Character Conception :: Not A GOD

I'm drawing a blank on where the reference to the "divine is natural" is in game. In War Witch's commentary in the Origin of Power arc, she specifically states that Tielekku is the source of all magic in the world, saying that it's separate from the divine, but as far as I can recall that's the only mention of it. I had assumed that meant there was "god magic" (divine) and "human magic" (magic). The whole Circle of Thorns background involves their god warring against other gods, so the CoT aligned with demons, which introduced "demon magic." As far as I can recall (and at this point I just blow past the text so maybe I've forgotten it) there is no mention of the divine in those CoT arcs -- it's all about dark magic.

Hero-1 became an Incarnate after the Lady of the Lake gave him Excalibur, and he was chosen to lead the all-magic Omega team because he was the most powerful magic user. To me, that pretty much says that Excalibur is magic, so by extension the Girdle of Hera would be, too, since they come from the same group of gods.

Since everything else the gods give to humans is magic, then inferring that Excalibur, etc., are magic seems relatively straightforward.

See, it's this part that smells of retcon to me, and I don't buy it. Every other time the Well of Furies has been mentioned, it's in relation to bestowing magical properties upon people or items. It's only recently the Well has transformed from a literal water well to a metaphorical source of power. But even then its effects are described as magical. I believe in the Cannon Fodder thread it was stated that the Greek gods still exist, they just choose not to manifest directly, instead imparting their powers upon Incarnates. I haven't seen any mention that is being changed now.

Again, this is a departure from established lore, because it is explicitly stated that the Well is a repository for power, altering those who drink from it into Incarnates. Hero-1 is the sole exception to this in official cannon, getting his abilities from Excalibur and the Lady of the Lake, who has some connection to the Well. I don't think they clarified whether she's a conduit or a god herself. If they're using Hero-1's backstory to say that the Well is but one of many conduits of magic, that's fine, but it doesn't change my basic stance that Incarnate stuff is magic.

Yeah, that bugs me, too. I think what happened was that Hero-1 was retconned into being an Incarnate when originally he was nothing of the sort. His original backstory says that he is the latest in a long line of humans who are the wielders of Excalibur, which is protected by the fae. The denizens of Croatoa seem to likewise be fae.

I think the original intent of the lore was that there were different groups of magic users -- notably Greek gods, African gods, demons and fae -- who were all basically variations on the Magic theme. Once everything started to get related to Statesman's origin, then every ultra-powerful NPC was shoehorned into the "Incarnate" role.

Maybe Hero-1 is the Incarnate of a Celtic god. That would work, I think.

That, at least, was only statements made by NPCs. They could be wrong, and very likely are seeing as how one is a crackpot scientist and the other's qualifications can only be measured in cup size.

As for the Well: it's magic. Looks like a duck, etc. It's just horrible. It's another intrusion by the Statesman/Recluse mythos, which I think the vast majority of players despise, and it's more of the (for want of a better term) sadistic GMing that's cropped up here and there since the start (e.g. Mission Architect's backstory). It basically casts our characters as Bender: "Well, if sticking my head in a sentient energy field with known malevolent tendencies will make some guy who says he's from the future think I'm cool...I'LL DO IT!" *splorch* Aside from being a clear violation of Rule 22:

...it casts the character as being willing to do anything to get more power. The negative implications and resultant conceptual problems are left as an exercise for the reader.

But in the lore, the source of all creativity and the cause for the resurgence of superpowers is Pandora's Box, not the Well of Furies. Cole and Richter drank from the Well and became Incarnates, then they opened Pandora's Box which stored mankind's collective creativity. It basically jump-started everything else causing leaps forward in science and technology and innate human ability. So they became Ubermensch and Anti-Ubermensch, while everyone else became street fighter or combat armor wearer or whatever.

