I am fairly new at GMing shadowrun, and am running a game for some people who are entirely new to the game. I was asking one of the players, who is playing an uncouth, antisocial stealth expert who hates things that he doesn't understand, like metas and the awakened... which makes for an interesting character, as the himself is a magician. When I asked him what magical tradition he followed, he said that he basically worshipped himself, which made me think of Satanism. (Which is different from devil worship, for those who don't know what I'm talking about.) So that made me start to think about the rules for it, and I'm having trouble deciding. First, which of the spirits would they be able to summon. I'm thinking fire, as flame imagery is of course, very often associated with satanism. Beasts also, as kindness to animals is an important part of satanism, and the goat is one of their main symbols. I'm not sure which would be excluded... perhaps water, as the more or less opposite of fire, or man, because Satanists have little respect for people on the whole. (Baaaaaah...) Opinions?

As for drain resistance, I'm leaning towards intuition, as they seem to have a "do what works for you" mentality for magic.

Here's a glimpse of Satanism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaVeyan_Satanism

Anyone have experience with running this tradition, or who are members of this tradition irl? (The player had never heard of it, which I'm sure is the only reason he wasn't one... he has identified himself as one since.) Or anyone just want to throw in your 2 ?

The Shadowrun 4 supplemental book "Street Magic" does have that emo-satanism-stuff as tradition in it, or some kind of Black Magic-stuff, something similar anyway. I recommend getting that book, it's worth it.

Cool, but I'm not sure if I want to shell out the for just one thing I could wing on my own. Is the book good other then that? And for those who have read it, how do they represent satanism? Do they show it as emo-satanism?

Street Magic is a fine book, although there are some flaws in it (Bloodzilla, anyone?). It sure is worth the buck, if you plan on playing a serious mage. The info on astral space and spirits alone was worth the read for me.

Black Magic is sort of a satanistic influenced tradition. It is rather based on what western civilization perceives as "black magic" than any form of satanistic cultism. It's a proper tradition on it's own while some of those practices attributed to satanistic cultists are rather left-handed. If you need a tradition to represent a satanists approach to magic, the black one should be your first choice.

So it depends... if you want a tradition based on a hedonistic world-view then the black magic tradition is what you need. You get the bias towards spirit pacts and darker mentor spirits and a love for complex rituals. Black mages can pass as hermetic mages as both traditions base on similar fundamental assumptions. A black mage needs a greater amount of charisma whereas a hermetic favors the ability to discern mythos from logos.

But if you need a more mainstream approach on satanism say... conjuring of demons, cursing, enchantment and gory rituals the tradition itself is just another flavour to these themes as they are all covered in some way as warped paths.

I was thinking more along the lines of Anton Levay satanism. They see satan not as a being or spirit, but as a symbol of independance and individuality, and a rejection of what they percive to be opressive ideologies. Satanists are athiests in fact, although many believe in magic. Ritual magic is a big part of their beliefs, although the rituals are meant to be more like guidelines to be adapted to your personal style, and are often themed towards vengance, lust, or compassion. Someone who engaged in what the media views as satanism, such as ritual sacrafices, abuse of children and the like, would be looked down on by Levay satanists. While they strongly believe in vengence against those who have wronged them, hurting innocents, especially children and animals, is considered very wrong.

Pleasure, love and beauty are all important parts of satanism, which they feel are parts of life and nature that are supressed by religion and society, pleasure as being sinful for example, and beauty for beauty's sake being unprofitable and therefore useless and decadent. Satanists embrace hedonism, seeing pleasure as not a means towards an end, but as an end in of itself.

I'm not a satanist myself, and I fully admit that all this is just bits and pieces laying around my mind that I've read on the internet. But from what I understand, satanism is not devil worship, and is not evil, from my own utilitarian point of view, though your milage may vary.

Edit: and yes, satanism is definately a left handed path.

i've been led to understand that some schools of qabbalic thought view Satan not as the Big Bad, but just as the adversary--like God's district attorney, or a devil's advocate.

I've heard the same said about Judas, actually.

And Satan literally means adversary.

Well yeah, according to at least one of the Gospels, Jesus basically had to tell Judas to go and get the Romans. And I think it's easy enough to read the "one of you dipping the bread right now" bit as a sort of drawing straws for who had to go do it.

I just happened to reread the description for the Black Magic tradition in Street Magic last night and I thought it was pretty well done.

Why a Shaman at all? Why not just a mage? No dogma.

