>>92515535
>insperation
lol
maybe you should spend more time in a scholar society

I liked the old archeological league or whatever it was called in WoW, a bunch of dwarves adventuring around and exploring dungeons to get lost knowledge. Still scholars, but getting their hands dirty.

Real world Catholicism. Every instance of scholar society in fiction is a carbon copy of Catholic monasteries.

>>92515535
>the librarian's guild in the shadow of the torturer
>the librarian knights in the edge chronicles
>the fucked-up narrator in the Library of Babel for some sweet psychosis

>>92515535
To describe either of those two as simply “scholar societies” is to misconstrue the original text to an odious degree

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>>92515580
The EXPLORER’S LEAGUE, you fucking peon

>>92516360
>What is the Imperial Civil System
The hubris of white people is insane

>>92515535
Dojo means school. Kung Fu means something like "profound skill developed by practice over time". Or, more accurately (though less literally) "enlightenment of the flesh". Monasteries the world over are historically the centers of learning and enlightenment - think Tibetan Buddhism or Shaolin or a Zen sanctuary. That is to say, education was, historically, not a matter of learning tedious mathematics or historical trivia. It was the transcendence of human limitations and mortal perspectives.
You are correct to want to escape Harry Potter. Magic is a matter of spiritual enlightenment and profound insight about the metaphysical nature of reality and one's relationship with it. Is absolutely and categorically unlike technology in an extremely - extremely - important way. Magic is not science, it is not something you can just assemble from a particular configuration of fucking material atoms and joules of electricity. It isn't something you just mix in the correct proportions or a collection of fucking words. Magic is not a goddamn programming language, you autistic fucking MORONS...
Magic is not even a frame of mind or a state of consciousness - it is what those altered states of being allow you to perceive and understand.
The sooner you stop treating it like technology, the more magical it will feel in your setting.
Think more like solipsism and less like kindergarten playground superstitions.

>>92516734
>Magic is not a goddamn programming language, you autistic fucking MORONS...

Not all magic systems are, correct, but the best magic systems will be, yes.

>>92516533
Everything east of Byzantium is irrelevant to any sort of meaningful use for worldbuilding since it's too alien to understand

>>92515535
Mentats from Dune are interesting, though less scholars and more turning humans extremely autistic for computation reasons

Its difficult to get a full picture of how they supposedly function but the University of Planet from SMAC is pretty interesting. Effectively raising scholars and researchers to the highest levels of society and everything else is labor or research material.

Maybe King Billy from Hyperion counts? More of a scifi patron of the arts, and less scholarly research, but still a small society bent toward a specific goal.

>>92517207
>Mentats

Mentats are explicitly NOT scholars

>>92515535
Candle Keep is the second thing that comes to my mind. The first is that city which exists in the quasi-elemental plane of radiance. They're not scholars per say, but it's supposed to be the biggest collection of artists and philosophers in the realms, IIRC. There's official sources and a Dragon mag about it. Chaotic Neutral plane of floating islands.

>>92517151
Nah, that just makes it science.

>>92516533
The lack of Theory of Mind for Chinese is insane. Here in /tg/, we are (generally) speaking about Western Civilization, as we are talking about Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer 40k, WoD, etc. Although exceptions exist to be sure, these IPs draw their source material from Western historical and religious sources. In those Western historical and religious sources, the paradigmatic example of a scholar society is the Catholic Church. This does not mean that Confucianism did not exist, or that we have never heard of Tang Taizong, etc., but instead reflects the accurate, if simple, sentiment that "our stuff is inspired by our stuff." Either way, I hope that your racist flailing at least got you a few extra social credit points from your oppressive government.

>>92517859
You’ll notice the original post said
>Every instance of scholar society in fiction is a carbon copy of Catholic monasteries.
I was pointing out that only white people are dumb enough to believe that is a true statement.

Easy counter example: The Order of the White Lotus

>>92517667
Yes, and?

>>92517963
I think that'd be considered hyperbole. If you take everything strictly literally, you may have an aneurysm

>>92518208
Hyperbole would be saying "most instances"

Saying "every instance" is to deny even the EXISTENCE of counterexamples.

>>92518280
semantics

>>92518289
Words mean things, anon.

>>92518289
Semantics are important.

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Soltryce Academy in Rexxentrum

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>>92515535
Golden Order Fundamentalism

>>92517667
Which makes sense given that it's practised by MAGI. You know what MAGI are, no? Scholarly priests engaging in things like ASTRONOMY, you know, SCIENCE.

Dumb faggot.

>>92518955
To be fair, it was more astrology than astronomy.

>>92518955
> Distorting facts and fixating in etymology will prove my point!
You know what is meant by "magic" in fantasy settings. Yeah, it's the stuff of bookish wizard types, but it's also the stuff of fairies, weird cults, gods, witches and so.

>>92516522
Pure slop

>>92520677
Taste better than your slop

>>92517591
>artist and philosophers
Sounds like hell for a scholar

>>92517963
The third post was clearly designed in the spirit of antagonizing dystheism.

>>92515535
>"Scholar Society"
are you gonna eat your books?

>>92518174
Then it isn't magic. Science isn't magic. That was the whole point that you completely failed to grasp.

>>92517473
Uhhhh... is that true? I mean. Insofar as the Dune setting even has scholars of any sort, the mentats kind of are their librarian-clerk-administrators.

>>92516522
>>92520677
It's not even slop, it's fucking garbage. Hideous Blizzard World Of Warcraft feces.

>>92523524
Most universities had contracts with the surrounding town to provide food

>>92523932
They are calculators. It would be like saying a paint brush IS the artist.

>>92522776
Candle Keep has "sages" which are supposed to have like DC 18 in various things skills, even Craft. It's more fitting than you think.

>>92523916
>Science isn't magic
Magic has always been applied by humans as a science, get some learning in you, dumbfuck. People in the days of fearing apotropaic marks and believing in changelings had dedicated rituals they expected to work against such things. That's science.

>>92525293
I think you should be careful how far you stretch those definitions?

>>92516533
Please post ressources before you respond to my post.
>>92517859
>our stuff is inspired by our stuff
Everybody does that. And that's why Eastern games have such an exotic feel to us while our games are foreign to them unless they grew up with them. Weebs are known to be odd because they socialized in part with foreign ideals.
>>92518280
>>92518289
>>92518300
>>92518683
Hyperbole is in fact "everything!1one" in a rhetoric setting. Denying the existence and positing the absence is a serious problem which is why I stated the third post as such.
>>92523521
This.

>>92526063
I am not the one who used the example of Candle Keep first. /All knowledge/ is what Candle Keep keeps. I don't care what your interpretation of the definitions are, because within this context it means many other things. Stop acting like a smartass. Presumably, Candle Keep would also have at least one or so sages who specialize in things just like Ropes or how to draw your sword.

>>92524677
no, just no. theyre are scholar mentats, a mentat is made the training, which can be focused on anything, like how thufir uses it as a master of assassins and everything else.

