The Occult SKILL : What exactly does the SKILL do?

[TryingToBeSlim]

What exactly can a character do with the Occult SKILL? (Not the charms).

Just the skill.

I remember in 2E Occult and Thauamaturgy got bloated and the Devs cut them down for 3E But there is NOTHING in the 3E Core book about what the Occult skill does.

Does it do Geomancy? Do you summon spirits? Speak with the dead? Do you summon rain?

What does Occult do?

What can a PC with just the Occult skill do?

Also Regarding Thamaturgy :

When I first looked around, most people were saying that 2E Thaumaturgy's functions had been folded into Occult and I thought fair enough but neither the Book OR online sources seems to give details regarding this.

There is no detail for what Occult does at all and Thaumaturgy's functions are simply not present in 3E.

[Heavy Arms]

It facilitates.

Ultimately, like Lore, Occult is a skill about knowing things. Even without Charms or Thaumaturgy, Occult lets you know things so you can apply your other skills in ways people without that knowledge wouldn't know to do.

So it both does a lot, and nothing, at the same time, because by itself it's academic. You need other skills to put that knowledge to functional use. But without that knowledge, there's so much your character wouldn't know to try that could make huge differences in their adventures.

[TryingToBeSlim]

Thing is Lore has some rules.

Occult has none in the core book apparently.

Also does that mean what I was told about Thaumaturgy being folded into Occult was completely wrong?

[Heavy Arms]

There's a bit of a difference between not having an specific subsystem, and not having any rules (Bureaucracy is in a similar boat if you want to say it has "no rules").

As for thaumaturgy... kinda? You can't use Thaumaturgy rituals with just a rating in Occult. But if you have the Thaumaturge Merit, then you just buy rituals and use Occult, you don't have whole schools and such to invest in.

[Sandact6]

I tried fleshing Occult out by giving it the ability to make wards and function like Lore when it comes to knowing about spirits/mysticism.

Otherwise there's a reason I agree with Essence merging Lore and Occult (not so much also including medicine).

[Isator Levi]

But there is NOTHING in the 3E Core book about what the Occult skill does.

There's its description under the Abilities heading.

Occult is an Ability to know what various kinds of spirits can do and what might compel and motivate them beyond their personalities as people. Things like what kind of burning branch produces a smoke that repulses or draws them, that kind of thing.

It is also an Ability one can use to represent insight into things that are just plain weird about Creation. Things like inexplicable curses coming upon people, or how to recognise the chicken eggs that hatch into basilisks.

It's not so much an ability for summoning spirits as it is for knowing if a given spirit is naturally inclined to be summoned and what might be assembled to do so. Like, you're not rolling it on its own to do so, you're doing it to know if a given variety of god can sense papyrus inscribed with a given poem being burned on the night of the waning crescent moon and coming before you in good humour.

There might be some places in the world where such actions can affect the weather, but not across the board, and not with a fully fleshed out system for how it works.

Thaumaturgy represents being an individual with an innate uncanny capacity for bringing up certain preternatural occurrences. Ultimately, the Occult Ability comes out more as knowing such people than being them.

[Erinys]

So is it possible for mortals to use a line of salt to block ghosts without needing to be born with a miracle/mutation Merit?
What happened to knowing the escape conditions for Neomah and beckoning one?
What about looking at the stars and recognizing constellations and planets? Do mortals need the Thaumaturgy mutation Merit to know what the constellations are?

Is all this knowledge now inherently inborn in only a few rare mutant people, and can't be taught or passed down? That's the thing about the Merit, it's presented as this inexplicable thing that only a tiny number of people anywhere have, and it can't be taught. And each "ritual" is basically a Charm that only one mutant has ever had access to. I don't understand how "pour a line of salt" is something that mortals can't teach or learn. "Cry over a stillborn baby" shouldn't be hard to undetstand, either.

[Isator Levi]

So is it possible for mortals to use a line of salt to block ghosts without needing to be born with a miracle/mutation Merit?

Yes; this is an innate weakness of that being. Honestly, Second Edition making that into a thaumaturgy ritual was actually making it more restrictive than it made any sense to be.

What happened to knowing the escape conditions for Neomah and beckoning one?

Honestly, I'm unsure if that detail of demons is still intended to be present, as such conditions have not been referenced in any write-ups that I can find. Still, that's another thing where I feel as though thaumaturgy overrode the actual steps and just wound up as highly specialized miniature sorcery. If it is possible for neomah to come forth when menstrual blood mixes with freshly wept tears, a ritual one spent XP on should hardly be necessary to know that.