PS…. He said that he basically was an anti social individualist… You’re the one who put Satanism into it. Anton Levay’s Satanism was NOT a religion of the antisocial, but rather more of a social club for eccentric hedonists into experimentation. Not at all the kind of thing an uncouth, intolerant character would engage in.

The Black Magician tradition is most probably what you want, and to answer your question - yes, Street Magic is enormously wonderful for many other things besides. But some elements of what you say sound less like the Black Magic tradition and more like the Chaos Magician tradition, i.e. the atheism and the belief that Satan is merely an abstract concept or a symbolic representation of a certain concept. "The Adversary" is offered as one of the available Archetypes in Street Magic, and picking this with any of the Western magical traditions (though particularly Qabalism, Black Magic, Traditional or massively heretical the Islamic and Christian Theurge traditions), would make a viable Satanist approach to the character. Having said that, however, the Adversary mentor type in Street Magic is a little more active than your player's character sounds - it is actively rebellious whereas the PC sounds rather passively selfish in that he's only bothered about things that affect him.

Just a note on a different subject, Uncouth is generally regarded (and I would agree) to be a bad idea. It's passable so long as the player has spent at least some points on social skills, but it's a twenty point flaw which is big. It's definitely not free points for players who just want to play an unpleasant character. Make sure the player knows that they have real difficulty in social situations. The character is getting a lot of points for that flaw and they should expect to be hit hard by it some times.

EDIT: I agree with Negalith's comments about Levay's satanism being a sort of club for eccentric hedonists. It's far removed from what I would consider "real" satanism. And whilst I'm fully aware that there have been minimal substantiated examples of "real" satanism (does any group ever really consider itself to be evil which calling yourself a satanist would imply), it's still a valid point that Lavey simply tacked the term satanism on to his philosophy for the impact of the name without it actually corresponding to what most would consider the name to mean. Not that I'm advocating destructive behaviour, but it sounds a sad sort of satanist that spends his time advocating kindness to puppies and children. <300>Puppies? This... is... SHADOWRUN!</300>

What I think the OP is after is "How do I role up Anton Lavey's tradition". If I was to do that while drawing on RAW as heavily as possible, I would do what Lavey did and intentionally turn Christianity on it's head. There are two ways to take this. The Berkeley style ultra PC "Satanists are magi just like one else", I would just do what Knasser says as pick a publish tradition and mentor that fits your views on what you want to play.

I do know that Anton Lavey's satanism is really just some radical humanism philosophy plus stock western ritual magic in the name of Christian deprogramming. But Lavey consciously and willfully decide to take a tradition and explicitly pervert it on all levels in all ways in the name of (ostensibly enlightened) selfishness. In SR terms what does that get you? Twisted Christian Theurgy.

That gives you

Combat: Fire--> Nuclear
Detection: Water --> Acid
Health: Air-->Abomination (no printed foil for air)
Illusion: Earth-->Sludge
Manipulation: Guidance-->Harbinger
Drain: Willpower + Charisma

Charisma is absolutely the right call on the drain stat. The Satanic Bible explicity talks about force of personality being what lets you do magic, especially consider that satanic "lesser magic" is really just being a smooth charmer. This also gives you both the abominations horned-god imagery you are after and harbingers which are so spot on for them.

Harbinger

Yeah, I think Levay has still a long way to go, until that tradition could be considered twisted/toxic. Just doing the opposite, or simply refusing something does not qualify.

Also, a twisted Air spirit would be a Smog spirit, or something like that.

I'd say black magic is definitely Lavey's tradition.

Black Magic is really really close, but the anti-Christian is really important.

Also ideologically, I'm not sure what else you could ask for in a twisted path besides "consciously and willfully deciding to take a tradition and explicitly pervert it on all levels in all ways in the name of selfishness".

If it matters, my first thought was toxic as well

And yes, if you ever want run any story line involving magic, I strongly suggest Street Magic. The chapter in the book is woefully lacking in true substance. Yet one more reason I cannot wait for the Hacker release.

Knasser you clay feet are showing, give the Satanic Bible as close a read as the BBB! The point of Satanism is to explicitly to get over being Christian. There is a very good reason for the Satanic pageantry. It's that it is easier for people to invert programming than to throw it out. the CoS isn't ever for every hedonistic humistic Ritual magus. It's for people who need help getting over Christianity specifically Catholicisms. The Satan of the CoS is a philosophical construct derived by embracing god's negation. Calling that Satan isn't just PR stunt

What is the BBB? I don't recognise that acronym. Big Black Book?

