TRPG Player ga Isekai de Saikyou Build wo Mezasu - Ch. 7 - Proposal

[imhungryn0w]

You need to provide more. That stuff was interesting to find out, but I have no context regarding any of it, not even where to find said context (aside from a blind google and looking at all results to see if they are related to the subject and that it's a summarization it rather than being something focused

There's a lot of resources you can work with but I heavily advise to not practice magic without knowing the medical implications. Some of it can cause severe mental damage not limited to split personality disorder, visual schizophrenia and even death. I'm not religious in the slightest so my take on this is historical and practical above all else.

That being said, the subject is a lot of fun and has great historic contributions. Here are some interesting sources. All of these you can find PDF's for online


The Psychonaut Field Manual is a practical guide to understanding and using magic from the occultic sense. It's easy to read and the author has cool illustrations to go with. READ THE WARNING ON THE FIRST PAGE

Hallucinogenic Plants: A Golden Guide. A lot of magic and occultism is based within the use of halucinogenic plants. This book provides scientific makeup of chemicals at play, water color paintings of plants with labels on all identifiable markers, historical cultural and religious uses of said plants and instructions on how to use them.

777 and Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley is a great reference for comparing magic systems of various cultures along with their gods and other tidbits.

For shits and giggles both King Solomon's Lesser Keys and The Dictionnaire infernal are great and are referenced countlessly both in western pop culture and anime/manga. For the same reason, smash out some Lovecraft. Gou Tanabe has done a great job bringing the brilliance of Lovecrafts cosmic horror to manga

Once you get through this, you'll have a good idea of where you want to go next and you'll find references fucking everywhere.

Hope this helps, good luck in your search and don't take it too seriously.

 

[feha]

There's a lot of resources you can work with but I heavily advise to not practice magic without knowing the medical implications. Some of it can cause severe mental damage not limited to split personality disorder, visual schizophrenia and even death. I'm not religious in the slightest so my take on this is historical and practical above all else.

Don't worry, I don't intend to do that, if only because I don't believe in magic. Feels like it can pretty much always be summed up as placebo, nocebo, biases, various other psychological things, or outright regular mundane physics.

No, I was only interested in the history you explained, as it is rarely you encounter occultism tied to actual people or less-than-mythical works of writing. And if those things weren't that, then it is another fun thing: super-niche mythological things to such an extent I haven't heard of them before.

In other words, whoever "agrippa" is, what school of daybreak is, hermatic order, and golden dawn. All keywords I don't recognise (well, might have heard "agrippa" before, but then only in other stories similarly stealing the name. And I imagine hermatic order is related to "hermetic arts" which pops up in manga at times) but sounds sufficiently chuuni to spark enough interest for shallow reading

777 and Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley is a great reference for comparing magic systems of various cultures along with their gods and other tidbits.

I have looked up aleister before. By which I mean I skimmed his wikipedia page

For shits and giggles both King Solomon's Lesser Keys and The Dictionnaire infernal are great and are referenced countlessly both in western pop culture and anime/manga. For the same reason, smash out some Lovecraft. Gou Tanabe has done a great job bringing the brilliance of Lovecrafts cosmic horror to manga

Solomon is similarly referenced enough that I got the faintest/foggiest idea of that char. As for lovecraft, he's sadly just a regular author (aka well-documented enough that there is no mystique) that had just a tad too strong xenophobic fear ("fear fear"?) in pretty much every sense of the word. He did spawn a nice subgenre of horror tho! Alongside some fascinating settings/lore that others expanded upon.

Once you get through this, you'll have a good idea of where you want to go next and you'll find references fucking everywhere.

Hope this helps, good luck in your search and don't take it too seriously.

