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Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Sorceries is the plural of sorcery: a word for alleged, fictional, or culturally described magical practices, spells, or supernatural interventions. In video games, it usually refers to spells or a spell category, but the exact rules depend on the game. In Magic: The Gathering, for example, Sorcery is a formal card type with its own timing rules; in an RPG, sorceries may instead be a school of magic, a list of abilities, or simply the game’s name for powerful spells.
The word is not limited to games. It can also describe religiously condemned occult practices, historical accusations, fantasy world-building, and apparently extraordinary skill used figuratively. This guide explains those meanings without treating fictional mechanics, dictionary definitions, or religious judgments as proof that supernatural powers are real.
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What does sorceries mean?
Sorceries is simply the plural form of sorcery. In its broadest sense, sorcery means the use—or alleged use—of supernatural power to influence people, events, nature, or the future. That influence may be represented as a spell, ritual, enchantment, curse, prediction, magical object, or intervention by spirits.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsDictionary definitions vary in emphasis. Some preserve an older, narrower sense connecting sorcery with evil spirits or harmful magic. Others use it more broadly as a synonym for magic. The safest general definition is therefore descriptive rather than absolute: sorceries are magical practices, spells, or supernatural interventions that a culture, story, religious tradition, or game presents as capable of producing an effect.
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The word itself does not establish whether the claimed power is real. A historian may discuss sorcery as a belief or accusation, a theologian may condemn it, and a fantasy game may turn it into a fully designed combat system.
Quick meaning by context
| Context | What sorceries usually means | Important qualification |
|---|---|---|
| General English | Magical or supernatural practices, spells, or powers | It often sounds more dramatic or archaic than magic. |
| Video games | A category of spells or magical abilities | Every game defines its costs, requirements, timing, and effects differently. |
| Magic: The Gathering | A formal card type called Sorcery | It is governed by the game’s rules and is not a synonym for every magical card. |
| Fantasy fiction | Often a learned, dangerous, or spell-based form of supernatural power | The meaning is determined by the setting’s magic system. |
| Religion and scripture | Practices associated with forbidden divination, occult knowledge, or supernatural influence | This is a theological judgment within a particular tradition, not a neutral universal definition. |
| History and anthropology | A category of belief, practice, accusation, or social explanation | The boundary between sorcery, witchcraft, and magic changes across cultures and scholars. |
Sorcery, magic, and witchcraft are not always the same
In ordinary English, magic is usually the broadest term. It can include beneficial, harmful, ceremonial, fictional, or stage practices. Sorcery often carries a narrower or more dramatic implication: deliberate spellcraft, learned supernatural knowledge, or an attempt to manipulate forces for a particular result. That implication is common, but it is not a universal rule.
Witchcraft can refer to a tradition of magical practice, a body of folk beliefs, or an accusation that someone is causing harm through supernatural means. In some anthropological discussions, scholars have proposed a distinction in which witchcraft is an innate or bodily malign power, while sorcery is a learned magical technique used to harm or benefit others. That distinction can be useful for analyzing a specific society, but it should not be treated as a definition that applies everywhere.
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| Term | Common modern implication | Why caution is needed |
|---|---|---|
| Magic | The broad category of supernatural or apparently supernatural practice | It can describe religion, folklore, fiction, games, performance, or figurative skill. |
| Sorcery | Intentional, spell-based, learned, or dramatic magical intervention | Some traditions use it broadly; others associate it specifically with harmful or forbidden practice. |
| Witchcraft | Magical practice or an accusation of supernatural harm | Its meaning depends heavily on the culture, period, and speaker. |
| Enchantment | A spell that charms, transforms, empowers, or imbues an object | In games, it may be a spell type, a permanent effect, or an item category. |
| Divination | Attempts to discover hidden knowledge or the future | It describes a purpose or method, not necessarily a complete magical system. |
| Necromancy | Magic associated with the dead, corpses, or raising the dead | Fantasy games often broaden or redefine the term. |
For a game guide, the most accurate wording is usually In this game, sorceries are… rather than Sorceries always are… A label borrowed from fantasy or religion may not retain its original meaning when it becomes a game mechanic.
What sorceries mean in religious and scriptural contexts
In biblical translation and commentary, sorcery is generally presented negatively. It is commonly grouped with practices intended to discover or influence the future through methods forbidden by God, including forms of divination, astrology, spiritism, witchcraft, and magic.
That meaning is partly shaped by translation. In English versions of Exodus 8:7, the underlying idea has been rendered with terms including sorceries, enchantments, magic, secret arts, occult practices, and incantations. The variation matters: it shows that sorcery is not always a single technical term carried unchanged from one language and period into another.
When discussing a religious source, separate three different questions:
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- What does the text or tradition teach? For example, it may prohibit or condemn sorcery.
