Olam, or the Antediluvian Age - ideas, sketches and questions

[O Senhor Leetz]

is magic, and it's schools, the same in every land across Olam or do different races and cultures use different magics and are some taboo in different lands as well? For example, do hobgoblins prefer evocation over divination? Is necromancy despised or accepted?

[Kalontas]

While I'm using the 4.0 D&D system as a basis, and don't necessairly use the schools that were either in 3.5 or Essentials (read: I don't know all of them), but if I ever dwell into it, I will probably make different lands and races prefer different schools (for example, establishing a famous School of Transmutation in Zynnas). Necromancy is definitely frowned upon in most countries because of violating person's eternal rest.

[O Senhor Leetz]

While I'm using the 4.0 D&D system as a basis, and don't necessairly use the schools that were either in 3.5 or Essentials (read: I don't know all of them), but if I ever dwell into it, I will probably make different lands and races prefer different schools (for example, establishing a famous School of Transmutation in Zynnas). Necromancy is definitely frowned upon in most countries because of violating person's eternal rest.

hmm can't say I know much at all about 4eD&D...

how does magic effect the world though? Things like travel and communication? Are there teleporting guilds and enchanted carrier pidgeons? What about "health care"? Do temples offer the normal run of healing spells at set prices? High-magic settings are great, it just takes alot more work to make everything believable with so much magic available.

[Kalontas]

The impact of magic on society is something I'd like to spend some more time on later on, but yes, all your suggestions sound interesting. I can for sure say one thing - it sure speeds up travel and communication, as magic is the main reason I give for so much exploration being done in barely 1,000 years of sapient, mortal life and civilisation. For now I'm outlining in my private board the basics of the important cultures on the strip of land I mentioned before.

If anyone was wondering how exactly would that work - basically, the world is supposed to be covered in ley lines, magical currents that naturally draw people and animals to them. Because of that attraction, most cities and capitals are founded on the crossings of those ley lines (the biggest ley crossing is the Living Gate on Auriga). By employing wizard navigators, ships and caravans can follow those ley lines straight to the centers of civilisation. Of course, sometimes those ley crossings are deep underwater and ships are drawn into either arcane vortices or sahuagin colonies (thus having a potentially negative outcome for the ship), but it's risk worth taking for speeding up the exchange of goods and information.

[O Senhor Leetz]

I can for sure say one thing - it sure speeds up travel and communication, as magic is the main reason I give for so much exploration being done in barely 1,000 years of sapient, mortal life and civilisation.

this definately makes things much more believable, just be careful not to confuse a high level of development with modernity.

If anyone was wondering how exactly would that work - basically, the world is supposed to be covered in ley lines, magical currents that naturally draw people and animals to them. Because of that attraction, most cities and capitals are founded on the crossings of those ley lines (the biggest ley crossing is the Living Gate on Auriga). By employing wizard navigators, ships and caravans can follow those ley lines straight to the centers of civilisation. Of course, sometimes those ley crossings are deep underwater and ships are drawn into either arcane vortices or sahuagin colonies (thus having a potentially negative outcome for the ship), but it's risk worth taking for speeding up the exchange of goods and information.

flying Ley-ships, magic trade highways, and arcane navigators all sound good to me. An earlier incarnation of Arga had leylines, but they got scrapped along the road, not because I didnt like the idea, just that it wasn't the way I wanted Arga to go.

[Kalontas]

After a few reconsiderations, here's what I'm setting up as "featured" new playable races (i.e. the ones in the "Races of Olam" chapter of a future book - every other new species would get a short character stat block in their "monster" entry).
-Nephilim (obviously, the "poster boys" of Olam)
-Remetes (race of Kemet's rulers, falcon people - think Horus or Ra)
-Qirinals (I'm liking where's Han going in the backstory I wrote for the Dragonlands)
-Quetzin (Couatl-touched race in the Mesoamerica equivalent)

I'd love to put even more guys in the "featured" area, for example other races of Kemet or Hobgoblins, but I think temperance in this part might be rewarded - since everyone and their mother is getting a stat block anyway.

[O Senhor Leetz]

After a few reconsiderations, here's what I'm setting up as "featured" new playable races (i.e. the ones in the "Races of Olam" chapter of a future book - every other new species would get a short character stat block in their "monster" entry).
-Nephilim (obviously, the "poster boys" of Olam)
-Remetes (race of Kemet's rulers, falcon people - think Horus or Ra)
-Qirinals (I'm liking where's Han going in the backstory I wrote for the Dragonlands)
-Quetzin (Couatl-touched race in the Mesoamerica equivalent)

I'd love to put even more guys in the "featured" area, for example other races of Kemet or Hobgoblins, but I think temperance in this part might be rewarded - since everyone and their mother is getting a stat block anyway.

Between this list of races and the forementioned ley-line idea, I'm getting some serious flash-backs to Magic: The Gathering, which, may I say, are good flash-backs.

How about an example of Olam magic and how it works?

[Kalontas]

If someone was wondering what happened to Stormshieldren I mention in an earlier post, they're still part of the setting, but I think they don't really work as player characters - their mysteriousness is better left as NPCs.

And that's curious, I never played Magic: the Gathering, so perhaps me and creators of it liked similar ideas.

What exactly do you mean though about example of magic? As in, sample spells?

[O Senhor Leetz]

well, not so much as a spell stat block, but how does it make the society of your setting different than ours, how does it change things like economics, war, politics, and religion? They're tough questions, but they must be answered! (In Arga, I took the easy way out and made magic rare enough that it doesn't come into play in common life)

[Kalontas]

I think that would come out best in particular examples. Just giving stuff made up on the spot.
1) For example, characters would hear about Nephilim having established permament Sending mirrors (a magical mirror that upon magical input automatically activates sending to another pre-set mirror (and you can probably switch to another mirror by just saying the destination). The quickest conclusion from that is fast communication between two preset points, but then there are rumours about some mages experimenting with stable, long transmissions to multiple destination mirrors at once - essentially creating a potential "magical radio" - which is still only an experiment because it would take tremendous arcane power to execute - and nobody has a clue how to generate that quickly and harmlessly.

