Anyone know what the literary origins are for the Illusionist class in OD&D/AD&D? I played the hell out of the class back in the day and had a blast. Now I'm looking for something which captures the class in a novel or short story format.
I think I remember someone mentioning Harold Shea (http://www.baenebooks.com/p-2557-the-complete-compleat-enchanter.aspx) from de Camp and Pratt, but I can't find anything on the Googleverse that backs that up.
Mandrake the Magician and/or The Shadow, probably. Let's not forget the lost city on Barsoom where the martians create illusory archers to drive away invaders. The "Force" in Phantasmal Force originally referred to a troop of warriors, not a force as in physics.
The Arthurian legends tend to have a lot of illusion in them. Often the illusion is from the very heavy Christian "GM/omnipresent mystical orce" in those stories, but it can also be from forests or castles (perhaps a hidden court wizard, or the local queen/lady). I'm not thinking of an lllusionist per se, but there might be, or it might be that successful illusionists don't get identified, particularly in a world where it's taken as normal for magic quest invitations to appear at your dinner table, or for magic swords and armor to be delivered to appropriate knights via river, etc.
The illusionist seems to be heavily influenced by Celtic fairy tales and mythology. Glamourie, the Sidhe Otherworld, the Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, Manannán mac Lir and the Isle of Mists, and so on. Appendix N has several authors who borrow extensively from Celtic mythology like Anderson, Moorcock, and Zelazny; and so do Gygax's writings (Fragarach the Answerer from The Temple of Elemental Evil is Manannán's sword). I also wouldn't be surprised if Schmendrick and the monstrous menagerie from Beagle's The Last Unicorn had an influence, though that's a guess (and could just be convergence; both drawing from a large body of similar earlier material).
Illusionary magic is so ubiquitous from faerie glamour, to devilsh maidens entrapping goodly nights to IT to the hero shouting "it can only hurt you if you let yourselves be afraid" that its probably not worth trying to differentiate its practitioners from the standard wizard. The problem when you do is that you need to make the high level spells not just illusions because then they are relatively too weak. Do high level illusoons aren't illusoons whochbos a bit weird. Also the technical difference between a high level and a low level illusoon is pretty difficult for the dnd system to handle
Not a whole lot of specific, I guess? More of a "this was influenced by a broad range of stories and mythologies" thing.
Quote from: Bloodwolf;834621Not a whole lot of specific, I guess? More of a "this was influenced by a broad range of stories and mythologies" thing.
Gnomes and other small folk were magical, that's what the Grimm brothers taught us with the German fairy tale collections. Rumpelsnitz (not sure what you call him in English) is a good example of the small man with powerful magic.
I actually believe that the gnome illusionist, as in a specific race that has an affinity for a particular school of magic, might be an original D&D idea. It seems crazy, but sometimes they did get those.
Quote from: Bloodwolf;834621Not a whole lot of specific, I guess? More of a "this was influenced by a broad range of stories and mythologies" thing.
We named names. How much more specific do you need?
Quote from: Bloodwolf;834621Not a whole lot of specific, I guess? More of a "this was influenced by a broad range of stories and mythologies" thing.
Well, it was created in The Strategic Review by Peter Aronson. This is his whole description of the class
QuoteIllusionists are a sub-class of magic-users who, as the name implies, employ illusion and similar powers. Their prime requisite is dual, in that they must have both a good intelligence and a dexterity of not less than 15 as a high degree of manual conjuration is involved when they cast their spells. Although severely limited in the number of magical items they can employ, Illusionists make up for this restriction by the power of their magic.
I have never seen or heard of an interview with him.
edit: Here's a Grognardia post about it, which has more information in the comments, which speculates that Jack of Shadows by Zelazny (sp) inspired it.
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/02/pulp-fantasy-library-jack-of-shadows.html
Quote from: talysman;834634We named names. How much more specific do you need?
Some of those stories I have. Most treat illusion basically as magic. I was wondering if there was a specific source to point to. For example, halflings have a direct source. Vancian magic has a source (even if it is not exactly the same). The thief class has a source.
