New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by YankeeGamer

This could be interesting, Beware of side effects. Magic items can't be used where there is no mana, but over time, mages will be able to do things like forge better steel, build more precise instruments, and the like. The magic is done; the resulting materials are non-magical, but spells were used to work them. Over time, that's a big advantage--huge advantage.

NOTE: This barely conforms to the Merlin designation, but I'd say it does.

The slow build side-effects and the barely conforming to type are things that make the setting fun and even stylish. It can go Clockpunk Alchemetic real easily. A lashings of Newton's Cannon are there too.

[YankeeGamer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The slow build side-effects and the barely conforming to type are things that make the setting fun and even stylish. It can go Clockpunk Alchemetic real easily. A lashings of Newton's Cannon are there too.

In "barely conforming to type," I wasn't saying that the timeline is bad--far from it. I could just see some Infinity cataloger saying, "Who named this timeline "MERLIN." Merlin means high tech!"

Not all names will fit into the categories that one would expect.

Interesting timeline!

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one...

Merlin-6

The local year is 1735 on the Q5 world. The normal manna area extends from Marrakesh North to Tromsø, and from Reykjavík east to Arkhangelsk.

The world beyond the Normal Manna area is 60% No Manna/40% Low Manna. With populated areas tending toward No Manna.

Cairo is just beyond the edge of the Normal Manna area although Jerusalem and Antioh are not. The Sahara desert is the largest no Manna area on the planet.

The Americas are slightly richer in manna than the planetary norm, but not so much as to distort the whole equation.

As to what spells are known. If a spell requires Magery 2 or more, it is unknown. If a spell requires more than four prerequisite spells, it is unknown. The better known Colleges of magic are Plant, Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Illusion/Creation, Empathy and Communication, Animal Control, and Divination. Be lenient with these schools and very strict on others.

Alchemical study combined with certain potions can grant a person Magery-0. Individuals born and raised in a Normal Manna zone are more likely to become Mages. Individuals who naturally become Mages can become much stronger mages than those who don't.

[PTTG]

Urbanna is a distant alternate worldline. Here, wild places are no mana. The more densely populated an area is, the higher its mana level is, all the way to dangerous extremes.

This property has existed for a long time, and so the history of the earliest human settlements was radically different. The most ideal mana level for a stable society would generally be High Mana -- any higher, and magical disasters happen frequently, while lower levels mean that far fewer are able to cast spells. High Mana occurs at around 700-1000 people / square km, meaning that even a low tech settlement can surpass that limit without care.

The natives believe the effect to be tied to hearthstones and divine favor, though in fact it is a matter of where people sleep over a period of several weeks.

[YankeeGamer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Urbanna is a distant alternate worldline. Here, wild places are no mana. The more densely populated an area is, the higher its mana level is, all the way to dangerous extremes.

This property has existed for a long time, and so the history of the earliest human settlements was radically different. The most ideal mana level for a stable society would generally be High Mana -- any higher, and magical disasters happen frequently, while lower levels mean that far fewer are able to cast spells. High Mana occurs at around 700-1000 people / square km, meaning that even a low tech settlement can surpass that limit without care.

The natives believe the effect to be tied to hearthstones and divine favor, though in fact it is a matter of where people sleep over a period of several weeks.

This has interesting applications. It makes exploration difficult, since stay at homes are used to having magic available, but the howling wilderness is even more disinct from civilization than in worlds like ours.

How fast the mana drops off will make a difference, too. If, a mile outside of a town, the mana is essentially gone, farming is more difficult. If its very gradual, then farms still have mana to work with.

Sea travel could be even more frightening than in OTL, as nothing works, and the usual ways of getting water and preserving food fail utterly.

NEAT!

Mana enhancers will be utterly priceless to explorers. So will, eventually, mana dampeners, to allow decent sized cities and universities.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Urbanna is a distant alternate worldline. Here, wild places are no mana. The more densely populated an area is, the higher its mana level is, all the way to dangerous extremes.

This would lend itself to cultural splintering. Any isolated colony would develop magic, and the space between settlements has no magic. And people do get dependent on the safety of civilized comforts, so if there's no well-traveled roads, they might simply not travel.

Meaning that the majority of communities could develop in complete isolation. Just two day's travel from a major city could be one or more completely different civilizations, with their own languages, religions, and beliefs. All it would take is one group wandering off the beaten track and setting up a permanent camp. They would get magic in a few weeks and be able to care for themselves, and cultural drift would begin.

This place would be worse than the tribes of New Guinea for culutral unity. Anyplace past a well-guarded and maintained roadway could have who-knows how many tribes, societies, or mysterious mutants.

EDIT: And I just thought of that ...

