Assuming that 7th Sea is stupid and all...

Assuming that 7th Sea is stupid and all, what sort of magic do you think would REALLY suit a swashbuckling 17th century Europe kinda fantasy setting?

This is something I've been struggling with for a couple of years now, and never really come up with a satisfactory answer.

PS: It's time to sleep in my timezone, but be happy to brainstorm with you tomorrow if thread is still alive.

Summoning spirits maybe? Like getting a Klabautermann to aid you on ship duties, or appealing to sea spirits to make things go your way in a battle.

IIRC, the setting was born from a far smaller scale game that only featured Vodacce. Appropriately, Sorte is probably the best pick.

Part of the Western European Enlightenment was figuring out how to do magic in a very regimented, logical, and consistent way using magical formulae and alchemy and whatnot. However, they have completely cut themselves off from the spirit world, natural world, etc.

Contrast this with places like Russia, Spain, and the wilder parts of Italy where magic is used as it always was, with weird wizards/witches who cannot or will not use the same spell twice, who rely on spirits that can deceive you, and make potions with strange side effects.

Contrast this yet again with all the New World primitives that the Europeans are meeting, who use a more shamanic and even communal form of magic. Think entire Iroquois warbands who can literally hide in the trees or turn themselves into wendigos.

Congratulations, you just made colonialism even more fucked up.

At that point, is it easier to start with 'Mage the Sorcerers' Crusade' and think of how to move the timeline up ~200 years without needing to follow Ascension canon? Or does tossing out WoD baggage get in the way enough to make it not worth the effort?

Isn't that far too banal, though?

How?

Muskets and cannon make low-level offensive magic pointless, don't they?

Why would they do that?

Up until now, ship combat with magic was either archers in forecastles or wizards casting wall of fire from close range. Nowadays, with cannons and the expansion of magical knowledge, theres a bunch of new avenues. Add that to colonialism with the various forms of shamanism and fetishism from the real world, and you can have swashbuckling adventures as an italian siege wizard running protection against enemy wizards for your australian aboriginal shaman who is casting summon sea serpent to punch a hole through an enemy ship as your crew swings across and the other three members of your party of privateers kidnaps the dignitary before the enemy sinks, holy run-on sentence batman

Can I run Pirates of Dark Water in 7th Sea?

I was gonna do a story with magic being discovered around the seven years war, it doesn't really become usable until the napoleonic wars and is then very hard to use. It would have been very full metal alchemish, very full of formulae and extremely hard to do in battle conditions. Tbh i was borrowing heavily from Johnathan strange and Mr Norrell but i nixed the high magic and fairy's and it would have been grittier. I have more if people are interested.

Divination, alchemy, occultism, demonology and blood magic for later libertines?

o-oh it was about game mechanics, not fluff

No, the game is pretty strongly attached to its built in setting.

I think what'd be cooler would be if instead of looking for magic that would be authentic to the occult traditions of the period (which are pretty much the same as most fantasy games), we'd look for a type of magic that's *functionally* suitable for a swashbuckling game. Like, think about a fantasy world based on the 17th century where some people can manipulate the weather. Bam, entire world of naval combat changes completely. Or one with fleshcrafters, UA style, so instead of lopping off infected limbs left and right you can just graft new ones right on the stump (on top of everything else).

>Pirates of Dark Water
Unf.

I'm thinking some kind of contracting system that plays up existing sailor's superstitions. Most magic would involve beseeching various sea-things for illusions, divinations, abjurations, and minor weather control that wouldn't break ship to ship combat straight open. You can ask about where storms will occur, and bargain with the creatures of the deep to keep this information from your rivals, but actually conjuring a storm would cost more than most crews would be able to pay.

Plus to really play up the whole pirate crew thing, spells can require costs the whole ship needs to pay. Three thumbs or a gallon of blood, maybe, or just enough fresh water that what's left will need to be rationed.

>magic that's *functionally* suitable for a swashbuckling game
Probably something with mages slinging fireballs and lightning balls left and right while swinging on chandeliers or weaving illusions which lure enemies away while they sneak behind.

