I'm making a setting based on real world magical traditions.
A friend of mine suggested making women superior at magic compared to men based on mythology and folklore, but would this be accurate?
After looking through actual hidden/secret societies throughout history it seems men have still dominated in matters of the occult.
He's no white knight or a fedora tipping SJW, but does he have a point?
He has no point, most major magicians were men. If you wanted a thematic [if not necessarily historic] division of magic along sexual lines, there is always the idea that there are certain female genetic lines where a kind of natural magic passes from mother to daughter [witches] whereas academic magic is open to both sexes but is overwhelmingly male.
Unless you're gonna make men better at nonmagical stuff, then it's SJW shit. And even then if the system is 3.x it's ALWAYS SJW shit
This seems like the sort of thing that would vary enormously depending on the culture and time period involved, to the point of not having a generic answer.
Did your friend provide any examples more concrete than "mythology and folklore"?
Did your own research touch upon something more specific than "matters of the occult"?
Wheel of Time.
That is all.
I don't recall hearing any mythology or legends that say women are better at magic than men, just that women can use different kinds of magic than men.
Wicca. Which is fake mythology that was made in the 20th century. That's about all that I can think of, and likely all that OP's friend thought of
Do a test. Ask him what men would be better at then. If he says nothing, then don't follow his ideas since it's SJW nonsense. If he says anything, stop lying to yourself since there's no way anyone who'd suggest something like this would be okay with that, unless the thing guys are better at is an objectively worse option without any gender biases
I've heard Norse mythology associates magic with women in some ways, but that's not really consistent with things like Odin being a wizard
in Norse mythology magic was a woman's job and it was seen as unmanly for men to partake, but women weren't "better" at magic than the men who practiced it
It's inconsistent as all hell. And I'm pretty sure it's ONLY divination. The point is, there's no real reason for someone to suggest this kinda thing, and there's also a reason that most major systems ditched gender biases a while ago, though they'll probably come back in a bad way...
>does he have a point?
Does he ever.
It's consistent, Odin is mocked by Loki for using magic because it's unmanly. That doesn't mean women were better at it, but it was associated with them.
So it's the same as a girl going into combat as a warrior then.
Also, loki was a twat so who cares what he says
Men were stronger in the Wheel of Time though. Much stronger. For women to have a chance against a man they have to link with another woman if not more than 1 other.
>A friend of mine suggested making women superior at magic compared to men based on mythology and folklore, but would this be accurate?
It would not. Practically all of the big wizard types of mythology, hermeticism and folklore are men; the women are typically just witches, i.e. women who get ebul magical powers by sucking them out of Satan's dick. You'll notice that even in that case the guy with the actual magic power is a guy.
Circe and Medea are *kind of* exceptions to this in that Satan wasn't invented yet, but fundamentally they aren't.
This guy has the right of it in that your friend's ideas come from wicca, which is makebelieve religion invented after WWII.
For some reason people keep forgetting or ignoring this about WoT, that the only reason magic is woman-dominated is that the male half of magic is literally contaminated to make any guy who tries insane. Once they fix that little problem the men BTFO the women even harder at magic than at anything else. Robert Jordan didn't really have a high opinion of women but he was 100% right.
No, he has no point. Women being better at magic is a recent affectation of the Wiccan and New Age Tumblr Occultists.
Bad example. Men were better/stronger in magic in Wheel of Time. Women just maintained a monopoly on magic in the beginning because they feared powerful male magic users. Wheel of time is a literal example of a genderflipped 'patriarchy' that Feminists pretend exists.
In my setting, women are more profficient in magical arts than men because they have more nerves or some shit. Magic is cast through electric waves you send through your body into an instrument or directly into the environment and women are genetically set to be better when it comes to precise work. Men on the other hand have bigger brains, which means their magic is 10% more powerful on average. To illustrate this with telekinesia: men are better on average at throwing boulders (although the sheer amount of magical energy required hurts their skin and flesh as if it was electrocuted if they do too far), female casters are better at healing because it's about precision, synchronisation, harmony, balance; like a surgeon. Telepathy/illusion: men are on average better at launching mental assaults, women are generally best fitten if you want to read someone's mind without them noticing.
Predisposition doesn't exclude men from besting women in their domain, nor the opposite. It's just a predisposition. of course, such exceptions are as rare as Ronda Rouseys and Briennes of Tarth.
>Women being better at magic is a recent affectation of the Wiccan and New Age Tumblr Occultists.
Except as OP noted there's mythology to back it up
Loki isn't the only one who calls Odin a faggot for doing girly magic. IIRC there is a kind of magic that men do, but Odin specifically practices girly magic because he cares more about ULTIMATE POWER than following social norms. That's kind of his thing. He's an oathbreaker.
