You would probably be lying if you said that Daedra don't remind you of demons. As I'm sure Bethesda intended. However they have very interesting lore on these Daedra that blurs the line on whether they are "demonic" or not. But we could talk about Demons and say "Well whos to say that Demons are really evil?" Which is why a talk on the morals of Daedra (or Demons) is ultimately pointless.

But, from what I've seen, most Daedra are either being controlled by a wizard, or trying to kill you. Of course the greater Daedra like to behave like Aedra and gather followers. I guess my concept is pwned by lore. I just think it's funny that a form of light/spiritual and dark magic must imply a absolute morality in lore. Maybe dark magic isn't bad, just misunderstood, like Daedra? It's the concept of white, glowy magic and spooky dark magic that the poll is about. How that would fit into the lore would be the work of Bethesda not me. I figured I wasn't the only one who would like to see something more than lightning, frost and fire in the next ES.

It's because light and dark are simply not concepts that work that way in TES. It would absolutely be a religious thing, pretty much any legitimate mage. It would be like advocating the phlogiston theory in modern times.

When people reiterate this over and over, all I need to do is switch "Light" to "Spirit" and switch "Dark" to "Shadow" to purge it of religious or moral footnotes. There's no absolute good in "spirit" magic and no absolute evil in "shadow". Spirit magic leans more towards rejuvinating the living and slaying anything that is not flesh and blood, conscious, or alive. Shadow magic leans more towards draining and destroying flesh and blood creatures. Interpret those magics however you want, but that's basically what I've been trying to convey this whole time. Does it fit with the lore? Yeah, if the developers decided to add something new to the game they could make it fit just like they did with the dragon languages.

Did you know there are already a few open threads regarding Necromancy?

Something called "shadow magic" already exists in TES, but since it only was in Shadowkey and most of us don't have N-gages I don't know much about it.

But those terms don't work. You're thinking about some Restoration spells as "light" and Destruction and certain kinds of Mysticism as "shadow."

It just doesn't work that way.

Take destruction, add 2 new types of damage. Shadow and Spirit. Hell add Plasma if you want. It's just adding a new wing of magic/damage types.

And I already talked about how "holy/light/spirit/whatever" would be integrated into restoration or vice versa.

I talked about both possibilities, either changing the schools to the concepts rather than what they do (Probably not a good idea) or keeping the schools the same and integrating the new magic types in.

How does that not work?

No matter what you call it, it still unneccessarily moralizes the magic system and doesn't fit with the lore. This just does not belong in TES.

Basically, shadows have traits beyond a lack of light, and the traits of shadows can be manipulated to various ends. SPecifically, shadows are a "reflection of possible worlds created by forces in conflict." As a result, manipualting shadows can be used to manipulate the source of the shadow.

If you cast an ice spell on a fire creature and it does more damage to it because fire is less resistant to cold, does that make the fire evil or the cold good? No they're just polar opposites.

View Light and Dark the same way and no moralization needs to be made.

This holy and unholy thing would be a cluster-[censored] of peoples ideas on whats good and evil in the world.

Keep it how it is.

I suggest reading the whole thread where I address this about 5 times. If the idea of "light and dark" magic is too morally distinct for you, then you can always purge it of the "holy" aspect and just have it be magic of contrasts. Just like fire magic is contrasted with cold, light magic would be contrasted with dark. This doesn't mean that dark is evil, just like how many insist that necromancy and daedra aren't objectively evil. And it doesn't mean light magic is good.

It gets tiresome when people keep saying "Magic isn't good or evil" when Light and Dark magic doesn't have to be lumped in with those concepts. If you don't like the concept of it for some other reason thats fine, but in my original post and like 3 other I address the problem of good and evil magics not fitting with lore. Let's not limit the game to 3 basic types of magic energies just because people see Light and Dark as synonymous with "Objective morality" in a game.

(EDIT: My use of the word Holy/Unholy seems to have sparked a lolgical debate about lore and the morality of Daedra and Aedra. I'm going to assume that most of you know that holy magic is reffering to white sparkly glowy magic that helps you and destroys nasty things and unholy is dark spooky magic that hurts people. Something other than Fire, Lightning and Ice anyone? Must we be religious fundamentalists about this subject?)