Ah no, the issue was that I have no idea where I can find something summarized for shallow reading on the keywords you mentioned in the first comment. I usually find when I look for that kind of stuff that it's either way too shallow (or rather, vapid. Less substance than looking up a word in a dictionary, at least about anything interesting. I don't care where someone went to school or somesuch), way too niche inside the swamp/snow (focused), way too meta, or simply using names and terms as buzzwords as if it was written by the occultic equivalent of whoever writes job-postings for tech-related companies. Or outright about other ppl.

ie. agrippa's wiki just talks about a roman general. If I look deeper I manage to find the "occultic writer" you mostly refer to, but it only describes his biography and not how he ties to the idea of being a mage (beyond the fact he wrote "occultic books").
School of daybreak has 0 good results.
The order only mentions being a secret society of freemasons that had large influences on modern stuff. But otherwise is rather vapid and only seems to be about organisational stuff.

ps: as for reading the actual books you mentioned, myself... that is far from a shallow dive xP

 

[imhungryn0w]

Don't worry, I don't intend to do that, if only because I don't believe in magic. Feels like it can pretty much always be summed up as placebo, nocebo, biases, various other psychological things, or outright regular mundane physics.

No, I was only interested in the history you explained, as it is rarely you encounter occultism tied to actual people or less-than-mythical works of writing. And if those things weren't that, then it is another fun thing: super-niche mythological things to such an extent I haven't heard of them before.

In other words, whoever "agrippa" is, what school of daybreak is, hermatic order, and golden dawn. All keywords I don't recognise (well, might have heard "agrippa" before, but then only in other stories similarly stealing the name. And I imagine hermatic order is related to "hermetic arts" which pops up in manga at times) but sounds sufficiently chuuni to spark enough interest for shallow reading

I have looked up aleister before. By which I mean I skimmed his wikipedia page

Solomon is similarly referenced enough that I got the faintest/foggiest idea of that char. As for lovecraft, he's sadly just a regular author (aka well-documented enough that there is no mystique) that had just a tad too strong xenophobic fear ("fear fear"?) in pretty much every sense of the word. He did spawn a nice subgenre of horror tho! Alongside some fascinating settings/lore that others expanded upon.

Ah no, the issue was that I have no idea where I can find something summarized for shallow reading on the keywords you mentioned in the first comment. I usually find when I look for that kind of stuff that it's either way too shallow (or rather, vapid. Less substance than looking up a word in a dictionary, at least about anything interesting. I don't care where someone went to school or somesuch), way too niche inside the swamp/snow (focused), way too meta, or simply using names and terms as buzzwords as if it was written by the occultic equivalent of whoever writes job-postings for tech-related companies. Or outright about other ppl.

ie. agrippa's wiki just talks about a roman general. If I look deeper I manage to find the "occultic writer" you mostly refer to, but it only describes his biography and not how he ties to the idea of being a mage (beyond the fact he wrote "occultic books").
School of daybreak has 0 good results.
The order only mentions being a secret society of freemasons that had large influences on modern stuff. But otherwise is rather vapid and only seems to be about organisational stuff.

ps: as for reading the actual books you mentioned, myself... that is far from a shallow dive xP

My bad. I didn't quite get what you were referring to.

Hallucinogenic Plants is a good start then.

Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa has a section on history relating to himself and occultism in the intro. It's also got some letters between him and a Rabbi in relation to magick and persecution of the Jewish people in France and Germany. It's written in 1531 so a little insight to the time period. I'd put it out there that his philosophy is just stuff we can now explain through science but it was a foundation piece that the likes of Isaac Newton were inspired by.

School of Daybreak is a nod towards the Hermatic Order of the Golden Dawn. A quick skim of their entry on wikipedia will fill you in there. They're a school of magick that seemed to piss off anyone trying to learn through them. Crowley had his spat with them and they pissed off Robert Jorden so much that he based the White Tower and witches of his world on them. The Wheel of Time has a ton of occultism references due to his love of the subject.

There's a lot of real world occultic works such as the Kabbalah from Judaism, Keys of Enoch in Christianity and the Seven Seals of Islam among many. Dig through any religion and they'll have gotten hard into the drugs or mental corrosion enough to make a book on the practices.

Magic is a real thing btw, just has nothing to do with fireballs and levitation. It's the manipulation of ones mind and body to get certain outcomes. A lot of it has been normalized in the modern age so stuff like lucid dreaming, meditation and halucinogenic drugs.
I'd advise having a skim of the Psychonaut Field Manual and Hallucinogenic Plants to get realistic understanding of the subject.

