Tue, 06/09/2009 - 01:14
I have a gift for all you plotstormers (ites?)
I have had the idea for this world floating around in my head for a long time, but for some reason I am incapable of creating a character who isn't mind blowingly over powered. That, and because I lack the ability to follow through on anything requiring work means that I am going to give this to anyone who wants it.
To start with, the world is our world. Earth here and now.
A character finds an odd glowing stone which he eventually realizes that it is what fantasy writers of his time call Mana.(we'll call him C1, I'll admit that I tend to name him Muert but self insertion is bad and I am going to kill him off in a couple of paragraphs, so C1 it is.) C1 fools around with his mana and eventually learns to cast spells with it. (Big surprising shocker there I know) C1 wants to share magic with his buddies, but discovers that except for his rock Earth is barren of magic. As a result he uses his stone to cast spells on his friends so that they can live out lives in virtual worlds and learn anything they could want to all in a matter of five minutes. (Nope, this is not the story. These characters don't even need names as far as I am concerned. This is still just the setup.) As a result there are a number (at least 8) of extremely talented people who are good at nearly everything including magic, despite the fact that there is no magic for them to use.
Eventually they get tired of playing these games and go off and become rich, powerful, generally awesome individuals. C1 however is obsessed with figuring out why there is no magic in the world and starts working on figuring out where it has all gone. Eventually he comes across an odd mountain in the middle of nowhere that everyone seems to ignore for no apparent reason. He digs a couple feet into the mountain and discovers that the entire mountain is one huge mana stone. He quickly works out that the stone is drawing all of the magic into itself and condensing it into more mana. He does some calculations, then tries some experiments in his virtual worlds and discovers that it is impossible to release the energy stored in the stone without slagging the entire planet. Thoroughly dejected because he has just found the coolest toy ever and can't play with it he goes home and mopes for a while.
Along comes a disaster. A meteor larger then the moon is going to play cosmic billiards with Earth. C1 rejoices because he has found something that his mountain is useful for. He gathers his old buddies and proposes that they use magic to blow the meteor up. A couple of his buddies back out because they know handling that much power will be really painful and will likely kill them. C1 manages to convince eight of them to help him in casting this huge ritual spell. They go to the top of the mountain and inscribe a huge magic circle which predominately features an eight sided star with a circle going through the tips.
Unfortunately there is too much energy in the mountain for them to use it directly. They must have an outside source of energy to control the flow of energy out of the mountain. A really big ritual is used: white robes, cleansing showers, chanting, drums, dancing, incense the whole nine yards. Each of his eight suckers (err buddies) takes a point on the star and C1 uses his little mana rock to cast a spell which fractures the essence of his friends and places a fragment of them at carefully calculated node points. Each person is used to cover a specific quadrant (not the right word I think, but they each cover and eighth of the planet.) Then he formed a ley line network between the nodes such that the ley lines formed a perfect 8 pointed star aligned with the 8 points on his magic circle. Each of the nodes then began to draw magic from all of the living things within their range and funnel the energy to the eight spell casters in the circle. (Life being the ultimate source of magic in this universe.) The Eight fed their energy to C1 and he used the power to tap into the mountain and blast the snot out of asteroid for the 12 hours that it is in the line of sight. During that time they are all in indescribable agony, and die repeatedly, but the magic keeps healing them and resurrecting them so that they can continue to cast the spell. (Lots of cool fireworks as well but I lack the ability to describe what I imagine so I'll let you picture your own beam.) Once the 12 hours is up the spell ends and all the spell casters collapse. The quadrant casters are still fractured, and C1 is unable to restore them. He is able to heal their bodies, but their minds (probably fortunately) are still broken. He casts a spell to compel all of the locals to prevent anyone from ever going to the top of the mountain again and to make them care for the quadrant casters. Then he wails and gnashes his teeth, forms a huge sword out of mana, and offs himself in the center of the magic circle. (I rather like to picture a skeleton with a huge glowing blue sword going between collar bones, and exiting through the middle of the lower back, with the tip of the sword driven into the center of the magic circle.)
OK, enough setup onto the actual world.
First, Earth picks up a couple of new moons. One is scorched black and becomes known as Char. The other is covered in Iron oxide and becomes known as The Blood Moon. (Yes I know a blatant rip off of another world, forgive me I like the idea :P)
Second, Technology tends to malfunction when it crosses a Ley line. Because of the way C1 structured the Ley lines this results in the globe being wrapped in the equivalent of two interlocking snowflakes. One is formed by the Ley lines, the other by data and power transmission lines.