This I don't buy. The Well is magic. So if it influences you and permanently alters your abilities then you become magic, as well. Look at it another way: if you're an all-Natural hero, like The Punisher and suddenly you get bitten by a radioactive spider which gives you superpowers on top of your existing abilities, you change from being Natural to Science. Or, if you're an excellent soldier with mad skills -- like James Rhodes, for instance -- you're a Natural hero. But once you put on the War Machine combat armor, you become a Tech hero. Same thing with the Well. Once it influences you, you become Magic, regardless of what you were before that moment. Just like the moment Rhodey dons the armor his origin transforms from Natural to Tech, you go from X to Magic.

And that's the part I reject for some of my characters. For some, it's fine, but others? No way.

::: annoyed-by-lore-retcon high five :::

Try as I might, I can't recall a single mention of Lord Recluse before City of Villains was released. It's like one of those bad soap operas where they show the origin story and then decide to complicate it by adding another character. So they show the origin story again in flashback, only this time instead of just showing our protagonist drinking from the Well, they show him drinking then pan over to show a guy they've never mentioned before.

"Oh yeah, my very best friend from forever was there, too."
"Wait, why didn't you mention him before?"
"Didn't I? Well, I'm mentioning him now."

All of the other stuff in the game seems to come back to Statesman's origin. Recluse suddenly appears, Hero-1 can't just be the next King Arthur, he has to be an Incarnate as well, all the evil doppelgangers from the various versions of Praetoria are Statesman, etc. I wonder who decided that?

Absolutely.

Simplest explanation?


The well and pandora's box are connected, the box is a dam/block/drain on the well. So when the box is closed the wells effects aren't felt so much throughout the world.

Open the box, you unleash the full effects of the well on the world. People get super powers, people become Batman or the Punisher, magic returns in a big way, babies are born with the ability to fly, people make awesome drugs and amazing machines.

The box is closed and everything becomes normal again, hence why Paragon Earth is so close to our own, despite in Greek times having real gods, minotaurs and so on.

The well isn't magical, its beyond that, it is human potential.

Some people tap that potential through magic, others through dedication, others through scientific exploration or engineering, others are simply born tapping into it.

It is not by itself a magical thing, no more than the sun is.

While we know that different types of magic do exist, "magic" as an all-inclusive field is still separate from divine power, at least as I've seen it described. While it's still possible that some of the gods did indeed have magical powers anyway, we know that at least Merulia - a literal god - was in fact alien in origin. The gods' powers are generally undefined, probably for the sake of avoiding needless details, but I actually suspect that they were somehow blessed with amazing powers by right of birth. If we knew their origins, we might be able to infer more.

The Circle of Thorns' society is based around magic, that much is true, but that's because they have no power other than that, and because they were given magic by Ermeeth, who learned it from Tielekku. They had no access to divine power to the best of my knowledge. The demons they summon are indeed magic, but that tells us nothing more than that the Demon Prince uses magic. It's quite possible that demons themselves aren't natural constructs, and are instead given form and function by magic. This does not exclude the possibility that the Demon Prince has other powers, such as immortality, the ability to access and survive on another plane of existence and so forth, all of which may not be necessarily magical.

From what I understand, magic started as a skill, rather than an ability, and was later transformed into an ability by imbuing people and objects with magic before they are even created.

To bring up a Dragonball Z example, of all things, this is the difference between someone who simply has a very high power level, and someone who has a high power level but is able to use techniques and skills to manipulate that power and condense it into blasts, shields and other manipulations of disproportionately high yield. That is, in fact, how a much weaker Piccolo defeats a much stronger Doctor Gero android.

You're inferring cause by observing effect here. Yes, Hero One developed magical powers after obtaining Excalibur, but there's nothing to say he didn't have magic powers beforehand. In a world where half the population are descendants of the Mu, your chances of catching someone with magic blood are fairly good even if you took a completely random person off the street.