>>92515535
Can't remember the name but the Sobornost as a whole in the Quantum Thief series are "archivists" in that they view entropy as an affront and aim to rewrite the laws of physics such that no information is involuntarily lost. Ever. In the nearer term one of their deified founders (or rather the faction comprised of their hordes of mental copies) is intent on destructively uploading the earth for posterity's sake (the data can be copied for redundancy, the planet cannot) and only kept from doing so by the earthlings' ability to blow themselves (and their precious information) to hell at the first sign of such an attempt.
>>92516427
Always dug Sanctaphrax for being a "wizard" city without any magic beyond manipulating local natural laws.
>>92524677
They aren't lobotomised. Anyone competent enough to be a spymaster can be a logistics expert in their own right who happens to have a calculator in their skull.
>>92517162
Even then the library of Alexandria and syncrectic Serapis cult predate it and meet your goalpost-moving "relevant to the West" criteria . Faggot.

>>92518846
Every single detail in that image is cringe and gay

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>>92515535
Sharlayan.

Basically, a few major calamities ago, the War of the Magi happened and in the aftermath there was a great natural disaster that a lucky few in the region survived. A huge amount of knowledge was lost in the local apocayplse, great magic and centuries of recorded history wiped from the earth. Among the survivors, one guy said "fuck this" and took his followers to find an island out in the middle of nowhere to set up a more enlightened, less destructive society on. They founded the nation of Sharlayan, a democracy of sages whose two major tenants as an institution were the accumulation of knowledge from around the world to prevent it from being lost, and non-intervention in the affairs of other nations to maintain their neutrality and limit their enemies.

Over time, Sharlayan basically became the wizard-school nation, and Sharlayan scholars are widely respected as the best in virtually every field of study. They have built an underground arcology called Labyrinthos with its own artificial ecosystem and day-night cycle to hold plant and animal specimens from around the world, as well as grow food for the island, and house researchers and their projects that must be kept with the utmost secrecy.

One of the big reveals of the story is that Sharlayan knows that the world is going to end, but not exactly *when*, and has made plans accordingly for an evacuation from the planet using a crude starship of their own design with as many people, as much knowledge, and as much plant and animal stock as they can manage for the purposes of colonizing some distant star.

They are a bunch of holier-than-thou nerds who seem like huge assholes until you realize what their society is actually built around and planning for and it all gets recontextualized into the perspective of a group of people who have inherited a responsibility so enormously important that they can't afford to deviate from the plan no matter what. Because the alternative is extinction.

>>92527290
…the ancient Library at Alexandria is not “East” of Constantinople

>>92526899
Please show me any splatbook that implies you can find a Swordmaster among the Avowed

>>92528546
It's on the Mediterranean and was an important cultural centre of the ancient world. May as well argue that Judaism is too oriental to have left a mark on Christendom.

>>92527339
>Generic Fantasy Library #24

Why are you so fucking negative all the time?

>>92528568
Disingenuous sack of shit. Iaijutsu Focus is is a skill, and they'd presumably be at least one because it says it has sages for virtually everything. You can pay for consulting on various matters. There's no comprehensive list of what they'd otherwise not have.

>>92528834
>>Generic Fantasy Library #24
Yeah. "Generic" metropolitan fantasy libraries are cringe but that image takes it to whole new level
>chest rig so you can hold books in your armpits
>fingerless long-sleeved gloves because... just because okay
>school uniforms

>>92529020
Oh, so you’re stretching the definitions? Got it.

>>92529033
Again, I’ll ask why you’re so fucking negative, none of those are that bad.

A wizard is a gunfighter whose gun is his spell book. He’d want a QuickDraw holster for it

>>92529111
You're the one who literally doesn't understand what the hell I or OP are talking about. Neck yourself. Going to the the fantasy board and applying strict definition. Absolutely fucking pathetic.

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>>92529119
The whole concept of a mage college/library is bad.
Magic should be esoteric and not the equivalent of getting a college degree in current year.
Libraries full of young wizards like it's fucking Harry Potter is cringe and gay.

>>92529205
Lmao, have fun making everyone think you're retarded because you don't know the definitions to the words you speak

>>92529763
Keep going, retard. We can start breaking out examples between differences in-game and IRL of definitions like Dragons, Drakes, Dragon-Blooded, Dragonkins, Half-Dragon, Dragonborn, and what a Wyvern is.

I don't know why, but /tg/ is literally the stupidest fucking board I interact with. I make typos galore because I'm on mobile, but idiots like you legitimately do not understand basic concepts. Lacking the basic ability of differentiation. I don't want people like you to be permitted to live, let alone be in my hobby space. God I hope Hell exists, lol.

>>92529910
Next time just accept your mistake and move on, it'll make you seem wiser than you are.

It's obvious you haven't read the source material, not sure why you're trying to pretend otherwise.

>>92529259
You say this every thread, and its going to be a bad take incongruous with 99.9% of all fantasy ever written just like last time.
It doesn't matter if its your personal preference, even YOU can't name a setting where its relevant. So stop presenting it like an absolute, you miserable fuck.

>>92529934
Listen kid, go to therapy. You don't get to play this game. You are suffering from a psychosis. You are incapable of separating real life from fiction. Got get a take your pills.

>>92515535
My vote goes to the monks of Anathem. I haven't read it in a while, but IIRC:
>Huge, self-sufficient monastery (containing monks of both genders) is enclosed behind tall, defensible walls
>The monastery is arranged in circles--the outermost circle is opened every year, the next one every decade, the third circle every century, and the fourth circle every millennium
>The best monks in each circle are permitted to enter higher circles, but can never leave unless called out for special circumstances
>The monastery analyzes the secular world, partially so that it can forecast when it will need to defend itself against invasion
>The thousand-year monks have developed hidden psychic powers

>>92529968
What do you call that box that they roll in and turn off the lights and PROJECT things onto the wall? Hmmm, I wonder

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>>92515535
The Order of Hermes from Ars Magica.
Mythic Europe is a peak setting.
And the game is all about scholarly pursuit while dealing with demons/faeries/dragons/angels/other magi.
You can develop new magic, write books about your discoveries make copies of those books and exchange them for the books of others.
It's kino

>>92530011
Do they live longer than normal lives?

What do all the Millennium-geniuses do in between the millenniums?

>>92530017
Nobody cares what schizo shit you're on about, kid. Fuck off. This hobby is clearly not for you. When I see posts like yours I am made to believe all the crazy shit I read about bad players. There's no fucking way, I think to myself, people could be so socially inept, awkward, or autistic, but I consistently run into posters on /tg/ like you. It's honestly horrifying. I can't imagine someone even pretending to like you enough to try and play a game with you. My imagining being you is harrowing to me. Jesus Christ.

>>92530085
I think the hobby is meant for people who actually read, my friend. It's real easy, you should give it a try! You don't even have to pay anything, we have a pdf thread just for people like you!

>>92530095
Whatever you say. Go back to the 5e thread and leave the adults in piece.

>>92530070
Again, it's been a while since I actually read the book. But IIRC the monks don't live any longer than usual, and the millennium monks just do a LOT of philosophical, astronomical, and scientific research, which is exchanged with the century monks when the doors are opened every millennium.
The thousand-year monks with their secret psychic powers apparently can live for centuries, but nobody else knows about it.

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>>92517151
thats extremely lame

>>92530118
Sure, once you head back to the kid's table and finish all your veggies, young man!

>>92530121
What I mean is, is getting to a higher circle based more on the luck of your birth date instead of the merit of your scholarship?

