The 2015 FORBIDDEN Magic Discussion!

[freespace2dotcom]

..Because there's nothing better for me to do right now, and maybe this will foster some intellectual discussion.

 

A lot of time has passed since we did this, and I thought it might be worthwhile to see if anybody has had any epiphanies regarding the unfortunate less than legal magics of Gates and Mastery.

 

 

Legate, Just based on how much of time sinks they are I think it's a given that Gates and Mastery both are harder to learn that any of the legal pillars, but could you give a confirmation as to which of the two is harder to learn if you were just comparing them against each other?

 

 

Gates is Dangerous. We know this already. DLC 16 introduced a new emotion representing Gates sickness, which possibly is a look into how a Gates user sees the world. "It's Dangerous to even know these things exist." I am wondering now if the Team are fans of Star Control 2. Maybe the bans were put in place to keep people safe from the setting's version of ORZ. and their *happy camping* If this is so, then the greatest defense against that sort of thing is ignorance. Otherwise you will inevitably come accross it/them. This might be why even the theory of Gates is ostensibly forbidden despite the impossibility of having the standard accidents if you were only studying the theory of Gates. This also would lend credence to my old Puppet Strings theory, which I still hold on to parts of.

 

Mastery is a whole 'nother ballgame, but I still think that there's more to the ban on it then simple fear of being controlled. After all, Negation is the best magic to defend against such things. I strongly feel that the real reason that the magic was banned was because Mastery affects the user as well as the target.You only need to look at the description for some of the spells in Mastery to see that the powerful ones can actually damage you, amd I think that if that's done enough it could possibly twist you into something...else...And there is a case in lore of a person's mastery of Mastery being tweaked by..Mastery...Perhaps this makes one more susceptible to manipulation via Mastery if you are careless. We of course cannot know at this time, but that seems to be a far greater threat

 

If learning both types of magic can leave you vulnerable to *other* forces, and they were both banned at the same time, I would guess it's for the same reasons. It just isn't obvious without nitpicking into the details at an unhealthy level. If I am right, there will be no way for the bans to be lifted without dealing with this issue first somehow, regardless of if it is indeed Puppet Strings or not

 

Does anybody else have thoughts on this?

 

Edit: Anyone who would have contact with Gates or Mastery could potentially be enemies of the state. Unknowingly, even! They might be potentially manipulated by *other* forces, which is potentially why the ones in power elect to execute.....

[Albert]

I think the Ban om Mastery has something to do with the prophesy of the Dragons return. A student of mastery will aid the watcher in facilitating their return....

 

Enter the watcher Adventure.

 

Kind of how the king in sleeping Beauty tried to ban and destroy all spinning Wheels to stop a a prophesy/curse from happening. And it's just as pointless an attempt to fight Destiny. They would do far better by preparing for the return instead.

Banning Mastery is wrong since it's a controlled magic form, it does more or less what it's supposed to unless you mess up due to beign inexperienced like the ones in Ahrimans wand adventure. They were mere dabblers in the art of Mastery and likely had more knowledge of other magic like Negation.

They weere there to study in secrecy and to obtain new Tools and toys.

It would be far more fittign to punish the criminal acts instead. Don't punish people because they know how to hurt people with their fists, punish them for beating up innocent bystanders and people in the streets.

 

As for Gates, yes, there is the whole, chaosfactor and summoning of dragons and other accidetns that can happen. So it makes more sense to fear it.

It seems likely that the chaos factor happend due to soem attempt to try and stop an otherworldly invasion or due to one such invasion...

The resulting chaos factor might have been a reason for the ban, the Death of mages studying it, another. The Death of people trying to Clean up after the accidents a third..... The possibility of gates spells weakening a seal against an invasion from a hostile for, could also be a possibility...

 

It's also possible that Gates magic was tied to the force holding the islands afloat, and as they weaken over time closing in on the unavoidable apocalyps, Gates magic gets more and more erratic, and eventually it risks disrupting the islands floatign magic and cause another Monteon catastrophy....

 

Something like that...

 

Hard to say at this Point, it's in the heads of the writers atm, I'm sure it will be interesting. Clearly the mages of old wern't considered crazy or insane and they were able to use the Gates magic just fine. So something happend or is happening, something that might need to get resolved. Whatever the cause or case with Gates, it will need a resolution cause it's clearly not going in the right direction if it's only getting worse and Gates are getting new phemes and functionality... Eventualy something bad will happen unless they figure it out or face the problem. There is already a new pheme it seems like that facilitates timetravel...