I think it's also a way to hook people... inagine someone coming across, oh, I don't know, Levay Wicca: "Oh look, another neopagan religion, ho hum." But the name and symbology catches eyes. "What, these people worship satan! That's messed up, I think I'll have a look. Huh, isn't devil worship afterall" (reader either A: ignores it, which is fine, because they don't want the people they think of as sheep anyway, or B: embraces the new philosophy if he's "worthy")

I disagree with the people who are saying that it should be an inverted or corrupted version of christianity... there are elements of that, from what I've read, but they are a very small part of the whole, not the basis for the tradition. While the goat head and the literally inverted pentagram are symbolic, for example, things like upside down crosses and traditional devil and hell imagery seem to be there more for kicks then any actual spiritual meaning, other then perhaps as a frag you (are we allowed to say naughty words here? ) to christianity.

I saw an interesting video on youtube once, a news station was covering a big satanic mass on 06/06/2006. From what the people said, the date didn't have any kind of religious meaning to them, it was just an excuse to party and have a good time... getting willingly caught up in their own joke, so to speak. Basically like most people dressing up and acting spooky on halloween. (Which, I've read, they enjoy doing too, for secular reasons.)

Oh, oy. I've just had a horrible thought. Anyone ever thought of making a Church of the Subgenius tradition? How about an H.R. "Bob" Dobbs Mentor spirit?

Flying Spaghetti monster?

I'm going straight to hell for starting this thread.








PASTA SPIRITS!! MUAHAHAHAHA!! 10P DAMAGE FROM HIS NOODLY APPENDAGE!

*cough*

Heh, well perhaps I have a little clay in my feet. I can't deny that my religion colours my reaction to certain words or concepts, though I do take great pains to ensure what I say can be derived from first principles. I'd like to point out that Lavey's "Satanism" is rooted purely in opposing Christianity whilst Satan is also present in Islam. I would think a "real" Satanism would not be focused on opposing Christianity. Doesn't Satan wish to lead all humanity astray?

But I feel that your argument actually complements mine, rather than opposes it. I said that using the name Satan (actually a description rather than a name) was for the purpose of getting attention. You say that it's to aid people in overcoming Christian programming by using the same source / framework of symbolism. In either case however, we can see that the terminology has been used for the sake of its correspondence with the public rather than because there is a real religious drive toward the person of Satan.

You are right however that I have never read the Satanic "bible" (I avoid such materials). So if I am wrong on the details, then please continue to correct me. But Satanism still exists within the framework of the religion(s) that Lavey feigns to oppose. It seems to me that whilst declaring oneself a Satanist is offensive to Christians, and incredible to Muslims, a true adversary to religion would embrace atheism.

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled, was to convince the World he doesn't exist." - The sole good line from the dull torture that was "The Usual Suspects."

Waitwaitwait, don't equate twisted with toxic.
People who follow twisted traditions don't have access to toxic spirits.
They don't have to, they can learn to summon bloodzilla.



On a general notice, one could of course easily design a twisted tradition based upon any satanic belief system, even though there can be plain-vanilla, non-twisted satanic mages as well (or satanic mages who don't practise magic based upon their religion, i never quite got why every non-christian spellcaster is by some players almost automatically asumed to follow a tradition based upon his faith).

However, to qualify for following a twisted path, one has to do much, much worse things than merely turning around some crosses, attending the occassional orgy and blaspheme against christian virtues.
I mean, twisted paths in Street Magic include stuff like fundamentalist terrorism, human sacrifice, cannibalism and whatnot.

Of course, among the twisted there's also necromancers or people who seek absolute power by making pacts with a spirit, so if you want a truly faustian mage, said subset of the twisted path in Street Magic might be the best bet.

1)
Yes most everything Christians "know" about Satan come to them though Islam, but that honestly isn't what it's about. But Lavay's Satan is a philosophical construct arrived at rejecting what he didn't like about the god. It is codified on page one of The Satanic Bible as:


that's it that is the central theme of the the practice. What else would you call such a construct besides Satan. It works on a lot of levels.


2)
You got me dead to rights on conflating twisted and toxic paths. The apparent silliness of Satanism makes sense when you really get the point of the inversion, hence my desire to roll it up as twisted path. Also you are right what satanist actually do does really qualify for becoming twisted. Shooting a video of a pre-op tranny loving a pig corpse isn't really evil enough. But what will it take to get 2070 people to think "dude, that heinous drek". That may well qualify for twisted. All this is assuming that Satanism is still around by that time. I personally don't think it will be. I'm in the camp that says Christianity is a fringe cult by 2070, and if there aren't heaps of people who feel they need deprogramming then Satanism is reduced to the silly Halloween party it looks like.

