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Post by John E on Jan 16, 2011 18:13:15 GMT -5
John E (creature issues): perhaps. I've looked for cross-cultural similarities and the closest ones I can find are between djinn and the aos si, which, considering that they're from Islamic and Christian cultures respectively, give quite some cover without stretching credibility. [...] Yla - only problem is, djinn do have minds, souls and bodies. In my (limited) research regarding djinn, I got a much different impression than that of a mind without a body or soul. Rather, it seems they were intelligent beings with free will, much like humans, who lived in a parallel reality of sorts that half way intersected our own. As such, they were only sometimes visible and present in our world, and we looked the same way to them. That's how I would write them if it were up to me. Fairies are similar in that way, which is why I equated the two. The differences in demeanor and behavior between djinn, fairies and other spirits could be explained by the fact that their parallel world has different races, nations and cultures just like ours. But since there is only a tenuous connection between our worlds, we don't/can't know much of anything about their cultures and politics, which is why their behavior seems so mysterious and unpredictable. The 1900s till 1940s were a time of great changes. 'A shifting world' I like this title.
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Post by CtraK on Jan 17, 2011 7:23:17 GMT -5
The 1900s till 1940s were a time of great changes. 'A shifting world' I like this title. What if we dropped the "a" and made it "Shifting World", given that said phrase could do with fitting well in the blank in "the _____ universe". Incidentally, I've found this revealing piece by Keynes, talking about the economic system - and life in general - from the late Victorian period through to 1914. From 1919: Keynes' confidence in the social mobility of the age is most likely overdone, but it is interesting to see another claim that, despite there being no Internet, you can apparently have the phone equivalent of Amazon.com. And of course, World War One ruined everything forever.
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Post by Sandafluffoid on Jan 17, 2011 8:08:50 GMT -5
So at the minute the general consensus seems to be early-20th century, our world, competing theories of an underlying magic system, and relatively free reign with creatures?
I like the basics of the magic system Yla suggested, I'm quite happy to go with that. Has anyone got any ideas about political geography and balances of power and how they might turn out with creatures and magic added in? I have a few ideas about the set-up in the area of modern-day China that would rather throw the map about there, might be good to see if we can get at least a loose idea of who and where the major powers are, or any big changes from our universe.
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Post by Yla on Jan 17, 2011 12:06:49 GMT -5
I found a problem with my magic system. If mages can transform anything into anything, we'll end up with a post-scarcity society, which, while interesting, is hardly what we are aiming for. Even if we state that they have to observe conservation of mass and can't transmute elements, they still manage to make every single industrial process obsolete. We'll need something else.
I would want to first set the biological baselines for our diverse sophont races before we derive cultural and political consequences and developments from it.
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Post by Sleepy on Jan 17, 2011 14:16:09 GMT -5
Yla described a lot of what I was envisioning for our magic system--mainly the fact that magic requires knowledge and comprehension of the surrounding world, and is not a complete replacement for knowledge or typical actions (sweeping the floor, polishing a shoe, constructing a bridge, etc). If a person is cut with a blade during war, a simple spell is not going to heal him. If he loses a limb, we can't simply conjure another limb for him. Now, my knowledge on mages is lacking. Would it be more common for a mage to naturally develop the ability to become a shape-shifting expert in magic? Or would a mage instead pursue the acquisition of such abilities on his own free will? Based on our description of magic so far, voluntarily pursuing such a path would take extreme dedication and persistent studying of a wide array of subjects, thus making mages extremely rare. Of course, either option would make mages rare, which I like. Our world would become stale rather quickly if we had a large population of mages roaming about. Is there any limit to mages' shape-shifting? Are they limited to a typical human-like form? Can they become a dwarf, or a creature like this? Can they mask themselves as an animal, or any sort of inanimate object? Are they limited by gender? We need to define that more clearly. My vote is that they have the ability to magically alter their appearance enough fool others. The best of the best could perhaps master shape-shifting enough to disguise themselves as a member of another race. Beyond that seems more pointless and unfair. But that's just a suggestion. If your opinion differs, it'd be good to know. Something else to think about is the development of a legal system with magic incorporated--i.e., what spells are illegal, whether shape-shifting is illegal, etc.
