[X] Plan Social Unity
-[X] Establish relations with Sanctuary.
-[X] Roads (1/1)
-[X] Mathematics (2/2)
-[X] Civic Ceremonies (1/1)
-[X] Justice (2/2)
-[X] Art Patronage (1/1)
-[X] Machine Spirits (2/2)
-[X] Leyline Network (1/1)
-[X] Magic of Light and Shadow (1/1)
-[X] Funerary Rites (1/1)
Roads
Quite a lot of effort goes into building a road. Roads are not just dirt tracks; those already exist, where many people have traveled down familiar paths and worn ruts in the vegetation. However, these trails are transient, easily overgrown or washed out by the forces of nature.
Your Mechanicals survey the best routes between major population centers, connecting cities with rivers and each other, with major mining areas. When the planning is done, the work truly begins. An immense effort goes into this, with roads carved into mountain passes, bridges raised across rivers and ravines, the roads themselves shored up with banks and spread with gravel to prevent erosion. Immediately, the benefits manifest; travel is safer, easier, and quicker; larger volumes of men and material are moved around; internal communications are improved.
These roads also have a supernatural aspect; they are lined with milestones inscribed with watchful figures, to protect travelers, and your spiritual connection with forests and rivers will even ward the roads against natural decline, to an extent. Even the roads themselves form part of the manifesting network of magical as well as physical infrastructure, as some of the roads are oriented along major leylines where possible, drawing on background energy to maintain the roads and channeling the surplus towards monuments and Religious Lodges.
Mathematics
The brightest minds among your Historians have been, for some time now, making more and more discoveries as to the mystery of number. An existing numerical system used in Mechanical notation (standardized and including 0) serves as the basis of this, but of course the basic theory of mathematics involves many practical applications. In addition to being able to calculate complex sums in their heads, your Historians can also solve more complex equations, for example predicting surplus output based on prior trends and a series of inputs. In other words, there is a subclass of Historians who now serve a vital role as living calculators.
Your Historians are advancing the field of geometry, vital for construction and engineering, and for the cutting edge of Exotic Science. This is even extending into cubic geometry, your Historians able to calculate volumes and cubic areas, visualize three-dimensional objects in their heads. This is buttressed by their ability to demonstrate proofs for mathematical constants, for example "Astra's First Theorem" which shows the relation between three sides of a right triangle.
Civic Ceremonies
Ritual is important. Not only do they serve a magical purpose by generating, shaping, or directing magical energy, they also serve a social role. Ensuring the proper forms are ensured inspires confidence. Both of these purposes are important for the continuation of good governance.
For example, oaths. Speakers can be made to swear magical oaths binding them to serve well, honestly, and faithfully; oaths which, if broken, can unleash terrible curses to punish corrupt or traitorous officials.
Your Holy Men also devise rituals to open and close sessions of councils or assemblies, bless the proceedings, and call on the spirits to guide those present. Your Speakers adopt regalia and devise rules by which new laws are discussed and passed, formalizing the process.
This is more than just set dressing; these rituals magically buttress your government system, protecting against corruption, failure, and assault.
Justice
Disputes and breaches of the peace were previously settled by an ad hoc system of conflict resolution, with Assemblies and Councils serving as arbitrators if the issue cannot be settled within or by families. Of course, this system is rife with issues, not least of which is the number of disputes piling up in front of governing bodies. However, this also ranges into issues of bias, families deciding to ignore or cover up problems, individuals exploiting groupthink to win favorable outcomes, and so on.
None of these issues can be completely solved, but you can certainly give it a go. Councils, Speakers, and Assemblies are bidden to review precedents and customs (by consulting their Historians) to come up with law codes, ones which are reviewed at higher levels to ensure they align with similar codes at the tribal and League levels. A new subclass of Historians commits these codes to memory; in addition to being consultants for Councils they are also used as permanent conflict mediators, serving as neutral arbitrators who can have disputes brought before them, matched against precedents, and given rulings.
Matching the League's focus on consensus-building, your justice system attempts to resolve disputes primarily in a manner in which both parties reach a compromise, although in cases where one side has clearly been wrong, you prioritize helping the victim rather than punishing the transgressor. This can mean either the latter using their wealth or labor to repair the damage, or in some cases merely being ordered to keep away from the victim where it is judged they will only do further harm.
Art Patronage
Artistic expression is one of the most fundamental human characteristics. The True People have a rich artistic tradition that incorporates song, dance, and instrumental music, but you also have a thriving scene of visual art, such as paintings and sculptures. Excess funds are easily earmarked for public arts projects. Murals and sculptures decorate buildings and beautify shrines and monuments, while museums, art houses, and training programs for artists allow more of the True People to express themselves and make their views known. Musicians are commissioned to compose national epics and perform them at official ceremonies, while dancers, choirs, and instrument players are incorporated into religious rituals. Composers write hymns, musicians form bands, and your Historians develop oral storytelling into an art form of its own.
Your magicians even develop a wholly unique form of expression, in the form of stories accompanied by illusory images and sounds, each one competing to create more vivid, lifelike, and fantastical imagery.
Outside of government funding, Merchants also get in on the action, using their wealth to keep artists on retainer or to commission specialized works. Musicians perform at parties, while artists make portraits or sculptures of important figures (some admittedly quite flattering, but that's to be expected). The League is experiencing a golden age of art, with art getting bigger and more elaborate.
Indeed, such is your cultural weight that tribes beyond the borders of the League start copying League trends, while traveling musicians perform your national epics, giving you more soft power in the form of that ever-useful tool – propaganda.