Just to clarify, in case there is misunderstanding, I wasn't saying that the common Christian perception of Satan derived from Satan in Islam. In fact, I'd disagree with that statement. Satan in Christianity and Satan in Islam are obviously referring to the same individual, but specifics differ. I have seen an interpretation doing the rounds that Satan rebelled because he loved God too much to submit to man as he was instructed. That is an islamic belief, or rather a Sufi belief which you may or may not consider to be authentically islamic. But most of the perception of Satan in the West comes from the sources of medieval literature and theatre, combined with Paradise Lost by John Milton and popular Christian evangelism that seems to make heavy use of the person of Satan (I think - I'm willing to be corrected). I guess modern horror films are also having their effects on shaping the common perception of Satan.

I'm shooting more for the "ideal" of satanism, how they view themselves, rather then what the majority of people and especially Christianity sees them as. After all, I doubt someone can pick up any tradition by reading about it in the news. A Christian priest would probably have to study the bible rigorously, or perhaps more rarely, pray in a heartfelt and extremely devoted way and receiving revelations to get his spells... he wouldn't just be able to say "Well, I think Christianity is like this, so I'm going to be able to cast spells now."

A follower of the Satanic tradition would, in my mind, be someone who has read many satanic works, including the Satanic Bible, and probably the wealth of books on the subject that must have come out since the awakening. They would agree with most of the key tenets of satanism (not necessarily all of them... satanism looks down on blind obedience.) and think of themselves as satanists. They wouldn't, therefore, be acting as the majority, or christianity sees as satanism, but as they and the rest of satanism sees as their path.

So they wouldn't be doing obscene acts with pigs, which is against what satanists believe, but may be having ritual sex, for example. They wouldn't pee on a cross as part of a ritual, as they tend to see christianity as valueless. Though, admitedly, some might do it just to piss people off. Inverting god for the sake of power doesn't make much sense when you don't believe in god. Levay satanists ARE atheists, by the way. They may however use christian imagery or music in a ritual, perhaps inverted, or hold a grotto in an old cathedral, as emotion is a major part of the satanic tradition, and the passion shown by those who created the art could well serve to channel your emotions.

There just something about a person named Neondante posting about Satanism that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Actually, my name comes from a scene in beetlejuice. He's looking at a model of the town and sees a nightclub called Dante's Inferno Room or somesuch. I figured that it was appropriate for Shadowrun because of the nightclub.

You're right, though, it is pretty funny.

I said toxic because Satanism, as I understand it, is a glorification and induglence of the self. Irregardless of the anti-Christian leanings of Levay, the religion has become more and more about the fulfillment and satisfaction of the indivdual and less about thumbing one's nose at Chritianity. I would imagine the trend would only continue with the apparent decline of Christianity in the Sixth World. The initial feeling I got was if not black magic, go toxic

Shamelessly so and proud of it, if I understand correctly. A left hand path, meaning caring more about physical, mental, and emotional fulfillments, rather then abstract spiritual concepts of the right hand path. (as said, I believe, by famous occultist Alistar Crowley.) I don't think that a philosophy of hedonism is necessarily toxic, though... the Seductress spirit mentor in the SR4 book, for example, is not only extremely hedonistic, but eagerly tempts others, for her own ends or just because it amuses her.

You know, I just realized I don't know what toxic means exactly, in respect to SR magic. I assumed it meant corrupted somehow, but I'm not sure beyond that.

Toxic Magic is explained in Street Magic, and if I hadn't lent my copy to my GM I would quote it. Basically toxic magic is a perversion of natural spiritual order. From my recollection (it's been a few months since I finished the book), Toxic magic is like an inverted shamanism where harmony with the natural order, including societal order, is sought to be brought under the Toxic Shaman's worldview. If the Toxic follows the Nuclear Totem, for example, they seek to cause nuclear winter. With Satanic teachings being the fulfillment of self above and beyond anything in society, I was thinking it toxic due to its rejection of societal norms, therefore a perversion of the spirit of man (which I see as a spirit of cooperation and communities, hence it's relation to urban areas). Of course, the Seductress is somewhat like that, but is more likley to see that pleasure spreads to other's too, while the Satanist only cares for their own fulfillment, all other pleasure is meaningless to them. Of course, I could see me totally missing the boat on it as well.

