Living in a magic rich society

[Smokestack]

In the create greater demi-plane you can also control time, so you could have time go 3X as fast on the demi plane so get crops harvested that much faster...

 

 

Yeah, though now I want a demi-plane summer home...

 

 

[Doug's Workshop]

Unlike others, I don't see a huge difference between a magic-rich world and our own.

 

Civilizations grow until they reach the limits of their energy sources.  In the medieval world, that was either the limit of food or the wood used for heat.  The incursion of the Black Plague reduced the population, but the level of energy remained the same, so there was a "boom" of sorts.  Increased energy in the form of coal and oil led to increased advances in civilization, and today we have abundant and cheap energy.

 

I posit that magic works the same way.  Most fantastic worlds have an "unlimited" supply of magic because it generally isn't used.  Sure, a few wizards can wrangle cool effects, but much like a miller holds status in his community because he operates the only thing that allows all the wheat to be ground into flour, he is one person.  If everyone has access to effectively unlimited flour, the next issue that pops up is that eventually the wheat will run out. 

 

Peak Oil is a good analogy.  Peak Magic would have such wonders as might be seen in 3.x and 4th edition D&D - lots of magic, almost anyone can craft it.  But eventually that goes away, and the post-apocolyptic world that was the default 1st edition D&D world comes into being - you can find magical weapons in ancient ruins, but you cannot buy them.

 

Additionally, the high-magic world of Eberron engenders questions of morality -

- Magic can be used to dominate the minds of others.  Is it morally just to dominate the minds of those who did or may commit crimes to safeguard civilization? Who gets to decide?

- Many magical beings can be utilized to perform some laborious tasks.  Is it slavery to bind a life-spark to a golem?  I think the War-Forged were the ultimate answer to this question, but what about lesser servitors?  Life now means something different, and free-will may mean a golem is considered as alive as any human.

- Utilizing zombies to do menial labor (such as tilling fields) is usually justified as "they're just husks anyways."  Do people own their bodies, or do their bodies belong to society?

- House fey are (in folklore at least) bound to the house/family they serve, and expect some sort of reward for their efforts (such as a bowl of cream).  Mechanical/magical energy savings that would deprive fey of their livelihoods would likely be sabotaged, or a fey-union may be created.  You think the Teamsters are bad?  Wait until you get Brownies Local 341 partnering with the Benevolent Leprechaun Society to really gum up the works.

 

 

 

[Doug Sundseth]

2 hours ago, Smokestack said:

In the create greater demi-plane you can also control time, so you could have time go 3X as fast on the demi plane so get crops harvested that much faster...

 

 

Yeah, 17th level MU plus 22500 GP gets you a Bountiful demi-plane at 3X time rate, so you could support over a thousand people. The Lesser demi-plane isn't so cost effective, but at greater economies of scale provided by higher level casters, it starts to become cost effective. 22.5GP/person is a very reasonable price for sustenance forever.

[TheAuldGrump]

14 hours ago, Bruunwald said:

This gives me a good idea for an adventure.

 

Party represent the "authorities," trying to track down an illegal grow operation whose greenhouses are on a demiplane.

 

EDIT: Or better, spread out over several demiplanes.

Cheech & Chong as archimages?

 

The Auld Grump - goood niborg, man.....

[Sanael]

So, just had a thought related to the whole demiplane concept.

 

Let's say I take a day off work because I feel run-down, need a break. But only one day? What does that do for me? Why not take a long weekend? Why not take a week? But I only have one day. This is terrible.

 

So, this entrepreneur buys a small office...puts a few doors on the wall; the businessman partners with a wizard, makes a few small demiplanes behind those doors-to-nowhere. Each demiplane is a Cabin on a Lake, a Cottage in the Alps, a Bungalow on a Beach. Nobody on the plane, but water is teeming with fish, woods are teeming with wildlife, weather is perfect, time is accelerated. You go in today, stay for three days, come out tomorrow morning.

 

Sure, building the plane itself is expensive, but if each trip is priced properly, you can make that money back fairly quickly. You can start off just offering this to the particularly wealthy, but I think the real money is in offering it to families. Say you get a solid acre of demiplane, make half of it beachfront and half water. Give it a day-cycle of 2.5 hours sun/.5 hours moon. So one "day" on the plane goes by for every hour in the Prime Material. Put in a cabana with a restaurant and bar, say 5 people staffing it (cook, bartender, server, host, bus/sous/barback)...add a lifeguard and you have your staff. Then allow up to 45 people or so at a time (so ~10 families). The family gets 3 hours at the beach, plus a sunrise and sunset, all for one reasonable price and you still have time to do the shopping. For the college crowd, you can reverse the day/night cycle and offer "Spring Break" packages. Corporate retreats would love this (all the team-building time with no loss to productivity? Yes, Please!)