>>92530170
Even if you're the smartest monk in the century circle, you aren't getting into the millennium circle if it isn't the proper time for the millennium circle to be opened.

>>92529937
>You say this every thread
Different anons with the same opinion
>even YOU can't name a setting where its relevant.
Forgotten Realms has multiple magic academies
Mystara has a few as well
Strixhaven can be easily dropped into any setting because it's located on a different plane.

>>92529937
>>92530300
Or did you mean settings without "wizard academies"
Those are few and far between but Dark Sun comes to mind

>>92530300
>>92530410

Not even magic academies in specific existing, but the idea that magic must be "esoteric", which in reality just means only known well by a small number of experts but which /tg/ uses as if it means 'literally unknowable and actively resistant to analysis of any kind'. Magic is a science, always has been and always will be. Its rooted in its real world origins throughout history, and fantasy settings reflect this with wizards and spellbooks and ancient scrolls. To not just prefer otherwise, but demand it as the default state of all fiction, is asinine beyond belief. You might as well demand that all humans in fiction by necessity be 4-armed hermaphrodites, and that any other representation of the human form isn't "real humans".

>>92530480
When did I "demand" fucking anything?
I just said magic "should" be esoteric and less like a college degree. I prefer the master/apprentice model to magic academies and Harry Potter shit.
>Magic is a science, always has been and always will be.
False
"Magic as science" would imply that anyone who knew how to apply the "formula" would he able to cast magic. This is NOT the case with the early versions of D&D where humans and elves are the only playable races with the ability to cast spells

>>92515569
What's up with all the retarded grammar nazis lately?

>>92530710
Grammar is how we separate actual humans from beasts.

Either way, the post you quoted was making fun of OP’s spelling, not his grammar

>>92530410
>but Dark Sun comes to mind
Isn't there a Templar Training Academy in one of the cities that is basically "wizard school" but for fascist psionics?

>>92529259
I halfway agree. Libraries full of young wizards are cringy. Military training facilities, however...

>>92530065
What’s the ingame Church’s stance on Magic?

>>92530697
So what you are saying is that swimming cannot be scientifically explained because fat people can't hold their breath for very long. If not everyone can do it, its not scientifically explicable.
Weird take, dude.

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>>92515535
I'm partial to the scholars of the nation of Khadein. Founded by a dragon sage, they enjoy a scholar-run society that would go on to have a reach extending thousands of years into the future, even after their collapse.

>>92532363
Well it is complicated.
The church has no unified view on magi, individual priest might range from entirely antagonistic ready to burn the magi at the stake to an ally and advisor looking out for his friends both spiritually and giving good word about them to other members of the church.
It's mostly left up to you how antagonistic the church is or even how aware it is that magi are even a thing as they tend to live far away from towns and cities.

Now if we are talking about God himself then it seems that he generally sees them as simply human too but he also suppresses their powers around areas where he is worshiped.

>>92532897
Magic is not science. It may have elements of science (laboratories, research, trial, error and observation) but science is the study of the physical and natural world using repeatable experiments. Magic breaks the rules of the physical and natural world.
With a scientific law anyone can theoretically recreate an experiment and get the same results.
With magic everyone does not have the capability to recreate a magical experiment/spell by saying the words, having the components and making the hand gestures because ITS MAGIC. There's a mysterious and esoteric element to magic that some will never understand or they just do not have the ability to channel magic (thus they will never understand fully either)
You can't know Fireball like a highschooler knows how to make oxygen in chemistry class. You have to KNOW fireball and have the ability to call it forth.

>>92533448
>Magic breaks the rules of the physical and natural world.
Fundamentally this is your mistake. Magic is not a breaking of natural laws. If it exists, it is within nature and therefore those laws are misunderstood or inaccurate. You're still applying local ordinance to foreign media. Just because magic doesn't operate on _our_ physical understanding doesn't make it not a part of physics in-verse.
>magic isn't immediately replicable because I said so, see my examples of fuck-all and nothing

>>92530697
>>92532897
>>92533448
This is an interesting conversation.
If I may gush about Ars Magica.
In the setting Hermetic Magic is something separate from "natural magic"(Science) as magic can do things that are impossible with science yet Hermetic magic can replicate any process posible through science.
Bonisagus, the guy that created hermetic magic tried to make it as close as possible to a science yet magic by nature is mysterious and unpredictable so he could only make it more like an art form.
It requires study, experimentation and can only be taught in person at least at the basics.
And only the people with the "gift" can learn to use it to everyone else it is nothing but nonsense.
The nature of magic itself is a big mystery as Bonisagus and most magi only care about what can be done with it and how to use it than to understand what it is.

>>92529259
I agree
wizards should be powerful because they've pledged themselves to powers beyond our comprehension, not because they know many Latin words

>>92533448
>but science is the study of the physical and natural world using repeatable experiments
You're just using "natural" to mean "nonmagical".
>Magic breaks the rules of the physical and natural world.
It doesn't though. Their natural world is different from yours.

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>>92533620
>Magic is not a breaking of natural laws.
I disagree. Levitate and Fly break the laws of gravity even in the fantasy of the game
>If it exists, it is within nature
This is (You) apply local ordinance to foreign material.
Magic is a force outside the laws of nature of physics. It breaks and defies these laws.
Magic is not easily replicable in most game systems my fampiedesudesu. Either by class (they don't have the esoteric knowledge)or by race (they do not possess the ability to channel magic even if they knew the theory behind it)
>>92533946
>Their natural world is different from yours.
It's different in the sense that it has magic and fantastic monsters but that doesn't mean they don't have the law of gravity.
Magic having the ability to break the laws of gravity is not the same. Magic exists outside of nature. It is an unnatural or divine force that has the power to alter the laws of nature.

>>92516734
How do you reconcile that with the fact the entire discipline of chemistry which is literally "add X amount of Y to cause Z" is an offshoot of those same monasteries? Through trying to get their mercury-based immortality elixir to work as advertised, they stumbled upon the programming language of reality itself, in a sense.

>>92533981
>Levitate and Fly break the laws of gravity even in the fantasy of the game
If there is a way to accomplish something, then the law is not restrictive universally. Birds fly by way of their mechanics, spells fly by way of another equally valid suite also represented within the laws.
>repeats the same shit with no change to address the argument
Alright buddy, concession accepted, you can take your .22 caliber autism medication now.

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>>92534001
>Birds fly by way of their mechanics, spells fly by way of another equally valid suite also represented within the laws.
Magic Flight is not the same as mechanical flight.
One is acting within the rules of nature in order to make flight possible. The other is "just magic I don't have to explain shit"
Magic is outside the laws of nature.
Devine intervention and devine magic is outside the laws of nature.
It's not science. It's magic.
And yes I'm repeating myself. I have maintained a consistent argument this whole time. You've remanded consistent but you rely on strawmaning a little too much.
You will not change my opinion and I won't change your's.
Cry about it and go fuck yourself.

