Backup Lago 319 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Every now and again magic rules change. Something is added, removed, a plugin handles things differently... One of the main problems here is making stuff make retroactive sense. People can't learn mind magic any more? How does that make sense? Fireballs work differently? How do we explain this in lore. New magic type? Why has nobody used it in 1500 years and suddenly can now? So I figured I'd make a brief lore explaining why magic changes IC when it changes OOC and save everyone a load of work. Should help with implementing the magic plugin too. "The Void is a realm of nothing and everything. Its very nature is an eternal state of flux, and it is said that nothing of it is constant save for its lack of constants. Thus, it stands to reason that magics derived from the Void also bear a lack of constance. The Wizards of the Yir'Sari acknowledge this and thus have always shied away from the scientific approach to magic favoured by the Mages Guild. While the scientific approach to magic has its merits, the Mages Guild have long known that all knowledge they gather is subject to the Fluctuance Of Magic. Much like nature, magics is ruled by a series of physical and metaphysical laws. Magic has capabilities and limitations, things it can do and things it cannot. Spells operate in certain ways. A fire mage can only control a blaze they summon and upon losing focus it disappates. Mind mages cannot communicate over very long distances. Summoned water cannot be drunk for it will vanish in the body when the spell expires. While no mage can break these laws, one thing can warp them: time. The physical laws of magic cannot be broken but they do change: they are not constant. They slowly change over the years and decades, powerful abilities become less effective or even impossible and new avenues of magical spellcasting open up. The changes are very subtle over the lifespan of most descendants with only major ripples or disruptions of the Void being able to create a noticeable change quickly. One example of such a "Voidquake" occured at the death of Aegis, when the difficultly of casting magic decreased significantly and there was an explosion of magical practitioners. A second occured in Anthos with the rise of Setherien: the godlike "Tier Five" spellcasters found their powers diminish to that of skilled but normal magi and the rate at which one could form connections to the Void rapidly increased, leading to much faster learning of magic. These major disruptions nonwithstanding, the magical knowledge a mage accumulates is unlikely to be completely invalidated during his lifetime. It is with the oldest texts that fluctuance is most apparent, with the principles of many powerful rituals of ancient lore based on magical concepts completely incomprehensible to modern magi. In this age of turmoil, widespread magic and aengudaemonic intervention runs the risk of further Voidquakes. But should magical fluctuance spike again, the mages of Athera are ready." 12 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dromui 754 Share Posted January 25, 2015 I like Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpiltMemes 367 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moot 1715 Share Posted January 25, 2015 You're setting a standard, making lore undefinable, and thus opening too many variables for something to go wrong. Adding chaos to chaos doesn't make order. League of Legends announced they will be cleaning out their lore, and trying again. Why? Because they tried expanding on a story which wasn't present in the first place. Lotc has this same problem. Continuing to add snippets of lore, to an overall undefined, murky system. Coherency and clarification is what magic needs, if anything. The Void is a fantastic core, it just needs its lore to be more thoroughly flushed out. I don't agree with this addition in the least, and believe it'll serve as a greater detriment, then benefit Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swgrclan 2632 Share Posted January 25, 2015 This is an explanation, as far as I see. Not setting a standard. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Backup Lago 319 Author Share Posted January 25, 2015 You're setting a standard, making lore undefinable, and thus opening too many variables for something to go wrong. Adding chaos to chaos doesn't make order. League of Legends announced they will be cleaning out their lore, and trying again. Why? Because they tried expanding on a story which wasn't present in the first place. Lotc has this same problem. Continuing to add snippets of lore, to an overall undefined, murky system. Coherency and clarification is what magic needs, if anything. The Void is a fantastic core, it just needs its lore to be more thoroughly flushed out. I don't agree with this addition in the least, and believe it'll serve as a greater detriment, then benefit Setting a standard? Not sure I follow. The idea here is that the laws of magic aren't constant with respect to time: what you can do with magic changes as time goes on. That's already an OOC fact: the magic system changes from time to time, the rules change and plugins come and go. The idea here is to explain those minor changes into lore so that every time it happens it doesn't get bogged down in a lore retcon: the rules change deemed necessary happenes and it's explained IC by the laws of magic changing. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ski_king3 0 Share Posted January 25, 2015 All this does is give IC explanation to OOC changes. Definitely a benefit, please accept. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moot 1715 Share Posted January 25, 2015 I get the point, and I understand the intent. I still don't agree. I can easily see this translating into massive changes, such as how Voidal magic is learned. From lesson based, to meditation/fevered dreams. Small changes to a system can cause a butterfly effect, which in turn can create more problems. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Backup Lago 319 Author Share Posted January 25, 2015 Beats something changing with magic and the wizards going "eh, skygods did it." 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Telanir 6432 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Beats something changing with magic and the wizards going "eh, skygods did it." Siding with this. I love explanations for what happens, as opposed to the creation of new lore because it applies existing concepts and events to produce completely unique and creative lore. We need more of this I feel, it reminds me back when the soulstone lore was made, it's a good memory. :) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moot 1715 Share Posted January 26, 2015 After pondering and discussing this more thoroughly, my opinions changed. It's a good tool to be used, if something was required to be changed. +1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ski_king3 0 Share Posted January 26, 2015 After pondering and discussing this more thoroughly, my opinions changed. It's a good tool to be used, if something was required to be changed. +1 We knew you'd come around cutie ;) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smithers 388 Share Posted January 28, 2015 This lore has been ACCEPTED. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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