Magical Life in Worminghall

[hal]

Hello Folks,
This is a thread being opened up to explore magic as detailed in GURPS LOCATIONS: WORMINGHALL.

While it is helpful to maybe own a copy of the material with respect to a few minor adjustments to GURPS MAGIC (aside from the fact that all of the colleges were rearranged to fit four colleges instead of the normal set up!) and certain spells being "uninvented" so to speak - applying standard GURPS MAGIC spells to this discussion won't be too far off the mark either.

So, splitting this off from the map scale discussion of Worminghall...

Based on the timeline in Worminghall, it was reasoned by myself, that the University aspect of teaching Magic only had about 40 years of existence between when the students left Oxford and started up Worminghall. I don't know how long magic had existed prior to Worminghall or Oxford, so I can't even try to extrapolate just who would be available to do what in that Game universe.

So, Let's look at life in Worminghall with a functioning magic ability, and the integration of Magic within day to day life. Let's also keep in mind the fact that we're not dealing with "Video game" constructs or math constructs who will do things according to math logic. Let's assume that there are Holy days in which Church sanctioned students won't practice magic as a "job". Let's also assume that given human nature, a mage who is going about his business - summons a demon by accident. How would this be handled? What precautions would be taken? If a summoned demon (even if the summoning was by accident) takes a life, what would the legal ramifications be? How might the mundanes (non-mageborn) react to those who can practice magic?

But why stop there? Why stop with Spell backfires that summon demons? I propose that we also discuss the other spell backfires that can occur as a result of the spell backfire table.

Next - what happens if the area is mana low instead of mana normal?

So, jump in, let ideas surface, and see if the synergistic effect of multiple minds on this one work better than one or two people just saying "This will happen and that will happen." Adopt ROLES within this discussion, not just as a Mage, but as a Priest perhaps, or adopt the viewpoint of a Soldier tasked with protecting the people in the event of a spell back fire. Discuss policy decisions as an alderman within the city. Help bring to life, what life in Worminghall might become?

Thoughts?

[hal]

I'm going to start with the question that was raised elsewhere in the forums as linked to HERE.

If you had a single mage with SHAPE EARTH, and for purposes of this discussion, we're not going to go with character point inflation in that the hypothetical mage will be anything spectacular (ie adventuring mages!), what could you do, or what WOULD you do?

proposed: There are a lot of "unusable" areas within the city walls due to nature being uncooperative and putting hills or even cliffs in where man wanted to build a city. How would but a SINGLE mage with SHAPE earth deal with the issues involved with STONE bedrock being located in an inconvenient location? Each Contour line on the map is assumed to be a height elevation difference of 50'. The map scale implies that (using the original map scale instead of my proposed map scale in the other thread), would be roughly 4x that of what I was able to estimate, so call it roughly 2 square miles of land to house 9,600 people.

One of the biggest issues for building stone buildings is that the labor for producing stone usable in building, is labor intensive, as is the actual construction process itself. Shape Earth not only can move earth like a bulldozer (mini bulldozer?), it can change its shape etc. Likewise, the spell (In GURPS MAGIC for 4e) can function as "Shape Stone" (which is its own spell in GURPS CLASSIC MAGIC).

Assume the following: Mankind does NOT work a rigorous work schedule like we do today with 8 hour days, 40 hour work weeks, weekends off, etc. Further assume that people are people. Would you want your children to wander anywhere near an explosives shed left unguarded at a construction site? Would you want your kid to be where there is the prospect of an explosive charge being set off during heavy duty construction? So too might the citizens of a city object to having a demonic being show up unexpectedly due to a spell backfire. Assume anything else you wish otherwise.

Stats for the Mage in question?

All stats 10, Spell skill with SHAPE EARTH is 12.

Also - it is my intent to ask in a new thread, a very specific question about spell casting, blesses, and wishes. ;)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by hal

Stats for the Mage in question?

All stats 10, Spell skill with SHAPE EARTH is 12.

Also - it is my intent to ask in a new thread, a very specific question about spell casting, blesses, and wishes. ;)

Specific to Wormimghall is that his effective Skill would be raised by Symbol Drawing form used there..

[hal]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Specific to Wormimghall is that his effective Skill would be raised by Symbol Drawing form used there..

Assume that his skill can be augmented in any of the approved manners possible, which includes Symbol drawing. ;)

So, to answer your question specifically, his base unadjusted skill starts at 12.

In addition? I would like to suggest the following:

If anyone wishes to build character mages for inclusion in the "society" of Worminghall, that this would be a good place for it. This way, people can refer to this thread (and if any are posted that is!) use it for inspiration for their own campaigns further down the road.

As Bill mentioned in the other thread, there will be "comparative advantage" issues involved when discussing magical life for Worminghall. It may be more profitable to have undertaken the study of healing magics as opposed to say, stonemasonry magics.

Myself? I largely dislike GURPS MAGIC for 4e for spells that wildly distort society (Earth to Metal anyone?) not to mention the destructive spells such as Acid Rain, etc.

But, this isn't an attempt to dissuade people to not use EVERYTHING for their campaigns - but to try to imagine life in the Worminghall Universe. Build standard stock mages with say, 75 points (or less) - and let them loose in this thread. Have them show what they can DO with their spells. Show how they would change things.

Students are students right? They won't be the professionals casting spells left and right. But then again, if they don't leave Worminghall and instead, become professors, who is to say that they won't moonlight doing other things? With a concentration of Alchemists and trained mages, might not Worminghall become like any other "manufacturing center" that specializes in a given product?