>>92534001
And to be fair you didn't address my point here
>Magic is not easily replicable in most game systems my fampiedesudesu. Either by class (they don't have the esoteric knowledge)or by race (they do not possess the ability to channel magic even if they knew the theory behind it)
Because I'm right and you're BTFO'd

>>92533981
>Magic exists outside of nature.
You're still just saying "Natural" to mean "nonmagical", this isn't a valid definition of magic. What you're really saying is that any force of nature which doesn't exist in our real-world universe is a force of magic, that's a fine definition but it's simplistic and it doesn't attempt to address an in-world perspective.

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>>92534062
>this isn't a valid definition of magic
Magic
"the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces"
Supernatural
"attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature"
Magic is supernatural
Supernatural is "beyond the laws of nature"

>>92534043
>Magic Flight is not the same as mechanical flight.
According to what system where magic is excluded from natural laws? Speak specifically, anon, by nature for things to exist must mean they are natural which means the laws accommodate for them. Which is the entire point of laws of nature and physics: if something defies them, they aren't breaking said laws: the laws themselves are flawed because those laws are based on human understanding of the world, not an immutable pillar prescribed for us by the foundation.
Maintaining an argument without addressing counter argument in any form is admission of defeat, because in order for an argument to stand it must coexist against contradiction, not beside it.
You can't change your opinion because you lack the brainpower to imagine a scenario where you aren't correct. Your autism prevents you from applying a different razor to magic than what you have already allowed yourself to. To answer your "point"
>Magic is not easily replicable in most game systems
By nature of a system, there is order, structure, and thus reliability. Just because not anyone can do magic does not make magic any less scientific. I can't collide atoms by myself, yet others can. By your argument, atom smashers are magical. Hell, money is magical.

>>92534082
>>92534079

>>92534079
This is totally circular and says nothing. A person living in a magical universe would have no reason to draw any distinction between sunlight from a spell and sunlight from the sun, they're both sunlight and they're both equally natural from that person's point of view.

>>92534092
Your definition is one applicable to OUR WORLD, anon, where magic is not a real force, i.e. BEYOND our nature and physics. Within a world where it is native and real, magic would not be supernatural, it would be natural, because it is an extant force.

>>92534107
Yep. Nevertheless, people in-world have different words for 'nature' and 'magic' and it's interesting to explore what that means. Certainly there's overlap and in some settings they'll explicitly say "nature magic".

>>92534130
>certainly this thing integral to my argument will occur in the white room

>>92534095
>A person living in a magical universe would have no reason to draw any distinction between sunlight from a spell and sunlight from the sun, they're both sunlight and they're both equally natural from that person's point of view.
What an awful comparison.
One is the natural light of the sun.
The other is a supernatural light called forth by a magic user.
Not the fucking same and any sentient being within the fantasy would understand that.
>>92534107
>magic exists in fantasy therefore it's natural
That's a shit argument. Magic can exist in the fantasy and still be a supernatural force.

>>92534141
What?

>>92534151
The next step for you is to provide a robust explanation for the difference between "nature" and "magic", one which would make sense to a person in a magical world and which isn't based on your own real-world perspective. Sadly, if you were smart enough to do this then you would have probably done it already.
Sunlight from the sun hurts vampires, sunlight from a spell kills vampires, these are both sunlight and the people in world can observe that. Why is the sun "natural"? What if it's an ancient alien machine, or a giant ball of red-and-white mana, is it still "natural"? What about the daylight spell, what does "super" mean in this context? You're defining natural as nonmagical and you're defining magical as non-natural, it's a circular argument, it doesn't say anything.

>>92534176
>Sunlight from the sun hurts vampires, sunlight from a spell kills vampires
lol, my bad, I was trying to word it in a setting-neutral way but my example was from D&D. In D&D a daylight spell has the same effect as actual daylight. They might have different effects in a different setting but I can't think of an example.

>>92534176
And you're calling magical forces "natural" simple because they exist in the fantasy.
Magic can exist within the fantasy while still being supernatural.
In AD&D clerics and magic users are using energy outside their world (from the negative or positive material planes) to power their spells
"Spells tap power from other planes"
These planes of existence are within the multiverse of the fantasy but it's still an outside force relative to the magic user

>>92530734
>Grammar is how we separate actual humans from beasts.
Any grammar Nazi worth his salt would tell you that the Mediterranean Sea is actually what separates men from beasts.

>>92534183
>in a setting-neutral way
Your theory does not work across all settings.
For example Gygax's explanation of how magic is powered in his game world.

>>92534316
>And you're calling magical forces "natural" simple because they exist in the fantasy.
I'm actually not, I'm just saying that you can, your semantics are baseless. It's vapid to define magic in contrast with nature and vice-versa, I wouldn't do that, I would define nature in contrast with artifice and then discuss magic along those lines. Some magic can be referred to "natural" while spells can be referred to as "artificial" and people in-world can argue about what does or doesn't count as nature magic.
It's kind of like how atomic physics are natural but atomic bombs are not considered natural, no one points to a law of the physical world and says "this is unnatural" but they can still define nature in contrast with artifice, "nature" basically meaning "what was here before intelligent creatures manipulated it". But that also is more complicated in a fantasy setting which may or may not have creator-gods or intelligent precursors. In the real world, people repeatedly fall into the habit of saying "nature" to mean "the way things should be", and I think that people in a fantasy setting would do the same.
>Magic is extraplanar
That would be a coherent in-world definition, sure! I can't think of any games where it works that way, if you're talking about D&D then you're wrong, magic exists on every plane and may or may not manipulate forces from other planes, but you're on the right track.
No one is saying that gravity is the same as the strong nuclear force, or that the nuclear force is the same as magic, or that magic is the same as inertia, people in-world can recognize these as different fundamental forces. But they have no context with which to claim that one law of physics is natural and the other is not. From their point of view magic is just another law of physics. The in-world concept of what does and doesn't count as "magic" has to be based on something other than our own real-world perspective.

>>92534461
>That would be a coherent in-world definition, sure! I can't think of any games where it works that way, if you're talking about D&D then you're wrong
I'm quoting the DMG and it states that magic is powered from other planes or parallel universes in the multiverse which may not operate the same as the plane in which the game is normally conducted. It's an outside force from another world within the multiverse.
You can try to bend that to your argument all you like but magic in the game world described in AD&D 1st edition is powered by forces outside the "natural" game world.
Magic is both real and supernaturally in this setting.
Your theory is not universal.
You're wrong.

>>92534461
And when atomic bombs are proven to pipe in energy from a separate plane of existence you can make a comparison but in the meantime try not to strawman
I know it's hard for you

>>92534461
>your semantics are baseless
My semantics are based on a world with magic that is supernatural.
Your semantics are based on "well you CAN consider magic natural in a fantasy setting because it exists"

>>92534716
>AD&D DMG
Page number?
In 3e the prime material is explicitly magical. Some spells use positive or negative energy, and a lot of spells wouldn't work without the astral plane, but those are specific features of specific spells. If people applied your planar definition to this system, then Cure Light Wounds would be magical, but Enlarge/Reduce wouldn't be.
Also in 3e "supernatural" has a specific legalistic meaning. Things that you would describe as "supernatural" in lay terms aren't necessarily supernatural (they might be extraordinary abilities).
>>92534737
That's silly, all the planes are naturally interconnected as part of a shared reality (the 'great wheel'), quantum physics don't become supernatural just because they're entangled with higher dimensions.

