From: mfterman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Mutant for Hire)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Amber Sorcery: IV. Pattern vs. Logrus
Date: 4 Sep 92 19:51:39 GMT
Reply-To: mfterman@phoenix.princeton.edu (Mutant for Hire)
Organization: Mutant for Hire, Inc.

The Pattern is neither a creator or a destroyer. It is a 
manipulator and rearranger of what is. Additionally, it can act as 
reinforcement of what already exists. With the Logrus, one is 
capable of incredible acts of creation and destruction. In 
contrast, Pattern powers work easiest when altering little as 
possible. Shadow walking is one of the least draining uses of the 
Pattern, because nothing is really changing in Shadow except the 
location of the person doing the walking. Trumps also change 
little, so they are easy to use. With Logrus powers, often the 
trick is not to have a warping effect on the environment, or to 
restrict the effect to only the desired result.

Both the Logrus and the Pattern have effects of altering what is, 
but they take completely opposite approaches to how to accomplish 
the result. While the results may appear similar, the causes are 
quite different and have important consequences thereof. Where a 
Logrus magician summons up a storm cloud out of nothing, a Pattern 
magician would simply alter the weather step by step until a storm 
cloud appeared. Or would find a storm cloud somewhere in Shadow 
and bring it in to where it was desired. Pattern initiates can 
alter the time streams of a Shadow and work subtle manipulations 
on it as well. Note that they are not creating or destroying 
anything, they are merely shifting around what is.

Logrus powers have a warping effect, but that is quite different 
than what the Pattern does. The Logrus takes the natural pattern 
of things and forces it into a new alignment. The Pattern alters 
the natural pattern of things and lets the balancing forces 
themselves shove everything into a new pattern, or takes the 
specific effect looked for, and restructures everything so that 
the desired effect is a natural consequence of the system. This 
approach has advantages and disadvantages.

The disadvantage is that its a lot harder. The Logrus magician 
merely has to create a storm cloud with lightning ready. The 
Pattern magician has to restructure local weather conditions so 
that a storm cloud with lightning forms. The Pattern magician has 
a huge expenditure of forces to achieve the same effects as the 
Logrus magician. This difficulty explains why Pattern magic isn't 
all that popular.

On the other hand, the Logrus magician's cloud can be distrupted 
easily once the supporting force for it is removed. Or the Pattern 
magician can try to reimpose order which would demand that the 
cloud not exist. The Logrus magician has to actually go and 
suppress the Pattern cloud, and that suppression could be 
disrupted. The Logrus magician could summon up a major disruption 
which would mess up the cloud and most things in the area, but the 
point is Pattern generated effects are a lot harder to destroy 
than Logrus effects.

In general, given a Pattern effect versus a Logrus effect, the 
Pattern effect will generally win, however the Pattern effect will 
take a lot more energy to create. Unless one has something like 
the Jewel of Judgement or a spikard for a power supply, effects 
will be more subtle and less showy than their Logrus counterparts 
in magic. Logrus magicians in the short term can do quite a bit, 
but in the long term results, the Pattern magic will last. (unless 
you've nuked an area with primal chaos....)
-- 
    Martin Terman, Mutant for Hire, Mad Scientist, Priest of Shub-Internet
    Disclaimer: Nobody else takes me seriously, why should you be the first?
mfterman@phoenix.princeton.edu mfterman@pucc.bitnet terman@pupgga.princeton.edu
"Sig quotes are like bumper stickers, only without the same sense of relevance"