186000 miles per second: it's the Law! 55mph? pshaw!

[GryMor]

Hrmmm... AFAIK, there has been no Dresdenverse material suggesting that magic can work that way ...  At least, not mortals' magic.  I s'pose some of the immortal beings -- who are force-of nature / force-of-magic / must-be-true-to-their-natures sorts of beings --  have shown a few hints that they can "do magic" just by doing their normal and nominally-mundane activities....

I'm pretty sure we have seen common rituals working that way, it's only when you are drawing up the power, in part, from yourself that you seem to absolutely need to shape it through your own will, it's just that without intent, external power tends to dissipate. In the case of warlock executions, there is a lot of group intent, and rather more than a drop of power being released.

[g33k]

I'm pretty sure we have seen common rituals working that way,...

Erm...   Example(s)?
I'm not recalling any...

[Sanctaphrax]

I don't think it's likely that such a powerful magical ritual could be cast by accident.

[g33k]

I don't think it's likely that such a powerful magical ritual could be cast by accident.

If I understand GryMor correctly, the suggestion isn't "by accident," but simply as power-raising / magically-meaningful events, without the trappings/appearance of "ritual".

In this case, Senior Council is creating an inner circle, within a large warded space, and -- essentially -- perfroming a blood-sacrifice to the notion that breaking Council Law will warp you beyond redemption.  It LOOKS like a mere "execution" of a criminal, but isn't.

I don't think GryMor's right about this -- Harry's hardly a moron, and to quote Susan, he "gets there eventually.". If it had actually been a blood-fueled ritual, Harry would've figured it out by now; not to mention the Spidey-sense to Workings that most folks (but specially wizards!) seem to have.  IMHO/etc, of course!

[PirateJack]

Harry's arcane senses would have picked it up because performing a ritual is manipulating energy according to a person's will. Harry can sense magical energy, therefore he should be able to detect any ritual in progress that isn't trapped behind a circle.

[Locnil]

I haven't seen anything so far in the books that contradicts the hypothesis that the Laws of Magic exist because the White Council has been enforcing them in what amounts to a millennium long ritual powered by the blood sacrifice of thousands of Warlocks.

That...is a freaking awesome theory.

[Locnil]

So, here's the part of Point#2 that I'm wrestling with:  the close correspondence between WC Laws of Magic and the LawbreakerStunt-granting nature of the universe should be keeping the Council "pure."  The universe itself is on their side, fer cryin out loud!  How'd they get so rife with corruption??!?  Presumably, it's only advanced Lawbreakers who can mask their Lawbreaking, and so the Council should be able to nip their internal problems in the bud (even if it sometimes takes a bit to track down outside problems).  I'm having a hard time understanding how the WCouncil -- as portrayed in DF novels / canon -- exists as corruptly as they do, if the universe itself automatically plops a Black Hat (i.e. a Lawbreaker Stunt) onto each newly-minted badguy, as per DFRPG mechanics...

Help?

Like what someone else said, the Council as a whole isn't corrupt. Ineffectual on a larger scale, yes, but not corrupt. In fact I see their state as one of the themes of the DV, that when faced with the choice of wielding more power and potentially being corrupted by it, the Council as a whole chose weakness and losing relevance rather than risk misusing what power they have.

  But real-world gov'ts cannot soulgaze/etc, have only mundane surveillance/investigation/etc to detect their "lawbreaking."  It's hard to see, when the WCouncil has those stone dogs from Ancient Mai, soulgaze, real Temple Dogs (Harry has one, and Mai recognizes Mouse as soon as Mouse makes a move so she's relatively-familiar with them) and (presumably) one or more other similar magical litmus-test / Dark-Detectors (to steal a Potterism) ... given all these (and the hardline anti-Lawbreaking stance of the Council) it's hard to see how corruption (of the Lawbreaking kind) can creep into the Council.  It seems unlikely in the extreme... unless of course there's some reliable way to MASK the magical traces of Lawbreaking (presumably, some form of Lawbreaking is itself involved... likely a deal with Outsiders, given that even the Gatekeeper cannot do 100%-perfect detection there).


Steve, the g33k
 

There's actually a WoJ that even the WC doesn't have a surefire way to detect lawbreakers. Soulgazes help, but only in cases where the black magic is so extreme you probably don't need it anyway. If you've read Cold Days, think of it as

(click to show/hide)

Rashid vs Nemesis

[g33k]

That...is a freaking awesome theory.