No, I think Odin was just a plain old faggot.
Reminder that Thor dressed up as a woman to infiltrate a Jotunheim party; the original trap
The norse gods were some cheeky fucks
>makes claim contradicting everyone ITT who seem to know what they're talking about
>provides no proof or even example
Better than being incestuous douchebags like them Greek gods
I thinl Norse and Greek are the only cases where it was seen as particularly girly.
An idea I'd gone with is that all creatures pull of of whatever mana/available magic source they can harness. Mostly this takes the forms of magical objects of power, a kicker being that pregnant women can siphon off their unborn children's magical potential. Usually this leads to magically 'sterile' offspring, but means even mediocre female mages can perform higher level magic without outside magical help.
They'd probably be rightly branded as "Unsavoury folk" for several extremely good reasons though
well, that and male magic users had a nasty tendency to go batshit insane in WoT.
He needed all of loki's trickery to pull it off.
Thor is no Enkidu.
>Thor crossdresses with his brother's help
>Convincingly passes as the most beautiful goddess Asgard
>Slaughters an entire hall full of giants while still in drag
Norse mythology is the best.
Yes. In Yakutia women-shamans are stronger then males. Low tier "udagansha" are close in power level to mid-tier male shaman.
But then, every shaman-tungus (Northen tribe) are close to saiyan, far stronger then every women, and even capable to maintain pacts with multiple spirit-companions.
I pity you, silly westerner, who can't read this original DBZ-tier magic lore.
>Women are more likely to be born with magic (sorcerers)
>Men pick up academic magic easier (wizards)
ez
Wizards are more powerful than Sorcerers
So I guess men really are better with magic
I have no idea why he would say something so inane, the folklore absolutely clear on that- women are barely good enough for soft, natural magic, hardcore magic is exclusively male.
Historically, all of the greatest magic users in the western tradition were men. Merlin, King Solomon, Hermes Trismegistus, etc. All men.
But women had easier access to low-tier magic by fucking the Devil in exchange for power.
You'd think that it'd be easier for men to get magic by shagging the devil too
That would imply the Devil is a homo.
Well you do get sent to hell for that
>Implying king Solomon didn't learn magic from the Queen of Shiba
>Mentioning Merlin but not Morgan le Fay
>Ignoring all the sorceresses, goddesses of wisdom, and oracles in Greek and Egyptian mythology.
>Ignoring that witches were the only magic users for large chunks of history.
I think you might just be biased.
Here comes Tumblr
Loki turned into a female horse and got fucked by a male horse then gave birth to the magic horse that ended up being Odin's steed. Shit's kinda wacky.
>Implying king Solomon didn't learn magic from the Queen of Shiba
Solomon outstripped everything she ever did. He also garnered the bulk of his magic from God and bound Demons.
>Mentioning Merlin but not Morgan le Fay
You mean the sorceress he tutored who was evidently his inferior?
>Ignoring all the sorcerers, gods of wisdom, and prophets in Greek and Egyptian mythology
FTFY
>Ignoring that witches were the only magic users for large chunks of history
Pre-Middle Ages men were accused more so of witchcraft than women. History is a thing.
Not overlooking the present women in folklore and mythology, but you're acting out of a bit.
Yeah, and the Devil sets them on fire and pokes them with his pitchfork forever because he hates fags and is sick of Jesus sending them to his realm.
>This seems like the sort of thing that would vary enormously depending on the culture and time period involved
This
It was different in various times and cultures. A woman's womb was seen as mystical yes, but so was semen.
This. Odins magic required him to drink semen. This is why Seidr was a womans art.
Hello, police? I'd like to report a faggot jamming his fucking magic realm into everything
1. Solomon and Merlin both were greater than their female peers.
2. The god of magic in Egyptian myth was Thoth, a dude.
3. There was never a time when women were the 'only magic users' in history.
I think you might just be a biased whore from tumblr
Beat me to it
And yet he, man(god), was the most powerful practitioner of a supposedly womanly art.
Tolkien's inspiration for Gandalf, indeed.
>was the most powerful practitioner of a supposedly womanly art.
Well, yes, because he was a God and the chief God at that. He and all the other Gods also relied utterly on Idun and her apples.
It's almost as if, like, both genders were somehow fucking relevant, and there wasn't this huge cultural gender war. Or something.
>Well, yes, because he was a God and the chief God at that
Not him, but he wasn't the only god proficient in Seidr.
Ok, white knight.
Wheel of Time operates on gender dimorphism.
Some women might be stronger than men, but mostly it goes the other way. Women tend to be more deft with their weaving and able to weave more things at once, but that's about it. They're only "in charge" of magic at the time of the series because the male half is tainted so men go mad after a while, and even then that lasts up until maybe halfway through the series at the most.