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Post by CtraK on Jan 17, 2011 16:15:00 GMT -5
So at the minute the general consensus seems to be early-20th century, our world, competing theories of an underlying magic system, and relatively free reign with creatures? As I understand it, it won't be our world exactly, but at the very least a fantasy equivalent (in the same way that Middle-Earth is essentially Europe and the Shire is, erm, the West Midlands), and at the very minimum the actual world map with redrawn borders. Technology has an upper cut-off of around the 1930s; and whilst yes, there is kind of a free reign with creatures, it would help if not too many more were added, unless they truly are worth including. Names (votes) for the universe so far: (A) Shifting World (3), Manifest Doom (1). Additions or votes are welcome. I like the basics of the magic system Yla suggested, I'm quite happy to go with that. Has anyone got any ideas about political geography and balances of power and how they might turn out with creatures and magic added in? [etc.] ... big changes from our universe. Well, I've found this map from 1910 which details the world in a slightly musty, unclear manner, as you might expect from an old map. Then there's this unlabelled but useful clarifier from Wikipedia about colonialism in 1914. As it turns out, my worries about a complicated world are somewhat erased by the fact that, far from the 200+ nations we have today, with additional diplomatic infighting about Kosovo, Palestine and Taiwan, the number of independent nations on those maps can't be significantly more than fifty. Namely, it's like this: - The broadly independent regions are in Latin America, the south of Eastern Europe, the Chinese Empire, the USA and parts of the Caribbean (Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, to be precise). - Smaller independent nations not covered above are Luxembourg*, Switzerland*, Liberia, Abyssinia, Arabia, Persia, Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand and Afghanistan**. - The imperial powers are the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Germany, the Ottomans, Belgium, Russia, Japan, Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Sweden and Italy. In real world 1914, it's Britain and France who have the most to lose; the Ottoman Empire is already in decline, will take a bashing from the UK in WW1, and become part of the British Empire for a few decades. The Dutch aren't as powerful without the VOC, Spain has already lost huge chunks of empire, and most of the rest mentioned only have one or two large colonies anyway. The next hundred years or so will belong to Russia, Japan and the USA, but this time period is really an aberration; India is under the Raj, and China has been in disarray since the start of the first Opium War in 1840. Once these two nations get their shit together about seventy-five years down the line, the balance of power will shift again. The thing is, in our universe, China and India have almost always been dominant forces throughout history by virtue of being absolutely huge populations under the control of one state. They lost that dominance when they lost a) that control, b) military power, c) economic advantage and to some extent, d) the advantage of numbers (the British Empire was 400 million people at its height; the USA in its modern form has never exactly been a small country, either, and its indirect sphere of influence has been over hundreds of millions, if not billions). So that's the starting point. *not too significant, really. **because what kind of complete idiot sends an army into Afghanistan?
