Creating a world

RP-related discussion otherwise not covered in the Character Closet.
User avatar
PriamNevhausten
Holy Order of the Crimson Ballpoint
 
Posts: 2854
Joined: Fri Aug 09, 2002 4:10 pm

Creating a world

Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Sun Oct 08, 2006 5:02 pm

This may or may not have any bearing on anything at any point in the future, but I think it has merit as an exercise on its own.

Consider what we call "Magic" in the traditional RPG parlance. Consider further that things along the lines of Cure Disease and Cure Serious Wounds exist. Consider the implications for daily life!

I imagine, if there were a place that had this "magic" force that could do such things, the very structure of society would be radically changed, and not the medieval-esque sort of picture that we normally attribute to such things.

Think of it. Disease would be a nonissue. Crime and law enforcement would be radically changed, with Holding spells and countermeasures thereto. Medical practice would be all but replaced by healing mages, and so our biological knowledge would be lamentably small. The Justice system would involve a clan of diviners as investigators (though lawmaking itself might not be terribly different from what we might otherwise expect).

You get the idea. Discuss. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>

User avatar
Capntastic
Aa, cracked glass!
 
Posts: 4579
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2002 2:09 pm

Re: Creating a world

Unread postby Capntastic » Mon Oct 09, 2006 12:51 am

The same could be said for ultra-advanced technology that doesn't need operators or maintaining. Look what happened in The Time Machine! Morlochs! >_<


Seethe347
 

Re: Creating a world

Unread postby Seethe347 » Mon Oct 09, 2006 1:40 am

Sufficiently powerful magic is indistinguishable from advanced technology. :D

Anyway, this world could go a number of ways, depending on just how widespread the use of magic actually is.

There could be a system where only the ruling elite are allowed to use magic and unsanctioned magic users are suffered not to live. In this case, we would have a society ruled by powerful wizards (likely calling themselves "priests") who lord over a populace that has no way to stand up for itself. This society would probably become at least as repressed as the most backward societies ever to appear in the history of Earth. In the real world, the ability of the masses to revolt has tended to keep even reactionary leaders from doing their worst. But in the wizard-ruled world, no uprising by the people would ever have any hope of succeeding. Therefore, the leaders could crack down on free-will as hard a they wanted without ever seeing any negative consequences. They wouldn't even need to be nice to keep up their soldiers' morale since they could just mind-control them and force them to fight to the death. Leaders wouldn't really even have to worry about betrayal by their higher-ranking followers since they could just set them up the bomb with magical enchantments that kill anyone who thinks about opposing them.

On the other side of the coin, there could be a world where magic-use is so widespread that even common folk have a repertoir of spells for everyday activities like housework. In fact, it could be that all work is done by magic, leaving people with nothing but leisure time. So what would they do with that time? Well, they could use it to plot against each other and carry out personal wars for the sake of settling grudges and disputes or just to grab every little bit of money and political power they can. Or, they could follow the enlightened path and dedicate all of their time to art and philosophy. They could seek wisdom straight from the very gods themselves while the architectural works they could magically construct would be limited only by their imaginations. They could build vast monuments on the earth and cities of gold that float among the clouds just to show off the extent of their power. They could even create magical vessels to explore the stars and take them to other worlds to which they could spread their culture, correcting the foolish traditions of the natives, educating them and teaching them to walk in their superior ways...

And of course, if there were a magical force in place from the beginning of the world, it isn't unlikely that evolution itself would have followed a dramatically different course. Why, after all, should life wait until it developes sentience before it accesses the underlying mystical currents that flow around it? Rather than depending on sunlight, which can be cut off by something as simple as a supervolcanic eruption or an impact by a large piece of cosmic debris, wouldn't the biosphere be far more stable if it drew the energy it needed directly from the magical force? "Plants" could produce the nutrients they need through magic instead of photosynthesis while animals could use magic to hunt and compete. By the time sentient life actually developes, magic could already be an integral part of nature. Not just the shamanistic and pantheistic magic practiced by some earthly cultures, but a type of magic that can bend and break reality. But what if the source of the magical force was limited? Vast, able to support the entire ecosystem for over a billion years, but still limited. Limited so that just when the world's first sentient race discovers the secrets of interstellar travel, they find that the wellspring of their homeworld is about to run dry.

What if these three worlds existed at once?


User avatar
Zemyla
 
Posts: 1500
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2002 11:01 am

Re: Creating a world

Unread postby Zemyla » Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:27 pm


User avatar
PriamNevhausten
Holy Order of the Crimson Ballpoint
 
Posts: 2854
Joined: Fri Aug 09, 2002 4:10 pm

Re: Creating a world

Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:42 pm

See, that is precisely what I was talking about. Zem, this is awesome. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>


Return to OOC RP Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests

cron

Yalogank