They're consistently shitty at it throughout all mythology.
Norse men who used the girly type couldn't insist on duels to the death in response to being called a faggot
and they were sometimes easier to justify lynching, but they were allowed to learn it. And many did.
Also, Odin used both types.
Women were considered more 'stable', even before Saidin got corrupted, and Women could link their powers together and become stronger than any individual male. The absolutely most powerful circle was a chain of women linked to a male, combining the strengths of both halves of the Source.
oh cool a thread that somehow hasn't been 100% hijacked by shut-in winglets, please do go on
Gee, if history is anything to go by, magic, if it existed, would be heavily male dominated.
But magic doesn't exist. So there you go.
The biggest circle is sixty-six women and six men, though. And a man also to lead said maxed-out circle. Men also have to lead a two-person circle between a man and woman, too. There's a lot of specifics on who can lead circles of what size and composition in general.
>magic doesn't exist
>mfw
Aleister Crowley was a king troll who was misunderstood
>both genders were somehow fucking relevant
Yup. Gender wars are not a thing with any relevant cultural weight in the olden days.
Also, it's fantasy, do what the fuck you want.
All mythology? I don't agree, but greek mythology for sure
From what I remember, weren't the victims of witch hunts like 60% male or something like that?
it's just that the witch hunt that resonates most with the American conciousness is Salem, which had more female victims.
So no, I doubt women were better magicians in most folklore.
There are some cultures where women are more likely to be associated with magic, but there are probably equally as many where magic is only for men.
en.wikipedia.org
Old Norse Singing magic. Mostly practiced by women because spells are sung with high voices. Odin mastered multiple protection chants.
en.wikipedia.org
A curse tablet of Gaulish origin. One group of female spellcasters used it to curse another group of women (some of which are related).
I also have a book of dragon mythology that I can't seem to find online, but there is a specific section for myths about sorceresses and dragons.
Pretty much any major goddess in world mythology would be accompanied by a female-cult.
Since all magic IRL is fake and we actually know very little on the secret societies that no longer exist and given the fact that women are still being killed for witchcraft, I think a setting with a Goddess who only shares her magic with women would be a refreshing change of pace.
en.wikipedia.org
No, the absolutely most powerful circle was a shepherd, his old babysitter, and a couple of barbie dolls.
Most of them were already related to women who had been tried and found guilty.
>walk in expecting thought-provoking discussion about gender roles in historical religion and folklore
>"women existing triggers me to call everyone SJW"
>really need to stop expecting things
I don't see any of that. Are you sure you're not just triggered over a hair's worth of ramblings?
For what it's worth, in China, magic is a male tradition.
It could easily be worse, and the term SJW only get thrown around like twice, so it's a hair above what I've come to expect from even vaguely political discussion.
>A friend of mine suggested making women superior at magic compared to men based on mythology and folklore, but would this be accurate?
No not really. He's probably going off the pop culture idea of "witches". But in most mythologies they were just likely if not more so to be men as women.
Of course you can still do it if you wanted. It could be a interesting detail. But I think maybe just restrict centain schools of magic works better. The Differences between wizards (all male Academic types) and witches (all female Salt of the earth types) comes up in Discworld. Hell even dark elfs in Dnd have a similar thing going on. Drow wizards are male. Drow celrics are female.
But all being the men being the tough fighter types, while the all the women are the delicate mystic types is already pretty cliche OP.
You are kinda getting this thing completely wrong on many levels.
Women and femininity are generally more associated the principle of chaos, while masculinity is associated with order. And when there is order, there is hierarchy. So if you are going to look into heirarchical orders (like priesthood, nobility - which has been associated with magical practices, I mean kings fucking priests too - etc...) of course you are going to find it male-dominated. That is what males do: arrange themselves into orders, from the meanest motherfucker to the lowest one. Magic in hands of males is generally in a form of an order - as in medieval societies with alchemies, transmutations, thick books on hermeneutics.
Women, on the other hand, are generally seen having their finger on the chaos itself. You'll rarely find them in hierarchies, and if then it's going to be a female-only one because despite what you are taught to think about, women and men did not actually compete for the same spots in history.
Instead, you'll find them as being objects of intuition (vast majority of oracles in most societies were females), vitality and healing (midwifes), and witchcraft (which is again something always practiced outside of hierarchies, outside of order).
I'd safely say that historically, more women were deemed to be practicioners of magic than men. Comparing their "powerlevels", however, just generally completely silly. First of all most of mythology and folklore does not give a shit about such juvenille ideas, second of all, you are comparing masculine hierarchies with feminine lack of there-off.
>But in most mythologies they were just likely if not more so to be men as women.
That is just really fucking wrong.
definitely ergi, but not nith, at least
another guy who took it in the ass
a lot
No, he's not wrong. If we're talking Europe, yeah. The world in its entirety? Male prominence.