[freespace2dotcom]

Well, yes, but then where do you draw the line with what is a criminal act with Mastery? You could Master someone to give you some magic markers or something and you could get into a lot of trouble for that, but what if you needed those markers to save a life or something? it gets.. complicated, and eventually you will see people using (or even just blaming) Mastery for petty petty things, like the lose focus spell. That alone required rather strict measures, and the current ban merely brings things to it's final conclusion.

 

Maybe I just like my theories as they revolve around a definate "BAD" thing that everyone can agree to get around and say we need to do something about that, and if said bad thing was removed, then regardless of whether or not Mastery or Gates are perfect after the removal of the bad thing, at least we can agree that it is no longer as bad and this means that we can unban them for now, at least for the PC's lifetime. Tis my logic, which perhaps is flawed but at least I have fun daydreaming every day that Y2 doesn't come out, lol.

[Albert]

Without the Chaosfactor and possibly sickness there is absolutely nothing bad about what Gates can do, it's just about how you use it.

Incantation would be bad if you used it to put people on fire and kill them very painfully with lots of agony....

 

Negation could be used to create a vacumbubble and suffocate people....

 

Any magic can be used in a bad way, or in a possitive helping way.

Things like the Chaos factor though, certainly taints any intentions. Which is problematic. It would otherwise be my favrie pillar, still is I guess. it's facinating, if I found whoever or whatever was resposnible for spoiling it I would let it feel my fury!(find the thing responsible, and start plotting!)

[isadorbg]

My view is even if a malevolent entity is behind the repeated Bans of Mastery and Gates, those two pillars still presents clear ethical problems which is why I think they have been ban repeatedly for millenias now.

 

For what I know of Elumnia's society or at least in the time our young avatars evolve, It is clearly attached to a conservative view of mind privacy.

 

Even using Negations for investigation is not used without clear supiscion or proof of use for Mastery/Gates and is not used for less mundane crime despite the usefulness of that magic.

So in that regards even a harmless use of Mastery is probably not "okay" for your standard Elumnians.

 

But that's not the real problem with Mastery... you see the thing is that even a novice Mage like our PC's can reach a sufficient level of Mastery to control without much hassle another novice mage or a non-mage... such power at such a novice level kinda makes you wonder what level a real master of that pillar can reach... . If I was a regular non-mage person I too would be worried if already a 12 years old could makes me his unwilling slave notwisthanding what his teacher can actually do.

 

Mastery is quite easy to see how that pillar could get banned, the legate for exemple said that if now Glammour is widely used in diplomatic setting and probably everywhere some form of Negotiation is required.

Before the Ban of Mastery it was Mastery that was the most used pillar in those kind of situation for obvious reason.

 

Combine the last two and you got a situation where pretty much everyone will eventually demand a ban of that pillar.

 

Exemple:

 

Like Free said a widespread paranoia in the mundane population on Mastery.

- A spouse cheat with a mage, blame Mastery.

- An official suspected of corruption, blame Mastery.

- A man kills his brother, blame Mastery.

- Rumours of some village where the whole population have been enslaved by the Mayor.

 

Some of those reports would be true while other would only be partly true and many only lies taking profit of the growing paranoia to get an excuse. Regardless all contribute to a growing hostility toward Mages as a whole (mundanes hates when they are enslaved usually).

All you need then is a big scandal like the emperor being Mastered by some faction and bye Mastery for the next centuries.

 

Personally I don't see how Mastery can get out of this vicious cycle as long as Mundanes have a say. Afterall they are powerless against it thus the paranoia.

 

Gates well it is different... .

 

I just disagree that without the chaos factor, Gates presents no problem. It does.

 

Problem with Gates is the whole summoning thing.Sure it is cool but notwithstanding the fact that being summoned is a highly traumatasing experience for any creatures (which could be considered a-morale) it can also lead to unforeseen and catastrophic consequences.

 

A Gates mage opening a portal to another dimension could easily lose control of it and unvoluntarily led to a another dimension invasion of Elumnia or the creatures he summoned carried a magic type disease that will kill millions of humans and with no cure known magical or not.

 

Really it is not difficult to imagine how Gates could have got banned the first time even without Chaos factor. It only needed a cataclysmic event like one of those above. And Gates is a special pillar regarding Cataclysm. Me say that Monteon explosion is not without Gates but that may just be me !

 

After the first ban everything went downhill for Gates as we know the Chaos factor came to never go back.

