Author Topic: Father tree  (Read 1893 times)

Offline Ownagepants

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Father tree
« on: February 11, 2017, 12:51:10 AM »
This might be heresy but I've been playing around with the dresdenverse history I liked the idea of black magic and white magic having embodiments kind of like Titania and mab so for Black magic .I created father tree a being who isn't evil so much as he is corrupting like black magic he loves all powered users and truly sees them as his children and as such wants them to be as much like him as possible some of the most terrifying black mages in history are those fully corrupted by father tree he moves wherever the most potential people to corrupt usually are not population wise .but where enough hardship is currently happening that they would rather succumb to him then endure it their are some rules he can't force his corruption on anyone they have to accept it he also can't enter human cities or villages so he usually camps out on their outskirts he also can't be seen by the public so wherever he goes a huge imprenatrable swath of trees follow him the only ones allowed to the center where he is are ability users and he can't kill mortals only lead them to their doom anyways that's father tree I am having trouble thinking of a concept for his his  counterpart for white magic also those he corrupt have a tendency to become cultists who serve his will  . Anyways what do you guys think ?

Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Father tree
« Reply #1 on: February 11, 2017, 07:34:22 AM »
The semi-evil tree-themed deity of corrupting magic seems pretty cool. But I'm not sure "black magic and white magic" are real enough things to have embodiments.

I mean...what exactly is "white magic"?

A random divination spell? The same spell, used to find a lost child? The same spell, used to find a lost child, but only because you're being paid to cast it? Soulfire?

With black magic you can at least say, "it's magic that corrupts the user", but that's still a pretty broad umbrella. Does Father Tree have dominion over Outsider magic? Over necromancy? Over random spells being used to kill? What do the Outsiders, the existing death gods, and other such entities have to say about that?

Offline Ownagepants

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Re: Father tree
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2017, 02:20:30 AM »
I suppose your right I would still like to give him a polar opposite but I'll change some things about his background .

Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Father tree
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2017, 08:20:09 AM »
Maybe you could give him an opposite along a different axis.

Like a goddess that despises magic and wants to leave mortals unchanged. She would oppose any kind of effort to empower, modify, or corrupt mortals. Might even erase the powers of natural spellcasters.

Offline Quantus

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Re: Father tree
« Reply #4 on: February 13, 2017, 04:08:16 PM »
To Sanctaphrax's point you could go full Swamp Thing with him, if you'll pardon the nerd reference.  Current Swamp Thing is the chosen Avatar/champion of The Green, which is the manifest embodiment of all plant life on Earth, and along with the Champions of The Red (aka Animal Life) they Battle The Black/The Rot and its more death-themed champions.

So maybe your Father Tree is the embodiment of the Decay of Life, nominally as part of the Cyclic Renewal of life, but ultimately a necromantic force.  It's a Death-themed thing, but very much Not Winter.  You could make it a Summer thing and give it a Winter counterbalance (maybe in this instance Summer:decay::Winter:cryo-stasis?)


Another route is to have your Father Tree but make him not actually have plant/nature themes of his own Powers.  The Kingkiller Chronicles, as an example, features an Evil Tree that is prescient enough that supposedly simply speaking to it is going to set you down a Butterfly-effect path that will lead ievitably to tragedy, simply because he can see all the possible branching timelines.  But its not really an Evil Tree, rather it's some creature that is Possessing (or maybe imprisoned by) the tree.  Some legends have Loki once getting imprisoned in a Tree.  Hell, you could take him a level higher and make him some sort of walking manifestation of the World Tree itself, opening his theme up to all kinds of Cosmic, Fate, and Reality-level stuff.  At that point he wouldnt need to be evil so much as overly-powerful and ignorant of modern mortal life, with some overriding Purpose that ends up looking like the corrupting effect you describe. 
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