# Synonyms for Spells and Spellcraft?



## Logos&Eidos (Oct 13, 2015)

Some of us for reasons style,flavor of the setting, or personal taste are using magic by another name.

I for example call the most overtly powerful of magic users Adepts,their art is called Adeptery and things related to either the art or its practitioners are said to be Adepterous in nature. Adepts come in two categories, Somatics who burn anima(the Mana of my world) for physical augmentation and Texotics who can weave threads of anima into elemental effects.

So what do I call their powers/talents, weave is already taken ,the word technique is to much of a mouth full in English, rote is good enough but doesn't feel quite right, chord is good and carries musical connotation, but in music a chord is a competent of a song(spell) and not a song in an of itself.


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## trentonian7 (Oct 13, 2015)

I might come back with synonyms later but for now I just warn caution. I can't account for anyone else but I find it irksome when there are "sorcerers" and "wizards" with clearly distinct abilities and types of magic. I think these words are better used as synonyms or as cultural terms for similar things, not as separate and specific styles or types. Your usage of "adept" leaves no confusion however.


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## WooHooMan (Oct 13, 2015)

You could just find cool sounding words and use that regardless of meaning or connotation.
"Anima" is basically just a term from Jungian psychology that means a person's feminine side.  And "mana" originally meant "prestige" in Maori.
The word itself doesn't matter much once you create the association between the term and the action.
The reason why people use "spell" is because it has an automatic association.

I tried looking at a thesaurus for "spell" and found jinx, hex and charm.  Those could work.  You could go with "casting".  Or maybe a word meaning "building" like forge, form, sculpt, etch, shape, carve or mold.

So, there's some ideas.



trentonian7 said:


> Your usage of "adept" leaves no confusion however.



I disagree.  When you say "wizard" that usually can only mean magic.  Someone could be an adept for a lot of things.


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## Incanus (Oct 13, 2015)

'Chord' sounds kind of cool.  Should work.  I've heard plenty of songs made out of little more than one chord, and modern pop music seems to use even less than that.  Programmed beats don't require chords, knowledge of how music works is optional.


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## trentonian7 (Oct 13, 2015)

WooHooMan said:


> I disagree.  When you say "wizard" that usually can only mean magic.  Someone could be an adept for a lot of things.



That isn't what I meant; I oppose defining nearly interchangeable magic terms as specific and separate entities. Ie: wizard and magician, sorcerer and mage. I think they should be used interchangeably or as cultural words; ie, tribal societies have more naturalist "mages" that are typically called shamans.


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## WooHooMan (Oct 13, 2015)

trentonian7 said:


> That isn't what I meant; I oppose defining nearly interchangeable magic terms as specific and separate entities. Ie: wizard and magician, sorcerer and mage. I think they should be used interchangeably or as cultural words; ie, tribal societies have more naturalist "mages" that are typically called shamans.



I see where you're coming from.  I think using sorcerer, wizard and whatever as separate types of magic-users is a role-playing game thing that sort of integrated itself into different mediums.

However, I think if there is a clear distinction between a mage who shoots fireballs and a mage who enchants objects with little to no overlap between the two, it's logical that society would develop distinct terms like sorcerer and enchanter.  Kind of like how a doctor and a nurse are two different professions even if they work in the same field.


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## Logos&Eidos (Oct 13, 2015)

trentonian7 said:


> I might come back with synonyms later but for now I just warn caution. I can't account for anyone else but I find it irksome when there are "sorcerers" and "wizards" with clearly distinct abilities and types of magic. I think these words are better used as synonyms or as cultural terms for similar things, not as separate and specific styles or types. Your usage of "adept" leaves no confusion however.



Adept literally means skillful or capable and has some use in real world occultism. Also the word doesn't carry the same connotation as Wizard,Sorcerer or Mage; An Adept could be anything I want. Wizard has it's roots in a word meaning wise, and sorcerer literally means fate bender sors is latin for fate. Sorcery does exist in my setting fate-benders are so rare as to be thought mythical;one of the protagonist a hero of a past war and luckiest man alive is a sorcerer. 



WooHooMan said:


> You could just find cool sounding words and use that regardless of meaning or connotation.
> "Anima" is basically just a term from Jungian psychology that means a person's feminine side.  And "mana" originally meant "prestige" in Maori.
> The word itself doesn't matter much once you create the association between the term and the action.
> The reason why people use "spell" is because it has an automatic association.
> ...



My usage of Anima is a reference to Saga Frontier 2,the magic of that game was called Anima as was the life-force that all things possessed. It also literally means breath of life, I use anima much as Saga Frontier 2 does however no catalyst for the magic is required in my setting.






Incanus said:


> 'Chord' sounds kind of cool.  Should work.  I've heard plenty of songs made out of little more than one chord, and modern pop music seems to use even less than that.  Programmed beats don't require chords, knowledge of how music works is optional.




Thanks, spell casting is a very specific process in my setting. An Adept starts with raw anima strands (filaments is the more formal term), Strands are spun into more stable Threads which are woven into Chords/spells(shorthand for chordian-field) which are cast into the world.

I also like the word chord because of its musical connotations and that the fact that chords are literally something that is woven. But I was hesitant to use it because "chord" in music refers to components of music and not the entirety of a song, yes I know I'm world building but I can be be quite particular about the terminology. Since there are chordian/chordric field maybe the proper name for spells is chordine, chord for short.


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## WooHooMan (Oct 13, 2015)

Logos&Eidos said:


> My usage of Anima is a reference to Saga Frontier 2,the magic of that game was called Anima as was the life-force that all things possessed. It also literally means breath of life, I use anima much as Saga Frontier 2 does however no catalyst for the magic is required in my setting.



Sure, whatever.  What I'm trying to say is that the specific word doesn't matter that much.  Like how the word "mana" is used differently in fantasy fiction compared to what the word actually means.


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## Logos&Eidos (Oct 15, 2015)

WooHooMan said:


> Sure, whatever.  What I'm trying to say is that the specific word doesn't matter that much.  Like how the word "mana" is used differently in fantasy fiction compared to what the word actually means.



Presentation  is very important, it is what separates a Mage from a Psionic and Sword of Dawn's Radiance from a Lightsaber. I changed the terms because I wanted a flavor different from the typical Mage, despite the power set staying the same.


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## Snowpoint (Oct 21, 2015)

I like it when generic terms like wizard and mage are thrown out in favor of words more specific to the setting.


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## Logos&Eidos (Oct 23, 2015)

Snowpoint said:


> I like it when generic terms like wizard and mage are thrown out in favor of words more specific to the setting.



So do I, the catch to the use of distinct terms is that the audience has to familiarize themselves with them. I have gotten the impression that learning by usage and context doesn't work for a lot of people.


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