 

Anyway Gates without care is supremely dangerous but we already knew that with the Chaos factor except that it only made mistake uncontrollable that doesn't mean that mistake weren't done before too.

[Albert]

Serious mistakes can be made using any magic. (Gates comment) You can even create enchanted items that are unintentionaly dangerous... We got one of those ring smiths in the Academagia.... They turn people into trees and make people cry rivers and all kinds of weird and potentially dangerous effects.

 

If Another plane wanted to invade Choris/elumnia then it wouldn't be the Gates mages fault, they would have found us eventually anyway if that was in their MO.

 

 

Mastery, that's easy, Mastery without concent would be illegal unless it's used to prevent a serious crime or selfdefence or defence of others. There are ways Mastery could help people.

Which is worse, incinerate a criminal to Death or serious bodily harm or incapacitate them using Mastery and take them to court/prison?

[Metis]

Banning Mastery is wrong since it's a controlled magic form, it does more or less what it's supposed to unless you mess up due to being inexperienced like the ones in Ahriman's wand adventure. They were mere dabblers in the art of Mastery and likely had more knowledge of other magic like Negation.

IIRC they were trained Revisionists and had also at least dabbled in Gates, for reference.

 

All you need then is a big scandal like the emperor being Mastered by some faction and bye Mastery for the next centuries.

 

Which is worse, incinerate a criminal to Death or serious bodily harm or incapacitate them using Mastery and take them to court/prison?

Just an FYI but Negation can also be used to freeze people in place, Mastery isn't necessary for that.

 

As for my opinion? While I can get behind both of the bans (Gates primarily, but not exclusively, because of the Chaos Factor and Mastery for several reasons already mentioned) I do have to wonder what was lost. It's already been said that part of mastering a forbidden school in later years will be filling the blank spots, and I wonder what blank spots there are. That said, that's merely intellectual curiosity. I wouldn't support an unban of either Gates or Mastery even if the Chaos Factor problem was resolved...though I wouldn't necessarily be opposed it it, either.

[dyrhet]

The biggest question I keep coming back to is like... what was instruction in Mastery at the Academagia like? I can only imagine that it would have special requirements and I've had a go at speculating as to what those might be.

I wouldn't be surprised if your entire first year imparted astonishingly little actual Mastery knowledge, like with the whole Calligraphy/Orthography divide in Aranaz. I imagine actually that a lot of the lessons would be similar to what you need to learn for Synchronicity. It would make sense for me that practioners of the most benevolent expression of Mastery and heirs to Kazus would have codified and internalized the necessity of the strict ethical curriculum of their forebears.

So yeah, probably some combination of ethics classes, exercises and meditation to strengthen the mage's willpower and ability to resist temptation and suchlike. The magical component of these lessons would be restricted to theory and learning to resist mastery spells cast by others. Afterall, what better way to make a student understand how horrible mastery can be than to make them experience it?

I imagine early on that would be more "try to resist drinking this glass of water I've put in front of you even though I've cast a spell that makes you feel that you're dying of thirst" than "I'm doing to make you dance around like a puppet, try and stop me."

I also figure that when first year exams roll around, there's a component that most students dread where their instructor takes them aside afterwards and asks them, "Do you sincerely believe what you wrote on the ethics exam?" and magically compels them to tell the truth. Students who did not believe are quietly selected out of second year classes. Of course, gifted students who were able to lie even while Mastered also get through...

I'm a little unclear what would happen to Kazus students who failed the ethics exams, since Mastery is a mandatory class for them. But it just doesn't seem safe to allow them to continue. Presumably there is a second, non-magical branch of study that Kazus encourages, maybe they're shepherded down that path. Groupthink is powerful though, and I imagine there was a fair bit of stigma at dropping out of Mastery classes, pressuring kids to force themselves to internalize their moral lessons.

As to what that second class is incidentally, my guess is Law. Most of the classes at the Academagia are taken from the Trivium and Quadrivium of medieval bachelors and masters degrees. A few are outliers, like history and athletics, but they make more than enough sense in a school setting regardless. What else did medieval universities teach? Law, medicine, theology and architecture.

Of those, I think law is the bet fit. It's another reminder for the young mastery mages of what awaits them if they screw up, and I imagine a lot of the publicly acceptable uses of Mastery were in the justice system and political office, jobs that the study of law is particularly helpful for.