The question here is if Excalibur, and the "Well" in general, GRANT powers, or otherwise ENHANCE powers. We're not far enough along the Incarnate storyline to tell, but it seems more likely that it doesn't give power, because it has no power of its own. The well, in essence, is not a power, but an enhancement. It takes who you are and makes you better at what you do, without necessarily defining what it is that you do.

So why did Statesman, Recluse, Reichsman and Imperious all get Zeus lighting? Again, Vincent Ross provides the answer: The Well recycles power. When one powerful entity has run its course and outlived its usefulness, it is reclaimed and recycled into something else. Merulia was recycled into the Leviathan, and it's possible that Zeus was crafted into a well when he ran his course. We don't know enough. Why get his powers? I honestly don't know, but I suspect it has something to do with overdosing on the well as Statesman and Recluse did - by taking on too much power, they took on Zeus, himself, something we as player characters try to avoid.

Coincidence should not imply causality. That's not to say this isn't a retcon, but more to say that just because we've only ever heard about the Well's magical influence, that it doesn't have non-magical influence, as well. After all, both Statesman and Recluse are defined as Incarnate, not Magic, and they have been defined as such since very much the beginning of City of Heroes. That's not to say they AREN'T magic, but more to say that we shouldn't discount that possibility. Again, "magic" is not just "anything which isn't science, technology, natural or mutation." Magic has a fairly strict definition.

Furthermore, a lot of the divine and supernatural gets lumped in with the magical, when that isn't always the case. Kheldians, for example, are essentially godlike aliens with godlike powers who, were we not given a concrete definition, people would describe as magical. But they're not. All we have to work with in terms of canon comes from historical tales, and people of the pre-20th century tended to describe anything they didn't understand as magic, including technological alien visitors, as Merulia stands to example. Finally, according to Ramiel, there are many other Incarnates and the Well has manifested many other times throughout time, space and dimensions. Just because the three or four we know of appear to be magical does not mean they all are.

If you must, consider this in the same vein as the War Wolves. They were magic at one point, then became Science with I3 and the Council takeover. Yes, it's a ret-con, but I'm more concerned whether it makes sense and whether it makes a good story. And I think it does.

"The Well" is not a well. That's at the core of Ramiel's arc. It's not any one thing, and to the best of my knowledge may not even have a specific physical form. It manifests as different things to different people at different times. To Hero One, it manifested as Excalibur. To Statesman and Recluse, it manifested as a well. Were the game not afraid of Christian theology, one could argue that to Charlemagne, it manifested as the Spear of Destiny. The well presents itself as many things that people can take from or carry with them, each representing a conduit.

---

Again, I'm not saying that the well necessarily ISN'T magical, but merely that there are arguments to the contrary that one could use for character creation if one were so inclined. Most of them are even based on actual canon.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Well, I think you took that a different route than I meant it. I'm on the side of this that doesn't buy into the notion that anything Incarnate is tied to godhood or deification, and I'm using Hero-1 as a possible example of that. Now, that said, I completely agree his being an Incarnate (now) feels like a retcon, but the way he was fit into the new(?) lore doesn't particularly fit with the idea that everyone who "drinks" from the well is on the path to godhood.

False. Statesman was originally described in Natural terms, having "unlocked the hidden potential of the human will" or such. The Well of the Furies was a retcon. When people balked at the sudden change, the party line was that Statesman had lied about his origins, to which many of use just said "what?".

Statesman has been cited as being an Incarnate since I started playing somewhere in May of 2004. If that changed happened before then, then I missed it, but I've been listening about Incarnates since I've been with the game. Once upon a time, it was the excuse for why he's so much more powerful than us. There's been talk about an Incarnate AT as far back as 2005, as well.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

That is how you manifest the power. As you can see, it depends on your origin. The well itself is simply a source of power for people it allows acces. How they manifest the power is dependant on them.


