The Price of Power: A Study of Magical Corruption
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Magic is not a tool to be used without consequence; it is a system with immutable laws. Corruption is the price of breaking those laws. It is not a punishment, but a fundamental balancing mechanism—a spiritual decay that warps a mage into a monstrous parody of their own ideals.
The Three Great Corruptions
Each corresponds to a Pillar, twisting its core philosophy into a monstrous form.
1. Dissolution
- Source: Unchecked Mercy magic (S2 Chokmah, S4 Chesed, S7 Netzach).
- Perversion: Life becomes cancerous growth; passion consumes identity. The soul dissolves into base desires.
- Manifestations by Stage:
- Taint: The mage feels emotionally volatile. A healer might find their restorative touch leaves small, harmless but unnatural growths like flowers on the skin.
- Blight: The mage's body begins to lose its distinct form, perhaps with features that shift with strong emotion (e.g., skin turns bark-like with anger). Their original personality is eroded by a single, all-consuming passion.
- Ruin: The mage becomes a being of pure, cancerous growth—a monstrous amalgam of flesh, wood, and raw emotion, mindlessly seeking to assimilate all life into itself.
2. Petrification
- Source: Unchecked Severity magic (S3 Binah, S5 Gevurah, S8 Hod).
- Perversion: Order becomes dogma; intellect becomes a cage of logic. The soul petrifies into an unfeeling thing.
- Manifestations by Stage:
- Taint: The mage becomes emotionally distant and overly formal.
- Blight: The mage's body becomes rigid and angular. Their skin may take on the texture of stone or crystal. They become incapable of empathy, seeing the world only as a system to be optimized.
- Ruin: The mage becomes a living statue of crystalline logic, seeking to impose a sterile, unfeeling order on the world by turning everything into a state of static perfection.
3. Hollowing
- Source: Unchecked Balance magic (S1 Keter, S6 Tiferet, S9 Yesod, S10 Malkuth).
- Perversion: Balance becomes emptiness; harmony becomes apathy. The soul is hollowed into a purposeless void.
- Manifestations by Stage:
- Taint: The mage feels apathetic and disconnected. A Tiferet adept might find colors seeming less vibrant and food tasting bland.
- Blight: The mage's features become generic and indistinct, their voice monotone. They lose all personal ambition and motivation, acting only out of habit or external direction. Their aura becomes thin and transparent.
- Ruin: The mage becomes a "Hollow Man," a psychic void that passively drains purpose and meaning from those around them. They are not malevolent, but their presence is a spiritual blight that leaves communities listless and without hope.
The Forbidden Corruptions
4. Annihilation
- Source: Contact with the void of Da'at.
- Perversion: The mage is not killed, but un-made—erased from reality and time.
5. Infestation
- Source: Willful communion with a parasitic Qliphah.
- Perversion: The soul is consumed by a spiritual parasite, twisting the mage into a monstrous Avatar of a corrupted ideal.
Stages of Corruption
| Stage | Name | Description | Reversibility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Taint | Minor, temporary side-effects; a faint stain on the aura. | Yes. Purged by rest and meditation. |
| 2 | Blight | Persistent physical and metaphysical warp; personality is altered. | Difficult. Requires rituals to halt and reverse. |
| 3 | Ruin | More monster than person; the original self is lost. A direct threat. | No. The subject is typically hunted down. |