The rivalry between Durand and Kazus makes a lot of sense to me in this context. I don't actually think it's as simple as the Durandites feeling that they're the good guys and Kazus are the bad guys. Rather, Durandites feel that they know what the right thing to do is, while Kazus students have to be taught it. Durand prizes critical thinking and freedom of expression via dialectics, Kazus insists on a strict system of ethics and laws with no room for deviation or criticism. From their perspective, Kazus are fakers who are good because they HAVE to be, because their magic is inherently corrupting. Whereas Durand students obviously CHOOSE goodness, and are thus better suited to study the noblest of all magics, negation.

Whereas Kazus think that Durand students are do-gooders without restraint, never considering the consequences of their actions. Kazus is ALL ABOUT teaching consequences, Mastery requires that you think ahead. As such it is they that are the real good guys. Because if you think about it, humans are inherently wicked and need someone to keep an eye on them. Thus, the study of Mastery is the noblest of all because it keeps everyone in check.

Just as a small aside, the non-magical study for Icanicix was totally theology. What better way to keep in mind your limitations as a human being when creating life than to study the gods?

[Metis]

I wouldn't be surprised if your entire first year imparted astonishingly little actual Mastery knowledge, like with the whole Calligraphy/Orthography divide in Aranaz. I imagine actually that a lot of the lessons would be similar to what you need to learn for Synchronicity. It would make sense for me that practioners of the most benevolent expression of Mastery and heirs to Kazus would have codified and internalized the necessity of the strict ethical curriculum of their forebears.

I cannot yet comment how many degrees of true this likely is or isn't, but once the Legate gets back to me about reality-checking the history of House Kazus' founding I could perhaps offer insight.

 

As for how the Academagia functioned back during the days of College Kazus, well, I don't remember where but I do recall the Legate once mentioning that it did with "lots of Negation".

[freespace2dotcom]

I'm so glad I opened this thread!

 

I strongly suspect that Icanicix Also was the major source of zoology classes. Just one more tie to revision and how close the magics are intertwined. When talking about the shuttered colleges, I expect that Morvidus and Hedi both lost sources of critical thought in regards to their own magics when the bans came in effect, because as things are now nobody is learning the forbidden magics legally and and a result the line between Glamour and Mastery, as well as Revision and Gates will forever be muddied. The legate mentioned that spells exist that have now-illegal phemes in them yet do not belong to the proscribed sciences themselves. I would not be surprised if some phemes were banned simply because they had some minor association with bad magic when they have more uses outside of them but were undiscovered at the time of the bans.

 

I can understand the bans but I think that both of them are based on fear of what *might* happen. I think that as things are now, I will definitely continue to pursue them because I think that the knowledge of those magics are too useful to ignore. If in my adventures I come across magic from these pillars and I know how they work, then that will put me in a good position to defend myself from them, If not by Negating them then simply by knowing where not to stand or touch, lol. because no matter how hard they try, these magics will continue to exist, and *Will* thrive in certain parts if the world.

[Metis]

Will thrive indeed. And not just with "borrowed" robes, I'm sure.

[isadorbg]

Serious mistakes can be made using any magic. (Gates comment) You can even create enchanted items that are unintentionaly dangerous... We got one of those ring smiths in the Academagia.... They turn people into trees and make people cry rivers and all kinds of weird and potentially dangerous effects.

 

If Another plane wanted to invade Choris/elumnia then it wouldn't be the Gates mages fault, they would have found us eventually anyway if that was in their MO.

'

That's the point tough. The problem with Gates is the consequences for faillure are just far worse than any other pillar maybe even Mastery.

 

Where an Incatation mage could fumble his spell and kill dozen and maybe hundreds of persons an unlucky Gates mages could kill hundred or thousand more that number by summoning a creature with an exotic disease.

 

It has nothing to do with "evil" per se It's just where people set the bar to say that a thing is too dangerous to be used and Gates probably was above that bar at least once. Of course with the random factor it made everything worse.

 

 

For Dyrhet:

 

I remember that the Legate answered a question (of Free I believe) that Mastery was taught the same as any other pillar in Academagia so I don't think there was that much emphasis on ethics (but I may be wrong).

 

Also when he said that people had to learn Mastery to keep on in the political/diplomatic game he seriously hinted what was the second favourite pillar of another diplomatic focused college... .

 

I might check back tough it's been a while since I saw that answer.

[freespace2dotcom]

Another thing that has me wondering:

 

 

The Legate has already said that you can take more than one class on a pillar in Y2, presumably because there are 3 or so specialties within any given pillar which makes up the whole.