Machine Spirits
It has been noted that all things absorb magical energy over time as humans imbue them with emotional significance. Naturally machines, as animate objects, acquire animating magic, that is, a spirt. These spirits can be bound and strengthened by human ritual, such as the shrines and altars built into the war machines you have captured. By venerating them, these spirits are empowered. The drivers of these machines are able to bond with these spirits through experience alone, familiarity with the machine. Some actually wear repurposed pieces of scrap metal from their truck in order to strengthen this connection.
The machine spirit is able to communicate, or at least, the driver is able to supernaturally sense the vehicle's strengths and weaknesses, receiving up-to-date damage reports and knowing instinctually how efficiently it is working. The spirit in turn can operate the vehicle somewhat autonomously, essentially creating a self-driving car, although it still needs human maintenance and devotion to be empowered – in fact, the machine spirit probably works best in tandem with the driver, both almost merging the edges of their consciousness to operate as one being.
It is the belief of your holy men that the machine spirits do not "think" as human or animal spirits do. A machine does not want in the same way living things do – it "wants" to be operational, to perform its function, and so it can do these things or assist the driver who can help it.
Still, you have learned a great deal about how the machine spirits work, to the point that, as you build and discover more machine, you will be able to commune with and create new machine spirits to match them.
Leyline Network
There is a hidden flow of energy around you. Your holy men have theorized this for a long time, but only since you began building large-scale monuments and other forms of magical infrastructure have you been able to confirm this. This magical energy is the product of natural and human forces and is largely channeled through leylines, currents of magical energy which exist within the earth. They form a vast network which interacts with and follows natural landforms such as rivers and mountain ranges.
Your holy men go on spiritual journeys to trace these leylines, mapping them out, at least in your territory, and make a number of observations. First, there are confluences of leylines. Some of these, conveniently, have cities located directly on top of them. Whether these cities were founded because of their location atop leyline confluences, or whether leylines converge on them because of the magical "weight" of the cities, is a topic of heated debate, but either way.
Second, there is no "end" of the leylines. So far as you can tell, they exist in a swirling, global pattern that constantly feeds into itself. Magical energy does dissipate somewhat, but just as much is created through natural processes, causing an equilibrium. Your holy men again theorize that this equilibrium can be increased or decreased depending on certain factors, but again more research is needed.
Thirdly, some of the leyline's particular arrangements seem to mirror constellations, or at the very least there are nodes that are aligned with certain important stars. Given the astrological basis of your magic system, this is a very intriguing prospect. At the very least, you know that the Daystar is the main source of magical energy in your solar system.
Overall, you can say the following: just as your rituals create magical energy, you also create ambient energy that feeds into the leyline network, which in turn can be drawn on. Drawing on the network too much may reduce its equilibrium (with potentially global effects), while pumping a surplus has unknown effects.
Once the leyline network is mapped, your holy men arrange the construction of new monuments at available confluences, as well as connecting nodes to connect your whole network together. A true, League-wide magical infrastructure system is now available for you to draw on as needed.
Magic of Light and Shadow
Illusions are created by bending light, changing colors and creating artificial shadows. Illusions are not foolproof, but the most skilled illusionist has the ability to create more complex images.
Illusion magic has many uses, as has been said. Never mind the surface-level applications it was invented for, to create false images to fool the unwary. This has its use as an artistic medium, as has been seen, but you are more interested in its applications to society as a whole.
Take the military applications, as experimented with by your war priests as they conduct raids and training exercises. Concealing entire units behind false landforms, or even cloaking individuals in powerful shrouds of invisibility, so that they can strike unseen at any target they choose. This is not foolproof of course – your holy men know that divination can serve to penetrate illusions and see truth, but also that divination can be baffled or warded against. This is the nature of magically-enhanced warfare, an arms race of spell and counterspell.
Communications is the other main field of research. Illusory images and sounds can let a magician create three-dimensional diagrams by bending light, to help architects, engineers, and military leaders alike make complex plans in real time. These illusions can also be sent, with the help of your other magical knowledge, across large distances, allowing spoken messages to be communicated out of line-of-sight, useful for both domestic and military purposes.
Lastly, there is light itself. It is really quite simple, an illusionist can create magical, artificial light sources that illuminate a whole room. It takes no time at all for a sustainable method of tapping into your magical infrastructure to be found, and within the year house after house is installed with magical lightstones which can be turned on and off with a word. Not only have you found an efficient and clean replacement for fires and candles, but you can also extend workday – travel and work at night are now trivial. A revolution in your way of life is only beginning.
Funerary Rites
Consider due deference to the dead.
Those who pass from this life may linger, if our emotions are strong enough to tether them from this world. Emotions, after all, are the basis of magic. Grief, yes, but also love and respect for who they were when they were alive. Couple this with spiritual sustenance – food offerings, for example.
There must be a place in this world where devotion can occur. There does not need to be a body, even ashes are fine so long as there is somewhere for veneration to occur. Your classes choose a variety of rituals; your foresters and colliers, who spend so much time in the woods, bury their dead beneath trees carved with protective symbols, and leave their offerings at the base of these "grave-trees". Your miners carve tombs into the living rock and seal their dead up within them. Extended clans maintain family shrines where they can remember the family as it was. Carved images of the dead, bowls for food offerings, and burning candles are features of these household shrines.
As intended by your holy men, this works. Your people soon are able to pray directly to the dead for intervention; protect me, give me luck, give me health, help me find love, ask the spirits for rain, prosperity, safety. You have never been a people too concerned with death, but now you are conscious that those who pass can never really leave you, so long as you remember them.