Corrupted or, to use the SR4 term, twisted traditions are quite a different breed from toxics.
Both forms of magical threats have many different facets, in fact, every twisted or toxic pratitioner follows his own, personal madness.

Darth Vader might be a good example of a twisted adept, that whole dark side of the force thing is a good analogy to what twisted magic can mean.
Another example would be Faust who seeks a pact with the devil out of boredom and frustration.
SR examples also include cybermancers, necromancers, folks who conduct human sacrifices and serial killers practising ritual cannibalism, as well as religious or political fanatics, such as hardline ecoterrorists who don't care what it takes to end pollution.

This is where the line towards toxicity becomes a bit blurry.
In previous editions, toxics where shamans who either wanted to heal the earth by fighting humanity (these guys fall under twisted traditions now) or wanted to further pollute and destroy it to gain more power.

The latter are a typical example for SR4 toxics.
Each of them follows his own, sick tradition and has unique goals, but what they all have in common is an overwhelming desire to destroy and the fact that they can gain power from sites that are polluted, either physically (waste dumps, sites of nuclear meltdowns, oil pests etc.) or emotionally (places of human suffering).
Some want to completely destroy metahuman society, some want to provoke the next step in evolution by releasing as many mutagens as possible, some want to eradicate all emotion or kill all humans so that the earth can heal itself and some want to reduce the whole planet to radioactive sludge.



Mechanically, there are also clear differences between twisted and toxic casters.
Street Magic offers unique metatechniques for both.
Twisted mages can learn to reduce drain by human sacrifice or summon blood spirits, twisted adepts can boost their physical attributes by eating the flesh of their victims and so on.

Toxics can summon toxic spirits, who are perverted versions of normal spirits (fire becomes nuclear, earth becomes sludge, beast becomes abomination and so on).
They also can get access to a variant of banishing that turns normal spirits into their toxic counterparts, can learn to drain power from their toxic domains and so on.

I really recommend picking up Street Magic if you are interested in that stuff, IMHO the chapter on magical threats is the best part of the book.
If you want some serious opposition for your players, both flavour- and ruleswise, it's a goldmine.


As far as the original topic is concerned, a satanic mage could be a follower of a normal tradition like black magic (or a subset of hermetics, chaos magic or even hedge witchcraft) as well as a twisted christian theurge.
Thinking about it, he could even be a normal theurge with the adversary mentor spirit.
Depends on how sick he is.

This thread is getting interesting. Getting quite a bit off topic, although honestly, I don't mind a bit. Street magic sounds like an interesting book. I'll have to pick it up when I see it.

Nothing like discussions like this to stimulate thinking. I think I'm going to have the drain resistance be Will + Intuition, as from what I've read, emotion seems to be very important for real life satanic magic (by real life I mean what they do, not that it actually works. ) and Intuition seems to represent your emotional flexibility more then charisma.

So now I'm stuck on spirits... out of the 6 in the main book, which do you think wouldn't be allowed?

Edit: He doesn't have a mentor spirit, btw, though I'm guessing Adversary is the one that would fit best. (doi.)

Well, my advice is read street magic then see how you feel. It may come that Black Magic is the way to go in your eyes. As for a mentor spirit, remember the spirit does the choosing, so if he doesn't start with one, it is your call during the course of the story. And some of the best roleplaying can come from making the inobvious choice.

Adversary might be fitting, but depending on the character's interpretation, seductress, horned god, firebringer or probably even trickster might work, too.

As far as spirits are concerned...probably water could be left out.
Spirits could appear as demons obviously, but spirits looking like the souls of dead sinners might also be an opportunity.

I'd certainly count in beast spirits (if you or your player is looking for inspiration, take a glance at the Crowley tarot, the Lust card's version of the Mega Therion is quite awesome).

Fire is also a traditional part of the imagery.
Your typical D&D balor or pit fiend could be a high-force fire spirit.

If you want to go full way dante-infernalic, tormented spirits of the dead might also be an idea.
From the core rules, spirits of man might work out fine (and the perfect inspiration here would, obviously, be Dante's Inferno).
They could also appear as promethean or faustian figures.

If you pick up street magic, i'd also consider sage spirits for these aspects.

If you want to expand on the faustian aspect, task spirits from Street Magic could come in handy.
Goethe is a good source for inspiration, although i don't know how easy it is to come across an English version of Faust part 1 and how useful the translation is (translating a work entirely written in rhymes comes close to completely rewriting it).