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Post by Yla on Jan 17, 2011 16:20:05 GMT -5
Yla described a lot of what I was envisioning for our magic system--mainly the fact that magic requires knowledge and comprehension of the surrounding world, and is not a complete replacement for knowledge or typical actions (sweeping the floor, polishing a shoe, constructing a bridge, etc). If a person is cut with a blade during war, a simple spell is not going to heal him. If he loses a limb, we can't simply conjure another limb for him. Oh, we could. The problematic word is 'simply'. Even Merlin would be busy for at least half a day to replace a limb. This is something I've been vague about. How I've been picturing it is: in principle, everybody can be a mage. However, a lot of people would train for a decade and proceed to fail healing a papercut. Effectively, only the most naturally talented pursue their education and training. The majority of the population has only a broad idea and maybe is capable of the one odd trick. I think impersonating another person of similar stature and sex would be one of the simplest tricks. Also, hardening one's bones and skin to prevent injury would see widespread use, as would be anti-aging treatment. (Imagine the societal impact of that last one!). It would depend on how much the races differ, but in my opinion a race lift, while difficult, is doable for maybe the top 5% of registered mages. A Drowned One? Maybe. I think a sex change would actually be the most difficult trick that could still be reasonably pulled off, since you'd need to form several whole new functional(!) organs. To transform into an inanimate object would be possible, without question. Transforming back however, would mean to create a complete human body... yeah. No. I have no idea - especially in light of the shapeshifting/impersonation issue. Please be aware that the presented system has a big problem, which I've pointed out in my post above. <snip> So that's the starting point. Unfortunately, it's not. You forget history. The presence of different fantasy races (continued presence, since we presume that they don't get wiped out except one) has a huge influence on society and politics. To presume that with 3+ different races competing, we would end up with the same nations, is ludicrous. Even if we have a mixed, non-segregated society everywhere, we will still have something else than a 1910 world in which two millions of elves have been suddenly spawned. We pretty much have to make up our entire history from the tribal stage onwards. Oh, and I recommend we declare them biologically non-compatible (or any offspring sterile), or after a few hundred years of sex we'll end up with one hybrid species*. Or we use geographical borders, but I can't imagine any. *Mind you, not a bad thing, but we want to tell another story.
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Post by Sandafluffoid on Jan 17, 2011 17:08:39 GMT -5
<snip> So that's the starting point. Unfortunately, it's not. You forget history. The presence of different fantasy races (continued presence, since we presume that they don't get wiped out except one) has a huge influence on society and politics. To presume that with 3+ different races competing, we would end up with the same nations, is ludicrous. Even if we have a mixed, non-segregated society everywhere, we will still have something else than a 1910 world in which two millions of elves have been suddenly spawned. We pretty much have to make up our entire history from the tribal stage onwards. This. The idea I was talking about earlier for the area of modern day China starts by retconning the Shang dynasty oracle bones as using a specific field of magic and re-imagining the history from there. This is why I thought some discussion of the set-up would be a good idea; by swinging in writing in a setting where China is not only culturally quite different from modern times but one of several powers based in what we think of as the Chinese heartland I could be totally knocking the legs out from someone else who also wants to write something set in that part of the world. But we do also need to sort out the number of different races, and how they interact; would we have multi-race societies, races separated politically and geographically, or overlapping nations with jurisdiction only over their own races, or multiple systems or what?
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Post by Sigmaleph on Jan 17, 2011 17:26:09 GMT -5
I found a problem with my magic system. If mages can transform anything into anything, we'll end up with a post-scarcity society, which, while interesting, is hardly what we are aiming for. Even if we state that they have to observe conservation of mass and can't transmute elements, they still manage to make every single industrial process obsolete. We'll need something else. I meant to bring this up before. My suggestion would be making any transformations temporary, dependent on a continuous influx of let's call it mana, or sustained focus if we go with no "magical energy". That way, you can't just create gold out of lead and destroy the economy, since the lead reverts back to original form (though we'll need something against counterfeiting, I'd suggest transmuted material having a distinctive "feel" to anyone with even the most basic magical training). You still need industrial processes to create anything you intend for long-term use. Magic would mostly be used for creating something you need right now, say, creating a gun out of air (would take a lot of air if we're following conservation of mass, but you get the idea). Other uses come to mind, too. You could still use magic for long term effects in, say, healing or anti-aging. Suppose magic that affects your own body is very easy to sustain (distance effects, familiarity, some aspect of the whole mind-body-soul thing, or whatever other reason). Your transmuted body sets a new general pattern, which any non-transmuted substance you eat will follow. Over time, you expel transmuted matter and replace it with stable mundane matter, so it requires increasingly less focus/mana to sustain the effect, until some point where you are close to 100% stable and dropping the transformation will be harmless. Off the top of my head, the time it takes for a human body to replace its mass is in the order of months. A talented mage can accelerate the process by either magically boosted metabolism, or by focusing the transmutation on specific areas instead of whole body. You might even heal non-mages like that. If the difference between a mage and a non-mage is years of study and not, say, some "spark of magic", then a non m,age might not be able to cast a spell by themselves, but there's nothing preventing them from sustaining one. So, mage mind-touches non-mage, guides them into casting the healing themselves, the spell is sustained by the patient instead of the mage. I have a few more ideas for this magic system, but I'd rather get feedback with what I have so far before going into a long(er) post.
