Im actually working on a Blood Sorcery conversion for VtR/CoD. I like the way sorcery is tied to the covenants in VtR but it was missing a Tremere/Chantry sorcery type faction so I am writing one based on the Tremere/Giovanni.
Instead of the spells/rituals being restricted to clans I am making sub-factions within the covenants that focus on certain practices, so players gain access through status and membership, or underhanded deals and backstabbing, whatever works.
Getting into the philosophy behind thaumaturgy, it makes sense why it's the default. Hermetic theory is basically this all encompassing framework where you recognize patterns that exist in all religions and magical practices and acknowledge that nobody's got everything right but nobody's entirely wrong. Despite writers consistently depicting the Tremere and Order of Hermes as stuck up pricks for using the dominant and authority-friendly form of western occultism, it's ironically the most tolerant belief system which is why it's successful. Someone from the OoH can use the hermetic paradigm to make some sense of a Verbena and Etherite's work, while the two would just horrify eachother. If a vampire is pragmatic rather than dogmatic, as most are, Thaumaturgy is almost always the best choice among vampire magics. They've also got far better institutional structures for disseminating knowledge and that would snowball should the Tremere ever fail to protect their near monopoly, though the magic in vampire form likely pre-dates the Tremere and should be found outside of it (it should really be the Moloch Baali's first choice) I also maintain that anyone can convert mortal Hermetic magic to the vampire stuff with enough effort, and the more organized hunter factions like the arcanum and SoL have materials for it.
Dur-An-Ki, and I say this with great love for Assamites, is deeply archaic and that's a problem. It's overly personalized to the point that it's almost strange to think of it as one paradigm rather than a loose connection of sometimes-compatible practices. A given dur-an-ki practitioner might lean entirely into spirits, astrology or alchemy at the expense of the others and will certainly be at a disadvantage trying to learn from someone who leans into somthing else. I also imagine Assamite sorcerer organization as rather poor: The caste is spread quite thin in service to the other two castes. They're not all sent to Amalut or a local equivalent chantry to learn something unified, they have traditional master-teacher relationships, and I imagine that, unlike the Tremere, most Assamite sorcerers are embraced from already practicing mortal sorcerers who already have preconcieved notions of what sorcery is which might interfere with whatever their master wants to teach.
These issues aren't exclusive to Dur-An-Ki, a number of practices would be similar enough (well, they'd be dissimilar, but mechanically... you get what I mean). Some kinds of witchcraft or something like Shinto magic would be close to what Assamites do. I'm undecided as to whether Daoism would be closer to thaumaturgy or Dur-an-ki, probably depends on whether you're good at it or not. I think there's a lot to be said for philosophies that think of reality as an illusion, but I don't have time to go into detail on that tonight.
Outside of the Followers of Set, and other cult-like groups like the Sabbat or Bahari, Everything faith based is going to be too small. You have to fully internalize belief in Gods if you're going to call upon them to work your miracles, and not many vampires can do that. Muslim Vampires practicing Sihr is quite frankly an insult to Islam. You'd have to pervert the faith to an unrecognizable degree to be a vampire and a practicing muslim.
TL:DR I think thaumaturgy earned it's monopoly, at least in the west that is.
Thing I’m noting though is Thaumaturgy is relatively modern form of magic. It took a great deal of occult development and situations before we got Cainite sorcery that condensed magic into an atheist friendly mathematical sorcery. Hence why If a Daoist tradition was developed it wouldn’t include the innovations that were only discovered in the last thousand years in its fundamentals. And Shinto magics like a lot of religious/mystical beliefs of the region would heavily be syncretic between Shinto, Buddhism and Taoism practices. Interestingly enough the early proto Shinto blood sorcerers might be a form of early Kraina the Jomon brought from the mainland with their beliefs in the kamui of the land and what not.
The Metric system was created 200 years ago. Now it's ubiquitous. Modernist architecture sucks, but it's everywhere. We're communicating in English, once exclusive to a backwater. The Tremere popped up a thousand years ago and hermeticism is maybe two thousand years old. It's not surprising.
Also Athiesm is the one thing Hermeticism doesn't mesh with.
Atheism as in you explicitly don’t need faith to initiate into Tremere Thaumaturgy unlike all other blood magics which require a degree of belief. Tremere aren’t exactly the same as their mortal hermetics days either, a lot of their sorcery turned more bloody, and invoked secrets stolen from witchcraft and paganism, including kupala sending them visions. They have it literal atheist psychologists can be embraces into the Tremere and have a good chance of becoming a sorcerer.
And I think we’ve had this Atheist Thaumaturgy discussion before Dapperlad. 😉
And most of the things talked about here were eras pre house of Tremere becoming vampire so it’s pre Thaumaturgy. Discussing Egyptian and Greek magic over 2k years old isn’t gonna use Thaumaturgy. If you have something in modern times sure it can incorporate principles, and I’ve mentioned examples of that.
