All Magic-Users are shamans

Spells are entities from a world parallel to ours. Some call them demons or angels, others the more neutral spirits or gods, but their names don't matter much. The mortal mind isn't made to directly interact with such beings, which is why most of us never realise our numerous encounters with them. This also means that, in order to contact these spirits to coerce, beg or trick them into affecting the physical realm we have to change our state of mind. 

The wizards want us to believe they rearrange their mental faculties through study alone, despite their avid use of narcotics being an open secret. It is the reason all wizards seem a bit loony, their minds are permanently at least partially warped so as to be able to access spells. For those doubting the need for stimulants to reach this altered state I would ask: if study is enough why aren't all scholars wizards?

Clerics reach this altered state through fanatic devotion. It is why there is no such thing as a moderate cleric: their fervent disposition is a requirement for their access to the power they call divine. The rituals function as a way to stir up their already excited minds to a point where they are completely out of touch with reality. And ofcourse, it helps that a lot of rituals involve opiates of some kind. 

Some minds are born askew. These folk have access to this other realm as naturally as most of us have to the physical. Such people go by many names: Lunatics, sourcerers, the dim witted, oracles and whatever other name there exists for a person who talks about things most of us can't see. They are a rarity, though that might be in part due to the reaction to their existence, both in this world as in the other. 

And finally there are those who are chosen. They didn't have innate affiliation with the magical plane, nor did they seek access to it. Instead, something from there has touched their mind, warped it to the point where it can commune with you. They are proof that our minds align more closely with the other world in our dreams, as this is where these beings tend to first appear to their victims. 

Thoughts

While thinking about animism in dungeons I found myself thinking about what magic would be like in an animist setting. Shamanism, as I understood it before doing some minor research, seemed like a good candidate, and one which I found exciting because of its subversiveness. There aren't many fantasy rpg settings in which I have seen shamans as playable options, often they are reserved for monstrous folk, especially if these are portrayed as primitive. 

Looking over some wikipedia stuff on shamans, it struck me as even more weird that shamans aren't some of the most commonly used magic-users out there. Integral to shamanism (from what I have read) seems to be the idea that you interact with spirits by entering an altered state of mind, either through ritual, the use of narcotics or both. I have seen the idea that spells are entities before (Arnold Kemp's GLoG wizards was the first place I encountered it) and wizards as drug-users seems to be a common trope in fantasy (my first exposure to this were the memes of Gandalf smoking pot, but it seems more prevalent in bleaker and weirder genres of fantasy).

Another reason I like the idea that using magic is merely altering your state of mind to commune with spirits is that it opens up the door to many different magical traditions. Both the way in which you alter your mind as well as the relation you have to the spirits you contact can be wildly different between different cultures, magical schools or systems of faith. The loony wizard slinging their spells around like tools seen in a lot of fantasy media, can easily coexist with a sort of hippy witch reaching out to local entities for help, like we see in the manga Berserk. 

Animism also lends itself particularly well to magical items. I love how items become magical as described in the blogpost Magic items are born not made by Ben Laurance, and an animist world would allow that to make sense very easily. Especially if you couple it with a belief that the ainu people traditionally have (at least according to wikipedia), that if an item is made with special care that it is endowed with a spirit of its own. A bit tangential perhaps, but I wanted to mention magic items and didn't think it was a big enough idea to warrant its own post. 

Animism and dungeons

A while ago I read the Ilias and the Odyssea by Homerus (probably not the English spelling, but English is my second language and I don't feel like looking it up). 

One scene, in which Achilles kills a bunch of people in a river, really worked its way into my mind. The river had a god (or maybe it was a god or both or neither, I don't know the specifics of ancient greek metaphysics as portrayed in these stories) who got pissed about the disrespect Achilles was showing by killing all these people in its clean water without any offerings given beforehand. So the river god tries to kill Achilles with a flash flood. And without a bunch of other gods looking out for Achilles that would have been his end. 

Achilles and the river Scamander by Alexander Runciman

This made me think of the concept of the mythic underworld. Most often I have seen it explained as the dungeon being an otherworldy place that hates the players and actively tries to oppose their advance. It is an interpretation of old school dungeons that tries to account for the weirdness that could be found in some of them, as well as the selectiveness with which certain obstacles affect those the dungeon (stuck doors never hindering monsters is one example of this that I have seen multiple time). 

The dungeon being a place particularly hostile towards PCs seems very similar to me to the river being hostile towards Achilles. So why not give the dungeon, each particular dungeon, a god/demon/spirit who resents the PCs for entering their domain and therefore actively oposses them. Just like the flash flood was out to get Achilles, so the stuck doors, the deadly traps and horrible monsters are out to get the PCs. It is deliberate, targeted and personal. 

To me, this would make sense in a world that is animist-like, with minor deities inhabiting basically anything. You could even do the Princess Mononoke thing and give these deities physical embodiments which can be harmed. Something about the players planning to take down the physical manifestation of the dungeon they are raiding seems really fun to me. 

Animism has facinated me for a while now, and I have been doing some thinking about how it coul relate to magic as well. I'll make that a separate post though.