Cabbala (Was - Re: [DL] Weird West fiction suggestion)

["sam.desmith" <sam.desmith@ntlworld.com>]

> I almost forgot: there is also a Rabbi who is (IIRC) well-versed in the
> Cabbala.
>
> Dan Davenport

This reminds me of something I wanted people's opinion on. A friend of mine
wants to start playing in my Deadlands game. The son of rabbi, we started
talking about how Judaism, and by extension the Cabbala, fitted in with the
DL mythos.







Spoilers (ish)











We were talking about Blessed, and he made the point that a rabbi is not so
much the vessel through which the Divine operates but more an interpreter of
His message. This struck me as potentially an interesting twist on
Hucksters, particularly as the Cabbalistic mythos and other apocryphal
Judaistic texts talk of His messengers facing down daemons in duels of wit
and knowledge. In the same way that Holye encoded his hexes, biblical texts
could contain powers for those versed in the Cabbala (for example, the
passage concerning the Manna from Heaven could be interpreted as the Vittles
Hex). Now, given the persecution and related diffusion of the Jewish people
in the last 2000 years, it's more than likely that they encountered, and
indeed sided with, other socially ostracised communities, such as the Rom.
This lends credence to the idea of Hoyle being taught refined methods of
spellcasting during his, um, convalescence - a bastardised form of the
original Cabbalistic practises. The end point of this discussion was the
idea of having an Arcane Background: Cabbala (or Qabbala, or K'haba'lah, or
whatever) that's similar to Hucksterism, but is sufficiently different to
make them mutually exclusive, using Professional: Theology in place of
Hexlslingin'.

Sam de Smith


It may be a silly surname, but at least you won't forget it in a hurry.