A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover
- Thread starter DragonParadox
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[X] Goldfish
According to DP's list, you already have rituals for both of these (although Make Whole is listed under level 1 spells).
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
This isn't just trying to come up with new rituals. With the added level of abstraction we now operate under, I'm assuming most low level spells are available in ritual format. The vote is to determine which ones we are specifically trying to introduce to Westeros for common use.
This is gateway ritual magic. One day you're benefiting from the town's ritualist casting Purify Food and Drink to handle some minor spoilage issues, then the next you're sending your third son off to the nearest Scholarium branch because their isn't enough farmland for him to inherit anything, but this magic stuff seems useful and the government is willing to teach it.
Gotta get our foot in the door wherever we can.
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- Location
- France
[X] Goldfish
I'm fairly sure that a few years ago you said infinite food was fundamentally impossible to do at scale in this setting, back when people were brainstorming Heart Trees with that spell that gives you 1 year's harvest in a day.
Has this changed? Should I put post-scarcity back on my long-term goals?
I think it'd be better to focus on level 1 and 2 spells, because those rituals will probably be easier and have less punishing costs.
@DragonParadox, can you confirm this?
I'm fairly sure that a few years ago you said infinite food was fundamentally impossible to do at scale in this setting, back when people were brainstorming Heart Trees with that spell that gives you 1 year's harvest in a day.
Has this changed? Should I put post-scarcity back on my long-term goals?
- Location
- United States
What was that spell again? Womb of the Earth? IIRC the compromise was we could do that spell, but the land we used it on wouldn't support the spell until a few years had passed.
Vote closed.
- Location
- Texas
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@DragonParadox can you open the vote again? @Goldfish do you have any ideas to replace purify food and drink and Make Whole?
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
As I mentioned a few posts earlier, I don't think this is to research new rituals, but deciding what we're trying to introduce to Westeros first in order to what their appetite for magic. @DragonParadox, is that the case? I thought we pretty much had all standard spells up through 5th or 6th level now worked out as rituals due to extracting knowledge from Unilla and other sources?
Interlude MCCXXVI: A Brief Essay on Low Magic
A Brief Essay on Low Magic
By Valeria the Wondersmith
Published in every local paper across the Imperium: While ritual magic had survived the nadir of sorcery in a variety of forms from the blood magics of distant Qohor to the concoctions of the Pyromancers to the half-understood lore of hedge witches and cunning men, and indeed this fount of lore has not run dry even now, Imperial low magic shares very little with these fraying threads of an elder world. It was designed first and foremost not for limited access as a mystery cult might demand, nor to take advantage of some local resource as was oft the case with hermits and other minor practitioners of the arcane. Instead each ritual was formed first and foremost for ease of use. It is for this reason that by far the largest part of any Imperial low magic study is the substitution lists. One is not considered proficient in their use until one can cast it in at least three forms and formal teachers of this arcane art are expected to have mastered at least nine variations.
There are however aspects of these new rituals that would be common to those who practice an older art, such as the commonality of divination rituals, whether it be to ascertain the health of man or beast, the state of the weather or the lay of the land it is a fact commonly understood that lesser magics are 'more subtle than strong'. The principal exception to this is healing magic, which is considered the most important direct working of the arcane in everyday lives. Flint and steel can start a fire, a bow and arrow stand in good stead in place of arcane bolts and at need a man on a horse could carry messages, but a healing spell could prevent a wound from going sour, could cure poison and illness against which the body was otherwise rendered helpless.
One might count these miracles and indeed many priests of the gods name them such. I would not here presume to argue with priests as to the nature of their gods and their blessings, but it should be noted that to any skilled in observing the works of flesh most healing magics do little more than empower the body to overcome the trial it has been set it.
[What follows is an explanation of the inner workings of basic healing magic designed to be understandable to the public by the use of simile and metaphor.]
In the aftermath of the Burning of the Dale and as supply chains once solid grow strained, tenuous imperial sorcerers, or more likely imperial clerks, considered another ritual that could better the lives of all, one that could heal material objects of urgent need for which a replacement could not be found in time and extending the lives of the already very hardy Everfire works beyond that was hoped for while other lesser manufactures could be opened to serve the realm.
What few authors realize is just how closely this maps to the growth of the first businesses of the Imperator himself, from divination to healing to works of mending and repair every ritual mage in the whole of the Imperium walks in the footsteps of the Dragon, more so perhaps than those who glory in the magics of flame and battle.