For Crowley and Lovecraft, both of them are trash tier humans but their works are incredibly good in relation to understanding historical occultism and the development of modern occultism.

If you want to break your brain, go find the subreddits for occultism and tulpamancy. Shit gets weird when people believe in things.

ps. It's all light reading right? One Piece is light reading right? Nah, PFM and HPaGG are actual light reading. Can knock them both out on a lazy arvo.

 

[feha]

School of Daybreak is a nod towards the Hermatic Order of the Golden Dawn. A quick skim of their entry on wikipedia will fill you in there.

As I mentioned, it felt more like wikipedia was just a read about organizational shit. Little about their influence on things (the robert jordan thing was a surprise!) or how they tie to modern pop culture.

and they pissed off Robert Jorden so much that he based the White Tower and witches of his world on them. The Wheel of Time has a ton of occultism references due to his love of the subject.

This was something I had no idea about! :O Loved the books, but never realized it had occultism references at all (beyond the regular "fantasy world with semi-modern tropes goes brrr" stuff)

Magic is a real thing btw, just has nothing to do with fireballs and levitation. It's the manipulation of ones mind and body to get certain outcomes. A lot of it has been normalized in the modern age so stuff like lucid dreaming, meditation and halucinogenic drugs.
I'd advise having a skim of the Psychonaut Field Manual and Hallucinogenic Plants to get realistic understanding of the subject.

My point is that at that point it's not magic. It's provable science.
While I do like my hard systems for magic that you can operate science on, the thing that makes magic, well, magic, is that it supercedes natural laws to make the impossible possible. It's the fantastical made real. It's somewhat of a catch-22, as the moment you can explain magic well enough it becomes a natural law itself. This is why I don't consider magic to exist. It's why, as much as I hate the phrase, the whole "a magician never reveals their tricks" spiel actually makes a lot of sense in terms of making the performance magic (the only issue is that since we know that there is some trick, the magic is already ruined and merely turned into sleight-of-hand etc).
A certain author(?) put it the best: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Which on the flipside implies that the moment something is mundane enough, it ceases to be [magic].

Granted, I do give special permission for natural laws to be called magic when they are particles/media guided by someone's intent, able to produce various phenomena at demand, and said particles are called magicles, mana, magicules, qi, or whatever similar. Even if they are nanobots from a bygone civilization.

 

[imhungryn0w]

As I mentioned, it felt more like wikipedia was just a read about organizational shit. Little about their influence on things (the robert jordan thing was a surprise!) or how they tie to modern pop culture.

This was something I had no idea about! :O Loved the books, but never realized it had occultism references at all (beyond the regular "fantasy world with semi-modern tropes goes brrr" stuff)

My point is that at that point it's not magic. It's provable science.
While I do like my hard systems for magic that you can operate science on, the thing that makes magic, well, magic, is that it supercedes natural laws to make the impossible possible. It's the fantastical made real. It's somewhat of a catch-22, as the moment you can explain magic well enough it becomes a natural law itself. This is why I don't consider magic to exist. It's why, as much as I hate the phrase, the whole "a magician never reveals their tricks" spiel actually makes a lot of sense in terms of making the performance magic (the only issue is that since we know that there is some trick, the magic is already ruined and merely turned into sleight-of-hand etc).
A certain author(?) put it the best: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Which on the flipside implies that the moment something is mundane enough, it ceases to be [magic].

Granted, I do give special permission for natural laws to be called magic when they are particles/media guided by someone's intent, able to produce various phenomena at demand, and said particles are called magicles, mana, magicules, qi, or whatever similar. Even if they are nanobots from a bygone civilization.

Feels genuinely surreal to find a TWoT fan here. The void and the flame is 100% practical magic. It's used by everyone from snipers to surgeons. Hell, I use it every time I get a full body check at the doctors because it brings my hear rate down considerably. You'll find it in Psychonauts Field Manual under "Attaining Gnosis". Otherwise nearly all magic in TWoT has occultic roots whether delusional insanity insisted upon by the mentally vacant like how weaving spells is a parallel to Enochian ceremonial magic or actual practical stuff as mentioned above.