Third, The spell casting had bound the quadrant casters (henceforth known as the Avatars) to all of the people who lived within their region. The slightest wish of an Avatar is the desire of everyone within their quadrant. Unfortunately the Avatars are basically retards. Happy friendly retards, but still retards. The avatars are friendly and don't want to see anyone suffer, so neither does anyone else. This has the unexpected result of ushering in a "Golden Age" of peace and prosperity. (I use quotes because I don't think it would be a true Golden Age, but the inhabitants of that time would.) There are no longer any nations or laws because they are no longer necessary.
Fourth, Technological Process slows to a crawl. New discoveries in the use of magic only partially make up for the lack of growth. It is discovered that magic can be used to produce infinite clean supplies of energy, but the difficulty of using technology near active magic means that power plants driven by magic must be miles from the source. As a result the energy is transmitted from the source to the plant in pure elemental form. Weapons development is ended, and what weapons do exist rust and decay. Their means of manufacture is forgotten for lack of use.
Fifth, Population falls off significantly, The Avatars no longer really understand sex so breeding is greatly reduced.
Fast forward a couple through a couple of centuries of "Golden Age." Magic, Medicine and Technology have reached their limits keeping the Avatars alive, so the Avatars are dieing. As the Avatars slowly die, their suppression of their respective populations is slowly reducing. People's old urges and desires are returning. Mages that are influenced by the White moon are wholly dedicated to healing. They have never needed their power for anything else. Mages influenced by Char are beginning to develop a taste for power and finding that they can take it by force. It is left to the Mages of the Blood Moon to try to balance the power of the Black Mages.
I might expand more later, for now it is bed time.
Tue, 06/09/2009 - 16:40
#2
Some Thoughts
Each of the avatars would influence thier sections of the world in other ways then just "happy thoughts", this would shape the sociaties in that section with effects that would linger even after thier influence waned.
Avatars as C1's high school buddies.
The sports nut jock.
His section would feels driven to compete in physical sports and become obsesed with thier own fitness.
As the "Happy thoughts" effects weakens this group would become more millitant.
The conspiritcy theory burn out.
His section would be influence to develop a sociaty of convoluted plotting and secret cabals, as well as a tendency to try questionalble substances for recreation and mental enhancement.
As the avatars effects weaken thier spies would begin to infiltrate other sections and commit assassination and sabotauge against threats both real and imagined.
The Horn dog musician.
His section would be obsesed with music and getting it on, the combination of mathmatic talent with musical talent might make these some of the more skilled magicians as well.
Status conscious princess.
Her section would be the blue bloods ranked by castes, after the avatars influence dimed they would be most likely to try pushing thier wieght around.
The other magicians.
What about all the trained magicians who din't participate in the ritual, when the magical energy starts to flow back out for their use they would the source of magical schools and traditions, but they would also be the first capable of severing the connection between themselves and their avatar?
Would they set up thier own pocket sections free of the avatars connection, or would they keep the connection and used thier personal relationships with their old friends to instead influence the avatar through thier connection?
The orignal stone.
What happened to it physically, and more important what happened to it meta-physically?
Could the virtual worlds C1 created for his still exist in a sort of magical memory bank connected to the stone, if he made a virtual world for each of his friends made for thier tastes and needs, then each of these world might still have a connection to the avatat and end up getting pumped with enough mana to exist as a afterlife for the inhabitants of each of the eight sections.
Perhaps the other magical trained friends of C1 would use thier virtual worlds as refuges from the influence of the avatars.
The avatars.
Happy retards yes, but also happy retard who have suffered horrable trauma to the point of insanity, if their conscious thoughts reflect thier treatment and influence thier sections, what about thier unconscious thoughts and truamatic flashbacks?
Tue, 06/09/2009 - 18:50
#3
Good Thoughts
I like your thoughts on differences between the zones. Another factor will be that the Avatars will not die simultaneously. Some zones might be free of suppression immediately, and one of the Avatars could hang on for another hundred years or so. The suppressed zone would end up being a sort of neutral free trade zone because everyone within the zone would still end up with their baser instincts suppressed. If the surviving Avatar was also the Savvy Business Person, all of the residents would be driven to haggle and bargain for anything.
As for outlets for the trauma there would be out of the way towns that suffer the full brunt of it. They would appear to be peaceful and friendly to outsiders, but in secret they would engage in all the worse aspects of humanity. Rape, Murder, Torture, Cannibalism, and Human Sacrifice would be regular occurrences. The would maintain about the same population decay as everywhere else by breeding like rabbits, and kidnapping women from the fully suppressed towns. These places would also function as breeding grounds for Black Mages so that they could be powerful even before the Avatars start dieing.
There would also be an entire city somewhere suffering under this aggression field. If one C1's buddies friends who chose not to become an Avatar happened to be a not nice individual, they could find their way to this city and essentially be unaffected by the Avatars. They could use their power to establish the city as their very own kingdom. By maintaining the illusion that the city is a sparkly happy fun place, and thus sucker in fresh yokels from the country side.
