CWBP 2: Magic in our world

[Falconius]

A for me I'd define low magic as a very low influence and subtle magic that could easily be mistaken for other things. Mid level for me is subtle magic but it is very present, as in it affects peoples daily lives and can be recognized and occasionally has some flash (bling) to it. High magic for me is the basic D+D setting and above, magic cost nothing palpable and fantastic spells are flung around willy nilly and magic arrows of at least some sort are in everyones quiver. High magic can be great, don't get me wrong, but it can also lead to a really boring simplicity. It needs a certain tightness of control one could never really achieve in a co-op world building project.

I don't want magic to necessarily cause magis to bleed, I just think it's funny. What I meant really is that I want magic to have a cost, in other words I'm in line with Azelor and Ghostman on this.

[Scoopz]

That's fine, i'm not arguing that.

I want magic to have a cost too, death even, just it IS mid magic. I just think it would be used in battle.

[Falconius]

No doubt it would, but I don't think its affects would be as absolutely overt as all that. Perhaps not even noticed by the fighters at all. Unless of course some all powerful semi-immortal god-like creature wades into the field and starts blasting away with fire-laser-clouds or whatever. I guess that could happen too. The likelihood of any battle to alter would be by force of arms rather than magic, first because of counter maging, and second because no mage would willingly expend what is necessary to cause a battle line to collapse in the middle. I think their effects would largely be secondary, like causing the ground to crack and crumble beneath the enemies feet, or the air to start to get hot and stinging their eye's etc. I'm not even denying that a mage could theoretically blow a battleline apart, but doing so would cost him enormously. i.e. my example of a mage exploding.

[Scoopz]

I like it.

Though when I meant blow the lines apart, i didnt mean like with explosions, just like actually knock them down. If that changes anything.

[Jalyha]

Soooooooo... having just watched Star Wars for the 9999999999999999999999th time (both trilogies)...


Is the "Force" (or rather, the use of it) Low, mid, or high magic?

What about the ring in LoTR?

Maybe if we start from reference points everyone knows, there will be less confusion about what level of magic everyone is expecting?

[Falconius]

The Force? Mid magic, to high magic, to God-damn your black hearted soul George Lucas.

[Jalyha]

I say that after each viewing of the prequel trilogy... in exactly those same words

[Ghostman]

I don't consider Star Wars to be high magic. Mostly the jedi powers are pretty low-key, such as the mind trick. Only the rare master-level jedis/siths can do any really flashy things like (heavy lifting) telekinesis or electric zapping. And even those powers seem very limited in their scope; they'd be far less valuable in a large scale battle than in a duel with another jedi.

I can't for instance see magic having nothing to do with the node tunnels. Clearly there is an interaction there. What is it? What does it mean? Does it feed on magic? Is it where magic comes from? Or is it a symptom of something in the world the same as magic? For instance the reality of the world is just unstable enough for souls to take and manipulate how reality is?

I originally envisioned the tunnels as constructed things. Kind of like stargates, but less technological. They would be relics of unknown origin, predating human civilization. Thus they'd be using magic, possibly exploiting naturally occurring weak spots to create permanent shortcuts through the otherworld.

[Falconius]

Ah, I always envisioned them as sort of natural magical eruptions, like sideways volcanoes only for various bits of magic flow rather than magma.Thats what lead me to thinking of them as unexplored sort of naturally occurring tunnels. I'm not sure how much of a fan I am of lost relic built gates. As opposed to say gates and things built around already existing wormholes. Naturally occurring nodes would also be in a constant state (thinking in geological terms and time scales here) of fluctuation with new ones appearing and collapsing. That was made me think they could either have feeding qualities for magical power or in their collapsing state a dampening power draining effect.

[Scoopz]

Hey, I like really don't get these node things. Could someone explain them a little more in depth? What do they do? are they magic streams? Can you move through them, as some of you seem to be indicating? I'm a little confuzzled.

I picture something like:

portal.png

... but I don't really know.