>>92515535
usually i just rip off the monastery in the name of the rose

>>92534818
>s-source
Spell casting on page 40
>Also in 3e "supernatural" has a specific legalistic meaning.
Good for 3e. Should have known I was speaking to a 3tard.
>quantum physics don't become supernatural just because they're entangled with higher dimensions.
Precisely why your whole atomic bomb argument is strawman and serves no purpose here.
Now you can turn to the Player's Handbook appendix IV where it states that other planes are tied to that of "normal existence"
The negative and positive planes where magic is powered from are outside "normal existence" but are "tied to it"
The prime material plane of "normal existence" is not explicitly magical like 3e because magic must be channeled into the prime material plane from outside it.

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Read A Canticle for Leibowitz.

>>92516522
I will agree only if it's not like the retardation that is The Pathfinder SocietyTM.
>we're the good guys because we're the heroes
>everyone here is good because we're the heroes
>we being the heroes is what makes us the good guys
God do I fucking hate the Pathfinder Society for their shitty Mary Sue larp.

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>>92523916
>Science isn't magic
We got a retard here.

>>92535274
Actually a perfect summary of the argument.

>>92534323
That’s funny! I’ll allow you to live… for now.

>>92535131
Isn’t the whole thing that they’re actually holding back humanity from progress?

>>92537239
No, they warn future generations of humanity against the same arrogance that destroyed the previous human civilization, are ignored by people who lust for power, and end up being the only source for knowledge AGAIN after the SECOND nuclear apocalypse bombs humanity back into the stone age.
The Leibowitzian Order is ultimately powerless to stop the nations of the future from re-enacting the flame deluge, and instead opts to take their knowledge and flee Earth to an offworld colony where their relics of the past can be preserved beyond the nuclear fires destined to consume Earth.

The AdMech are obviously based on the Leibowitzians, but the difference is that the actual Leibowitzian order would be horrified and disgusted by almost everything that the AdMech stands for.

>>92535054
Lmao you fucked him up.
well done.

>>92537646
NTA, but its nothing but bad faith arguments. Why would you respond to them? His whole argument stems from the idea that fluff from older editions overrides fluff from new editions and is somehow infinitely more valid, which is dumb even in a vacuum and isn't how editions work.

>>92530011

Fuck yes. I was going to post about this but anon beat me to it.

They're a great example because they are absolutely a scholar society. Not just math, no magic, no secret agenda or whatever. They just like studying and learning shit, and limit contact with the outside because they know outsiders can easily cause problems unless they want to join.

>>92530196
I think there's like, a slot for food and stuff, and sometimes they donate babies to the inner circles, right?

>>92535274
people like this are either no games players or forever DMs who can't think outside the system they designed.
I would say scientific theory can be applied to magic, doesn't mean it's the same thing. You're assuming the rules of magic are somewhere codified and unchanging.
>They've never cast the same spell and had different results
>Never interacted with fey or tried to learn and cast their magic
>Never interacted with creatures of the far realm
>Never entered the domain of a Gods where magic arbitrarily works differently

>The wizard calmly explains how magic works and demonstrates his spell and ritual, elaborately, beautiful
>The sorcerer ignores all that snaps his fingers making the same effect saying "That's where you're wrong kiddo" as he spontaneously shrinks three years younger... somewhere deep within the earth a creature older than creation grows closer to awakening as it fuels the bloodlines of that magic, and grows forever closer to awakening with each casting
>Elsewhere a different eldritch being winks, it being the source of a completely different form of magic

>>92538667
>somewhere deep within the earth a creature older than creation grows closer to awakening as it fuels the bloodlines of that magic, and grows forever closer to awakening with each casting

You fucked it, dumbass. You provided an explanation for how the sorcerer's bloodline-based magic works, and thus made it a science. As the sorcerer's magic has a consistent source, its rules are merely a matter of identification and categorization. Even if you are gated by what the slumbering god is *willing* to do from casting to casting, you can still test what the god is overall *capable* of providing (or, at least, has provided in the past) and learn from there. Whats more, you can eventually perform the deeper research of HOW the slumbering god performs magic in the first place, and thus bypass is to tap the source directly.

>>92524677
you're retarded you're thinking of the mages from dragon age

>>92537646
>samefag

>>92515535
Elden Ring's wizard city with Renala in it (forget what it's called) is the only thing I've seen that really seems like it could have been a 'scholar society' in a game. Apart from it the best example I can think of is the city of philosophers in Gulliver's Travels. I don't think there are any examples I'm aware of of /successful/ or even comfortable societies like that, they always seem to be in considerable decline.

>>92539502
What are YOU talking about? The DA Mages are more than simple calculators.

>>92538761
but you ignored everything else. The broader point was there are multiple forms and sources of magic, which do not necessarily act in a coherent or organized manner. The magic that governs how the Fey lord of Summer works may change from season to season, or based on its mood, and even that maybe changes based on whatever relic it holds at the time, or some other source of magic, perhaps an Elder tree spirit and it's own affectations. The magic of a far realm being may to it only be "psionic" or act in some other alien way.
You're only assuming you can research how a God performs magic, maybe you can for one, but why all? Maybe to the elder being its power just is. Maybe it's as simple as its will which could be flippant and so change the rules arbitrarily.

Consider a deck of cards, more cards are shuffled in each as each player goes around the table (new magical beings are made, Gods rise and fall, so on), assume each card has magical effects that interact with one another varied based on time of day, current location, the person playing, each other player sitting at the table, and each one interacts with one another before or after each one is shuffled and or drawn. They are then shuffled randomly, and, by virtue of their properties, there are hundreds of unseen interactions that change with each shuffle and each drawing of each card. Yes, everyone can point at the deck and say "this is magic" but by their nature NOBODY can describe how to play the deck, each person is trying to play differently, and nobody can reliably tell which card will come next, or how they'll work because every player who tries to measure it gets a different result.

That's my point, to me, for magic to be magical, it can at best only be a pseudo-science, at least that's how I run things.

If you want your magic to be a science, I hope you have fun with that, but I think that's a bit boring.

>>92538047
>His whole argument stems from the idea that fluff from older editions overrides fluff from new editions
That's not what I'm saying at all.
Reading comprehension.
I'm saying it's possible that magic can exist in a setting while also being a supernatural outside force. I've just used AD&D as an example.

>>92535054
>>92537646
>>92540284

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>>92540284
>>92541137

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>>92541137
>>92541160

>>92534316
Nothing is supernatural either in reality or in fiction. Definitionally, everything that happens is part the natural world, including human and nonhuman actions. "Supernatural" is just a buzzword applied to a subject to contrast it with "accepted by the contemporary academic mainstream". Everything, including pure randomness, is explicable, and this remains true whether or not the universe you're in has the same laws of physics as ours or not.

>>92540730
>Consider a deck of cards, more cards are shuffled in each as each player goes around the table (new magical beings are made, Gods rise and fall, so on), assume each card has magical effects that interact with one another varied based on time of day, current location, the person playing, each other player sitting at the table, and each one interacts with one another before or after each one is shuffled and or drawn. They are then shuffled randomly, and, by virtue of their properties, there are hundreds of unseen interactions that change with each shuffle and each drawing of each card. Yes, everyone can point at the deck and say "this is magic" but by their nature NOBODY can describe how to play the deck, each person is trying to play differently, and nobody can reliably tell which card will come next, or how they'll work because every player who tries to measure it gets a different result.