Most of the stories and characters detailed above aren't strictly Illusionists as they appear in AD&D. They create glamours by virtue of being Fae, or they cloud men's minds.
Self-referential, but the D&D cartoon had an episode with an illusionist. If I remember correctly, it was not a magic user, but strictly an illusionist. The details are vague.
I'll check out the Jack of Shadows link.
Quote from: Bloodwolf;834658Some of those stories I have. Most treat illusion basically as magic. I was wondering if there was a specific source to point to. For example, halflings have a direct source. Vancian magic has a source (even if it is not exactly the same). The thief class has a source.
Most of the stories and characters detailed above aren't strictly Illusionists as they appear in AD&D. They create glamours by virtue of being Fae, or they cloud men's minds.
The AD&D illusionist is sometimes treated as just another magic-user concentrating on spells that affect the mind, so the first Harold Shea/Incompleat Enchanter story or the fae in various Arthurian Romances may, in fact, be the source. At other times, there's more of an emphasis on the illusionist using powers of the mind and hypnotic gaze or gestures, for example the "high degree of manual conjuration is involved when they cast their spells" mentioned in the quote earlier. Those almost certainly come from The Shadow or Mandrake the Magician (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandrake_the_Magician). Mandrake is probably the best fit: he's a well-known character from a very long-running daily comic strip and he has other psychic powers like telekinesis and enchanted items, so he's a mix of mental magician and supernatural magician.
In addition, it should be noted that the illusions of the Lotharians of Barsoom in
Thuvia, Maid of Mars are not of the "cloud men's minds" variety, but are more liike tulpas created by sheer force of will. There's a definite ERB/Barsoom influence on D&D, since we know the original three booklets included martian creatures like banths, thoats, apts, and white apes in wandering monster tables. So this is another strong possibility as a source.
Without some kind of interview with the creator, my best guess is that he saw Phantasmal Force and/or played in Gary's version of Barsoom, thought "it would be cool to expand the number of illusion spells, so I could play something more like Mandrake", and then did so. Other sources probably served more as guidelines for specific illusionist spells.
Quote from: Bloodwolf;834621Not a whole lot of specific, I guess? More of a "this was influenced by a broad range of stories and mythologies" thing.
Correct. I cannot think of any specific literary example of a illusionist of the sort as depicted in D&D. The spells seem to be drawn from various singular examples in literature and faerie folklore quite a bit as others have pointed out.
Some of the original players here might have a idea if there was anything past that. And at a guess it is one of the classes that developed from one of the players wanting to play an illusion focused magic user. Much like the Druid was if I recall correctly. Didn't the Illusionist first appear in Strategic Review? Who wrote that?
Yeah, if I had to guess I would think it would have to be due to the whole thing about "glamour" being one of the most common forms of magic in folk tales, the faerie folk, etc.
One thing you see in D&D illusions that has a counterpart in some older stories is the idea of the "solid illusions" and illusions so real that you can walk across an illusory bridge or be stopped by an illusory wall.
Quote from: Battle Mad Ronin;834627Rumpelsnitz (not sure what you call him in English) is a good example of the small man with powerful magic.
Woody Allen or Tom Cruise, I think. One or the other for sure.
Actually, I played for a short while in Peter Aronson's campaign. Him being a Bostonian (at least at the time), it's pretty unlikely he ever played in one of Gygax's campaigns.
For those of you scoring at home, the comics stage performer/mountebank was exactly what he had in mind -- Mandrake, Zatara, Sargon, that lot.
Quote from: Ravenswing;835530Actually, I played for a short while in Peter Aronson's campaign. Him being a Bostonian (at least at the time), it's pretty unlikely he ever played in one of Gygax's campaigns.
For those of you scoring at home, the comics stage performer/mountebank was exactly what he had in mind -- Mandrake, Zatara, Sargon, that lot.
Neeters. If those were some of the inspirations then makes sense as several of those characters had actual magic powers to back their tricks.