Some of you know me: Papa Joe, the Navy veteran and certified expert old guy. I had the privilege of being Merlin in BarbarianKing's King Arthur roleplay on TDL, until TDL narrowed the boundaries. I am not at all quitting TDL, but I have joined HERE specifically for the sake of continuing the Arthurian drama. Where we left off, I had been off on a mission with some warriors loyal to Arthur but outside the Round Table group, going to Britain's east coast on the North Sea to halt a Saxon invasion which was threatening Arthur's regime simultaneously with "domestic" enemies.
I will not try to start the new Arthurian thread here myself, because that is Mike's (B-King) prerogative. But I wish to say something here which probably would not have been mentioned when the new thread IS created and we offer an explanation of where Arthur's career stands.
My concept of Merlin, of which Mike approves, is roughly based on how C.S. Lewis imagined Merlin for the novel "That Hideous Strength"--NOT as a pagan demigod trying to make the Christian faith look ridiculous, but as a man who has himself come to faith in Jesus Christ, and who enjoys a "dispensation" to practice some forms of supernormal abilities in a transitional era for the world. This is somewhat like the way that God in Old Testament times permitted men to have multiple wives, but that was NEVER His ideal and He was leading mankind toward a standard of monogamy.
I had to figure: how can I make Merlin powerful, yet not let him seem to be operating in disregard of the true God? So I tried to judge what powers were "the least black-magic-like." Here, then, are the main abilities I conceive of Merlin as having:
1) Frequently foreseeing future events, though he is not strictly ALL-knowing, only God is that.
2) Learned in holistic and trauma medicine, making it more effective by powerful prayers over his efforts.
3) Able to move over distances so rapidly on foot that the ignorant think he can teleport, and leap so prodigiously that some think he can fly.
4) Having the equivalent of kung-fu mastery; able to strike an armored man with kinetic force passing right through the armor, so the ignorant think he incapacitates foes by magic.
5) Immune to being directly killed by pure magical energy itself, or to having his free will taken away. For a magic spell to kill him, it would have to work indirectly, e.g. making a landslide fall on him.
6) Able to break curses, unless they are profoundly "meant to be."
7) Fluent in multiple languages, and far ahead of medievals in scientific knowledge.
Able to command animals to some extent.
I think that makes him reasonably potent, yet with no lightning bolts, invisibility, turning into animals, etc. (His fabled education of Arthur by turning HIM into animals, I attribute to causing the young Arthur to have dreams or visions of what it was like to be those animals.)
About Merlin's role in causing Arthur to be born in the first place, I have tried to interpret this in as extenuating a way for Merlin as possible, i.e. he was NOT indifferent to the fate of Arthur's mother, but was caught up in a "necessary" piece of destiny.
When Merlin's time comes to depart from the action, I hope to play as Sir Parsifal, comrade of Sir Galahad.
Subject: Characters in Concerning King Arthur 
Thu Jan 29, 2009 8:53 pm
. I apologise if I am pants. I know so meny diffrent types of King Arthur. I have heard so meny diffrent versions and recently there was another version on the TV. So if anything I say is not what you think it should be please tell me. 
