Re: More Blatant/Subtle
Originally posted by Manveru
Another handy twist that's possible with this paradigm is that powerful Blatant magic could have lingering, probably weaker, and perhaps even different, Subtle magic effects.
Take the Lammoth for example. If someone was standing right there when Morgoth let loose his yelp upon Ungoliant sinking her teeth into him, well, let's just say that I wouldn't want to have experienced that Blatant expression of power firsthand and leave it at that ...
BUT ... a weaker, echo of that uber-yelp persisted in that region for hundreds of years. You guessed it! A lingering SUBTLE expression of the same power!
This concept needn't have an explicit mechanical instantiation at all, but could even serve purely as a Narrator Plot Device, and a descriptive 'wrapper' for lingering environmental 'magic' like the Dead Marshes or the water of the Valley of the Withywindle. It's at least some way to relate/explain this fuzzy stuff within the context of a Magic system, without having to statisticate.
I think that'd only work in extenuating circumstances. Note that Melkor was a Vala and Sauron a Maia. The Dead Marshes are the result of a battle of mythic proportion.
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