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Post by Yla on Jan 17, 2011 18:19:07 GMT -5
@sigmaleph: I like it. Sandafluffoid: I think we should have both: a number of nations with a pronounced racial identity and only a few minorities, probably rather tending to be monarchies, but also countries with a wildly diverse population. A federation or a democracy seems the natural fit for these, but it's possible that a such descends into infighting, while on the other hand, a strong autocrat can hold the country together. ...We dance around the issue. What races to we choose, and how are they defined? This decision is a prerequisite to create political entities and nations. Looking back, we had the most votes for the traditional triad: humans, elves, dwarves. They're quite well-defined throughout fantasy, leaving only the questions: - Are elves immortal, or just long-lived? - Are hybrids possible, if yes, are they fertile? - Do dwarves live above-ground or entirely underground? Or do we forgo the stereotypes and go for something new? I wouldn't mind. Some people wanted djinni or comparable natural spirits. Since I wouldn't know what to do with them, I invite them to sketch how they imagine them. Edit: I just looked into the wikia ToS; and shiftingworld.wikia.com is still free. Shall I go for it? or do you want to, CtraK?
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Post by CtraK on Jan 17, 2011 18:37:49 GMT -5
a 1910 world in which two millions of elves have been suddenly spawned. That is not what I was implying. I meant, "this is the world as it really was, and therefore, we have to consider what is different in our world from this". Given that much of the Muslim world has regarded djinn as real for much of Islamic history (and in fact before that), we have a small freebee there (indeed, the etymology of "djinn" is from the Arabic for "hidden") - needless to say, if the aos si/djinn metarace makes any impact, it'll be a covert one, i.e. they'll be spies or assassins, the guys who really shot JFK etc. Dragons I imagine will have the most impact either during war, if they're employed as living weapons, or else as a kind of walking gang of natural disasters if they're free agents. It's probably elves and dwarves who'll make the most impact. Oh, and I recommend we declare them biologically non-compatible This is a given, surely? (awaits 40,000-word essay in response) Also, folks: Shifting World or Manifest Doom or something else. Because this will all be so much easier with a wiki.
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Post by Yla on Jan 17, 2011 18:47:41 GMT -5
Oh, and I recommend we declare them biologically non-compatible This is a given, surely? (awaits 40,000-word essay in response) Also, folks: Shifting World or Manifest Doom or something else. Because this will all be so much easier with a wiki. Essentially, we have three possibilities: 1. no intermixing with offspring possible (I'll imagine miscegenation without offspring will happen no matter what we do) 2. full, fertile hybrids possible 3. mules The simplest solution, (1), guarantees that the integrity of the various races(or rather species) is conserved even over multiple millenia. However, we give up narrative possibilities. And from a sociological viewpoint, interracial relationsships provide a glue between the races, which might just prevent them from wiping out each other due to the tensions that inevitably crop up. If miscegenation can't produce children, the racists get a huge boost in credibility. However, if we choose (2), we either need geographical separation (which we don't want), or intermixing will, sooner or later, erase the distinction between the races (which we don't want either, for storytelling purposes), as more and more hybrids are born and purebloods become rare. Therefore, I recommend (3), which gives us hybrids while simultaneously conserving the races in the long run, combining most of the advantages of both other options. The fact of the half-bloods' sterility only comes into view with about twenty years delay, so there will still be a lot of mixed-race parents. Of course, we then will inevitably end up with half-blood protagonist wangsting about how they can't have children with their love interest. Oh well, can't have everything. This essay won't be 40k words either. Consequences of (3): - We have a group of hybrids running around. - There will probably be another culture around having children, since if the partner is of another race, they're sure to never have grand-children. They would concentrate not on making sure their progeny lives on, but instead on how the children contribute to society. Half-bloods will tend to be well-educated. If hybrids' vigor makes them comparatively long-lived, it would be an additional incentive. - There is probably a cultural taboo on all siblings marrying out of their race, pressuring at least one of them into making sure that the family lives on. Shifting World seems to be liked(you counted 3 votes in your last post, I have no idea if that's correct). Manifest Doom sounds nice, too, but it's quite specific and currently I have no idea how it's linked to our world.
