
Things Magical – Mancy, Magy, and Urgy
18 July, 2009To expand on my comment about Necromancers and Necrourgists from yesterday. This is one of my sources:
MANCY, MAGY, AND URGY
Technically, the various schools of magick—Dipsomancy, Pornomancy, etc.—should actually be written out as Dip-somagy, Vomomagy, and so forth. The suffix “-mancy” refers to magickal divination, whereas “-magy” means more general forms of magick. Even more technically, a more etymologically correct suffix would be “-urgy,” giving us Dipsourgy, Pornourgy, etc. Regardless, “-mancy” is what passed into common currency among the new wave of adepts, and the occult underground is stuck with it—the way normal folks are stuck with people who use “orientated” when they should use “oriented,” or who use “literally” when they shouldn’t use anything at all. Old-school occultists and scholars tend to make a point of using either “-magy” or “-urgy,” which makes novice adepts look at them funny. Life goes on.
From Unknown Armies, 2nd Ed, by Greg Stolze and John Tynes, p 167. Just as an aside, Unknown Armies is an amazing game of modern occult horror and high weirdness.
Posted in Things, World Building | Tagged Game Mechanics, Magic, Meta |
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