Ah, I see what you're getting at. I try to draw a hard line between fantasy magic and real world magic as all real world magic can be explained through neuro-science, biology and chemistry. Fantasy magic is a whole nother beast with limitless use and baseless rules. Conflating the two is how you get the in depth magic systems like in The Name of the Wind or Witch Hat Atelier. Honestly though, I prefer pure magic systems like in Irish mythos. Like there's a story of a man who had 40 something wives among as many villages, all his wives confronted him in front of a raging river so he turned into a fish and swam away. I like the pure, "I believed I could do it so I did it" magic.

I mean even within the idea that any magic explained ceases to be magic forces the "semi-modern tropes go brrrr" upon actual history and removes the importance of what was happening from our understanding. Sure, we now know flying reindeer and red hated gnomes are due to chemicals in Fly Amanita but they didn't. Same with so called witches (usually just herbalist doctors of their time) dumping hallucinogenic plants into wells for being run out of town and the common folk thinking they've been cursed.


That being said, the religious don't like the connections between magic, hallucinogens and themselves so whenever they move into an area they stomp it out. Can't have people figuring it out it's all bullshit so they kill, burn literature and otherwise do their absolute best to remove any traces of it from history. Look at how they dealt with South Americans who used Peyote/Ayahuasca, Australians who used DMT or various Eastern Asian countries who used Holotropic breathing practices. Fuck, just skim through the "Old World" section in HPaGG and you'll see many plants that are taught to be either mythical or outright poison. Before Arabic religious expansion into Europe the indigenous people practiced many forms of magic for many different reasons. I mean the act of starting a fire used to be considered a form of magic and those who could do it were held in high regard. The Greeks even put it in their mythos.

Sorry for the essay and hope you're having a good one.

 

[theShear]

Huh, I'm somewhat confused on the status of Status. of this. The official Raw has only two Chapters, on Raw Sites I can find up to 7 and I haven't found anything about the current chapter amount. Anybody knows more?

 

[BlazingMagpie]

When I heard his sister was a changeling, I assumed worse.

 

[GadgetSteelmare]

Hopefully this gets picked back up soon. I just found it today and I really like it. I'm hoping he still does end up with his arachne waifu in the end. She's super cute and they totally deserve to be together.

 

[lathfi121]

I still don't understand the whole thing with the Henderson scale, like i know that it's supposed to be a measure on how skewed the actual story is from the intended one, but i just don't understand the implications of it here in this story

Like is the flash forward from the first chapter is one of the intended future that's now unachievable or what

 

[Izaya_Onisai]

One sentence missing (deleted), without being translated in page 8:
Also this sentence "-and with their charming blonde hair and blue eyes..." was actually supposed to be "They also love blonde hair and blue eyes."

Another sentence was deletd without being translated in page 14:

@slazer88

 

[asfhoiasfjoiasfjpi]

so this is officially dead right?

 

[lolipedofin]

You most definitely can.

If her offer is that he will starve to death in a week, then he kind of has to counter-offer, and can elevate the fact that her idea is not at all sustainable to get further concessions.

And even if the offer was sustainable, you can always appeal to peoples innate desire to compromise when reasonable, or if not that, their ability to see improved long-term gains. So allowing him to sit in on lessons is hardly far-fetched. Same for a minor amount of pocket money to save (if the job doesn't build for the future, it is only a slow road into death and despair - the employer will find that their employees are far from motivated when they can't see any future. And any minorly intelligent person will easily acquiesce to raising their cost by a couple percent to up production by far).

No he can't. Agrippina needs a unique apprentice for her purpose and that's where Elisa comes in, and she sees a smidge of amusement to be gained from Erich in the future so she wants him as her servant and also to smooth over her process of obtaining Elisa. She wants the both of them, and she'll get it one way or the other. What Agrippina offered here is basically 2 things, Either Elisa enrolled as her apprentice and she teach her to control her magic enough for the empire to deem Elisa as safe, or she reports her existence to the empire and the college leading to them taking custody of Elisa with or without the family's consent, where Elisa will be studied thoroughly and may even be dissected.