A good example of women being better at magic is in 1001 nights, magic appears really commonly in the form of sprinkling water on something/someone and saying certain words but it is exclusively used by women and djinns.
The men just pray to allah to protect them.
Absolutely not. Always female. For every one priest there are three midwifes and wise old women.
It's actually really simple. Go around China or Japan or India and see who is more prone to magical rituals: males or females?
And BAM, you got your answer. Magical practices were always in majority associated with women. Especially magic related to basic daily rituals and acts. That is true for Middle East, India, Japan, China, Europe, and even fucking Southern Americas.
Women were more often than not associated with petty malevolent magics.
Men were predominantly associated with stronger benevolent magics.
At least in Europe.
Though, this only goes for myth and folklore.
Occult societies were (as OP noted) dominated by men, not women.
Take it for what you will.
I'd actually argue that the East is more male pronounced.
Here comes the stereotypical Tumblrina
Also I just remembered in Greece there were the Sibyls, exclusively female oracles.
For many folklore/mythologies, this would be accurate.
For many folklore/mythologies, this would not be accurate accurate.
Whether or not it is sjw/mra/etc... is irrelevant: base your decision off of the themes you want in your game and the set(s) of folklore you wish to use. Being sjw/mra crap comes from making decisions based off of concern for sjw/mra crap. If you base your decisions off of actual folklore and good storytelling, just whip your historical/mythological/literary dick on them and move on.
The SJW and MRA only win if you give into their bullshit and play their game.... so don't, play your game, you're the DM after all.
Circe. Medea. Baba Yaga. Morgana.
80% of the witches in Australian and African folklore are women. EVERY historical deity of magic is female.
So, no, you are categorically wrong.
>For every one priest there are three midwifes and wise old women.
Maybe but for the most part they were just seen as that. Midwifes and wise old women.
Contrary to what media says simply being a medicine woman didn't mean people thought you a witch.
Maybe you know more then most but what's the cut-off point there? Should been a shrine maid be considered "magic user"? A nun? rabbi? A morris dancer?
>EVERY historical deity of magic is female.
It's about even, actually.
>Citations are for people with proof
Depends on the mythology and folklore
>EVERY historical deity of magic is female.
The most prominent gods of magic in European myth are predominantly male figures.
Odin
Enki
Thoth
Hermes
Trismegistus
Heka
Gwydion
Etc...
Hecate is the only goddess that really stands out.
>Hecate is the only goddess that really stands out.
There's arguably Isis, though she's under Thoth in influence.
>deity of magic is female.
Wait isn't having magical powers sort of a given if you are God? Seems a bit odd to have actual gods of magic in the same way you would have gods of war or gods of Commerse.
>I'd actually argue that the East is more male pronounced.
Actually, what kind of bullshit is this shit? Do you kids not realize than in Christian fucking environments, only OFFICIAL admited magic is male-controlled?
Are you fucks so god-damn clueless you don't realize that in Catholic church, every priest (and every king) is actually a magic practiocioner?!
If anything, Europe has unusually high focus on male-dominated magic because it was the only legally acceptable form for fuck sake.
God damn you people are clueless.
Stop saying words you clearly do not know how to use, fucker.
> Maybe but for the most part they were just seen as that. Midwifes and wise old women.
Which are actions and posts inherently connected to magical practices you retard... who the fuck are you? Have you EVER ACTUALLY OPENED A FUCKING BOOK ON MAGIC AND AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL SUBJECT OF STUDY?!
>Contrary to what media says simply being a medicine woman didn't mean people thought you a witch.
That is actually literally what it means. What wasn't true is that assuming someone a witch was always viewed as bad thing.
>Should been a shrine maid be considered "magic user"?
YES YOU MONGOLOID! OF COURSE THEY FUCKING WERE! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU RETARDS THINK MAGIC IS?!
I see you mongoloids bubbling and foaming at mouth with your citations, so why should I fucking bother with you dipshits.
You know the interesting thing is a good bulk of female magic users are evil, or came to be viewed as evil at some point, as if the idea of female magic users was frowned upon or something...
Oh shit. We got a screecher.
Best answer. Your game, your call, just make sure you're able to show your work.
The only good post in this garbage thread.
Well done, user.
Remember OP,
Your imagination and fantasy >>>>>>>>>> Other fags imagination and fantasy.
On that note, the sperg wave has come like I guessed, so I shall retreat into the bunker for the moment.
>matters of the occult
user, occultism is not what magic used to be. And in folklore magic power of women is essentially tied to their ability to give life.
This thread is hilarious
With the added benefit of potentially useful starting points for actual study.
I'm new and eager to learn shit, I'll take what I can get.