[hal]

Question: How many people here would be interested in a data file for spells that adheres to the Worminghall set up?

I don't know if I can deliver on it, but I can give it a try if people are interested.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by hal

But why stop there? Why stop with Spell backfires that summon demons? I propose that we also discuss the other spell backfires that can occur as a result of the spell backfire table.

The other results aren't much of a problem in many situations. Shape Earth rarely affecting the wrong target does not matter much unless you are working next to an important structure, being stunned for a while is not much of a problem outside of combat and losing access to the spell for a while just makes you slightly less productive on average (or not even that if you know some other useful spell as well).

Other than summoning a demon, the worst one for that kind of spellcasting is probably the caster being injured. However it is just 1d injury. Perhaps you want to have someone nearby who can heal you if that kind of injury is likely to cause problematic bleeding.

Originally Posted by hal

Assume the following: Mankind does NOT work a rigorous work schedule like we do today with 8 hour days, 40 hour work weeks, weekends off, etc. Further assume that people are people. Would you want your children to wander anywhere near an explosives shed left unguarded at a construction site? Would you want your kid to be where there is the prospect of an explosive charge being set off during heavy duty construction? So too might the citizens of a city object to having a demonic being show up unexpectedly due to a spell backfire. Assume anything else you wish otherwise.

One way to guard against demons appearing would be to cast in a location prepared with plenty of guards, magical traps and Pentagram spells etc. At least if the demon is unlikely to appear far away from the caster. However that would tend to concentrate spellcasting in a few expensive locations rather than this kind of spellcasting done to assist local work projects.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Andreas

The other results aren't much of a problem in many situations. Shape Earth rarely affecting the wrong target does not matter much unless you are working next to an important structure, being stunned for a while is not much of a problem outside of combat and losing access to the spell for a while just makes you slightly less productive on average (or not even that if you know some other useful spell as well).

Other than summoning a demon, the worst one for that kind of spellcasting is probably the caster being injured. However it is just 1d injury. Perhaps you want to have someone nearby who can heal you if that kind of injury is likely to cause problematic bleeding.


One way to guard against demons appearing would be to cast in a location prepared with plenty of guards, magical traps and Pentagram spells etc. At least if the demon is unlikely to appear far away from the caster. However that would tend to concentrate spellcasting in a few expensive locations rather than this kind of spellcasting done to assist local work projects.

So, how might the general population respond to mages after a single "demonic being" shows up in response to workman spell casting?

Note too, that in the critical spell failure table itself, it says this in the paragraph regarding demons showing up on a roll of an 18:

The GM may waive this result if, in his opinion, caster and spell were both lily-white, pure good in intent.

As this is a GM nuanced thing, some game versions, Demons never appear for spell failures, and in others, they always appear on an 18 on the table ignoring the caveat.

But explore this a little further. How many guardsmen are required to help protect against accidental summoning? If it takes 4 guards to reliably stop a demon, and you have five people doing this (the mage plus guards), it might not be "efficient" as say, ordinary masons doing the work. So... How might this work out in your opinion?

[hal]

Adding more information so that people can perhaps get a better feel for this...

Per Worminghall, we have:

420 Students
60 Advanced Students
39 Teachers of Magic

For those who want to utilize the time use rules to build characters - feel free, although, the rules for character point accumulation for spells is somewhat different than presented in the time use rules of GURPS BASIC SET CHARACTERS (or was it CAMPAIGNS?).

But with only four colleges of spells to choose from, depending on the distribution of what students want to learn what, we might see around 105 students per college (if evenly distributed!). Then you have the 60 advanced students who have managed to survive 4 years of training.

So, take it from there. :)

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by hal

So, how might the general population respond to mages after a single "demonic being" shows up in response to workman spell casting?

Note too, that in the critical spell failure table itself, it says this in the paragraph regarding demons showing up on a roll of an 18:

The GM may waive this result if, in his opinion, caster and spell were both lily-white, pure good in intent.

As this is a GM nuanced thing, some game versions, Demons never appear for spell failures, and in others, they always appear on an 18 on the table ignoring the caveat.

But explore this a little further. How many guardsmen are required to help protect against accidental summoning? If it takes 4 guards to reliably stop a demon, and you have five people doing this (the mage plus guards), it might not be "efficient" as say, ordinary masons doing the work. So... How might this work out in your opinion?

Unless you can blame it on something else, magic use in general is likely to become very unpopular if a summoned demon causes a large amount of colateral damage. The mages might still be able to continue as usual if the people in power consider them useful enough, but that would make them very dependant on such continued favor. It is also possible that the large number of demons which would be summoned if you have many such mages would pose a direct existential risk to their entire society.

Well, as written it is not "demons never appear for spell failures" for some game versions, rather for some game versions, demons don't appear if "caster and spell were both lily-white, pure good in intent" (and that is a rather strict requirement!). Of course, the GM might be even more lenient than that, but that would fall under the general principle of GMs being able to do whatever they want rather than something directly suggested in the rules.

GURPS MAGIC only gives a character sheet for a single kind of demon on page 155 (said to be the kind of demon which most commonly appears). It is not at all impossible for four guards to kill it, but it would be a risky fight unless they are very good and the demon could be quite the problem for their community if it temporarily runs away (Flight, Stealth, Night Vision etc.).

[hal]

In response to Andreas...

Might it be safe to assume that the general population might react with some level of trepidation to mages? Perhaps a social stigma worth -1 reaction rolls in general, and a -2 reaction when actively in the presence of ongoing spell casting?