Agrippina could have been just bluffing, but either way, no matter which way Erich tries to refuse, she will force her way and cage the both of them anyway, considering she is a rich noble and one of the strongest entity in the world. Erich knows this, and decided to take the path of least resistance.

The thing is, whether Elisa will self-destruct or not is not even written in stone. In chapter 1 of the manga, that's the 1.0 Henderson scale what if scenario. In that scenario the major change is Erich and Elisa never met Agrippina, presumably Elisa never ran out and thus never kidnapped, but also just before they set out on their adventure, Erich accidentally knocked up Margit and sired Iseult, derailing his plan for grand adventure (Adventure has always been Erich's desire and Margit wanted to follow him because she loves him more than anything, but Margit's main desire is simply Erich, to ensnare Erich to her side due to her arachnid tendency and she is fine with whatever future as long as she got Erich). Anyway while not mentioned in the manga, but in the novel it is explicitly stated that Elisa is still in the canton and nothing of particular happened to her sans her extreme displeasure with Erich's marriage to Margit.

Anyway, the main point is Erich's limited option is only partially to do with the fact Elisa is a changeling, the main problem is that Agrippina sets her eyes on both of them and wanted them one way or the other.

 

[feha]

No he can't. Agrippina needs a unique apprentice for her purpose and that's where Elisa comes in, and she sees a smidge of amusement to be gained from Erich in the future so she wants him as her servant and also to smooth over her process of obtaining Elisa. She wants the both of them, and she'll get it one way or the other. What Agrippina offered here is basically 2 things, Either Elisa enrolled as her apprentice and she teach her to control her magic enough for the empire to deem Elisa as safe, or she reports her existence to the empire and the college leading to them taking custody of Elisa with or without the family's consent, where Elisa will be studied thoroughly and may even be dissected.

Agrippina could have been just bluffing, but either way, no matter which way Erich tries to refuse, she will force her way and cage the both of them anyway, considering she is a rich noble and one of the strongest entity in the world. Erich knows this, and decided to take the path of least resistance.

The thing is, whether Elisa will self-destruct or not is not even written in stone. In chapter 1 of the manga, that's the 1.0 Henderson scale what if scenario. In that scenario the major change is Erich and Elisa never met Agrippina, presumably Elisa never ran out and thus never kidnapped, but also just before they set out on their adventure, Erich accidentally knocked up Margit and sired Iseult, derailing his plan for grand adventure (Adventure has always been Erich's desire and Margit wanted to follow him because she loves him more than anything, but Margit's main desire is simply Erich, to ensnare Erich to her side due to her arachnid tendency and she is fine with whatever future as long as she got Erich). Anyway while not mentioned in the manga, but in the novel it is explicitly stated that Elisa is still in the canton and nothing of particular happened to her sans her extreme displeasure with Erich's marriage to Margit.

Anyway, the main point is Erich's limited option is only partially to do with the fact Elisa is a changeling, the main problem is that Agrippina sets her eyes on both of them and wanted them one way or the other.

So you are saying that he should accept starving to death in however long it takes him to starve to death when forced to work without pay, food, or even water.

 

[lolipedofin]

So you are saying that he should accept starving to death in however long it takes him to starve to death when forced to work without pay, food, or even water.

Yes, either that or his little sister taken away from him and god knows what happen to her. Also, uhhh... there's nothing about being starved. Indentured servitude comes with board and meals. The contract is basically Agrippina will take front the cost of tuition and all basic necessities, while Erich will be paid accordingly to his station and responsibility as an indentured servant to slowly cover those costs.

Not that he takes it lying down, he knows he is signing up a contract with the devil, but he is also confident to eventually earn enough himself to get out of the bondage... if the dice rolls right.

 

[feha]

Yes, either that or his little sister taken away from him and god knows what happen to her. Also, uhhh... there's nothing about being starved. Indentured servitude comes with board and meals. The contract is basically Agrippina will take front the cost of tuition and all basic necessities, while Erich will be paid accordingly to his station and responsibility as an indentured servant to slowly cover those costs.

Not that he takes it lying down, he knows he is signing up a contract with the devil, but he is also confident to eventually earn enough himself to get out of the bondage... if the dice rolls right.