 

In regard to the forbidden sciences, I really wonder how you would categorize the various subtypes of Mastery and Gates. My belief is that the 'holes' in the knowledge that we will have to overcome will specifically be related to finding sources on some of these subtypes (which would be near impossible to find), or possibly even doing self-experiments in order to bridge the knowledge by self teaching/rediscovering what you need to learn on your own without any major sources.,

[Metis]

Summoning, Teleportation, and Monster Creation for Gates. Passive Self-Mastery, Active Mastery (offensive/defensive) and Active Mastery (supportive) for Mastery.

 

I think.

[freespace2dotcom]

I can get behind that Gates subtype description, but as for Mastery, I would expect it to be more along the lines of Telepathy/communication, Removing/adding mental aspects (more like automaton slavery), and then physical control of a being (living puppetry)

[Metis]

Ah, yes, I forgot about intelligent golems. In that case I'd classify them as Passive (self-)Mastery, Active Mastery, and Automastery. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I suspect that self-Mastery will be an equally large field as active mastery (read: the Puppet Master kind)

[Legate of Mineta]

Hmmmm.

 

I'd say that both are equally difficult, although in different ways. It really depends on the practitioner, but Gates overall is much more computational and Mastery is much more intuitive.

[Albert]

Ah, yes, I forgot about intelligent golems. In that case I'd classify them as Passive (self-)Mastery, Active Mastery, and Automastery. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I suspect that self-Mastery will be an equally large field as active mastery (read: the Puppet Master kind)

I think it was mentioned that a target that's already Mastered can't be mastered for the duration, so Self-mastery if made in a good way could be an excellent firstline defence, beyond outright fighting it with your insight/negation.

 

If you only teleport and create creatures with gates and don't summon things then you wouldn't get a creature with an exotinc disease... Unless, I guess you added that into the template with phemes?

 

Summoning creatures from the wild always seemed wild and crazy imo, though if you apply mastery on them it could work if you're in a hurry.... But if all you need is muscle, then use an offensive spell of your own or summon a creature you got in your own laboratory Cage. One you know what it does.

 

Assuming no randomness and chaos that is.

 

Summoning wild creatures at random seems more like a beginners thing to do or a desperate last ditch effort to tip the balance when yuo're doom is Close. The Sphinx quest for example, should have had a Gates Teleport as an alternative to summoning an exotic nasty beast. Two gates options.

 

Teleporting yourself might be harder than summoning a random beast though(not sure but that's the impression I got from the limitations described for beginners). But it's doable, you did it in that burried temple quest with that Eye staff.

Beginners got shorter teleportation range when not using an artefact or teleport stonerings, creature summoning limitations arn't described in the same way.

[Albert]

If there is a negative Gates sickness, then it's likely caused by the residue that attaches to your aura, then it's likely a side effect of whatever is affecting Gates magic.

If you're good enough to check that residue out then you should be able to track and at least possibly identify that something is causing a background feedback on the gates residue.

 

Maybe you could make an amulet or some other trinket that blocks out that outside interference.

 

The only constant here, seems to be the residue buildup in your aura, you get that as you use Gates, and the more it stacks up in your aura, the worse the sickness get. Obviously people didn't get that in the old Days.... So, there is some kind of outside interference and it's only affecting people with a buildup of Gates residue. It's the one thing Gates users got in common.

 

That type of temporary fix of the gates problem, would probably need some slouthing and Logic, or stumbling onto someone elses research about it. But if you got a problem they you have to think it through and try to work it out.

It seems far more logical to asssume that whatever is causing the problem is a blanketed effect that's affecting all of Choris/Elumia, that it's not target specific.(because, that would requier someone or something to keep track of every practitioner, newbie to master who practices in secret.)

 

It could be eithere a creature, or an artefact, or a powerful crazy wizard or undead crazy wizard who's somehow leaking it's crazy through it's own residue and somehow transmitting at that frequency.

 

Hydrogen atoms transmit energy at a certain bandwith, they are also suceptibe to absorbing energy at that spectrum/bandwith. So maybe it propagates through gates residue, it could also be what's causing the chaos factor, not just the sickness.

 

There you got antoher theory It could still be a pupetstring type creature that's leaking massive amounts of energy and transmittign it's crazy emotions in a Mastery like manner that passively propagestes through Gates residue, propagating emotions. It might have collected a lot of Gates Resudue over the millenia. Maybe it's a creature that gates itself and armies of evil with it and thereby it's amassed a massive amount of Gates residue meaning it's a gigantic transmitter of energy if the mastery type energy somehow interactis with it's residue.