So, my writeup would come down to :

Fire - Combat
Beast - Healing
Man - Clairvoyance
Sage - Illusion
Task - Manipulation

re: toxicity and hedonism, specifically wrt the seductress totem, it does note (in MitS, at least) that the seductress idol is a popular one for toxics.

as far as the sinister path goes, though, while one could certainly and logically read it as an admonition for hedonism, it can also be read to encourage constant self-improvement. "do what thou wilt" doesn't necessarily mean "do whatever you want"; it can also mean "challenge yourself constantly; live your entire life as a tour de force. make the entire world submit to your will."

If emotion is what you are going for, a Willpower/Charisma combination would really be more fitting.

Except I'm talking about a real video I know to be made by satanists I know in the SF/Bay area. You may be able to employ ... errr theology(?) to make a case them being ......errrr heretical(?), but it happened.

Well, every belief system has assholes in it. Some people who claim to be Christians are violent and hateful, for example, despite the "though shalt not kill" and "turn the other cheek" and "love thy neighbor" kind of dealies. Seems like they are using the philosophy to rationalize their own selfish perversions, the way some "christians" use the story of sodom and gamorrah to rationalize bashing gays. They aren't doing that because their religion tells them to, they are doing it because they are hateful idiots, and using a few passages to rationalize it, while ignoring the rest of the religion, which says to treat people well.

I'm guessing it's the same with those people. Man, that's not just disgusting and disrespectful, it also sounds unhygenic.

As far as the totems go, SR4 toxics have specific toxic mentor spirits, including such niceties as people worshipping mutation, pestilence or the cleansing atomic fire.
So, one would have to write up a toxic version of seductress in that case (which might make an excellent concept for a toxic looking to destroy society).
Delirium might be a good handle for that one, keeping well in style with the toxic mentors presented in Street Magic.

Seductress might be a mentor whose twisted or toxic version is on the surface level quite close to the "normal" variant.
However, a non-toxic follower of seductress might not contemplate to pollute an entire cities drinking water with hallucinogenic pharmaceuticals and find the probable cases of drug-induced permanent psychosis not only acceptable collateral damage, but actually the desired outcome...

The latter aspect might be a good way to seperate a toxic from a follower of the twisted path, BTW.



Full ack on the hedonism part, though.
To "do what thou wilt" requires self-knowledge beforehand, doing what you will does not necessarily equal what you feel like at the moment.

@Neondante
Whole point of this this system's iconography and thematics is to shock yourself out of acculturation that you didn't choice for yourself and don't want ... and possibly use that energy for a ritual.

What exactly makes you think such a video runs against anything?

7. Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than
those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his "divine spiritual and intellectual
development", has become the most vicious animal of all!

Satanism respects animals. The misanthropy in the belief seems to stem from people denying their true natures for the "lies" of religion and morality. Love and friendship are valued, for example, just not for those they feel are unworthy, or those who leech off of your friendship, called psychic vampires. Animals, on the other hand, are simple creatures. They can't help what they are, and are in tune with their natures. I was friends with a satanist online, though we've since had a falling out, and she said she used to work as a vet. She was furious with people who abused their pets. So while shocking and graphic imagery certainly doesn't run against satanism, abusing an animal, even a dead one, definitely does.

Think of it from a Randian perspective. Objectivists are against altruism, saying that helping parasites not only weakens you, but weakens them... they should be required to become strong. Similarly, it's against BEING a parasite... even though you may gain from taking advantage of another, in the long run it weakens you. Satanism draws many things from such philosophies; one of the other statements of satanism is not to take from another unless he cries out to be relieved; a dead pig is doing no such thing. Also, not to hit on a person unless they are broadcasting the mating signal. While this is another somewhat ambiguous statement, again, a dead pig is doing no such thing. Violating a helpless creature like this is abhorant to almost anyone with any morals whatsoever. Satanists, most of them anyway, do have morals, even if they disagree with traditional morality. I'm guessing this person you know is just an amoral, or even evil, pervert, who likes shocking people, and saying he/she is into satanism would certainly accomplish that.

I'd even wonder if this person was even a real transsexual... It rubs the lotion on it's skin...

First off I love it that DS can force me into using other's leaky philosophy to defend something like this as "orthodox".

Ok, the pig corpse has no will to violate. Its family has funeral wishes to disregard. Besides are you not honoring the pig's passing by using it's body for pleasure and art? "help less creature" please you mostly like EAT THEM.