No, the contract she presented had absolutely nothing about his shelter nor sustenance (in fact, it explicitly stated "put to work without pay" and that the only reward his work receives is "pay for your sisters tuition"; and clearly won't give him the freedom/time to work and buy his own food and shelter), so if he accepts it, he will starve. That is exactly why I am saying he has to give a counter-offer, that is at the very least "her offer + food and shelter".

I don't think accepting this deal is a good idea, exactly because it is not sustainable for more than a couple days, or weeks at most (because he should have starved to death by then).

 

[lolipedofin]

No, the contract she presented had absolutely nothing about his shelter nor sustenance (in fact, it explicitly stated "put to work without pay" and that the only reward his work receives is "pay for your sisters tuition"; and clearly won't give him the freedom/time to work and buy his own food and shelter), so if he accepts it, he will starve. That is exactly why I am saying he has to give a counter-offer, that is at the very least "her offer + food and shelter".

I don't think accepting this deal is a good idea, exactly because it is not sustainable for more than a couple days, or weeks at most (because he should have starved to death by then).

It's either omitted detail from LN or a mistranslation, all that I said above is based on the novel.

Although even without that detail, where in the world would you find an employer voluntarily starve and kill their employee?? If it's a form of punishment, sure there may be cases like that, but to do so from the get go?? Why recruit in the first place then? And how will MC pay for their sister's tuition if he is dead?

In any case, even if the situation is as bad as you said, his choice is either to take it or left his sister for dead. He won't do the latter, he loves his sister too much for that, he is even willing to trade his life for his sister, so he has no other choice but to willingly let himself be entrapped. In any case, he only said he agree to go with her, the servitude contract will obviously be fleshed out later, one that'll involve his parents as he is still a minor.

 

[feha]

It's either omitted detail from LN or a mistranslation, all that I said above is based on the novel.

I only read the manga chapters

Although even without that detail, where in the world would you find an employer voluntarily starve and kill their employee?? If it's a form of punishment, sure there may be cases like that, but to do so from the get go?? Why recruit in the first place then? And how will MC pay for their sister's tuition if he is dead?

Here in that world. And the idea the girl made was that the employer pays for the sisters tuition if he accepts.

In any case, even if the situation is as bad as you said, his choice is either to take it or left his sister for dead. He won't do the latter, he loves his sister too much for that, he is even willing to trade his life for his sister, so he has no other choice but to willingly let himself be entrapped. In any case, he only said he agree to go with her, the servitude contract will obviously be fleshed out later, one that'll involve his parents as he is still a minor.

No. He has another choice: give a counter-offer with sensible reasoning.
"uuh, how about what you said + I also get food and shelter? And maybe even a wage? Because with your current offer I will starve to death before you have even had time to put me to work."

 

[lolipedofin]

1. Jesus, just how much do you love arguing moot point???? Fine, You only read the fan translated manga chapter, I'm here to tell you the point of view of the main source material from the officially translated LN and why it made sense???

2. No this world is not that. This world is very much reasonable. It's a mish mash of feudalism, Medieval Switzerland, semi modern through magic, etc, but it ran on logic. Indentured servitude here do come with some restriction to the employer and protection to the employee. Even in US, as lax and as horrific slavery were, there are still technically some law in the book that protect the enslaved, because logic. Same with this world, it does have its logic. Of course there are some protection to the one in servitude, and what employer, unless demented, would willingly kill their servant when it serves them no purpose and has no benefit???

3. To negotiate you need leverage. And they will negotiate, there will be some details being fleshed out between Agrippina and the parents before they sign the employment contract. What you are asking is a given in this kind of employment. By no pay, it meant here that there will be no take home pay, as all his pay will go directly to his sister's tuition. But again... for the kind of high handed negotiation you are imagining, you need leverage. MC has none. Agrippina can just say, "No, I will not negotiate. Oh, so you won't come with me? Fine then, I'll just take your sister in to the capital for the college to take care her disposal. Oh, you are not gonna relent and will fight... with that sword? Fine, here I'll wipe you from existence, and for good measure your parents, your brothers and all your next of kind to 3rd degree for insolence against Nobility."