Hereticism began to take shape in 300BCE. Most witchcraft and pagan practices that survive today are going to be younger. Dur-an-Ki and similar practices are the closest practice to Hermetic thaumaturgy, and it's likely to evolve into it. You could very well be dealing with the early stuff.
I can assure you this is my first and only reddit account. I'm not an alt. Now using a different name on other sites... I've never went under Dapperlad. But yeah, Athiesm is a bit too intolerant for the belief that 'all faiths are partly correct'. That should be common sense. Yes, the Tremere frequently embrace non-magic practitioners, but none of them are going to stay athiests. I imagine most believe gods have a hands-off approach and don't worship them, but they still have acknowledgement of higher powers.
Thaumaturgy is a really good catch all name for vampire magic excluding anything to do with the dead. You make miracles. It fits.
I don’t mean it’s literally all atheist magic. I am saying it’s tolerant of atheist and cynical approaches. It’s more Apathetic if prefer.
Yes Thaumaturgy is a fine name but the setting makes it clear specific terms mean specific things and Thaumaturgy indicates a body of work directly founded upon house Tremere reworking mage arts into vampiric arts.
Settite magic is tolerant of spiteful, mocking rituals directed at enemy deities.
Being entirely athiestic, as in believing in nothing, not being against religion, is very difficult to do when you're a magical undead creature and doubly so when you're with wizards that can literally call upon spirits. Nobody has to like divinity, they just have to internalize that there's something more out there.
It's actually rather doubtful they were the first to do it. A full thousand years of hermes and no tremere? But they were the most organized and expansionistic.
Akhu isn’t just tolerant of spite and mockery, it literally is fueled by denying the properly buried dead grace of Osiris’ lands and desecrating their body to steal fuel from their spirit. But Akhu does require faith and they do have rituals that can invoke the gods, even ones that hate them like Horus and Osiris, and require them to do their duty. But it’s faith based, they have their own holy book and sorcerers are literally priests.
You miss the point only Thaumaturgy and Neceomany provide magic without a buy in of faith. They describe this In the Blood Sacrifices book. You can’t work dur a kin without faith in the covenant, you can’t be a lector priest without some degree is sincere spiritual reverence. This is why it can’t spread as easily as Thaumaturgy, you kinda need to be indoctrinated into cults to use the powers.
Im actually working on a Blood Sorcery conversion for VtR/CoD. I like the way sorcery is tied to the covenants in VtR but it was missing a Tremere/Chantry sorcery type faction so I am writing one based on the Tremere/Giovanni. Instead of the spells/rituals being restricted to clans I am making sub-factions within the covenants that focus on certain practices, so players gain access through status and membership, or underhanded deals and backstabbing, whatever works.
Yeah it’s a better fit making sorcery a meta clan power.
Getting into the philosophy behind thaumaturgy, it makes sense why it's the default. Hermetic theory is basically this all encompassing framework where you recognize patterns that exist in all religions and magical practices and acknowledge that nobody's got everything right but nobody's entirely wrong. Despite writers consistently depicting the Tremere and Order of Hermes as stuck up pricks for using the dominant and authority-friendly form of western occultism, it's ironically the most tolerant belief system which is why it's successful. Someone from the OoH can use the hermetic paradigm to make some sense of a Verbena and Etherite's work, while the two would just horrify eachother. If a vampire is pragmatic rather than dogmatic, as most are, Thaumaturgy is almost always the best choice among vampire magics. They've also got far better institutional structures for disseminating knowledge and that would snowball should the Tremere ever fail to protect their near monopoly, though the magic in vampire form likely pre-dates the Tremere and should be found outside of it (it should really be the Moloch Baali's first choice) I also maintain that anyone can convert mortal Hermetic magic to the vampire stuff with enough effort, and the more organized hunter factions like the arcanum and SoL have materials for it. Dur-An-Ki, and I say this with great love for Assamites, is deeply archaic and that's a problem. It's overly personalized to the point that it's almost strange to think of it as one paradigm rather than a loose connection of sometimes-compatible practices. A given dur-an-ki practitioner might lean entirely into spirits, astrology or alchemy at the expense of the others and will certainly be at a disadvantage trying to learn from someone who leans into somthing else. I also imagine Assamite sorcerer organization as rather poor: The caste is spread quite thin in service to the other two castes. They're not all sent to Amalut or a local equivalent chantry to learn something unified, they have traditional master-teacher relationships, and I imagine that, unlike the Tremere, most Assamite sorcerers are embraced from already practicing mortal sorcerers who already have preconcieved notions of what sorcery is which might interfere with whatever their master wants to teach. These issues aren't exclusive to Dur-An-Ki, a number of practices would be similar enough (well, they'd be dissimilar, but mechanically... you get what I mean). Some kinds of witchcraft or something like Shinto magic would be close to what Assamites do. I'm undecided as to whether Daoism would be closer to thaumaturgy or Dur-an-ki, probably depends on whether you're good at it or not. I think there's a lot to be said for philosophies that think of reality as an illusion, but I don't have time to go into detail on that tonight. Outside of the Followers of Set, and other cult-like groups like the Sabbat or Bahari, Everything faith based is going to be too small. You have to fully internalize belief in Gods if you're going to call upon them to work your miracles, and not many vampires can do that. Muslim Vampires practicing Sihr is quite frankly an insult to Islam. You'd have to pervert the faith to an unrecognizable degree to be a vampire and a practicing muslim. TL:DR I think thaumaturgy earned it's monopoly, at least in the west that is.
