I am trying to think of a good name for a style of Thematic Thaumaturgy. It is used by a Wizard Smith to speak to the spirits of things. For example, she could use a ritual to convince a bank vault door to open instead of blasting it open, speak with the spirit of an Item Of Power to better understand its powers and purpose, or start a car without a key or needing to hotwire it.
Sounds like Shintoism to me, so you have there whole religion to play with.True, although Cetra's proposed magic is more kinetic than Shinto. Shinto (to my understanding) is more nature/natural world based. This magic would seem to use that as a starting point, and add spirits of manufactured objects as well.
The word anima often refers to the soul or spirit, so "animancy" might work.It's from the Latin 'anima', which means soul. But that's more like soul/life/breath. 'Animus' meant soul/heart/purpose. But the -mancy version would still need to be animancy, since animusmancy doesn't sound as good.
I was sort of inspired by Shinto for the idea, but I really did not want to make this particular character have that faith, as she is of Scandinavian extraction. "Animus" fits pretty well for what I had in mind. She can speak to most objects, but can really only manipulate/coerce those that DO something. For example she could use a divination under this theme to ask a shattered wall what broke through it, but could not use it to break the wall. She might be able to make a door not accept its key, but could not permanently seal it. She could find out what an IOP does, but if she does not meet the requirements to use it, she could not just make it work for her.In a way, it sounds less like Shinto and more like a controlled hexus/anti-hexus. Where hexus send to be based on entropy/chaos magic causing things to break however they can, this sounds like order/disorder magic. As if commanding things to act in their natural way unnaturally.
If you're going with a more Scandinavian theme, something like Landvaettir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landv%C3%A6ttir)-mancy may be interesting. It mostly seems like you're going for a summoning focus for thaumaturgy, but specializing in genus loci type spirits.Would they really be genius loci, though? I typically think of those as greater manifestations of a place that encompasses numerous aspects and purposes. It's more place than object. A genius quod, in Latin. Quodomancy, dealing with the spiritual essence of objects?
Would they really be genius loci, though? I typically think of those as greater manifestations of a place that encompasses numerous aspects and purposes. It's more place than object. A genius quod, in Latin. Quodomancy, dealing with the spiritual essence of objects?I would think spirits of doors or walls are close enough to genius loci. I would imagine that genius loci spirits in civilized areas would work along the lines of the furies in Codex Alera, smaller scale and more numerous. The item of power things are harder to justify, but I think it's doable. Quodomancy isn't bad overall.
Also, they'd want to stay away from using any native tongue in their magic, for the same reason Harry doesn't use English. Even something as simple as a classification could complicate matters. And depending on whether they're a white Council member, they might feel a necessity to conform to the organizational use of Latin/Greek roots.
Or not.