So let's focus this back on the tradition a little more. So are you asked for CoS post 2011, or are you asking for what people who in 2011 though "ZOMG MAGIC! I want talk to SATAN!".

ps. I just realized that I started this post with "DS can force me into ...." take that out of context

"Do what thou wilt" has even been interpreted as merging one's will with a greater or universal will, in which case it becomes a lot like Sufi submission of the will of God, or becoming one with the Tao, or the Platonic universal fire, or the Quaker guidance by inner still small voice. Some think that the id urge to eat all the candy in sight is actually a distraction from a deeper, truer will. This may require more discipline; on another hand, a movement which encourages its followers to cooperate, may have more long-term growth potential than one whose followers tend to kill and eat each other.

There is a difference between rejecting rules (or acculturation or inhibitions) by ignoring them, and by going out of one's way to violate them. The former ignores the posted speed limit, and takes curves at whatever speed their car can safely handle, and limits top speed on highway based on the cost of fuel (faster costs more), and may also slow down to avoid getting hassled by law enforcement. The latter may feel *compelled* to drive above the posted limit, even at a cost to their own safety or their wallet (again, faster costs more).


There is also a difference between rejecting rules, and rejecting principles. "Drive safely" is a principle, and some Satanists might find it a principle worth following. "Speeds over 55 are forbidden" is a rule which relates to driving safely, but is not the same thing.

Okay, first, eating something is in no way disrespectful, except maybe to the hardcore militant vegans. It happens in nature all the time. Some cultures honor their prey after a successful hunt, thanking it for the sustenance it provides.

And second, you're currently defending necrozoophilia. I'm gonna go ahead and let common sense deal with that. Which most satanists would also do.

And yes, I know you're just playing devil's advocate... which is extremely ironic in this case.

Edit: Oh, and I'm asking for CoS post 2011, not the OMG satan! kind. That would definitely be toxic or twisted, if it worked at all.

Hmm... I just realized that that's the same acronym for the Church of Scientology. Is it weird that I think better of satanism then scientology?

Here is my take on the Street Magic book:

Street Magic adds the following:

Each section starts with a page of fictional material and a full page drawing. You either like this or you think it's a waste, but SR4 did, and so does SM.

The Awakened World: 14 pages of background, not really necessary but just like Buzzkill, Welcom to the Shadows, A History Lesson for the Reality Impaired and Life on the Edge from the SR4 book, it's nice and helps you define how magic works, what it can do and can't do, and generally helps me to use magic in a more SR way.

The Awakened Character: 12 pages with extra advice and rules for creating magical characters. Everyting from discussing what metatypes to choose, what skills to take and what attributes to boost, to new skills, new qualities and some advanced rules. Not really necessary, and I have not yet used any part of this.

Paths of Magic: 16 pages of new traditions and a bit more about designing your own tradition. Nothing you couldn't do with the rules found in SR4. You might agree or disagree with the choises for a particular tradition, but overall I think they are done well. I have yet only used one of the traditions (Christian Theurgy), and it worked well, and was just as balanced as Shamans and Mages.

Initiation and Metamagic: 14 pages with expanded rules for initiation and more metamagic abilities. Many of these new abilities are nice and interesting, but I'm sure I could play Shadorwun for a very long time without missing these.

Magical Groups: 13 pages of rules of purposes, customs, strictures and benefits, including 14 sample groups. Nothing I have ever used in any edition of SR.

Magical Goods: 14 pages of background and rules for making your own focuses as well as new focuses. Nothing you couldn't do without in SR4.

Spirits of the Sixth World: 22 pages of new spirits and their powers, including free spirits, wild and aberrant spirits, new spirits for the new traditions, ally spirits and wild spirits. Very interesting and some of the best part of the book.

Astral Space and the Metaplanes: 23 pages of rules about how to handle the astral plane and teh metaplanes. If you are going to run quests on the metaplanes this is the chapter for you. If you are having troubles with astral projecting mages ruining your plans this is the chapter for you. Very nice but not something everybody will need.

Magical Threats: 22 pages of nastiness, ready to thrown at your players. This is the section I use and like the most. Ther are suggestions on how to use the threats, including the dark paths, blood magic, toxic magic (with toxic mentor spirits, toxic metamagic and toxic spirits), shadow spirits, inscet spirits (my favourite) and the shedim. This chapter makes the whole book worth ever penny it cost.