- What practices did historical communities label as sorcery? This is a cultural and historical question.
- What does a modern reader believe about supernatural efficacy? That is a separate personal or philosophical question.
Keeping those levels separate prevents a common mistake: presenting a theological condemnation as if it were a neutral anthropological definition, or presenting a dictionary entry as proof that supernatural claims are factual.
Sorcery as a historical and anthropological category
Historians and anthropologists generally study sorcery as part of a society’s beliefs, institutions, conflicts, and explanations for misfortune. People may use the category to explain illness, failed harvests, accidents, infertility, financial loss, or sudden interpersonal harm. The important subject for researchers is often not whether a spell objectively worked, but what the belief did within the community.
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Possible analytical questions include:
- Causation: Did sorcery provide an explanation for an event that otherwise seemed random or unfair?
- Social conflict: Did an accusation express suspicion, jealousy, hostility, or competition between neighbors or relatives?
- Authority: Which religious or state institutions had the power to define a practice as legitimate, dangerous, or illegal?
- Protection: Were specialists, prayers, charms, or counter-rituals used to prevent or reverse supposed harm?
- Translation: Did outsiders impose the word sorcery on a local practice that did not map neatly onto European categories?
Older anthropological theories sometimes treated magic mainly as mistaken causal reasoning. Later approaches also examined its symbolic, communicative, emotional, and social functions. A careful article should therefore avoid reducing every belief in sorcery to simple ignorance. It should ask how the belief operated in its particular setting.
The Salem example
The Salem witch trials show why the word has consequences beyond fantasy. In 1692, authorities in colonial Massachusetts investigated alleged “witchcrafts & Sorceryes.” Nineteen people were eventually convicted and hanged. The Library of Congress presents the accused as victims of a tragic judicial and social failure in modern historical interpretation.
That example also illustrates the difference between sorcery as a historical accusation and sorcery as a fictional power. A game may let a player cast a spell with a predictable damage value. A historical accusation could instead affect a person’s reputation, freedom, property, or life regardless of whether the alleged supernatural act occurred.
Sorceries in fantasy fiction
Fantasy writers use sorcery as a genre signal. It often suggests dangerous knowledge, formal spellcraft, ancient powers, magical artifacts, or a practitioner who has learned to manipulate supernatural forces. The word can make a system of magic sound darker, older, or more specialized than the everyday word magic.
That implication is especially visible in sword-and-sorcery, a form of heroic fantasy built around action-heavy adventures, fantastic or semi-historical settings, and individual heroes who may be morally conflicted. A sword-and-sorcery story is not required to portray every spell as evil, but the genre commonly emphasizes perilous powers, occult threats, ruthless villains, and immediate personal stakes.
Fictional sorcery may be:
- a learned discipline taught by a master or academy;
- a dangerous bargain with spirits, gods, demons, or ancient entities;
- a set of spoken formulas, gestures, or written runes;
- the ability to command an element, curse an enemy, summon a creature, or alter reality;
- a source of political power controlled by an elite class; or
- an intentionally vague force whose rules remain mysterious.
These are conventions, not requirements. One game’s “sorcery” may be scholarly spellcasting, while another’s may be instinctive, divine, technological, or tied to a specific resource.
What sorceries mean in video games
In a video game, sorceries usually means a collection of spells or magical abilities. The word may describe a playable character’s combat options, a school of magic, a menu category, a type of item, or a formal rules classification. It does not tell you by itself how the abilities work.
Before looking for a build, spell location, vendor, or upgrade, identify the game. A title-specific guide may need to account for:
- the exact game and edition;
- platform or release version;
- patch or balance changes;
- the attribute, class, weapon, catalyst, or item needed to use a spell;
- resource and slot limits;
- casting time and range;
- whether the spell can be interrupted, countered, or used only in certain areas; and
- whether “sorcery” is a formal rules term or just flavor text.
Without that information, saying that a sorcery costs a particular resource or requires a particular stat risks importing rules from one game into another.
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The formal meaning in Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering gives Sorcery a precise technical meaning. It is a card type, not a general label for every card depicting magic. The game’s official beginner guidance distinguishes sorceries from instants and permanents.
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This makes the plural sorceries especially common in deck discussions: a player might count the sorceries in a deck, compare their mana costs, or evaluate how many one-shot effects the deck can cast. In this context, sorcery is a rules category. It is not a claim about occult practice and should not be generalized to every fantasy RPG.
If that is the game you mean, Magic: The Gathering sorcery cards and compatible card accessories are relevant to the physical version of the game. The useful buying question is not whether a card is “magical,” but whether it has the Sorcery type and fits the format, deck, and rules environment being played.