What about looking at the stars and recognizing constellations and planets? Do mortals need the Thaumaturgy mutation Merit to know what the constellations are?

Ah, mortal understanding of the Constellations is actually referenced in Charting Fate's Course.

Basically, people often have an understanding of what the Constellations mean that aligns with the symbolism by which they inform the powers of Sidereals, but many cultures attribute their own meanings to them, that may or may not be related to the Sidereal ones. People often regard the placement of the stars as auspicious or otherwise, but that's not so much prediction of the future as people letting such things inform the timing of when they'll do something on the assumption that it will be blessed or cursed. The movements of the stars are not said to directly reflect influences in the Loom of Fate, but they can have a certain ephemeral connection to things happening in the world connected to their purviews.

That is to say that being born under the sign of the Lovers doesn't strictly say anything about Heaven's plans for your life, but the meaning of that sign might inform how you live more often than not.

But for the most part, people's relationship with the stars is much like it has tended to be in real life. An actual, genuine power to foresee the future is indeed a function of the Thaumaturgist Merit, which can take the form of examining the night sky and people's personal star charts as surely as it does examining tea leaves or drawing cards.

Is all this knowledge now inherently inborn in only a few rare mutant people, and can't be taught or passed down? That's the thing about the Merit, it's presented as this inexplicable thing that only a tiny number of people anywhere have, and it can't be taught. And each "ritual" is basically a Charm that only one mutant has ever had access to.

A few things. First of all, not only are the example thaumaturgy rituals not supposed to be always something that only one person has ever known, the ones written up in the corebook describe how frequent they tend to be. It's said that in a society with important regional tea culture, about one person in ten thousand will possess the power to actually divine the future from tea leaves. It's only sometimes that a trick would be truly unique to an individual unless they share it with other thaumaturgists.

Because the other thing about them is that while every thaumaturgist starts out with one particular trick, being like that means that you can learn other powers so long as you get taught directly by a thaumaturgist who knows them. Sijan is described as a place that gathers those who can use thaumaturgy, where regardless of what they started out with they can learn the funereal powers of that city.

[Erinys]

Yes; this is an innate weakness of that being. Honestly, Second Edition making that into a thaumaturgy ritual was actually making it more restrictive than it made any sense to be.

Honestly, I'm unsure if that detail of demons is still intended to be present, as such conditions have not been referenced in any write-ups that I can find. Still, that's another thing where I feel as though thaumaturgy overrode the actual steps and just wound up as highly specialized miniature sorcery. If it is possible for neomah to come forth when menstrual blood mixes with freshly wept tears, a ritual one spent XP on should hardly be necessary to know that.

That makes more sense. Really, the salt ward thing ought to be common knowledge, especially in Sijan and Chiaroscuro. Knowing how to beckon a single kind of First Circle demon shouldn't take many Occult dots. And unless Games of Divinity is retconned, even a mortal queen can accidentally give Ligier an opening to escape Malfeas, if he wants to right then. Many of the escape conditions struck me as things mortals would cause accidentally in a lot of cases. You just killed and ate the last dodo... now here's a blood ape to eat you!

The movements of the stars are not said to directly reflect influences in the Loom of Fate, but they can have a certain ephemeral connection to things happening in the world connected to their purviews.

So the idea of them being a "display screen for the Loom" is kinda gone? Or totally gone? That makes it more reasonable for typical mortals to be unable to use it profitably. It also clears up something that confused me: the constellations would presumably be stationary, more so than threads in the Loom. So you'd need a whole lot of wandering stars/comets flitting among constellations to display the Loom's activity, even vaguely. 5 planets plus Luna would not be enough, beyond things like horoscopes.

The part about Sijan confused me because it talked about teaching rituals where the rest talked about them being un-teachable. You can't write them down, so... words just fail to describe them? It isn't made concrete how they are taught at all. I guess it's meant to imply they have to be demonstrated instead of described in words, and only another thaumaturge can understand what they witnessed?

One of my difficulties with thaumaturgy as a Merit is the idea that it's like a mutation. In the 1E Player's Guide, thaumaturgy was just humans clumsily fiddling with the universal laws of fate. Anybody could do it, but most Dragon Kings didn't bother. It wasn't presented as special unique human magic. I like a rare innate talent for learning rituals like conjuring a flame, or exorcism... but not all of them. Any humans being born with magic nobody else gets, or magic they know without being taught, counters the idea that mortals have no innate magic at all.