You don't need to predict the outcome to recognize the pattern. For example, consider the path of a both of lightning. No one would even pretend that they could guess the exact path of a lightning bolt through the air, the electricity is going to arc from spot to spot based on a multitude of environmental factors that are either invisible to the naked eye or actually microscopic in nature. It simply cannot be done. And yet we don't have to be able to guess that level of detail in the moment to know how electricity *works*, you still know that it will always follow the path of least resistance as as such can design and use a lightning rod to protect your buildings from lightning strikes.

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>>92541597
>Nothing is supernatural either in reality or in fiction.
>"Supernatural" is just a buzzword
This is your brain on relativism

>>92541597
>Nothing is supernatural either in reality or in fiction

let me test your theory by writing some fiction
>"Boy, that thing sure looks supernatural", Ted thought. He was right.
looks like you're a retard

>>92542192
Not to weigh in on the argument, but all you've proven is the ability to put words in arbitrary sequences, not that they describe a coherent worldview.
Like I could write a book that describes something as canonically shaped like a square circle, but that doesn't mean I've actually written a real idea down. If you're able to picture something, it wasn't what I wrote down, because I didn't describe anything coherent.

>>92543515
>all you've proven is the ability to put words in arbitrary sequences, not that they describe a coherent worldview.
surely you understand the irony of saying this? a coherent worldview can't contain supernatural phenomena by definition.

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Science as we know it was invented by Christianity and billionaire propaganda tries to convince you it's science versus religion. By the way, Christianity is the only belief system which declares magic to be a stain to be eradicated from the face of the Earth by active seek and destroy measures.

>>92544129
>Science as we know it was invented by Christianity
Even your pic argues reestablishing science required learning from some Greek sources, possible to the crusades.

Poor Knights Templar, villainized for almost a millenium now for having nothing but best intentions.

>>92543701
Yes it can because what supernatural actually means is subjective, there is no objective basis to declare something as beyond the limits of nature, it's an incoherent idea just like square circles and objective morality. To demonstrate, it is considered by many that ghosts and the afterlife are "supernatural", but if they really exist then they are in fact part of nature and thus aren't supernatural at all, to call something supernatural is thus akin to saying "I don't believe in that". You can believe or disbelieve in whatever you want, but what is, is, and everything that is definitionally part of the natural world.

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>>92544129
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/search/image/scJa8sgru1R7XKItVxmX2w/

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>>92544877
Nice.

How do you *actually* run a game where magic is supposed to be this unknowable, unmeasurable force that acts arbitrarily everytime?

>>92544129
Science as we know it matured under christianity, but it was ultimately just an iteration upon Hermeticism which started under the greeks. During the old days, christian monks WERE scholars that advanced fields of knowledge and were not inherently aligned against science. That is a correct statement.

Modern christianity has little in common with that. During the medieval period and earlier it was largely understood that scripture like the bible was allegorical and inspirational, not literal. Even they didn't think that the stories in the bible like the flood and genesis were *historical fact*, that is a much more modern invention and that changeover in interpretation was when christianity started started being at odds with science.

>>92544963
You don't, its a troll opinion that is only ever espoused in bad faith. I've asked the same question you are in no fewer than 10 threads, and they've never once bothered to formulate a response. Because its not a coherent position they can defend, its purely designed to start arguments on the internet. And it works every time because it has the *shape* of an opinion you can argue against, but its as solid as smoke the moment you try to engage with it in any way.

>>92545036
You do.

Magic is DM fiat and only available to antagonists.

>>92544963
You can't and not have it effectively be playing "Mother may I?" with the GM.
The reason magic is formulaic and predictable in games is because they are games and games need rules for the things you do in them. You can sort of do a half assed version by having failure rolls and stuff like the Warhammer games do, but for the most part thats still too predictable to have it satisfy most people who ask this question.
If you really want magic to be unpredictable, strange and arbitrary you need to remove it from easy access by the players. Sometimes they get a macguffin or instructions for a ritual and it acts the way the GM says it does, but otherwise magic is for NPCs or monsters.

>>92544994
Falsely so called science will be at odds with reality, asking if animals can consent and telling you that a born XY karyotype man can declare himself a woman and demand entry to restrooms designated for karyotype XX women.

>>92545142
I'd argue that its not just restricted to game. Obviously anything that exists in game mechanics has to follow some coherent rules because thats what game mechanics are, but even outside of the context of games and in the realm of pure story having your magic be totally inexplicable is rarely an improvement over the audience having at least SOME idea of what the rules are, because thats how the audience forms expectations on the stakes of a given situation and forms an emotional investment in the outcome.

Imagine how much worse the Lord of the Rings would have been if in the Return of the King gandalf teleported to Frodo and shot lightning at the One Ring until it exploded and Sauron died. Frodo asks "But I thought you said we couldn't destroy the One Ring? What was the entire point of this journey then?" and Gandalf just says "You wouldn't understand" and T-poses into the ground. By actively undercutting any sense of logic or rules, you simply create nonsense.

>>92545185
> asking if animals can consent

That's not a scientific question, because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy.

>>92545230
The hyperbole you're using undermines your argument more than it enhances it. But you're not wrong that even very mysterious magic will have some semblance of rules to it.
The things Gandalf can and can't do in the actual books seem arbitrary, but there is an underlying logic to it. Most stories with magic give the magic at least a semblance of rules, even if they aren't clarified explicitly. The key is always consistency. If you can't make a thunderstorm unless there were already clouds, then the BBEG can't either, unless he has a macguffin or something to explain his extra ability.

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>>92544963
>>92545036
>>92545142
fuck off. Here's how you do it
>Wizards know how to commune with demons and spirits
>Demons and spirits can grant powerful aid, and it will appear as if the wizard did it
>They ask for costly, terrible, or bizarre things in return

and so here's your system:
>the GM has a book of demons and spirits
>each of them has a table of powers they will offer mortals
>each of them has a table of costs which they will impose on the wizard in return
casting a spell involves begging an entity for a randomly-determined boon, and having the GM tell you what your wizard must sacrifice afterwards

>>92545288
>Its a spell list with costs
You fail.

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>>92545288
and obviously, this is why the wizard's primary tool is the crystal ball. By using the crystal ball to commune with otherworldly things, the wizard can know by which name their presence can be invoked. Once the wizard invokes a power, they (the dice) decide how that power will manifest itself.

The wizard might get reputation modifiers with various beings, lessening their costs or enriching their boons. If the wizard refuses to pay their tolls, he may be blacklisted by them or worse. Wizards grow in power over time by learning more names, by learning the names of more dangerous beings, and by building relationships with those names.

>>92545288
> casting a spell involves begging an entity for a randomly-determined boon, and having the GM tell you what your wizard must sacrifice afterwards

No one would ever use such a system, because by your own admission the benefit you get from it is random and you are obligated to pay a cost you have no way of controlling as a result. You wanted a flying spell to cross a great chasm, a demon instead gives you the ability to hold your breath for up to 10 hours, and in return you are end-user agreement'd into cutting off both your hands and burning them in a fire in his honor. A cost you would never agree to in return for a 'boon' you didn't even want. That's a game mechanic that exists for no other purpose than to try and satisfying this one specific internet argument, no player would touch it, no GM would use it, no game designer would include it.