(EDIT: Also if you have a problem with Holy/Unholy magic making some sort of moral distinction that shouldent be there, read the rest of the thread before posting, I address a solution to this.)

The last thread I did was on a Clerics guild/Temple faction and the idea was pretty well recieved. The whole Holy/Unholy concept is always one of my favorite parts of RPGs. But then that raises another question for me... Should there be Holy and Unholy magic in Skyrim? It's a curious subject, because the entire concept seems to be either absent from The Elder Scrolls universe, or very fuzzy.

We have Daedric magic (aka Conjuration) which on its face seems demonic, yet in much of TES lore it says that Daedra are just otherworldly beings and some of them are worshipped as "holy". You would think that Conjuration would be shunned just as much as Necromancy if it were "Unholy". It's also interesting that in Oblivion, Conjuration seems so closely tied to Daedra, yet you can summon a bear. So a bear is a Daedra? That seems more like Druidry to me. Now, I'm not against the summoning of bears or other critters, but if Conjuration is just a neutral term for "Summoning things" then it shoulden't be exclusively linked to the concept of Daedra and other planes. Another strange thing about Conjuration is, it has one of the holiest of spells in it. Turn Undead. Which has always been a spell exclusive to Clerical magic. Making the whole concept of the school just a little bit more fuzzy and confusing.

We have Necromancy, which is a mysterious school of magic which never seems to be usable. And it sounds like a lot of work to find a corpse and do a necrotic ritual to raise a zombie when you can just summon one from thin air with Conjuration. (At least, in Oblivion you could.) And so far in Skyrim it doesn't seem like it's going to be possible to use.

The closest thing to Holy magic is Restoration, which has always had a benevolent feel to it. To me Holy magic has always been heals, enhancements, cleansing, shields, and spells that do extra damage to malevolent creatures like Undead and Demons. In Oblivion all of these things exist in Restoration except shields (neutral in alteration) and spells that do extra damage to evil. Yet at the same time life-draining spells do exist in restoration, which seems like necromancy to me. (In fact alot of Vampires and necromancers used life steals in Oblivion because it was so fitting.)

A common assumption is that Holy magic has to be tied down to gods. This isn't the case in my opinion. Maybe the term "light magic" should be used instead. Whether gods are involved in the lore or not, to me holy/light magic has always meant benevolence. Regardless I would like it if the Aedra played a bigger part in Skyrim and future games. Daedra sure as hell seem real but the Aedra in Oblivion seem like mythological characters. I mean come on... TES is supposed to be based in a world of Demons and Gods right? Well then why does it seem like only the Daedra are real? Lets see the Gods make some appearances, or maybe makes some lesser Aedra that we can summon? Lets spice this up a little bit.

I have three ideas. The first one is more farfetched because it would involve alot more arranging.

1. Seperate the schools of magic by concept rather than what they do.

Example:
Holy magic: Heal, Cleanse, Turn Undead, Fortify Attributes, Protection, Light etc.
Unholy Magic (Necromancy!!): Drain Life, Summon Zombie, Summon Skeleton, Summon Liche etc.
Elemental Magic: Fireball, Lightning, Summon Fire Atronoch, etc.

2. Keep the schools of magic the same but add holy and unholy types of magic that is clearly distinct from neutral forms of magic

Example:
Destruction: Fire damage spells, Lightning Damage spells, Holy Damage spells (Extra damage to evil), Unholy Damage spells (Drains life from the living)
Conjuration: Summon woodland creature, summon daedric creature, summon undead creature, summon divine creature, etc. (And leave out the exclusive ties to Daedra)
Alteration: Fire shield, Holy shield, Unholy Shield etc.

3. Add Necromancy for unholy and make Restoration the designated "Holy magic" school by allowing Healing spells to deal damage and manipulate undead (since they are the opposite of life)

Example:
Necromancy: Drain Life, debuffs etc.
Restoration: Heal spell (Heals 6 every 2 seconds on touch or does 6 damage to undead every 2 seconds on touch)

Aside from the poll, what do you think of the ideas I purpose?