The Weave, Arcane and Divine Magic

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NESchampion
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The Weave, Arcane and Divine Magic

Post by NESchampion »

Can someone more thoroughly knowledgeable explain how this process works? I know that divine magic power comes from deities but still uses the Weave but I'm pretty sketchy on the details myself even. Mystra can block deity power by barring divine casters access to the Weave, and Dead Magic areas stop divine spells too, correct?
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Zelknolf
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Re: The Weave, Arcane and Divine Magic

Post by Zelknolf »

The easiest resource to find on the Weave is the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, though the entries for Shar and Mystra contain useful bits in Faiths and Pantheons.

The tl;dr version:
Almost everyone thinks that everything works on the Weave. For the common ALFAn PC, everything works on the Weave until something ICly tells you differently. Wild magic makes all magic wonky; dead magic makes all magic stop. Mystra can cut anyone off, but chooses not to, because Ao would pimpslap her for being petty about it.



The more verbose (but still shorter than sourcebooks) version:
The Weave is common knowledge. As far as most people know, it is the only way that magic in Faerun works (FRCS 54). Mystra has the power to cut anyone off from the Weave for any reason (FRCS 55), and in so doing, would prevent the person from casting and spells or using any magic items-- arcane or divine (FRCS 54). Similarly, dead magic affects everything magic, and functions mechanically as a permanent antimagic field which can only be repaired with a use of wish or miracle. (FRCS 56). That same span of pages includes more detailed discussion of how Dead Magic, Wild Magic, etc. work, and includes the details of the common metaphor of the Weave (Weave as fabric, which is pinched, twisted, wiggled, etc.) while noting the literal shape of the Weave (Weave as the corporeal body of Mystra).

But, technically there is another option to cast spells without use of the weave, through the Shadow Weave (FRCS 57). In terms of RP, the Shadow Weave is a well-kept secret, generally only being distributed by the knowing Sharrans when they wish to initiate someone and only being distributed by the knowing Mystrans/ Harpers/ Selunites (pretty much in that order for likilihood of knowing) when they think it's about to be used against people. The former don't wish to be found out (a. no one wants to be a known Sharran, as most good guys [especially Mystrans, Lathanderites, and Selunites] will stop at nothing to destroy Sharrans; b. the process of taking up the Shadow Weave means commiting a murder [generally of a Selunite], so if a knowing person hears, they're likely to treat it as confessing to murder.) (F&P 58, FRCS 37) and the latter group knows that being known to know makes them targets for the beforementioned murdering.

Mechanically, access to the Shadow Weave requires that the character invest a feat, sacrafice some points in wisdom (FRCS 37), and cut themselves off of the normal Weave. The Shadow Weave is significantly easier to damage than the Weave (Champions of Valor 57), but its creations are harder to counter or dispel while beefing up the DCs of more Shar-themed spells (FRCS 37) and Shar has the power to cut anyone off from the Shadow Weave if she so wishes. She's much more willing to do so than Mystra with the Weave, but generally prefers to just kill people who she wants to cut off (FRCS 57). That is, unsurprisingly, being evil is risky by canon.
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Re: The Weave, Arcane and Divine Magic

Post by Darkmystic »

Why does gods use the weave to give their followers spells? Whats the purpose?
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Re: The Weave, Arcane and Divine Magic

Post by Heero »

It is my understanding that the spells given to clerics are divine powers given straight from their gods, not arcane magic from either the weave or the shadow weave (though Shar 'gives' spells from the Shadow Weave in the same manner she, or another god, gives divine magic to a cleric).
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Re: The Weave, Arcane and Divine Magic

Post by Adanu »

Far as I am aware, it's more like arcane magic users have a sandbox to play in, and sometimes the sandcastle gets kicked by the wind and waves. They have to use their hands and judgment to make the castle stand.

Divine casters have plastic tools and molds to keep the castle standing, but their castles are smaller because their tools are only so big.

The sand works for both, but the methods are different.
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Re: The Weave, Arcane and Divine Magic

Post by t-ice »

Far as I understood, clerics don't get their spells "sidestepping" the Weave.

Rather arcanists "mold" the Weave themselves to fit their needs, which equals their spells. This needs much finesse and stuff, which excuses the "wizards can't wear armor" -thing. Thus, "The Art".

Divine casters rather request their deities (or equivalent) to do the Weave molding for them, in one way or another. This is simpler, and so can wear armor. Thus "The Power".

So regardless of source, No Weave = No magic.
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Re: The Weave, Arcane and Divine Magic

Post by hollyfant »

Actually, all magic, divine or arcane, uses the weave. Perhaps mythals and other epic stuff are excluded, but I'm not sure. Even Shar uses the weave, and not the shadow weave, to grant spells to her clerics.

Mystra has the power to lock anyone out of the weave, but she doesn't have the authority. Being the goddess of magic, she has to promote its use. As I recall Midnight did lock out evil deities just after her ascension, but they all cried foul and AO made her back down.
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Re: The Weave, Arcane and Divine Magic

Post by Ansha »

I recall the description of things as it related to Elven High Magic (the original form of 'epic magic', pre-3.x) stating that "Whereas wizardly
magic pulls an infinitesimal bit of energy out of the Weave to
harness its effects, High Magic maintains the Weave but redirects
and manipulates the local flow of energy to achieve the
effects of the ritual" (Cormanthyr: Empire of Elves, page 126). In 3.x, Elven High Magic is one form of epic magic, so it stands to reason that other forms of epic magic would similarly "shape" the Weave instead of just pulling out bits of it to manipulate in the short term. So even mythals (being that 3.x watered the term down to include non-High Magic fields of wards outside of Myth Drannor) use the Weave, whether High Magic or not.
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Re: The Weave, Arcane and Divine Magic

Post by Ronan »

Magic of Faerun is the best source for this sort of IC knowledge that I've read.
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