 

It could be the unintentinal side effect of one of it's self buffs, or self-mastery spells... Or it could be the unintentional effect of whatever might be imprisoning the creature. Maybe there are people who knows what's causing the problems, but they are afraid of doing anything about it, because it might seem safer to them, to leave it as it is.

Maybe the Cage is enchanted to prevent Gates as a means of escape, but that's also affecting it's residue and Gates through the known World by Proxy..

 

Why temper with the Cage holding Belsebob, if that might risk the greatest of evils getting loose. Even the slightest risk or accident might be seen as too great. Even if it's causing cataclysmic effect's on Gates magic and even if it's getting worse.

 

Whatever it is, there is something out there doing it, Most likely passively, or far less likely, Actively.

 

Often magic spells seems to be a matter of draw phemes and Think of the effect. If outside thoughts and emotions is leaking in through your Aura, then that could certainly cause Chaotic and unpredictable effects. It would be like you wern't completely in Control of your own spell. In theory. Seems like a good plausible explanation.

 

The Crazy wizards are so in tune with their insanity that what ever insanity has taken the hold on them atm, is in tune with their expressed intent. They are controled by the moodswings nad insanity and thereby there is no Chaosfactor in their magic because they themselves are controled by that same chaos.... The background insanity says, summon a Dragon, and they Think, Summon a Dragon.

They live through it rather than in conflict with it, but they are quite mad and lost to it.

[freespace2dotcom]

Summoning monsters isn't something that I personally am a fan of, but if you knew the monster you were summoning and where it came from odds are it would be tolerable. The really talented Gates masters had a knack for doing things that others couldn't replicate safely, and that's part of the problem.

 

Self Mastery is a terrible idea. If for no other reason than if somebody was looking for Mastery they wouldn't have to look hard at you to find it.

[Albert]

Summoning monsters isn't something that I personally am a fan of, but if you knew the monster you were summoning and where it came from odds are it would be tolerable. The really talented Gates masters had a knack for doing things that others couldn't replicate safely, and that's part of the problem.

 

Self Mastery is a terrible idea. If for no other reason than if somebody was looking for Mastery they wouldn't have to look hard at you to find it.

Might be a good defence agaisnt a powerful creature with Mastery skills well beyond your own. At least it might throw it off somewhat. It's not a way of hiding your mastery skills that's for sure. That Sageni for example, it's probably fairly helpless without it's masterypowers.

 

Summoning your own, Familiar, Golems or pets seems safe enough assuming there isn't a chaos factor that's doing something else aswell and hijacking your spell.

[Schwarzbart]

I personal love to study gate magice for the travel oportunities it will give and for the creat your own creature part

It was somwhere mentioned by the Legate that there is a Negtion / Gate magic combo that allow for the study of the outer space.

[Metis]

Self-Mastery preventing active Mastery from working? Definitely would like to see that quote, as I don't remember coming across it myself.

[Albert]

Self-Mastery preventing active Mastery from working? Definitely would like to see that quote, as I don't remember coming across it myself.

Do you remember that Event where you come across the Goblin merchant Selling the silkmonstoristies and Dragon fruit and golden pillow?

 

Your character gets suspicious and one of your options to check if the goblin is mastered and controled by a dragon is to cast a minor mastery spell on the goblin forcing it to jerk around a little and hit himself. Since that worked just fine, the conclusion was that the golblin couldn't possibly have been Mastered since the spell would take hold. A Mastered target would be immune from further attempts at mastery imposing on it. The suspicion was because the Goblin was Selling a whole lot of stuff that had dragon in it's name or came from dragons one way or Another. The Goblin claimed to have a permit for the goods however. Given that there is a legal cult of tatooed Mastery users in Mineta I guess it doesn't seem impossible to have a draconic artefact and fruit salesman that sells thigns teachign you Mastery and Gates... Or what ever those things did now again..

 

So, yes, it could be an interesting defence when facing a powerful Mastery wizard.. At least it wouldn't provide a good first line of defence. Until that Wizard figures it out and finds other ways to hurt you badly.

[Albert]

I must admit, it's quite the crazy idea to master a person or creature to check if they have been mastered. The spell seems to have been a minor one minute anoyance deal though, where you fored it to hit itself and do crazy stuff... The Goblin was merely confused and appologized for it's behaviour, (Probably failing to understand what was going on), that goblin doesn't come across as very smart either... I loved the Prayer resolution to that Event The PC's interpretation of the events that followed the prayer was hillarious, and somewhat suspect at best.