It is, isn't it?  Like I said elsewhere in-thread, I don't think it's a true theory, because I don't think it holds up to closer scrutiny.  But I love it anyhow!

The idea that the WCouncil has so screwed themselves over, applying this massive "Now you become a sociopath" magical whammy atop the already-corruptive nature of that kind of magic... or maybe that they have gotten corrupted themselves... or maybe that the "Black Council" is actually so old that they have suborned the execution process and some portion of the time the executioners ARE members of the BCouncil who ARE doing it as a blood-rite... hrm... that one actually holds up:  it isn't ALWAYS a blood rite, only when the BCouncil can arrange for their moles/shills/dupes to be the only ones present; but they've been running an increasing percentage of "warlock executions" as blood-sacrifice rituals over the centuries...

[g33k]

There's actually a WoJ that even the WC doesn't have a surefire way to detect lawbreakers.  Soulgazes help, but only in cases where the black magic is so extreme you probably don't need it anyway.

OK, thanks!  Can you point me to that WoJ?

I recall the execution from the beginning of Proven Guilty, where soulgaze was mentioned as a key bit of evidence.  Granted, this was an instance of "black magic is so extreme you probably don't need it anyway."  But if it's not really needed... why bother?  Who wants to muck around in such a black soul???  You Denarians over in the corner, don't bother answering!  Later in PG, Harry 'gaze's Molly, and sees Warlock-Molly as a possible future, so the potential IS visible...  I can see that it may not be "surefire" -- particularly if it's a senior wizard, who might have the discipline to hide stuff from the person 'gazing them -- but it is (at the least) "very useful."

My point on this is that the WCouncil -- and "good" wizards in general -- seem to have quite a panoply of "Dark Detectors" available to them.  Soulgaze, Mai's stone guard-dogs, genuine Temple dogs... in addition to what we've seen, we should probably presume other methods, which are off-stage (either not-yet-invented by Mr. Butcher, or intentionally not used) so far.  The sum of all these methods would seem to make it incredibly-unlikely for a Lawbreaker to hide for long (if they don't get Soulgazed, they get sniffed by a Stone Dog, or caught some other way) had led me to believe that there must be some way for Lawbreakers to intentionally hide their status (at least from other Wizards).

[Troy]

By the rules of the game, if I wanted to create a Warden-type character who was able to detect the Black in a practitioner I would give him Supernatural Senses (Lawbreakers) or (Black Magic) or something like that.

[Mr. Death]

The series shows that Black Magic is something detectable, but it seems the main caveat is "if you're sensitive to it" or "if you're looking for it." Morty's ghosts can find traces of Necromancy (and so could Gard), while in Proven Guilty Harry was about to set up a spell to look for signs of black magic in the city.

Most likely, it's a "you know it when you feel it" kind of thing that a wizard can be trained to recognize.

[narphoenix]

Actually, I think it would be extremely easy for wizards to detect black magic.

Hell, in Backup, Bob says that the reason the Stygian Sister didn't just burn Thomas to cinders was because Harry would have sensed it...even though neither the Sister nor Thomas are human nor would Harry deliberately look for it in someone he would think of as a Damsel in Distress^TM.

[g33k]

Actually, I think it would be extremely easy for wizards to detect black magic.

Hell, in Backup, Bob says that the reason the Stygian Sister didn't just burn Thomas to cinders was because Harry would have sensed it...even though neither the Sister nor Thomas are human nor would Harry deliberately look for it in someone he would think of as a Damsel in Distress^TM.

  Dunno... in this case, there've been hints about some Mystical Connection of Blood.  Thomas is Harry's blood, they're carrying these linked pentacles, etc.  Maybe she was avoiding some "taint" from killing Thomas... but hell, she's pretty F*@%'ing tainted already!!!  I think it was something special about Harry vis-a-vis Thomas, not a generic killing.

[narphoenix]

Bob specifically mentioned that it had to do with timing. Not relationships. Yes, she's tainted. But she probably made sure not to taint herself recently, since she was planning on meeting a Wizard of the White Council.

[g33k]

Bob specifically mentioned that it had to do with timing. Not relationships.

Guess I need to go re-read my Dresden stories... <sigh>