Starkad wrote:
Quote:
And this is where DW offers the choice - do you want a high-fantasy campaign in which magic is a matter-of-fact part of society and culture or do you want a low-fantasy campaign where magic is relegated to the fringes?
It doesn't have to be so "either/or". You mention Dark Age beliefs, but "sorcerers" and pagan priests were around in the Dark Ages and the early Medieval period (there's a clear example in the Saga of Eirik the Red) and they weren't automatically hounded and burnt.* Nor do they appear to have been numerous.
* In Eirik the Red, the Christians simply leave so they don't have to be part of, or witness, the ceremony.DW can have mages and doesn't need to be "high fantasy" as a result. A very few mages (whether Sorcerers, Elementalists or Warlocks) may well gain power and patronage - but they would be the exception. Others may be reclusive, avoiding society in the pursuit of their craft. Still others may have few skills and powers and simply try to blend in... In all cases, they are likely to be few and far between - not altering the basic "low fantasy" setting of the world at all. But they're still there, and folk would know they exist...
All very good points. I guess it depends on how much political power sorcerers have (and how much power the established political institutions, the nobility and the Church, have over sorcery). So long as sorcerers keep to themselves and don't upset the balance of power, then they can carry on with their rites away from centres of civilisation unmolested. After all, such personal power is not lightly trifled with and the cost of dealing with infestations of sorcery must balance the benefit of doing so.
However, sorcerers are always likely to be easy targets to blame for ill-fortune, etc., just like any outcast in the Dark Ages would be.
And my point wasn't that sorcerers = high fantasy, but that the widespread acceptance of sorcery would be. To have sorcerers wandering around the streets brazenly using magic or as a familiar sight on the battlefield is what would make it high fantasy. If adoption of sorcery is controlled (much like literacy, only more so), then you can keep it relatively low fantasy.
I'd recommend John Whitbourne's books about Tobias Oakley (Dangerous Energy, To Build Jerusalem, etc.) for the kind of thing I'm trying to explain. These books are set in a later time period than DW, but he handles sorcery (or, specifically demonology) in a civilised setting without upsetting the historical perspective very well.