How RPGs commonly use the word
Role-playing games frequently use sorcery as a name for a spell family or magical specialization. One title may make it a ranged offensive discipline; another may connect it to intelligence, faith, equipment, or a particular school of study. A third may use the word only in dialogue or item descriptions.
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Because each RPG defines its own systems, a reliable game-specific explanation should answer four questions:
- What is a sorcery in this title? Is it a spell, a skill, an item, a class feature, or a story term?
- Who can use it? Check classes, attributes, equipment, vendors, unlock conditions, and prerequisites.
- When can it be used? Combat state, resource availability, casting animation, range, and cooldowns may matter.
- What does it do? Separate direct damage from buffs, debuffs, movement, summons, crowd control, and environmental effects.
This framework is more useful than assuming that every game’s sorceries behave like Magic: The Gathering cards or like a particular fantasy novel’s spell system.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Commonly confused meanings
Are sorceries always evil?
No. Some dictionary and religious contexts emphasize evil spirits, forbidden practices, or harmful intent, but fantasy stories and games may portray sorcery as neutral, benevolent, scientific, heroic, or morally ambiguous.
Are sorceries the same as witchcraft?
Not always. The terms overlap, and some scholars have proposed distinctions between innate witchcraft and learned sorcery. Local traditions, translations, and fictional settings can use the terms differently.
Are sorceries the same as spells?
Often, but not automatically. In a game, spell may be the broad term while sorcery names one subclass. In ordinary language, sorcery can refer to an entire practice or system rather than to one individual spell.
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Is sorcery the same as necromancy?
No. Necromancy usually points specifically to magic involving the dead or corpses, while sorcery is a broader category. A game or story may place necromancy under sorcery, but that is a setting-specific choice.
Why does the word sound old-fashioned?
Sorcery has a literary, religious, historical, and fantasy register. In everyday conversation, people normally say magic. Writers choose sorcery when they want a more dramatic, archaic, specialized, or ominous tone.
Further reading for players and fantasy readers
Readers who want background or fiction beyond a game can explore books about sorcery in two directions: historical and popular surveys of magic and occult traditions, or fantasy stories that use sorcery as a world-building device. Publisher catalogs have featured titles such as The Romance of Sorcery, Apprentice Academy: Sorcerers, and Django Wexler’s The Wells of Sorcery Trilogy. Availability, editions, and prices can change, so check the current publisher or bookseller listing before buying. These books are reading choices, not evidence that supernatural claims are factual.
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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11For research-oriented readers, works on folklore, religion, witchcraft history, and the anthropology of magic provide better context than treating a single fantasy game as a universal model. For players, the most authoritative source remains the individual game’s manual, in-game glossary, current rules reference, or patch notes.
How to use the term accurately
- Name the context. Say whether you mean a game mechanic, fantasy fiction, religious teaching, or historical belief.
- Use “in this tradition” or “in this game” when necessary. This prevents a local definition from being presented as universal.
- Separate description from judgment. Explain what people called sorcery before stating whether a religion condemned it or a historian interprets it as a social category.
- Check the game’s terminology. A capitalized Sorcery may be a formal card type or menu category.
- Do not infer mechanics from the name. Resource costs, damage types, casting times, and requirements belong to the specific title.
In short, “sorceries” is a flexible word whose meaning comes from context. On a video-game page, it most often points to magical abilities—but the exact answer belongs to the game that uses the term.
Source note: The definitions and usage distinctions summarized here follow major dictionary discussions from Merriam-Webster and Cambridge; the historical and anthropological context reflects academic discussions of magic and sorcery and the Library of Congress overview of the Salem trials; the Magic: The Gathering mechanics follow Wizards of the Coast’s beginner guidance.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a sorcery and an instant in Magic: The Gathering?
A sorcery is normally cast during its controller’s main phase, while an instant can generally be cast at broader times, including in response to actions. Both normally go to the graveyard after resolving, but card text and other rules can create exceptions.
Does sorceries refer to one specific video game?
No. The word appears across card games, RPGs, fantasy games, and other genres. A game-specific answer requires the title because each game can define sorceries, requirements, resources, and effects differently.
Are sorceries real?
The word alone makes no factual claim. It can describe supernatural beliefs or accusations, religiously prohibited practices, fictional powers, or a game mechanic. Whether someone accepts a supernatural claim is separate from the word’s meaning.
Is sorcery always harmful or associated with evil spirits?
Not in every context. Some dictionary and religious uses emphasize harmful magic or evil spirits, while fantasy and games may present sorcery as beneficial, neutral, heroic, scientific, or morally ambiguous.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: Sorceries are magical practices or powers in the broad sense, but video games give the word their own local rules. In Magic: The Gathering, Sorcery is a formal card type with normal main-phase timing; in an RPG, it may be a spell school or ability category. Always identify the game or tradition before assuming what a sorcery can do.
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