Do not discount the humble craft of many hands for in that more than in works great and terrible lies the true power of the Imperium whose walls and vaults are raised by its citizens with arts mystical and mundane. So when you take up the chance to wield these 'low' magics, these petty powers that many might discount as the work of dabblers, do so with pride, head high and eyes forward to the future we are all building.
If you believe you have skills in this matter go on, have a go:
[The article ends with a carefully simplified ritual for the creation of heatless light, one of the simplest exercises of magic imaginable, more so than even entry level Scholarum work. The backlash for failure is a momentary migraine that fades within half a minute.]
OOC: I wanted to show how Valeria dealt with her death and the deaths of many with whom she had worked with, but I did not want to turn it into melodrama so instead here have an article she wrote in the hopes of getting more low mages trained. She has become a bit of the magical equivalent of a science communicator in her spare time.
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It is what you introduce, or what you learn from the fey. Uniila lore is not really fit for wide-scale dissemination because it is all in infernal and generally informed by Hell and its works. Like you can cast it safely if you are trained in it and with someone to spot for you, but not really something you release to the public.
Anyway next update will be as soon as I trust myself to roll without my brain boiling in my head, it is 32 Degrees again, inside mind.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Here's an edited version of the chapter, DP.
This was very neat. Really clever way for Valeria to entice her readers to learn more about ritual magic, too.
- Location
- Germany
My comment was not about using "that one neat spell", but with the Fleshforges, there's not much stopping you from working towards biomass factories.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
@DragonParadox, a reaction interlude from Zherys after reading Valeria's ritual magic article could be fun. I still remember him telling us about how difficult magic was decades ago, back when even casting a Light cantrip could require hours of work. Now a simple version that can likely be cast by almost anyone is going to be spread far and wide. Times sure have changed.
- Location
- United States
I would like those factories. What's the action cost of that?
- Location
- France
@Duesal, please think things through first. I'm not sure we actually need them in the short term, and I'm not sure we have the research actions to create them + the administrative actions to turn our massive agricultural sector into anything else.
"Infinite food" is nice enough, but I'm not sure it's what we actually need right now.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
I don't think we should go that route. Too many people's livelihoods are dependent upon agriculture. We shouldn't be thing to render them obsolete.
It shouldn't even be a possibility, IMO.
As long ass most of your population lives off farming any sort of biomass factories will be... well take the original Luddites of the 19th century and make them a far more popular movement. Like I am not sure you would be able to survive the resulting rebellion as an organized state. Make a desert and call it peace would not be far off from what you might get .
With that said in the far future when most people are not subsistence farmers and when they trust magic with their food and the food of their families that could be more viable.
With that said in the far future when most people are not subsistence farmers and when they trust magic with their food and the food of their families that could be more viable.
- Location
- Germany
How do the Genie do it, by the way?
Dschinn, Efreeti and Shaitan all have a single huge city which is not exactly surrounded by fertile fields or such.
Even if the Genie themselves don't need food, there must be hundreds of thousands of mortals, if not millions in each of the great cities.
Dschinn, Efreeti and Shaitan all have a single huge city which is not exactly surrounded by fertile fields or such.
Even if the Genie themselves don't need food, there must be hundreds of thousands of mortals, if not millions in each of the great cities.
- Location
- United States
Please don't assume just because I ask about something I am demanding we do it ASAP. I like to keep track of what things are possible and how much effort they take because sometimes we can actually manage t a few months or years down the line.
They do have agriculture and the equivalent of large scale farms.
- Location
- Germany
Continued research in Fleshforging may or may not lead there. Or specific circumstances and opportunities.
*rolls next pair of dice to see if it will break your streak*
*looks at dice*
OK who has been offering sacrifice to the dice gods and what have you been giving them?
*looks at dice*
OK who has been offering sacrifice to the dice gods and what have you been giving them?
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- Location
- United States
Addressing this for a moment:
1) People can and will retrain to other jobs. We should never be making big market decisions against progress out of fear of disrupting existing jobs when we're the ones driving the economy.
2) It's not a problem now, but when we're in the middle of endless winter and all those farmers are twiddling their thumbs it will be.
This is something we have to seriously consider. Not now. But eventually for sure. Having the thing that does the Imperium in being a lack of food would make me beyond furious. Of all the stupid things. It would trump Visrerys surviving so many things only to die on the operating table.