Power doesn't have origin. Power is power. Where does the game lore say that there are 5 different sources of power, one for each origin? In fact, the Vincent Ross arc makes it seem like it is far more likely that there is just one type of power that is accessed by the 5 origins in different ways. The Well is most likely a new type of power for people to access. Again in a way that they are capable of. My Martial artist doesn't know magic, so he won't be flinging spells just because he's using the well's power. A power armor user isn't going to become some Magical beast.

They just have more power than they did before, and it isn't magical unless that's how they choose to manifest the power.

And being an incarnate Doesn't mean you're automatically the manifestation of a god.

Magic, in this game, was created by man. Power existed before it, and it is not the catch all people are making it. Just because you can't place something, or something is "supernatural", and god knows what that has to do with anything in a comic book mmo, doesn't make it natural.

Is a demon magic or natural? A demon might use magic, but if the demon uses power in no way other than what is natural for that specific type of demon then it is natural.

In reference to those who are the manifestations of Gods in current lore, they don't really have that much free will due to "fast path" issues. It would be a fair argument that the well can choose how their powers manifest.


And about the origin of power arcs, "Mutants as we know them". The lore specifically mentions at least two mutants who existed before 1938. Giovanna Scaldi and Brother Abelard Vernoux. Both mutants prior to 1938. The NPCs wouldn't know this, they shouldn't know this, but piecing together the whole story is preferable to freaking out on one part and saying it's better to ignore the whole bit.

P.S Wise Sam is wise

Recluse's initial view of the powers he gained from the Well were not that they were magical. More so, he perceived them more akin to the Science origin.

Now, if you excuse me, I have to try to forget that I read that book.

Actually, if you go by the novels, he's magic as he used an amulet of health to survive Mustard Gas in WWI, even if it still was killing him.

I believe jack stated his power as 'human will' not because of his super-powers but because of the way he led people as a 'statesman'.

Anyone can have super-powers. But it does not make you a super-hero.

Although the last few years have seen some great new story arcs, it's also seen some horrible retconning and GM abuse of the highest order. Don't even get me started on the backstory for Powerset Proliferation *shudder*.

Absolutely agreed. If the next ten levels of Incarnatdom is nothing more than the quest for MOAR POWER then I'm going to be slightly peeved.

I still don't regard the Well as magic but it's a common human reaction to point at something we don't understand an call it 'magic'. It's just something that is, a power source that pushes humankind to the next level of evolution. Hell, I reckon it's just a pretty one of these:

They can write whatever they like; that doesn't make it so. The Well behaves like magic.

Nope. The "incarnate" stuff didn't come along until they started ramping up for CoV and The Web of Arachnos.

The well could behave like a polka dancing chicken. It doesn't mean a thing. It transfers power to those that unlock access. This doesn't make the person magic, if it is in fact using a magical method of transfering power (which it's never stated or even hinted at), and it doesn't make them the representative of a god.

And really how is it behaving, if it isn't behaving how it's written?

As to the story, motive isn't written. You could be trying to get the power for whatever reason you want. The story is simply that you have in the future gained the power, and are begining the journey to reaching that future. That your character may have chosen the fast path, or decided to remain on the slow path is completely up the the player, and why you want the power is up to you to define.

Yeah, the problem there is the word "origin." In CoH we don't use it the same way we say something like "I was born in Iowa." You're always born in Iowa. Origin is a mutable thing. It's more akin to something like being blonde as a child and your hair turning darker as an adult. Your "origin" was blonde, but now your origin is brunette. Or you were 3 feet tall as a child but now are 6 feet tall. Your "origin" was "short" but is now "tall." These are permanent changes. You can't go back from them. Same thing when Daredevil or Flash get those chemicals spilled on them. They become Science and there's no going back.

This is what happens when the Well infuses you with Magic powers. Whatever you were before is irrelevant now, because you're powered by Magic.

The word magic is thrown around a lot in the lore, and every time it's defined it comes out exactly the same as how we define magic colloquially.

I checked ParagonWiki and found no evidence of this. Perhaps I missed it, but it's pretty clear magic is something given to humans by gods and is imbued in objects either by gods or through their agents.