Grimoire: 34 pages. It starts off with spell design, which can be very usefull, if you need to design a new spell, this takes up 7 pages and is fairly usefull. The comes 10 pages of new spells, which you could make yourself, especially now that you have the spell design rules. Personally I've always found lists of spells, guns, powers, cars, armour etc. boring, so this part is equally boring. The same gose for the next 6 pages, which are new adept powers. Nothing I couldn't have made myself. The next 4 pages are new mentor spirits, and some suggestions for how to use the old ones under new names for different magical traditions. Again fairly boring. The chapter finishes off with 5 pages of tables with magical gear, adept powers and spell tables.

The book finishes off with a 3 page index.

On a personal level I would say that:

Worth the money (74 pages):
The Awakened World: 14 pages
Paths of Magic: 16 pages
Spirits of the Sixth World: 22 pages
Magical Threats: 22 pages

Waste of paper (110 pages):
The Awakened Character: 12 page
Initiation and Metamagic: 14 pages
Magical Groups: 13 pages
Magical Goods: 14 pages
Astral Space and the Metaplanes: 23 pages
Grimoire: 34 pages

Although some of this might change, for example if my players goes on a metaplanar quest, or starts to design their own spells.

I still wouldn't live without, but think that SM isn't necessary to play SR4.

Lars

>And second, you're currently defending necrozoophilia. I'm gonna go ahead and let common sense deal with that.
I honestly believe that I'm would satanist would ask you question your "common sense". Can you actually explain to me how any harm is born of that video? Yeah, seducing a non-verbal entity -> sketchy as hell. Raping a live pig -> evil. But a dead pig? Lets see you connect those dots!
@Riley37, So what principle do you think is being violated here that doesn't turn you into a Jain?

>And yes, I know you're just playing devil's advocate... which is extremely ironic in this case. smile.gif
Satan loves you!

>Edit: Oh, and I'm asking for CoS post 2011
Honest from what I've seen there isn't organization in the church for there to be one tradition. I really think 2070 CoS would be an initiatory order for a lot of traditions from SM. You obviously know which ones you could very easily be called Satanism. Just make sure that Charisma is the drain stat.

>OMG satan! kind. That would definitely be toxic or twisted, if it worked at all.
Oh it would IMO. I think magic works just because you want it to. I think this even means that there would be a couple dorks out there that made the Force work for them. N

Hmm... I just realized that that's the same acronym for the Church of Scientology. Is it weird that I think better of satanism then scientology?

@Riley :applause: Bravo, well said. Though I didn't understand all of what you said in the first paragraph. I guess I'll have to look into more religions and philosophies. I really do find this sort of thing fascinating.

@Larsine Thanks for the review. It sounds interesting. I'll pick it up when I have the chance. I don't plan on magic having a huge part in my games, but the book sounds like a good read in any event.

@Weaver Um... I'm not entirely sure what you just said. Could you rephrase that?

Edit: Just to reiterate, I am not a satanist, nor do I particularly endorse the philosophy, though I don't really have anything against it. I just want people to understand what I mean by satanism. And debating with the people who see it differently is a lot of fun.

yeah... I let me proof myself a little better this time


I do not see how a Satanist would think it is possible to wrong a corpse. When you say "I'm gonna go ahead and let common sense deal with that", you are being binded by conditioning. So I'm asking you to actually type out how necrozoophilia is wrong. Who or what suffers? When is anything of value is lessened? You aren't being a psychic vampire if you are not dealing with another psyche.


For the record I am personally a stone cold materialist

Okay, morality doesn't come just from your particular religion or philosophy. The bible, for example, tells people how to treat their slaves, implying that it's alright to keep them, and yet slavery is considered wrong by the vast majority of christians. Necrophilia is a strong social more... it would be a bigger one if it happened more often, I'm sure. How would you like somebody raping your corpse? Because yes, necrophilia is rape. Respect for the dead is important, because it's respect for the past, and the lessons you can learn from it. And satanists are big on respect, at least for those who deserve it. And animals do.

Also, come on man, having sex with a dead pig? Do I REALLY need to explain more why that's wrong? Seriously. That's rape.

i'm not going to touch the pig thing, but this is a point of some debate. yes, the society you're a part of has an impact on your ideas regarding morality. however, it's possible to reject that impact, consciously or unconsciously, on both an individual level and a societal level. it's entirely possible for a person to construct for themselves a philosophy in which the acts being discussed are not morally reprehensible.