Re: [DL] Pagans (slightly OT)

[Patrick Downs <knick_nevin@yahoo.com>]

> --- "Stryfe Mac.com" <saintstryfe@mac.com> wrote:
> Modern wicca is just that ... modern.  Most of the
> wicca movement started after the turn of the
> century, so it wouldn't fit into deadlands.  Best 
> suggestion is what people have said about using 
> black magic or HOE witch rules.  Second best would 
> be to use Shaman rules or hucksters (probably the 
> first).  

But that's just it, I don't want to use any existing
rules for this class, besides I'm not trying to create
a Wiccan AB. The reason I'm calling the background
Druid is that these people would be carrying on the
traditions of the druids who built Stonehedge (yes, I
know about the faerie doctor AB, but that's an irish
AB, I want to make an exclusively british one)

As an example of history, Aleister Crowley published
his first book in 1898 and joined a hermetic order in
the same year (hurm, maybe I should call it Hermit)
which was formed in 1888 by three people who were
influenced by Qabalist teachings written by Alphonse
Louis Constant in 1854. In America, Spiritualism was
established as an alternative form of religious belief
in the late 1848. Founded by the Fox sisters
(Margaretta, Leah, and Kate), the focus of
Spiritualism was on communication with the dead. 
Both of these groups (one of which has already been
covered in one of the Back East sourcebooks) have
influences ranging back decades and centuries, and
their teachings helped create what we now refer to
today as New Age Spiritualism or Modern Paganism. This
is a simplification, but I don't want to have to write
an essay here to get my point across.
My point being: it should perfectly logical that the
british occultists of the 1860s and 70s and 80s have
their own arcane background to reflect their personal
philosophies and heritage. And that is what I'm trying
to create, a completely new (british) Arcane
Background

I'm getting some help from the Crowley and Hermetic
Order histories, but I still want to lean towards the
druidic (stonehedge-building and utterly cliched) type
of magic users.

so far I'm creating an AB that requires Faith to use
(like a Blessed) and a Ritual to activate the power
(similar to a shaman's ritual for appeasement) but the
powers are immediate activated and active for longer
periods of time than regualar hexes or miracles, thus
they are also less powerful
-doc

p.s.- a clarification: Faith opens the conduit of
magic for the Druid, the Ritual determines how strong
the effect is and how long it lasts (I haven't worked
out all of the powers or the bugs yet, but I will post
it on my website as soon as it's finished)

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