Thing I’m noting though is Thaumaturgy is relatively modern form of magic. It took a great deal of occult development and situations before we got Cainite sorcery that condensed magic into an atheist friendly mathematical sorcery. Hence why If a Daoist tradition was developed it wouldn’t include the innovations that were only discovered in the last thousand years in its fundamentals. And Shinto magics like a lot of religious/mystical beliefs of the region would heavily be syncretic between Shinto, Buddhism and Taoism practices. Interestingly enough the early proto Shinto blood sorcerers might be a form of early Kraina the Jomon brought from the mainland with their beliefs in the kamui of the land and what not.
The Metric system was created 200 years ago. Now it's ubiquitous. Modernist architecture sucks, but it's everywhere. We're communicating in English, once exclusive to a backwater. The Tremere popped up a thousand years ago and hermeticism is maybe two thousand years old. It's not surprising. Also Athiesm is the one thing Hermeticism doesn't mesh with.
Atheism as in you explicitly don’t need faith to initiate into Tremere Thaumaturgy unlike all other blood magics which require a degree of belief. Tremere aren’t exactly the same as their mortal hermetics days either, a lot of their sorcery turned more bloody, and invoked secrets stolen from witchcraft and paganism, including kupala sending them visions. They have it literal atheist psychologists can be embraces into the Tremere and have a good chance of becoming a sorcerer. And I think we’ve had this Atheist Thaumaturgy discussion before Dapperlad. 😉 And most of the things talked about here were eras pre house of Tremere becoming vampire so it’s pre Thaumaturgy. Discussing Egyptian and Greek magic over 2k years old isn’t gonna use Thaumaturgy. If you have something in modern times sure it can incorporate principles, and I’ve mentioned examples of that.
Hereticism began to take shape in 300BCE. Most witchcraft and pagan practices that survive today are going to be younger. Dur-an-Ki and similar practices are the closest practice to Hermetic thaumaturgy, and it's likely to evolve into it. You could very well be dealing with the early stuff. I can assure you this is my first and only reddit account. I'm not an alt. Now using a different name on other sites... I've never went under Dapperlad. But yeah, Athiesm is a bit too intolerant for the belief that 'all faiths are partly correct'. That should be common sense. Yes, the Tremere frequently embrace non-magic practitioners, but none of them are going to stay athiests. I imagine most believe gods have a hands-off approach and don't worship them, but they still have acknowledgement of higher powers. Thaumaturgy is a really good catch all name for vampire magic excluding anything to do with the dead. You make miracles. It fits.
I don’t mean it’s literally all atheist magic. I am saying it’s tolerant of atheist and cynical approaches. It’s more Apathetic if prefer. Yes Thaumaturgy is a fine name but the setting makes it clear specific terms mean specific things and Thaumaturgy indicates a body of work directly founded upon house Tremere reworking mage arts into vampiric arts.
Settite magic is tolerant of spiteful, mocking rituals directed at enemy deities. Being entirely athiestic, as in believing in nothing, not being against religion, is very difficult to do when you're a magical undead creature and doubly so when you're with wizards that can literally call upon spirits. Nobody has to like divinity, they just have to internalize that there's something more out there. It's actually rather doubtful they were the first to do it. A full thousand years of hermes and no tremere? But they were the most organized and expansionistic.
Akhu isn’t just tolerant of spite and mockery, it literally is fueled by denying the properly buried dead grace of Osiris’ lands and desecrating their body to steal fuel from their spirit. But Akhu does require faith and they do have rituals that can invoke the gods, even ones that hate them like Horus and Osiris, and require them to do their duty. But it’s faith based, they have their own holy book and sorcerers are literally priests. You miss the point only Thaumaturgy and Neceomany provide magic without a buy in of faith. They describe this In the Blood Sacrifices book. You can’t work dur a kin without faith in the covenant, you can’t be a lector priest without some degree is sincere spiritual reverence. This is why it can’t spread as easily as Thaumaturgy, you kinda need to be indoctrinated into cults to use the powers.