This is incorrect. Hero One and Hero-1 are the penultimate and ultimate scions of a bloodline entrusted with stewardship of Excalibur. This is exactly analogous to various hierarchical monarchies in the real world and even to organizations such as the Swiss Guards. You have to belong to the group in order to be selected for elite status, whether that's as Emperor of Japan or one of the Pope's bodyguards. The backstory of Hero-1 clearly states that his abilities are magical and were given to him when the Lady of the Lake handed over Excalibur. Regular guy before the sword, super-duper magic user after.

No, it's pretty clear that the Well grants powers. Regardless of what the writers ultimately decide how it operates, either as the wellspring or as a conduit of power, it's still accomplishing its task magically. Every other thing about the Well says "magic," so it's safe to assume this aspect is magical as well.

You're right that magic does have a strict definition, but everything in CoH follows that description and everything about the Well does, too. See below.

It would be highly coincidental that everyone who has encountered the Well or a product of the Well just happens to be granted abilities through magic. I don't buy into that.

Clarke's Third Law is fine for handwaving such things. In Marvel's universe, Galactus routinely imparts "the power cosmic" on his heralds. Although it works like Magic, it's clearly a form of Science in that universe. HOWEVER -- and this is what I keep coming back to -- the Well of Furies in CoH is specifically called magical and the power of gods manifesting in humans and objects is labeled "magic" again and again, and it works the exact way that magic works in every instance we've ever seen in comics, movies and literature.

There's simply no other way to spin that except as Magic. Now, the Devs can go ahead and retcon all of it away and that's their prerogative, but right now it's all magic all the time.

That would be fine. It's still magic, though.

This is where we disagree. There's simply an overwhelming amount of lore stating that the Well is magical and Ramiel's arc only vaguely -- and annoyingly -- hints that maybe it is and maybe it isn't. So I'm going with the preponderance of evidence. Ramiel is one guy, a shifty, untrustworthy one at that, so he may be wrong or lying.

I think you're misremembering, because Venture has it right: Statesman's powers were originally attributed to his studies in the Orient, unlocking the power of his will. I don't recall exactly when it changed, but I suspect it was when City of Villains was in the pipeline and Lord Recluse was suddenly invented. Maybe someone who is handy with the internet archive sites can find the original description of Statesman's abilities.

Oh?

So basically most of the anti-concept (and terrible) lore ideas came up at the same time? The incarnates, arachnos lackeyism, heavy magic content, patrons.

I wonder who is to blame then, and have wondered if it might be that guy who took the name of Lord Recluse. He supposedly worked for D&D. Maybe he imported a philosophy that lots of mysticism and loyalty to deities were RPG basics?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm ignoring it because it's irrelevant. Just because a magical doodad shapeshifts into a form you're familiar with doesn't change the fact that it's a magical doodad. Which is exactly what you're describing. In Ghostbusters Ray accidentally thinks of the Stay Puft marshmallow man when Gozer tells them to choose the form of their destroyer, but the fact it was a cartoon character didn't alter the fact he materialized due to magic. Same thing here.

I just read the Ross arc on the wiki and I have no idea where you're getting this notion. It's pretty clear from the context that the Leviathan and the Blood Coral are magical in nature. Invoking the demonic magic and the Midnighters underscores this. Ross is a magic user himself. They seem to harken back to the original intent of magic in CoH, where there are many different gods and therefore many different sources of magic, but in the end it's still just magic.

Now, of course, the Devs seem to be trying to link everything to the Statesman/Lord Recluse version of Incarnates and that has muddied the waters but at this time most of the lore has "Made By Magic" stamped all over it.

That remains to be seen. So far the only extant Incarnates are avatars of a god, so until they retcon that away then that's how it plays out.

This is just wrong, sorry. Magic was created by Tielekku and given to man and some other gods.


Demons in CoH are stated to be magic by the lore.