SHARK has posted this on his SHARK EMPIRE blog.
My solution was to make magic available to anyone, but make developing its use so costly (XP-wise) so as to dramatically narrow the potential number of dedicated practitioners, as well as retard their rate of matriculation through the 'spell-levels'.
--Urutsk has always had magickers of some sort, due to campaign event specifics, but even in the Latter Autumn era in which vectored thrust air transports, LASERS, and ELF-communications exist, those who could use anything more than the occasional elemental bolt or Mirror Image --both of which are outstripped by technological equivalents-- were a rare breed which kept their knowledge hidden.
As Humanity took to outer space and colonies were founded, many such worlds were used as remote demesnes, and the Art enjoyed a local resurgence, especially when space-age technology failed and the populations became cut off from pre-Imperial society.
It wasn't until Mid-Winter, when the Sphere of Stars/Suns was founded, that Magick was brought to the fore, although that golden 'age' only lasted 111 years. Yet, enigmatically, it is this very period that created what is known as 'magic' in the setting, throughout its full cycle...
Timeshadows--
ReplyDeleteInteresting there! However..how do you--(as DM)--or the campaign/culture/world respond..if you have players that seek to integrate magic more fully into the society--or somehow set up a legacy where their children/next characters/henchmen/apprentices pursue the dream, and work to make a lasting, enduring impact on the society around them?
Then, whether they do such or not--for example, when *YOU* do it, as a natural extension of developing a city, community, etc, how do you justify--or wrestle--with the reasonable assumption...that hmmm...well, since this mage did it..or a group of mages have started this--certainly others would seek to have such elements preserved and expanded for the betterment of society, true?
I suppose in my rambling...I have always been confronted with the "Glass Case" syndrome that many campaigns have...i.e.--yes, the mages and clerics have done X, and have the power to do Y, and began such...five hundred or three thousand years ago. The challenge is--my knowing how many historical peoples reacted to various changes/technology/discoveries--ok, so why haven't the local people, for whatever number of decades, or centuries...not done more with such capability? Why has the whole society...gone on, through presumably many "campaigns/characters/adventurers" before the current group of heroes arrived "in the world" so to speak..and remained more of a "Glass Case", having made little change or progress from whatever origin point of the magical spells/system/powers that such clerics/mages/etc have for long been familiar and skilled with?
Am I making any sense? *laughs*
I do hope so!
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
SHARK, please see the new post which addresses your question(s).
ReplyDeleteBest, :D