As for having some of C1's other friends use their skill with Magic to break free of the Avatar's influence... I would maintain that the spell bound everyone to the Avatar and that there would be no exceptions to the suppression. However, being exceptionally skilled mages they could probably maintain their life long enough to outlast the Avatars and become major influences in the world.
Tue, 06/09/2009 - 19:26
#4
Yarg, I can't Stop
Probably sources of Conflict:
The sources of magical power that can be transmitted so that they could be used to drive generators and the like, would normally be very destructive in nature, like fire and lightening. These are the kinds of spells that would generally be used by Mages of a darker leaning. As a result when the suppression fields start dropping there will be a number of black mages whom, up to now, have been forced to recast this ritual of fire for the good of the community. When they object (violently) to this treatment, the core will be forced to negotiate, because they are dependent on the black mages for their power. At this point our black mages might look at some white mages and think "I could use them." One ritual later and you have an altar which drains the life force of it's victims to power an eternal flame. Put two next to each other, with a white mage on each, and they can heal the damage done to each other greatly decreasing the frequency with which they must change the battery on the altar.
A person in pursuit of power might some day figure out that while he lived after the ritual, C1 actually remained connected to the prime node and the Avatars, so he would have been the most powerful being on the planet. Time to build up an army and go try to reproduce C1's spell. Note that if they are not extremely powerful casters they are likely to just explode when they attempt it.
The sword which C1 used to off himself is still stuck in the top of the mountain. Surely such a mighty weapon would allow some to make themselves a king. Time to put on our sneaking clothes and go fetch it. The sword is simply a weapon fashioned out of mana. It holds a great edge, but other then that it is only useful as a power source for casting spells.
Tue, 06/09/2009 - 21:09
#5
OK, just one more
The making of a red mage:
First you need to understand what the populations of Mages look like. Black Mages are spawned in the cesspools created from the tortured fragments of the Avatar's minds. They had to fight for every minute of their survival, and as such are rare, but those that survive to maturity are very powerful.
White mages are everywhere. You can't throw a dead cat without three white mages coming up to tell you about the sanctity of life and how you should care for the soul of even that dead cat you threw. They have been indoctrinated by people under the influence of the Avatars and believe with all of their sappy hearts. Your average white mage would run onto a field of battle and heal one of the enemies, even knowing that the enemy would stab them to death, because it is the right thing to do. In other words, white mages have a whole lot of natural selection heading their way.
In this world red mages are not neutral. They are forces of balance. It is rare that a person is born who says to themselves that they will fight for the underdog, no matter whether it is moral are not. There for red mages are not born, they are created.
There are two ways to create a red mage. The first is to redeem a black mage, which, given the current useless nature of white mages is unlikely. The other is for a white mage to give up their morals. A good example would be the two mages acting as batteries in the example above. They are both going to die because they are trying to sacrifice themselves to save the other. If one decided to heal himself, and let the other mage heal him as well he might have the strength to save himself. All he has to do is let the other mage die. Of course, he still has to escape from any other of the black mages in the area, and he is rather lacking in combat skills just by virtue of having been a white mage.
All of this comes together to cause Red Mages to be a very rare breed.
Wed, 06/10/2009 - 20:30
#6
Because I am a Geek
I drew up a Ley Line/ Quadrant Map with Solidworks.
http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1459/c1smap.jpg
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#7
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The use of Magic and Ley lines produce the magical equivalent of localized EMPs. So far no way has been found to shield against these effects. As a result society has become somewhat segregated. Some technology friendly building are designated as No magic use zones. More sensitive operations will designate large areas as no Magic users allowed.
There are two main points of interest. The first is C1's mountain. It is the center of the Ley line web. The power that C1 used to split the asteroid is still there, and people seeking power are likely to try and obtain access to the mountain. The people from around the mountain have remained under C1's compulsion spell and are dedicated to keeping anyone from even coming close to it. Because of this they are one of the few locations where all knowledge of combat has not been lost. They still practice many of the martial arts from the before time, primarily in the form of Kata. So long as they are under the influence of an Avatar, they are unlikely to fully realize how they can use their knowledge. They are also likely to be the first group of people to recover the use of melee weapons because they still use dummy weapons as part of their Katas.
More on the Technological Core which lies at the exact opposite side of the world as C1's Mountain later.
edit starts here to keep things in order.
Because of the way that Ley lines disrupt technology, The core is the only place that is connected to all others without having to cross a ley line. This means that most communications from one side of the planet to the other, or even from one side of the neighbor hood to the other depending on where the ley lines fall, would have to pass through the Core. This gives the residents of the Core a great deal of influence over everyone who uses technology. Once the suppression field drops, the Core is the most likely to develop new ranged weapons. (For instance: "Hey look we use this laser to cut through six feet of steel, I wonder what would happen if we used it on Nick?")