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Post by Sleepy on Jan 17, 2011 21:01:05 GMT -5
Yla: To avoid quoting the lengthy paragraphs above, I'll just say that I agree with your responses to my questions, since my train of thought was basically the same. I like the idea of sticking to three races: humans, elves, and dwarves. I don't think elves should be immortal, because that'd create issues worldwide with populations and their numbers in comparison to the other two races. Long-lived? I'm not sure. If they were long-lived, I wouldn't want it to be to any great extent. It'd be silly to have dwarves living entirely underground since it seems we want a few nations with great diversity where the races can freely interact. I propose that the dwarves live on the same level as the humans and elves. Stories will flow better that way, and we would run into issues trying to design an entire underground world. As far as mating across races, the third option is probably the best. I don't want to erase the distinction between the races, and it'd be very interesting to write from the point of view of the infertile offspring of a human and an elf, for example. Some sort of cultural taboo, specifically like the one Yla mentioned, is certainly something we should implement, because it can both create natural conflicts and allow the races to live together peacefully.
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Post by John E on Jan 17, 2011 21:04:34 GMT -5
...We dance around the issue. What races to we choose, and how are they defined? This decision is a prerequisite to create political entities and nations. Looking back, we had the most votes for the traditional triad: humans, elves, dwarves. They're quite well-defined throughout fantasy, leaving only the questions: - Are elves immortal, or just long-lived? - Are hybrids possible, if yes, are they fertile? - Do dwarves live above-ground or entirely underground? Or do we forgo the stereotypes and go for something new? I wouldn't mind. Here's my suggestions: - Elves: Long-lived (maybe two or three times the human life span). I don't think immortality would work in our context. Range in height from slightly shorter than humans to human height. - Dwarves: Traditionally live in subterranean and semi-subterranean dwellings, but live above ground in urban areas (afraid of heights though). Ranging in size and appearance from gnomish, half-human height to Tolkien-ish dwarvish, short human. - Hybrids: I like the mule option, with the addition that even sterile offspring are uncommon. That way hybrids would be both rare and unable to reproduce. EDIT TO ADD Yla described a lot of what I was envisioning for our magic system--mainly the fact that magic requires knowledge and comprehension of the surrounding world, and is not a complete replacement for knowledge or typical actions (sweeping the floor, polishing a shoe, constructing a bridge, etc). [...] Based on our description of magic so far, voluntarily pursuing such a path would take extreme dedication and persistent studying of a wide array of subjects, thus making mages extremely rare. Of course, either option would make mages rare, which I like. I think this is the solution to the problem of mages replacing industrial processes and ending scarcity. That is to say, mages would be rare, and wouldn't be able to produce or modify anything in large quantities. A mage might be able to sustain a small village that didn't have enough resources, for example, but there wouldn't be nearly enough mages to supply the needs of the vast majority of the population. And it would be very inefficient.
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Post by CtraK on Jan 18, 2011 6:33:12 GMT -5
Shifting World seems to be liked(you counted 3 votes in your last post, I have no idea if that's correct). Manifest Doom sounds nice, too, but it's quite specific and currently I have no idea how it's linked to our world. Fair enough. With that in mind: Can I get, say, 3 more votes on Shifting World (already voted: myself, Yla, John E), or at least receive an alternative? and, Can I get any more thoughts about Wordpress or alternatives?
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