: Re: Should I use the words "pyromancy" and "necromancy" even if they don't mean what people think they do? If you look up the exact definition for "pyromancy" or "necromancy" they refer to divination

@Turnbaugh521

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There are at least as many problems with "pyromagus":

"Pyro-", "necro-" and "-mancy" are Greek, "magus" is Latin.
"-mancy" (manteia) is a practice, a magus is a person.
Magus is, originally, a Zoroastrian fire worshiper. So "pyromagus" is redundant, and "necromagus" is contradictory.
Any clearly invented word will can prompt the reader to ask, "wait a minute, what language are they speaking in the books?" This hurts immersion more than a potentially misused real word.

(As a side note, medieval European necromancy implied demon worship, because life and death were understood to be exclusively God's domain, therefore, a human could only work with pseudo-life with demonic aid.)

Whatever you end up naming your magical practices, be sure to show what they entail. Skipping through descriptions on the assumption that a reader must already know the intended meaning makes the book read like a videogame log.

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