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>>92545345
>I want your most unpredictable magic system
>no that's too unpredictable
Are wizards swiss army knife rocket launchers with a tool for every problem, like they are in 5E, or should they be strange occultists who consort with powers beyond human control and occasionally make regrettable bargains?

The god of flight turned the party into birds for a day. What, you have to leave your swords behind? make some lemonade, that's where the fun comes from

>>92544994
>Hermeticism
wasn't that a bunch of occult astrology.

>>92545417
It was a formalized study of the natural world

>>92545417
Hermeticism included a bunch of stuff at the start that turned out not to be true. Hermetic philosophy was a game changer, as it the first big movement that pushed for the idea that the world ran on consistent rules that COULD be learned and doing so you would gain forewarning and control. But they still had to start with their existent understanding of how the world worked and refine from there. For example, before catholicism co-opted it the phrase 'as above, so below' was a hermetic principal that meant that even the gods were bound by the same rules that bound the rest of the world, they might be stronger and have fantastical powers but even the divine was not without limitations. Which, obviously, means that hermeticism started off with the assumption that the gods were real. Because for people living in that time and place, why would they think otherwise?

>>92545417
Alchemy is also originally a Hermetic art, and the one most relevant to the modern science by a virtue of being - kind of a precursor to the scientific method. In respected natural philosophy, authority of Aristotle was daunting, but alchemists relied on experiments. There wasn't any Academy of Sciences back then, and different groups were often paranoid, so the discovery was likely to doomed to die with its' maker or with his apprentices, unless it can be easily monetized such as a process to make gunpowder, but it was probably the first real "science" in the modern sense.

>>92549048
If you are paranoid about having your “discovery” stolen, why would you not publicize your achievement as quickly and as widely as possible?

The Albertian Order of Leibowitz

>>92549186
It wasn't always paranoia about having your discovery stolen, sometimes it was paranoia about being found out as an alchemist at all. There will several periods of history where alchemists were basically treated like we think of witches. You do some weird shit with chemistry and people catch you burning fires in strange colors and they start getting funny ideas about why their baby was stillborn or why it hasn't rained much this year. People fear what they don't understand, and an alchemist's experiments were the closest thing to magic that people of that time could really experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPsJeL7cqtY

Your peasant ass saw this shit happen in 900 AD and you'd be freaking out too.

>>92544963
you don't allow players to play spellcasters, which is fine in most non-dnd systems.

>>92549296
Sounds boring

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How the FUCK has not a single person in this thread mentioned the Thousand Sons?

>>92550120
Thank you for reminding me to dump out my vacuum cleaner.

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>>92550152

>>92546088
>>92549186
I'm starting to think Catholicism did invent science is the modern understanding, rather than a kind of knowledge exchange only elected individuals were allowed to access.

>>92551273
Your understanding is flawed then

>>92551395
No one person invented the modern understanding. You need many thinkers.

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Just use the Pédé Clique as your inspiration

>>92516522
I want frogboi's shorts, he looks so happy

>>92552293
Would you enjoy being a symbol for the death of your game's seriousness as its own world with rules and internal logic?

>>92533990

Ectoo-wooly, chemistry developed from several different strands of pursuit of alchemy. Monasteries typically pursued the distillation of alcohol route, while the people pursuing the elixir of immortality usually went to court to hit up the rulers for money to explore their sure-fire hermetic techniques developed from divining precise astrological relations. See Newton.

>>92554641
That's how you pronounce actually?

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>>92515569
Kek fpbp

>>92534323
Based
>>92530710
>>92537112
Cringe and reddit

>>92516522
SOUL

>>92520677
>>92523959
Shit taste

>>92553563
Newfag

>>92558438
Warcraft died sometime around 09 or 10 and its corpse has been strung around since then

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This thread is absolutely fucked, so I went through and pulled out the actual answers to OP's question. What more do we want to add?

>Fictional
Maesters of the Citadel (aSoIaF)
Avowed of Candlekeep (DnD)
Explorer's League (WoW)
Librarian's Guild (Book of the New Sun)
Librarian Knights of Lake Landing Academy (The Edge Chronicles)
"The fucked-up narrator" of the "Library of Babel" (short story by J.L. Borges)
Mentats (Dune)
"King Billy" (Hyperion)
Soltryce Academy in Rexxentrum (Critical Role)
Golden Order Fundamentalism (Elden Ring)
The Sobornost (The Quantum Thief)
Sharlayan (Final Fantasy XIV)
The Concent Avout (Anathem)
The Order of Hermes (Ars Magica)
Templar Training Academy (DnD)
Khadein (Fire Emblem)
The Albertian Order of Leibowitz (A Canticle for Leibowitz)
The Academy of Raya Lucaria (Elden Ring)
Thousand Sons (40k)


>Non-Fictional
"Real world Catholicism"
"Imperial Civil System" (?)
"Dojo" of Tibetan Buddhism or Shaolin or Zen
Magi/Astrologers
The Library of Alexandria
"Pédé Clique" (?)

>>92560610
I would add Sumerian tablets in Babylon (Assyrian) and Armenian scribes in the Ottoman empire but don't know how to call them.

>>92560664
The tablets themselves or the scribes who created those tablets?

>>92560610
The Foundation at least initially believe their task is to assemble a galactic encyclopaedia which will preserve the heights of Empire knowledge for the dark age to rediscover. They more overtly come to resemble the catholics later when a Seldon message reveals that this won't and was never intended to work. House of Suns also features posthuman scholars of a sort. iirc they were men who grew cnotinually into eidetic and glacial-thinking giants, both as a means to avoid senescence and to devote ever more brainmeat to house memory.

>>92560761
>was never intended to work.
What was it intended to do?

>>92560672
The institutions. The Assyrians employed the Sumerian language until it was slowly phased out; the overwhelming majority of Ottoman civil services were in Armenian.

>>92560610
Oh right and though we don't see their inner workings the technocratic University of Planet from Sid Meier's Alpha Centaiuri ought to count though it's very much a less ethically shackled version of >>92515535 "European University in X".

On a personal note the whole point of one settingis exploring twisted human cultures (the singularity happened but was largely confined to sociology). One of the many primitive "control" colonies set up to preserve less modified humans and hedge against apocalypse has since turned regular old palace economy into a weird sort of neolithic OGAS. The monks collect notched tablets bearing prayer (request) and tribute receipts which they calculate into useful output. Fanaticism's kept it abnormally corruption-free so far. Stole a lot from Souls in the Great Machine which features a human-based computer run by scholar-tyrants in post-apocalyptic Australia.

>>92560779
To directly guide and master dark age humanity except it turns out that even then there was another backup and ulitimately Seldon admitted to flling short of omniscience and left denizens of the future to decide their own fate. iirc of course, I read the books a long time ago.

>>92560817
I’m not sure I understand half the words in this post

>>92560972
It's a problem I struggle with. University of Planet are an unethical scientist society in SMAC. The book Souls in the Great Machine features scholars who run a computer with humans as calculators (derelict orbital weapons reflexively fry electronics).