 

For single families, the "no-one on the plane" idea is great, you can take an idyllic family vacation easily, with no jet-lag, no "well I have a week off, but we have to travel a day and a half each direction, so we really only have four days there and I'll be exhausted when I get back so I need to come back a day early, so is 3 days really worth the trouble" remorse...for hunters, it's a bit small but the game is plentiful and unique, for anglers it's phenomenal...

 

And Plot Hooks! This is cool world-building, but how to get PC's involved?

• Altherten Blackshear lost something on the plane and wants the PCs to find it. He'll pay their way in, but can only afford two (Prime Material) hours. The PCs will get a bonus if they make it out in less time.The reason Altherten can't go himself is because the item is a necklace he gave to the nereid bartender (she likes the plane so much she just moved in, she works the bar to pay her rent). She can't stand him and he wants the necklace back without having to confront her himself. It is a nice necklace, so she probably won't just hand it over immediately, but the party might be able to convince her; or they could just sneak around and steal it.
• There's been a string of robberies in town and the PCs are tasked with finding the culprit. Turns out the demiplane beach is actually moving at a slower pace than Prime Material time, so the "travel agent" has time to send henchmen to loot the unattended homes of his patrons.
  • Maybe he gets away with it because the storefront is actually on a wagon, and he moves from town to town*.
    • Even if the "thief" plot hook isn't useful to a DM, I love the idea of bringing a beach vacation to a landlocked farm village in a wagon, it seems like a decent business model to include in the world.**
• Something (an Invisible Stalker, maybe, or a displacer beast, or an elemental of some kind, something that hides well) has gotten into the Sylvan Wonderland demiplane, and now the hunters that frequent the room are being hunted! The proprietor of the Time for a Getaway vacation emporium has asked the party to deal with the creature, whatever it is. Bonus points if it's undead of some kind and has raised the corpses of the last group of hunters, too.
• At higher levels, an entrepreneur might approach the party about a loan for the creation of this business; the party could then be silent partners and just collect profits when they stroll through town.

 

*the thief-on-a-wagon scenario plays pretty heavily into the "Romani are all thieves" stereotype; personally, I would likely invert it by introducing the party to a nomadic band that just got run out of town because the townies assumed they would steal, as did the travel agent guy. Then it's up to the party to help the nomads find the travel agent on the road and bring him back to town for justice.

 

**this sort of thing brings up another bit of culture in this kind of world: advertising. Farmers might not have the 5 gold or whatever just randomly on hand, so the vacation-wagon might send a crier along his route up to a year in advance to allow time for savings...such a crier would likely be hired by several businesses, and might even be a golem of some kind, fitted with a scrolling Moving Image of written announcements and/or a Magic Mouth of verbal announcements. Depending on how elaborate the advertiser is, they could probably sell "local" space (the way national broadcasts leave blank airtime for local station identification). More efficient (but I think less interesting) would be local billboards in the town square that update magically from a central office.

[Sanael]

Thinking about my advertising golem idea in my last post, I really enjoy the thought that this iron golem comes into town, all polished up like chrome (or maybe all painted up like a NASCAR uniform), with Dick Clark's voice proclaiming the travelling Brelanian Bandstand show will be in town in two week's time, then Don Cherry's voice announcing the upcoming Blitzball exposition match in nearby Macalania...all the children flock around it, it's big enough they can even climb on it a bit.

 

So then I thought farther about how this would work in the real world. Like freight trains, these golems move through a town, stop long enough to do their job, then leave. And every town has hooligans. And in a magic-prevalent world, every hooligan has Nolzur's Marvelous Pigments! So now I need to get the bones Iron Golem, put an LED ticker-tape sign across its shoulders and a bullhorn over its face, and then put graffiti tags all over it.

 

And more adventure hooks:

• Obviously, berserk robot. Boring trope, but useful adventure. More difficult because the advert company will sue if you destroy the thing.
• No kittens in trees here, but the party needs to rescue a child that climbed too high, got frightened, and is now three miles outside town and headed toward the Haunted Woods on the shoulder of an implacable, uncaring metal hulk.
• Golem got tripped up by a confused assassin vine in the woods, is now lying at the bottom of a ravine, covered in frustrated murder-plants. The advert company will pay good money for the party that finds and either retrieves or repairs the golem (the company can provide its route, and knows it was last seen in Thusandsuch Village, but doesn't know the actual situation).
• A few golems have gone missing, the advert company wants them found. Somewhere along the route, a group of salvagers has managed to find a way to disable the golems. They won't stop, so the party has to bring them to justice...possibly this just means kill them, but this is a more difficult (and I think interesting) adventure if it's made clear that illicit salvage and vandalism are crimes, but aren't punishable by death, so the salvagers need to be apprehended and transported alive to town if the party wants a reward and not a hanging.

