Avatar of Magic?

[Paxchi]

Hey folks. Question for those more knowledgeable of the Champions lore.

 

Most of my Champions knowledge comes from 4th and 5th edition, as well as the changes made for 6th Edition/Champions Online. One concept I really liked from 5th edition (that seems to have carried over to 6th) is the idea that magic is what makes superpowers possible. With enough ambient mystic energy flowing through the universe, accidents that would be lethal instead become empowering, the laws of physics can be bent or broken, etc.

 

The Mystic World also outlines the Champions Multiverse in an interesting way, and at one point mentions the realm of Briah, where the embodiment of universal truths and concepts are manifested as thinking beings. They mention concepts like "The Trickster", "The Triple Goddess", "Death", as well as beings like Urizen (Order), Urthona (Art), Tharmas (Nature) and Luvah (Chaos).

 

So I was wondering if there was any kind of entity in the Champions lore, past or present that effectively functioned as an Avatar of Magic itself, or was basically the embodiment of magic in the Champions setting. There's characters like Tyrannon who are basically the biggest mystical bad out there outside of the more Lovecraftian stuff, but Tyrannon is more or less someone who has accumulated a lot of magical power into himself, rather than being the basic embodiment of magic itself.

 

Just something I wondered about given that twist on how magic works in Champions. In a sense, if there was some Avatar of Magic, it's basically the force that decides what people do and don't get superpowers in the Champions setting. Which now has me picturing some cosmic being named "Origin: The Avatar of Magic", that just happens to resemble Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and/or Steve Ditko, depending on its mood.

[Paxchi]

Doing a little more digging, the closest thing I've found so far is an artifact called the Heartstone from Champions #405, Mystic Masters. Apparently the Heartstone is a half-mile wide gem sitting in the center of a dimension that serves as a kind of crossroads dimension to all possible realms, with magical energy flowing from it like a river. The Heartstone apparently has shown sign of intelligence and sentience in the past. So from that era of Champions, the Heartstone seems like an interesting candidate for that role, though I'd be interesting if other editions had similar candidates.

[DShomshak]

When I wrote The Mystic World, I barely hinted at the range of cosmic entities. GMs are supposed to invent new ones, and an Avatar of Magic sounds like a good one to do. Go for it! And the Heartstone could certainly be connected to such an entity.

 

(If a cosmic Avatar of Magic has been added to the CU since The Mystic World, I'm sure someone will mention it.)

 

As for the "origin" angle, Marvel Comics actually had a cosmic entity of super-origins called, natch, Origin. Writer Mark Gruenwald introduced her in Quasar. She manifested as a little old lady (she wanted to keep a low profile, I guess). But having the Avatar of Origins look like great comics creators really tickles my fancy. "Excelsior!" might be a good name for it to use. (And yes, the exclamation point is part of the name!)

 

Dean Shomshak

[Paxchi]

12 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

When I wrote The Mystic World, I barely hinted at the range of cosmic entities. GMs are supposed to invent new ones, and an Avatar of Magic sounds like a good one to do. Go for it! And the Heartstone could certainly be connected to such an entity.

 

(If a cosmic Avatar of Magic has been added to the CU since The Mystic World, I'm sure someone will mention it.)

 

As for the "origin" angle, Marvel Comics actually had a cosmic entity of super-origins called, natch, Origin. Writer Mark Gruenwald introduced her in Quasar. She manifested as a little old lady (she wanted to keep a low profile, I guess). But having the Avatar of Origins look like great comics creators really tickles my fancy. "Excelsior!" might be a good name for it to use. (And yes, the exclamation point is part of the name!)

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Thanks for the reply! The Mystic World was a fascinating read, had a very unique take on the mutliverse and the outline of cosmologies that I'd never seen before. I very much appreciate your input.

 

Also, completely stealing that Excelsior! idea.

[Lord Liaden]

There is no official Avatar/Archetype of Magic specified for the Champions Universe, but I agree with Dean that it would be a perfectly reasonable addition. Given the effect of magic on physical laws, I suggest that it would be appropriate to add it to the ranks of the Zoa of Chaos, and have it be opposed by an Archetype of Science which belongs to Order. Perhaps Excelsior! would be one aspect or Emanation of it.

 

Although if you did want to attribute the portfolio of Magic to any existing Champions entity, I would suggest Thanoro Azoic, the legendary and mysterious founder of the office of Archmage on Earth (mentioned in The Mystic World). Other worlds across the Multiverse have their own Archmages, and the establishment of these preeminent guardians from the supernatural may be part of that Archetype's function.

[Lord Liaden]

6 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Although if you did want to attribute the portfolio of Magic to any existing Champions entity, I would suggest Thanoro Azoic, the legendary and mysterious founder of the office of Archmage on Earth (mentioned in The Mystic World). Other worlds across the Multiverse have their own Archmages, and the establishment of these preeminent guardians from the supernatural may be part of that Archetype's function.