[Heavy Arms]

Well, considering anything capable of learning Sorcery (which is still generally Exalted, but potentially other Essence users) gets the Merit for free? I think it comes off more that "some humans manage to luck into a bit of supernatural power that's above their station," than it does, "this is a uniquely human form of magic." A human might be born with Exalted Healing, but that doesn't really make a grand statement about humanity in the setting.

A lot of this is also going to be hard to address because we don't have a book on spirits and demons yet; and some of the metaphysics as presented in 3e have changed a bit from 2e. 3e's full write up of how demons work (whatever book that's in) might include ways demons can enter Creation without being summoned, and thus how any mortal with Occult could at least try to unlock the door even if they can't actively make a demon go through it.

[Erinys]

IIRC sorcerous initiation grants the Merit but mere potential for sorcery doesn't.

It does remain to be seen whether Dragon Kings or Jadeborn can have that Merit, or get it for free, or are locked out of it.

[Heavy Arms]

Yeah, poorly worded on my part. You need to actually get Sorcery before you get the Merit.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

The description of the Thaumaturgist merit specifies that it's only Exalted who get that benefit. Mortals would have to buy both at full cost.

[Isator Levi]

That makes more sense. Really, the salt ward thing ought to be common knowledge, especially in Sijan and Chiaroscuro. Knowing how to beckon a single kind of First Circle demon shouldn't take many Occult dots. And unless Games of Divinity is retconned, even a mortal queen can accidentally give Ligier an opening to escape Malfeas, if he wants to right then. Many of the escape conditions struck me as things mortals would cause accidentally in a lot of cases. You just killed and ate the last dodo... now here's a blood ape to eat you!

Checking back, I find I was mistaken; in Hundred Devils Night Parade, the write-up for Rimvidas the Cancerous Cornucopia states that they can be drawn unbidden into Creation by desperate prayers for change whispered into a moonless night, and the Third Circle Demon Sibri, the Rampart of Serpents, might enter the world to answer the prayers of slaves, the abused, and princes under the yoke of a greater power (as well as generally favouring outcasts, children and the elderly, and the impoverished, maimed, or chronically ill).

That said, I would still think that often the knowledge of what calls demons is a bit obscure, regarded as perilous even by those who know it, and more often such conditions are fulfilled spontaneously and in a more sincere fashion.

It also clears up something that confused me: the constellations would presumably be stationary, more so than threads in the Loom. So you'd need a whole lot of wandering stars/comets flitting among constellations to display the Loom's activity, even vaguely. 5 planets plus Luna would not be enough, beyond things like horoscopes.

I always assumed that the stars of Creation had positions fixed relative to one another, but that the night sky would shift over time in a manner resembling looking up from the surface of a rotating spheroid. The planets would still be distinguished by moving about within this tableau in a manner that creates numerous permutations.

The part about Sijan confused me because it talked about teaching rituals where the rest talked about them being un-teachable. You can't write them down, so... words just fail to describe them? It isn't made concrete how they are taught at all. I guess it's meant to imply they have to be demonstrated instead of described in words, and only another thaumaturge can understand what they witnessed?

I would take it as one part being a complex thing that is highly based in the experience in a manner that is difficult to put into words, one part a form of tacit knowledge, and one part there being something innately obscure and uncanny about it that can only be passed on by a personal interchange.

One of my difficulties with thaumaturgy as a Merit is the idea that it's like a mutation. In the 1E Player's Guide, thaumaturgy was just humans clumsily fiddling with the universal laws of fate. Anybody could do it, but most Dragon Kings didn't bother. It wasn't presented as special unique human magic. I like a rare innate talent for learning rituals like conjuring a flame, or exorcism... but not all of them. Any humans being born with magic nobody else gets, or magic they know without being taught, counters the idea that mortals have no innate magic at all.

I think the element where mortal humans are distinguished can still be found in the point that the vast vast majority of them have no such powers, contrasted with my presumption that every Dragon King has at least a few. I like to think of that as often making them a bit of a fresh canvas upon which the uncanny and the weird can leave its impressions, and as far as thaumaturgy goes that extends to the very nature of the world itself, big elemental flat earth that it is, floating tentatively on a sea of chaos. The small oddities are dotted around enough that you can find a person who slips into them all over even if they're a diamond in the rough, compared to extremely obscure things like a martial arts school carrying a blessing from a patron snake god that passes to whomever is sifu, an individual with a black fire fuelled by hatred left in their heart by a Deathlord, or a man endowed with comet powers as he reassembles the fragments of a stone that fell from the sky.

[Verzio]

I kept meaning to do a Storytellers Vault product on updating the less outre 1e/2e uses of thaumaturgy as 3e uses of Occult. I should dig up those notes at some point.and actually do it.