[Nunae]

Ok, I think I read it all.

What I always find interesting with such magical societys is the question about the non-magical people. I think it's safe to say that they are severly handicapped in a world like this, but this can go really dark really quickly. Depending on how many tasks magic or golems can fulfil you don't really need farmers/workers anymore. They could be well taken care off by all the wealth magic provides and to show off how great this society works (as long as they follow all the rules ofc). They could also be openly persecuted, put into slums or otherwise mistreated.

Even if it's a pretty humane society, I think it would be pretty normal for magic users and especially high level magic users to feel 'better than' since magic is such a big part of the society and it's openly shown off. Having a non-magical child might be a source of family embarassement. 

 

I liked the Bartimäus book series about a pretty magical society, where there is basically a 2 class system in place, with magicians taking all the leadership roles. The commoners are aware of magic but don't really understand the inner workings of it, and are mostly afraid of it, since magicians use everything in their repertoire to keep them in line.

[TheAuldGrump]

Or give everyone access to a few 0 level spells, choosing either Arcane or Divine, and either Int, Wis, or Cha as the controlling ability score - higher level spells are a matter of training. So, anybody has the potential, but most don't, anymore than most people get a degree in engineering. (The 0 level spells are like learning to change the time on a DVD player or microwave oven.)

 

The Auld Grump

[Club]

They toned it down for 5th edition, but the 3.5 Phantom Steed would be an absolute game-changer for a pre-tech society. Fast travel, decent cargo capacity, and the mage doesn't have to come along?

 

Nevermind that at higher levels it lets you travel over water without a boat, making rivers effectively highways. (Just be careful of the duration)

 

Last tame I played a sorcerer with this spell, it was easily the 3rd level spell I cast most, above even the classic blasters (Fireball, lighting bolt) or haste. I even named the steeds each member of the party got; I rode Harley, the thief rode Honda, bard Kawasaki, and you can probably guess the rest.

Edited October 22, 2017 by Club

[PaganMegan]

On 10/18/2017 at 9:50 PM, Doug's Workshop said:

Unlike others, I don't see a huge difference between a magic-rich world and our own.

 

Civilizations grow until they reach the limits of their energy sources.  In the medieval world, that was either the limit of food or the wood used for heat.  The incursion of the Black Plague reduced the population, but the level of energy remained the same, so there was a "boom" of sorts.  Increased energy in the form of coal and oil led to increased advances in civilization, and today we have abundant and cheap energy.

 

I posit that magic works the same way.  Most fantastic worlds have an "unlimited" supply of magic because it generally isn't used.  Sure, a few wizards can wrangle cool effects, but much like a miller holds status in his community because he operates the only thing that allows all the wheat to be ground into flour, he is one person.  If everyone has access to effectively unlimited flour, the next issue that pops up is that eventually the wheat will run out. 

 

Peak Oil is a good analogy.  Peak Magic would have such wonders as might be seen in 3.x and 4th edition D&D - lots of magic, almost anyone can craft it.  But eventually that goes away, and the post-apocolyptic world that was the default 1st edition D&D world comes into being - you can find magical weapons in ancient ruins, but you cannot buy them.

 

Additionally, the high-magic world of Eberron engenders questions of morality -

- Magic can be used to dominate the minds of others.  Is it morally just to dominate the minds of those who did or may commit crimes to safeguard civilization? Who gets to decide?

- Many magical beings can be utilized to perform some laborious tasks.  Is it slavery to bind a life-spark to a golem?  I think the War-Forged were the ultimate answer to this question, but what about lesser servitors?  Life now means something different, and free-will may mean a golem is considered as alive as any human.

- Utilizing zombies to do menial labor (such as tilling fields) is usually justified as "they're just husks anyways."  Do people own their bodies, or do their bodies belong to society?

- House fey are (in folklore at least) bound to the house/family they serve, and expect some sort of reward for their efforts (such as a bowl of cream).  Mechanical/magical energy savings that would deprive fey of their livelihoods would likely be sabotaged, or a fey-union may be created.  You think the Teamsters are bad?  Wait until you get Brownies Local 341 partnering with the Benevolent Leprechaun Society to really gum up the works.

 

 

 

Hollowfaust for the zombies. Nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to die there.

 

Grump has a sign for the Elves, Leprechauns, Gnomes, and Little Men's Marching & Chowder Society which meets on the 2nd full moon of a month.

