Here's what our friends at the Cleveland Museum of Art write about these four 17th-century paintings entitled "Scenes of Witchcraft" by Salvator Rosa:
A huge upturn in interest in witchcraft emerged during the 1500s in Europe, but by the middle of the next century - at least among the cultured elite of Florence - a backlash arose against the many accusations of sorcery. Artists and writers explored the topic more out of curiosity and amusement, chief among them the poet, painter, and satirist Salvator Rosa, who examined witchcraft with gusto in numerous poems and works of art, including these four paintings. They show a range witch types - from the beautiful enchantress to the old crone to the male sorcerer - and represent activities commonly associated with black magic - levitation, love potions, devil worship, the invocation of demons, and transformation.
If you think that's awesome, you should browse the museum's collection in JSTOR—lots of great art from a wide variety of cultures and eras, and it's open and free for everyone to view and download!
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This may be a great big, juicy Controversial Opinion (tm) that I'm throwing out to the wolves here, but I personally feel that if you're gonna go down the path of magic and the occult, you need to just come to terms with the fact that somewhere, at some point, there is going to be something that fucks you up a little bit.
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Strange rescues Clea in this sequel / prequel comic for Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme.
Loved getting to see Clea here, and this short story strengthens my stance of this adaptation being the best after OG Comic Strange.
Staying more faithful to the source material, Clea is Strange's pupil here, starting out a bit more naive but already showing a good bit of power.
I wish we could have gotten an animated serious or at least a comic for this version of Strange. The film & this comic left me wanting more - the signs of a great story.
This Dr. Strange really does have it all - development, depth, great expansion on his lore.
I feel gypped all the good adaptations of Doctor Strange were short-lived & the most we get is the MCU version which is the worst of the bunch imo. I already ranted on that, so I won't do it again here. Lmao But the saltiness is real with MCU's butchering of Strange. So I never miss a chance to take shots at it.
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How do you treat wizards and sorcerers differently in 5e, other than the mechanical stuff? I feel like there isn't much there other than "these people are smart, these people have magic in their blood"
The mechanics inform a lot of their flavor, but I'll ignore that part.
In my games, there ARE mechanical benefits based on how I flavor them. Mechanics and flavor are pretty linked for me. For me, what I love about them is how integral magic is to them, how "natural" it is. Wizards have a deep, factual knowledge on how things work, it's why they can cast spells without having the innate ability to do so.
Sorcerers feel. Their magic is an expression of something deep within them. When they cast spells, it is an expression of a part of them. Also, the vibe is TOTALLY different. Let's go with two famous spellcasters from popular media in similar situations.
Spellcaster 1:
Spellcaster 2:
Both of these spellcasters are in DIRE straights in their respective stories. Both have a goal and find themselves in deadly peril. Both (spoilers, I guess) end up nearly permadead by putting everything on the line for the people they're with. But what does that look like for them?
Spellcaster 1: Gandalf has his back up against the wall here. He knows his buddies can't outrun this thing. They can't fight it. They don't have the powers, they don't KNOW what he knows. He has the tools... maybe. If anyone does, he does. He has the right magic at the right time. It's not the flashiest, but it's effective. But another wizard would NOT have been able to do this at this time. I think Saruman would have fallen to the Balrog. He still ends up nearly permadead, and it takes all of his resources, as well as the intercession of greater entities, to prevent that.
Spellcaster 2: Yennefer's back is up against the wall. She has decided to make a stand to prevent an army from invading. She's not much of a planner in this situation. She's great at social intrigue, and she has some tricks up her sleeve, but she does something when it feels like the right thing to do. Even then at her direst moment, when she has to make a last stand, here is her display of power:
Is it elegant? No. Is it the precisely right answer for EXACTLY what's happening? No. She's pouring everything she has into her magic here. She's tapping on deep wells of emotion here to summon up that kind of power, she's putting EVERYTHING on the line here. She nearly dies from this kind of Limit Break™.
Can you have flashy, emotional wizards? Sure. Cold, calculating sorcerers? Yes. (Just TRY to introduce a tall, thin male elf with blonde hair to my friday crew. It's fight on sight with that calculating bastard.) But those aren't the wells of power that they'll be tapping in to when push comes to shove.
Wizards are planners, sorcerers are creatures of the moment. A wizard's power comes from their control of external forces. A sorcerer's power comes from within.
These are not constants for everyone's games across D&D, but they hold true for mine. Just as I might let a martial character throw themselves in the way of a fatal blow for a dramatic moment or push themselves beyond their Mortal Limits™, my spellcasters get big, flashy limit breaks when it's good for the narrative, provided they're willing to pay the price.
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One of the many reasons Fundamentalism sucks is because it reads spiritual text as a fact. As an absolute that can't be challenged.
On the other hand, I don't think there's much to be gained as seeing spiritual text as "pure metaphor".
The "spiritual" is neither metaphorical nor factual. It exists in an abstract space between the two. That's why we have a whole different word for it. That word being...well, the spiritual.
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