The Corpus Hermeticum

[Hermes:] Concerning Soul and Body, son, we now must speak; in what way Soul is deathless, and whence comes the activity in composing and dissolving Body.

For there’s no death for aught of things that are; the thought this word conveys, is either void of fact, or simply by the knocking off a syllable what is called “death”, doth stand for “deathless”.

For death is of destruction, and nothing in the Cosmos is destroyed. For if Cosmos is second God, a life or living creature that cannot die, it cannot be that any part of this immortal life should die. All things in Cosmos are parts of Cosmos, and most of all is man, the rational animal.

- from The Corpus Hermeticum

The Corpus Hermeticum is the body of work most widely known of the ancient Hermetic texts. It is one of three major bodies of works that are considered essential to the study of Hermeticism and Hermetic Magic. These books are set up as dialogues between Hermes Trismegistus and a series of others. The first book involves a discussion between Nous (God) and Hermes, supposedly resulting from a meditative state, and is the first time that Hermes is in contact with God. The secrets of the Universe are unfolded to Hermes, and later books are generally of Hermes teaching others.

The Hermetic Order of Wizardry instructs Initiates from the teachings of the Corpus Hermeticum during their ten year apprenticeship.

Mime Zombies & Other Things

Last night I was thinking of an alternate post to do besides my earlier one on The Multiverse.

“What wackiness could I do with Mimes in RPGs?”  I came up with a few quick ideas:

Mime as Character Class or Sub-Class
This one is pretty obvious. I don’t know if it has been done before, but I am sure it would be interesting.
A Mime could possibly be a Jester Sub-Class or a Non-Verbal Magic User Sub-Class. In these cases, the Mime would get advantages to somatic only performances, charm, spells and the like. A Mime might have a positive diplomatic skill among intelligent creatures where the language is not known. They could also be quick to pick up skills by mimicking them.

Mime as Human Sub-Race/Species
In this scenario, Mimes would be totally non-verbal beings, able to communicate 100% telepathically amongst each other, as their minds are attuned to their kind. When communicating with other humans, they can either do so one-way telepathically or empathically. Mimes would dress very visibly according to such things as their personality traits, mood, social status, profession and the like. A Mime would have a bonus to perception, as they observe a lot instead of speaking. A Mime species might be an advanced one (good for Sci-Fi aliens) or one that lives in places where verbal communication is less likely to occur (like the Underdark), as the GM sees fit. Mimes could be of any class the GM allows when they are played as a species.

We now turn to the poster I made above…
Mime Undead
A Zombie Mime would be creepy! The undead Mime would be acting out how it wants to eat your brain and faux clawing you before it ever made contact. I could see a “Save vs Insanity” roll coming for the Character when one of these things approaches! A Mime vampire or other undead type might be freaky too, for that matter.

I think real life Mimes are entertaining, but there is something “other” about them that just makes them surreal.

-Jeff
“Retro”

A Friendly Eye