[Orlando_the_Technicoloured]

Thinking on the potential time displacement of those demi planes you've got the potential of heavy users aging much faster than normal in 'real world' terms,

 

so either the rich and wealthy burn out really fast (while having a fabulous time which is fine), or more likely normal folk who are used to staff these bubble resorts (would the rich and wealthy really want to do without servants?) aging out compared to their families/kids who don't work in the resort, or ending up stuck in a micro society of resort workers who don't dare for relationships with non workers for just that reason

 

and even then what happens to the kids, would the owners want them cluttering up the place, distracting the workers? I suspect it would be a case of get pregnant and be tossed out into the normal world

 

Edit: and if you could stack those bubble universes within one another you could end up with really major time displacement pretty fast for fun and profit or punishment, you want somebody gone but for religious or social reasons just killing them is not an option, and normal exile might leave them free to interfere in your society just geas them into walking into a series of nested time stretched bubble universes and they'll be gone for generation of normal time without being technically harmed (and while that does leave the problem for your descendants to deal which societies are really good at ignoring stuff that's a future problem)

Edited October 22, 2017 by Orlando_the_Technicoloured

[Grayfax]

I've had thoughts of this over the years.  Not sure if I still have the notebook I started it in.

 

Sailor's candles.  Kind of like a continual light, but with blood magic allows those left on shore to know whether their loved ones are still safe and sound.  Works well with families too.  When the flame goes out, the sadness begins.

 

Aquarium.  Why bother with catching and keeping alive those fancy fish?  Now you can have a Living Aquarium in your house!  No cleaning.  No dying fish.  Cheap, easy and efficient.  (Though, now the rich people will demand real live fish... and have we got a product for you!)

 

I think I had a namebrand of MasterWorks (crossing the M and the W).  Mostly I was trying to think of a lot more utility items than flashy things we see in the DM guides.  

[Doug Sundseth]

On 10/21/2017 at 6:18 PM, Club said:

They toned it down for 5th edition, but the 3.5 Phantom Steed would be an absolute game-changer for a pre-tech society. Fast travel, decent cargo capacity, and the mage doesn't have to come along?

 

Nevermind that at higher levels it lets you travel over water without a boat, making rivers effectively highways. (Just be careful of the duration)

 

Last tame I played a sorcerer with this spell, it was easily the 3rd level spell I cast most, above even the classic blasters (Fireball, lighting bolt) or haste. I even named the steeds each member of the party got; I rode Harley, the thief rode Honda, bard Kawasaki, and you can probably guess the rest.

 

Any high magic world vaguely related to the stuff I've seen published will have a steady state* in which "medieval fantasy" is essentially non-existent.

 

There would likely be a transition period from medieval to that steady state, but there are so many spells and magic items that would have huge effects on every part of society that unless you're in that transition you're effectively in a high-tech society (high-mag society?)

 

A century ago, it was common for a person to sink all his capital into buying a combine harvester or tractor, then to make his living traveling from farm to farm hiring out his equipment every year. As combines and tractors became more common (their capital cost representing a smaller portion of the average farmer's wealth), this business model fell by the wayside. In a mature D&D world, I posit that the same thing would happen with Lyres of Building, both during the transition and in the steady state.

 

And what about using rock to mud on a rocky hill, shoveling the mud into a wagon/truck/whatever, pouring it out at a building site and then dismissing the magic? You build your buildings out of concrete? I use reinforced basalt. (My last wizard was building his tower (black, of course; he was a traditionalist) in exactly that way.

 

And this is in a game where most of the spells have been written not by people trying to gain economic advantage but rather to gain evanescent combat advantages. Spend the same time developing spells and items that are primarily designed (not just repurposed) for their benefits out of combat and things change in ways that might well look very familiar to a 19th century technologist.

 

And of course there would be people who would abuse the magic in the same way as technology has been abused (I'll not discuss specific examples, since it's fairly likely that mine will be different from yours in contentious ways), but even in places where things have gone very wrong at times (Belgian Congo, anyone?), life for the average lower-class person is remarkably better than it was 1000 years ago.

 

* Whatever "steady state" might mean in a society experiencing a magical age.

[TheAuldGrump]

For a series of stories with a magic rich, but not high power, setting, look for the excellent Lord Darcy series - set in a pseudo-Victorian alternate 1970s. Technology has lagged behind, simply because many of the same folks that advanced science instead advanced magic. (The light bulb has just been invented!)

 

But magic has become as specialized as science - one of the main characters is a forensic sorcerer, one minor character is a theoretical wizard - completely incapable of casting spells, but he has done more to advance magic than any actual spell caster.

 

The Auld Grump

[Doug Sundseth]

I'll second the recommendation for Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy series if you like whodunnits at all. Very solid and quite entertaining.