evil?  I suspect that the answer to this 
question is no.  The arts of healing are rarely considered to be evil, 
and thus, whether granted through the manipulations of a mage, or granted 
to an evil man via some evil god, the casting of the healing spell is not 
to be considered "black".
  However, if there is a price to be paid for the casting of the spell, 
either by the caster, or by the recipient of the spell, that is 
excessive, then might not such a spell be evil?  Case in point, suppose 
some mage were to research a healing spell.  In order to break the 
barrier of cheaper energy casting, he makes the spell, which we will call 
RESTORATION TRUE, steal time from the victim/recipient of the spell to 
the tune of 1 month per unit of fatigue the spell RESTORATION normally 
took.  Thus, RESTORATION TRUE robs the target of this spell of 15 months 
of it's time.  Is this evil?  What if the prerequisite of such a spell 
included STEAL YOUTH?  Now is it evil?  Ok, what if instead of stealing 
the youth of the person who needed such a spell cast upon him, the stolen 
youth was taken from an unwilling donor, who is tied up and helpless to 
stop the whole affair?
  As you can see, by changing the parameters of the spell RESTORATION 
TRUE, we have taken it from something that may be black magic, from 
something closer to black magic, to something that is clearly foul and 
the blackest of magic.  To be black magic, or evil magic, the spell 
should be examined by the following criteria:

1) can a decent person have legitimate use of such a spell, and work not 
only with the purest of intentions, but also with the purest of results?

2) can such a spell be shown to be damaging to some "innocent" bystander 
or cause such a bystander to pay a price they are unwilling to pay?

3) does the spell cause unneccessary torment?

4) does the spell deprive the victim of it's soul given right to chose 
between right and wrong?

5) does the spell interfere with the activities of the person's link with 
his GOD(s)?  Ie, if the spell summons a demonic presence, and in exchange 
for the demonic presence's co-operation, a soul is consumed or taken into 
hell away from a caring and loving GOD (or GODS), then said spell 
interferes with the ability of the soul to link with it's GOD(s).

  Except with a few spells, very few spells as are written today in this 
here GURPIAN universe, are written that are plainly "black magic".

Alaconius

***********************************************************
Speaking out of character now, I wanted to use this "seminar" as a spring 
board for the concept of black and white magic.  This "optional rule" 
that I am sending your way, can add a little bit of flavor to your 
campaign, and give a definite moral feeling between mages of good intent, 
but lousy follow through, to mages of evil intent, yet capable of working 
through methods of good intent...

BLACK MAGERY:    5/15/25
  This advantage grants the mage the ability to cast magic as if they had 
ordinary magery as per GURPS BASIC.  The mage must follow the limitation 
that in order to get fatigue usable for magic, they must engage in either 
ritual slaughter, or in ritual energy storage by means either foul, or 
blasphemous (see GATHER ENERGY ritual).  The recipient of this advantage 
is truely one of evil intent, or one willing to sell his soul just to be 
able to practice magic, when clearly, he was never destined to do so.  
Characters who use this ability, wind up having an automatic -2 reaction 
to them, a sort of anti-charisma if you will.  In addition, the use of 
normal mana spells not of the black vararity, cost either twice as much, 
or +2 fatigue more than normal (as per RUNE MAGICS) depending on how the 
GM desires to work this in.  It is my personal preference that it costs 
only +2 fatigue since it then makes sense for the "witches" (my request 
for pardon to the wiccans on this list) to study runic magic as well...
  The use of black magic leaves a "taint" as it were on the practioner's 
soul, and the discovery of such use is usally grounds for the authorities 
to deal with the practioner most strenously...  (user of this must take 
the SECRET disadvantage as well).

GATHER ENERGY RITUAL:   (M/E, M/A, or M/VH)
  This ritual is designed to gather into the caster of magic, extra 
energy that will help control the mana as the caster works his magic.  
For some, it is a drug trance energy, where the drugs act to "focus" the 
user's personal energy into something that can control the forces of dark 
magic.  For others, it is a sexual orgy type energy, where the caster is 
able to use a "circle" of dancers to help "charge" his energy battery.  
Still yet for others, it is the ritual release of an animal or sentient's 
"soul" to power the spell being cast.  In any case, most of these 
activities will be unlawful, or at least frowned upon by the community.  
Of the three forms of energy storage, Sex is the most powerful, but the 
hardest to control, and thus is a M/VH disclipline.  Drug energy is 
unpredictable, and thus the easiest, or a M/E disclipline.  Ritual 
sacrific is between the other two forms, and thus, M/A.
  Dancing/orgy will allow the recipient to gather up to 8 times Skill in 
energy of skill level per dance.  So if a person has a skill level of 15 
in Dance Gather Energy Ritual (GER for short), he can gather up to 120 
fatigue for their spells.  However, said practioner can only gather 
fatigue equal to the amount of the people who dance.  So if 12 people 
with a 10 strength attempt to charge up the black mage, they need to 
dance until they drop (roughly 2 energy per hour for most, but out of 
shape people will lose fatigue faster!), or roughly 10 hours!
  Drug GER will only get the practioner 4 times the skill in GER.  It 
takes the use of drugs that are hallucinegetic - and addictive, to gain 
such energy.  Drug dosage and duration of time is what determines the 
energy gained.  It takes 1 hour to gain "skill" level in DRUG GER 
energy.  Thus, a mage with DRUG GER at 14 will gain 14 energy per hour, 
with a max time limit of 4 hours, or a max energy tap of 54 energy.
  Sacrifice GER is only limited by the number of helpless victims of the 
spell/ritual.  Sacrifice GER can only be cast with a ceremonial spell.  
All other times, the caster must use his personal energy with spells 
costing an additional 2 fatigue in order, since the magery is not 
"natural" but confered from an outside agency.