 

Now that I think about it, legend has it that Thanoro Azoic learned the spell suite called the Eleven Lights of Luathon from the entity of the same name, but who or what Luathon is has been forgotten over the ages. Perhaps that's more metaphorically than literally true. Perhaps Luathon is the Avatar of Magic, and Thanoro Azoic is one aspect of it. And Excelsior! could be another.

 

(Hmm... now I need to think about that Archetype of Science...)

[DShomshak]

Well, it's part of Mysticism 101 that mortal concepts such as "personal identity" get fuzzy when you try applying them to abstract pan-dimensional conceptual entities. You'd  probably need to be a sufficiently powerful and experienced mystic to reach the Brialic planes in order to meet the Avatars on their home ground in order to understand them. And then you'd find mortal language completely inadequate to explain what you learned.

 

(Which makes it easy for us GMs. We hint, but we don't need to nail these things down in order to run adventures.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

Chaos is good for an Avatar of Origins: not just for "breaking the natural law" but because supers gain strong passions with their powers. They aren't reasonable -- unless their rationality itself becomes a great and terrible passion.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Paxchi]

7 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

There is no official Avatar/Archetype of Magic specified for the Champions Universe, but I agree with Dean that it would be a perfectly reasonable addition. Given the effect of magic on physical laws, I suggest that it would be appropriate to add it to the ranks of the Zoa of Chaos, and have it be opposed by an Archetype of Science which belongs to Order. Perhaps Excelsior! would be one aspect or Emanation of it.

 

Although if you did want to attribute the portfolio of Magic to any existing Champions entity, I would suggest Thanoro Azoic, the legendary and mysterious founder of the office of Archmage on Earth (mentioned in The Mystic World). Other worlds across the Multiverse have their own Archmages, and the establishment of these preeminent guardians from the supernatural may be part of that Archetype's function.

 

23 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Now that I think about it, legend has it that Thanoro Azoic learned the spell suite called the Eleven Lights of Luathon from the entity of the same name, but who or what Luathon is has been forgotten over the ages. Perhaps that's more metaphorically than literally true. Perhaps Luathon is the Avatar of Magic, and Thanoro Azoic is one aspect of it. And Excelsior! could be another.

 

(Hmm... now I need to think about that Archetype of Science...)

 

I'm really enjoying these ideas and speculations, as well as this thread discussing Thanoro Azoic.

 

The idea of Luathon being the Archetype of Magic and assumes avatars to teach and install the office of the Archmage onto worlds/dimensions that are important to maintaining the overall cosmic balance. Maybe Luathon was one of the major forces behind binding the Kings of Edom in their other dimensional prison, and one primary reason for magic is to create mortals to maintain those bindings, as well as promote heroes to likewise help keep the forces that would release them at bay. As a result, when granting superpowers, Magic tends to focus on beings who will actively use that power, rather than just try to hide it. The downside being that pesky "free will" thing means that these people who will use the power they're given have as much a chance of being evil as good.

 

Maybe the Eleven Lights also correspond to the different spheres/realms/nodes of that multiversal tree of life? Ten lights for each of the existing realms, and then one from Luathon himself?

Edited June 29, 2020 by Paxchi
Typo

[Lord Liaden]

19 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

(Hmm... now I need to think about that Archetype of Science...)

 

As far as names go, it occurs to me that "Boson" carries some appropriate connotations these days.

[DShomshak]

No, "Bozon" is the elementary particle that carries stupidity.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

13 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

Chaos is good for an Avatar of Origins: not just for "breaking the natural law" but because supers gain strong passions with their powers. They aren't reasonable -- unless their rationality itself becomes a great and terrible passion.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Artifice is also appropriate, as superbeings tend to become, hm, performance artists acting out roles and personifying tropes and images. And the more radically they pare away their messy human complexity to incarnate a single idea,  the more powerful it seems they become. Look at all those monomaniac villains, especially those with themes, such as King Cobra, Takofanes or the Big D himself, Doctor Destroyer. Supers become living stories.

 

(Because that's hat we make them to be. We are their cosmic entities. Those poor bastards...)

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

Oh, fer--- Darn double-post again.

[Lord Liaden]

I apologize if this is getting too far afield, but while other Champions Universe books have introduced additional entities of this class, I have a problem with how those beings have been framed. In particular, Champions Beyond defines several "conceptual" entities, including Chrono who maintains the orderly flow of Time, and its avatar Entropus which manifests when action is needed to protect that flow; Lord Entropy who embodies the forces of decay, and its more actively destructive aspect Thanaton; and Mortalus, who maintains the balance of the flow of Life and Death. However, CB draws a distinction between such "cosmic" beings, and "mystic" ones like the Prime Avatars of the Four Zoas.

 

To me such a distinction seems highly artificial. When we're talking about beings who embody fundamental concepts of Reality, the boundary between "mystic" and "cosmic" gets really blurry. I mean, The Mystic World defines the nature and domain of Death, but are we supposed to assume Mortalus is some kind of cosmic Death? How do they even balance their respective spheres of control if they're different orders of entity?

 

I keep remembering that the first place Marvel Comics introduced their sentient embodiment of Eternity, and the Living Tribunal their multiversal judge, was in the pages of Dr. Strange's feature in Strange Tales.