Illusions more so than the other option, probably.

It's so weird that for all the talk about glamour being illusion magic in 7th sea, it doesn't actually include any illusion abilities.

Incidentally OP, the answer to your question is Pirates of Dark Water

Take a look at what people from the period actually believed in when it came to magic.

Broadly speaking you had two categories. The first includes alchemy, astrology and summoning elementals or demonic spirits. It's hermetic magic in full bloom with long rituals involving rare ingredients, magic circles, chanting in dead or mystical languages and other classic wizard stuff. Hermeticism has a strong albiet esoteric religious bent and the goal is spiritual enlightenment or ascension and union with God/the universe.

The other kind is folk magic, which itself comes in two flavors. Cunning Men and Wise Women heal cattle, bless crops and sling the Evil Eye if someone is particularly irritating. It's useful but relatively tame. To get some real magical mojo you need to sell your soul to Satan and become a witch. Summoning demons, blighting crops, transforming into animals, flying on broomsticks and hexing those who look at you funny, the works. Satan can grant wealth, mystical power and eternal life but your soul is always forfiet-ensuring eternal damnation.

Clockwork and Chivalry which is set in a fantastic ECW is a great source and has really juicy magic that captures the feel of the period. Pratchett's Witches series has some good inspriation, the sections on how they fit into the agricultural community settling disputes and acting as vets/medics particulary suit the Cunning Men or a Satanic Witch posing as one.
Hellboy has a number of stories featuring a nice folklore take on Witches of a far more sinister bent.

The type of spirit is a bit different and is set in the modern day, but the Bartimaeus series captures the feel of summoning rituals quite well. Finally a good number of 17thc grimoires are available online so it's quite easy to flick through and get some ideas for a ritual or the personailty and history of the angel or demon the magicians are summoning as many texts are a who's who of celestial beings.

The players are MIB-like agents traking aliens in 17th century Europe.
A.k.a Mousquetaires de l'Ombre/Shadow Musketeers.

>what sort of magic do you think would REALLY suit a swashbuckling 17th century Europe kinda fantasy setting?

All the magic you see in African wars, basically. I mean, that's the sort of shit that's documented IRL for the period.

This isn't a bad starting point. You would probably have to tweak it a bit if you wanted to accommodate not!native Americans or other people outside europe though.
You could probably divide it along two axis:
>low/high magic - magic which is very practical in focus and relatively simple to perform at one end, magic which is largely unconcerned with practical aims and extremely complex at the other.
>positive/negative - the extent to which the magic is concerned with doing good.

I agree with that. I liked 7th Sea's idea of one type of fairly specific (but flexible within itself) magic per nation. If it could be one for the whole setting, I think it could be fascinating.

>You would probably have to tweak it a bit if you wanted to accommodate not!native Americans

We call them "Englishmen". They are covered by that stuff already.

I think the British short series Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (on Netflix IIRC) does a decent job of working with these themes, and is also set close to OP's period, so it's worth a watch for some inspo if you've got time.

Not really, a low level wizard can sling spells faster than you can reload a musket and for about the same damage

They don't have to compete, there is so much more to magic than fireball. A mage can scry, transform into a bird, summon demons, curse his foes with madness or bless his friends with skin that turns asides blades or shot. If he wants you dead he can have his demons do the dirty work or shoot you with an enchanted bullet covered in enochian glyphs and propelled by alchemical powder.

Play to the strengths of the source material, and by moving away from fireball for direct damage it will hopefully more like a fantastic swashbuckling adventure and less that you've dressed a standard D&D wizard in a tricorne and frock-coat.

Sympathetic magic? The hierarchical sympathies of gold, the human heart, the sun so on and so forth? Occult properties in plants, animals and minerals? Alchemy, curses and divination? All the sort of magic that was actually practised in the 16th/17th century in Europe? The sort of magic the John Dee peddled in the Elizabethan Court? Or cunning men and cunning women performed in remote villages across the continent. Look up a book called Gordiano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition.

Can't go wrong with Voodoo if it's a Caribbean-esque setting.