2) Innkeepers (and even richer citizens) have to put up magical wards in their rooms and houses - all because of hybrid wizard/rogues who teleport into your room and rob you blind.

3) As I said before, at least in Kenaan, virtually every adult citizen knows one or two magical cantrips, like Mage Hand (name of which I inconveniently forgot before). Because of this, Nephilim define magic very differently than the less magically apt societies - for them it's not "arcane power" or "secret studies" - Nephilim word for magic is (loosely translating) "energy force".

4) Then finally, magic had big influence on the development of Nephilim culture. Because of their mixed angelic/demonic origins, they always had affinity for magic. When they first met worshippers of deities, they wanted clerics to show them power of those beings that are supposedly powerful enough to elicit worship - a concept almost alien to Nephilim. When powers of the local clerics weren't much stronger (or at all) than their wizards and sorcerers, Nephilim laughed out any form of religion and to this day, very small numbers of mature Nephilim worship any gods, claiming they're not worthy of worship, and they don't need them.

5) While most other civilisations are not as magically infused as the Nephilim, because of their prominence, everybody knows that magical powers are there ready for taking if you spend enough time on studying it. As such, arcane magic is much more like science of our real world in approach. If anything is more like our world understands magic ("beyond impossible") it's divine magic - because it heals wounds, brings back the dead (properly, not as mockery of life) and gives people bravery and inspiration - all things hard to do for "energy flashy stuff". As clerics put it, arcane is about quickly sating your carnal appetites, divine is about calming your soul.

[O Senhor Leetz]

I need to digest what you wrote, but a quick thought.

I find the problem with high fantasy/high magic settings that don't seem "realistic" are usually the fault of one or two things.

1. Magic is basically put on a normal world like frosting, and changes nothing about the setting in a natural, interesting, creative way. What I mean is that all the aspects of humanity (or whatever race) run as they do in our world - economics, politics, religion, etc - and magic is just put on top of it without going any deeper.

2. Crap, I can't think of the other point i thought of earlier.

[Superfluous Crow]

What is the average power level of arcanists? At what level does magic become "rare"? By the sound of it, even teleport is within the realm of possibility for a good fraction of casters.
Is there any kind of magic that doesn't exist in Olam, or is it a full-on transplant of the whole D&D magic system?

Dangers and issues assuming D&D and a high fantasy setting:
Conjuration/transmutation: potentially creates a post-scarcity society where everything is abundant and readily available, making the need for ordinary labour less pertinent.
Necromancy: Armies could quickly be gathered (if not equipped) leading to a more volatile power balance. Cheap labour again destabilizes economy. Families would take measures to have their dead remain undesecrated; cremation is probably common.
Evocation: Just consider how our society would react to people who were running around with a bandolier full of hand grenades. To any ruler or authority figure an evoker would be considered a dangerous and unpredictable element. What help is it disarming an individual if he can kill with his mind?
Abjuration: Will obviously be in high demand - abjuration syndicates might force the prices up since almost every house will need it. It becomes as important as having a lock on your door.
Divination: What happens if everyone starts divining against each other? Every divination changes the course of action, meaning that divination actually causes self-devaluation as it becomes more readily available. Unless it predicts the predictions of others, making it infinitely recursive. Argh.

[Kalontas]

Without overquoting the post, I'll try addressing it one by one.

Leetz: the deeper repercussions I'm still thinking on, but leaving them for a bit later right now, as now I'm describing the "core" cultures, the ones on the area with meditarranean climate. I am still open for any suggestions of how, in everybody's opinions, should that be best executed.

Your average magician is maybe level 1 or 2. While it's fairly common to learn magic, still not many people are able to grasp the more complicated aspects of it - like not everybody in modern Earth knows how to program in C++, but most people know how to write a letter in Word.

I'm going for a "anything is possible" kind of deal - so every power source should be available, if some are rarer than other (for example, most shadow classes would be unheard of, because of Shadowfell being feared and despised more than in say FR, because it's the final destination of evil souls here).

Now the bigger part of Crow's post - while magic is common, it still takes energy to perform it. An energy you have to possess to use it. So while a magical thief with a scroll may teleport to your bedroom, he shouldn't be able to do it four times a day to rob whole district. Similarly, you can conjure a bunch of food, but you as one person can only do so much - and even with a hundred magicians conjuring food wouldn't do much more than if they were farming - because not only do they need food and water to have the power to conjure stuff, but your level 3 industrial conjurer can do only so much per day.

As for necromancy, it's not a very common sight. Most people prefer to conjure themselves a sandwich than to strain their mind to stand in place and control armies of zombies.

If two people divine each other, I'm pretty sure it fizzles - because the universe itself doesn't know what to do.

As for other forms of people abusing magic to get better than others - don't forget that any forms of militia/police or other state-run protection has the access to the same magic. So an overly magical thief will run into, sooner or later, a magical militia that will shield themselves from his "hand grenades" with a bubble and then dominate him and bring him to a cell.

[O Senhor Leetz]

so is this setting being made hand-in-hand with a particular ruleset in mind? There's lots of talk about levels and classes so I thought i'd ask.

[Kalontas]

It's currently meant for D&D 4e, but I'm planning on including some support on using it under 3.5 (and PF if it's compatible enough), like under government alignments I mention both 3.5 and 4.0 alignment systems (for example, "unaligned (lawful neutral)". However virtually no stat blocks have been drawn yet and it may change with time and conditions.