OGAS was an irl Soviet idea to computerise their command economy. It was never put into action and could never have worked (garbage in garbage out on steroids). The Palace Economy is a common societal setup dating back to the neolithic, basically tribute was brought to the monarch (whose palace was also a temple complex) where it was then redistributed in a sort of command economy. This primitive planet somehow managed to go from the latter to a low-tech version of the former. Just a silly "scholar" society of my own.

>>92516360
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5AohCMX0U

>>92561100
Ah, I see now, thank you for following up. Would you be able to elaborate more on OGAS’s failure? Was it an inherently flawed idea or was it not programmed correctly?

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>>92515535
>Both of those however strike me as too plain and just "European University in a Fantasy World"-ish

The Western University System is literally THE BEST for the accumulation, creation, and teaching of knowledge. There is NO OTHER SYSTEM OF EDUCATION that surpasses it.

You can argue about the economics of its availability, but when it comes to pure "Knowledge collection" and "Knowledge creation", nothing does it better.

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>>92561113
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUQJlCmd9oY

>>92560610
>"Pédé Clique" (?)
It means modern French philosophy

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The Black Library should be included here, no? Or perhaps just the Farseers in general.

Do the Eldar have a separate "Path of the Scholar" that's different from the Path of the Seer?

>>92564630
Eldar society has a path for everything. There is a Path of the Toilet Cleaner. I would be shocked to find out they do not have a Path of the Scholar which is separate from the Seer.

>>92528756
Jews aren't east of Constantinople either...

(Aside from the ones that moved to shanghai during the 30s and 40s

>>92565896
Israel is east of Constantinople

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>>92566093
>>92565896

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>>92567490
Huh, I didn't realize Alexandria was east of Istanbul

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>>92560610
>>Non-Fictional
>"Real world Catholicism"
>"Imperial Civil System" (?)
>"Dojo" of Tibetan Buddhism or Shaolin or Zen
>Magi/Astrologers
>The Library of Alexandria
>"Pédé Clique" (?)

All of these are practically fictional in the sense we're talking about.

>>92561348
Command economies as a whole are pretty iffy but even if the the expensive infrastructure required magically poofed into existence the fact is that the entrenched culture of false reporting and corruption would have rendered all the hardware in the world useless. Crap data makes for crap results and I say "even if" because expense aside the Party that would supposedly build the thing was rife with corrupt members whose interests were directly opposed to its existence.

I'm neither a sociologist nor economist but my hunch is that even if an OGAS-style system could compete on par with the free market (at least until the latter devolves into cronyism) human nature is unlikely to spit out a state willing or able to lay the groundwork for the best version of it. Doing so in the stone age is even crazier; my only excuse beyond rule of cool is that in that setting humans have access to mentat abilities (ie humans who can act as computers) and that unseen cultural manipulation is guiding them (some of the prayer tablets they compute predate their civilisation).

Lots of existing scholar societies in this thread btw, anyone have creations of their own to share?
>>92567813
I'm not sure I take your meaning.

>>92569836
>anyone have creations of their own to share?
I've always felt that there isn't enough "civilian" application of psykers in the Imperium, so I always end up adding a sort of "Psyker University" to my dark heresy campaigns.

>>92515535
>What's the best version of "Scholar Society" in fantasy/sci-fi?
The Albertian Order of Saint Leibowitz.

>>92571701
Who is Albert?

>>92574733
Most catholic orders follow a "X of Y" format, where the first name of whose Rule (official term, meaning regulations) they follow and the second is their patron.

So in this case, the brothers in Albertian Order of Saint Leibowitz follow the Rule of Albert and have Saint Leibowitz as their patron.

>>92561439
Counterpoint: stackexchange and reddit.

>>92579004
What’s the opposite word for “touché”?

Because that is what I’d say here.

>>92574733
The homosexual founder

In The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish (1666) there's a society of hyperintelligent animals living in a state in the North Pole where they argue over the latest inventions and their uses for knowledge, like microscopes.

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>>92515535
Comstar

>>92585179
Comstar is oldfag shit, we don’t talk about that anymore

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>>92516360
>Every instance of scholar society in fiction is a carbon copy of Catholic monasteries.

What part of the Senpou Temple and the Scholar-Monks searching for immortality strikes you as being Catholic?

>>92586491
>Temple
Catholic
>Monks
Catholic
>Searching for immortality
CATHOLIC

>>92590224
>carthlics conquer most of relevant western world semirecent history
>english language adapts to calfliuk themes
>translations of other shit end up as "like catholic, but this"
>"wuuuh why everyone always copy amazing westoid catholics waaah"

Try reading in a language that wasn't made for peasants.

>>92590319
The English were Anglican when they conquered most of the world, not Catholic

>>92529119
Anon… develop some taste

>>92590338
>Every instance of Anglican scholasticism is a carbon copy of Catholic education
Checkem

>>92590516
I think there’s one big difference between the two that you’re forgetting…

>>92590338
Anglicanism is literally the Catholic Church rewired to their king in place of the successor of St. Peter. It's literally the spiritual equivalent of a jailbreak.

>>92591446
Seems like a pretty big deal

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>>92591446
>Anglicanism is literally the Catholic Church

Hmmmmm….

>>92592169
>rewired to their king in place of the successor of St. Peter.
Please read whole sentences before you prove the Reformation to be the worst thing to happen to humanity spiritually. Without Luther the heretic we wouldn't have dimwits asking about denominations.

>>92515535
Canticle for Leibowitz's Monastic order feel pretty good.

>>92592768
Nah, Luther correctly pointed out how fucked the church was.

Really we all lost the plot when they put the Gnostics to the torch around 700ad. If not for that we would've had a space program by the 16th century.

>>92592768
Do the Catholics have female priests? I thought that was a Protestant heresy only?

>>92593568
The “God is evil” people? They would’ve put us on the moon earlier?

>>92594173
The "God is experiencing the world" people, yeah. People meme on gnosticism for evil demiurge, but the premise is that you know God and divinity through experience. It was a psychophilsophical tradition 1000 years ahead of its time. RIP

>>92595695
I don’t know man, the whole “God is evil” part doesn’t seem to sit right with most of Jesus’ sermons

>>92593568
>Nah, Luther correctly pointed out how fucked the church was.
He complained about the Inquisition being too soft. One of its jobs was prosecuting bad priests.
The Gnostics believed the old lie, and I see you repeating the Hypatia myth, a modern legend about a astrologer woman who was killed in a riot between poor plebs and rich plebs.
>>92593596
The female priests are a recent Protestant heresy, and here Protestant includes Anglicanism.
>>92594173
>>92595695
>>92595814
Quite literaly the lie the old snake told Eve, the first woman.
The current iteration of the "matter is bad" ideology is transsexuality. Gnostics believe the body is "wrong" and "a prison" and thus can be changed at a whimsy. The God of the Bible was frequently written from a human perspective and relative to the writer as chosen by said God.
Imagine if you will NPCs trying to write down your DM's 21st century jargon in their TTRPG lexicon. Did you know the Greek word for sorcery was originally meds?

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>>92596298
>Did you know the Greek word for sorcery was originally meds?
Do you think someone would really come onto the internet and tell lies?

>>92596298

>He complained about the Inquisition being too soft.

And he was right