Small population + magic + isolation = speciation. Magical mutations conserved via inbreeding, resulting in new races coming into existence. A roadway inn could look like the Star Wars Cantina.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

Meaning that the majority of communities could develop in complete isolation.

Possibly. You do need to decide to what extent magic works between settlements. Does being completely bubbled in a no-mana zone mean people can't teleport in, send magical messages, cast divinations where the answers are in another zone etc.

And it's not *actually* any harder to build empires - after all magic doesn't work between towns here on Earth either and by virtue of being no-mana there aren't any supernatural threats in the wilderness Earth lacks. And by the time you are close enough for the other guy's magical defenses to work, your attacks will too. Travel only seems harder by comparison because urban life is better, and there is less incentive because you can probably conjure up stuff more easily than you can trade for or steal it. But it can still be done readily enough if you determined enough to endure some discomfort.

[Whitewings]

AOSE-1

Magic has always been around, from the earliest days of the paleolithic up until now. But the world's gone along pretty much the same because although real and recognized, it's also rather useless. Or rather, it was until recently. In 1660, a noblewoman living near Bezier decided it was time to start really studying this stuff, and began writing letters to her friends and also performing experiments in the subject, collecting data and comparing information. After several years, she sponsored the first ever Conférence Internationale Thaumaturgique, to which almost all the attendees were women. You see, magical aptitude is strongly, but not strictly, sex-linked; out of every twelve or so potential magicians, only one will be a man. The first Conférence laid a great deal of groundwork, putting sorcery onto a scientific basis for the first time in history, and over the hundred years since, the basics of theoretical magic have been largely established. The sun, moon and planets, in relation to each other and the fixed stars of the constellations, influence various occult forces associated with their positions and conjunctions, which are referred to as "decans." By using suitable resonators, a person with the needed sensitivity can "draw down" these forces and direct them by force of will and strength of mind and body. Not all resonators are yet known; some are beyond the technologies available to create, and other just haven't been discovered yet. Someone with the appropriate background education can create a desired effect more or less at will, or develop the technique needed relatively easily. It is currently 1670.

The potential to become a magician is sex-linked, but the strength of a magician is not. There are four levels of talent, with each having roughly half as many magicians as the one beneath: Eight "marginal" to four "adequate" to two "competent" to one "brilliant." Magic also runs very strongly in families, to the point that out of a hundred girls born of magician parents, 77 will be magicians of some degree. Out of a hundred such boys, only 6 will have the same ability. Non-magicians can and do have magician children, but it's very rare: Six girls in a hundred, one boy in two hundred. Parentage only affects probability, not strength. (The above facts are true and provable; accepted and believed are another matter)

Certain things are currently not possible: Summonings of supernatural beings have not yet been successfully performed: no angels, demons, elemental spirits, et. al. Nobody has yet found a way to store astral energies in objects. These might not be possible, or the needed techniques might require insights not yet achieved.

The Cabal has a great interest in this world, more specifically in sabotaging its progress (they don't want competition), though their tendency towards misogyny does cause problems. ISWAT and Centrum, on the other hand, regard this line as a golden opportunity to study the development of magic and magical theory, which naturally brings them into conflict with the Cabal.

OOC: This timeline is a Normal Mana zone, and magic uses Ritual Magic based on Applied Astronomy and using the Astrological Modifiers rules from Thaumatology. All uses of magic requires at least some sort of resonator, even it's just a bar of rose-scented soap for Water College (that one might actually give a penalty!).

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

Magonia-1


This Q4 world is being closely watched by Homeline. In what they take to be around 780 BCE Aliens crash land on the Earth, near Rhodes in the Aegean. Homer's poems about the Aliens along with the Iliad and the Odyssey are centtral to Greek literature. The Aliens lost most of their equipment and technology in the Crash. But they had still transformed Greece.

The TL5 (think 1740's) Empire the Greeks and the aliens have built in the Mediterranean looks like it might conquer the world. However, other groups of the same species of Alien have landed in India, China, and Meso-america. It looks like a four way fight to rule the world is brewing. Greece, India, China, and the Toltecs, winner takes all. Meanwhile, are the aliens really rivals, or puppet masters?

[Astromancer]

Try this one...

Due to Caligula and Tiberius both being poisons in AD 34. Claudius became emperor of Rome seven years early. And those around him were very different. There was no marriage to either Messalina or Agrippina the Younger, instead he married a quiet steady woman who he had several children by and who gave him a quiet loving home. Claudius in this world lived to be 87 years old. His eldest son and successor was quiet and unassuming, like his mother, and also quietly strong and forceful.

These Julio-Claudians gave Rome three centuries of quiet, just, firm, government. A friend and lover of Claudius' grandson was something of an inventor and a crank about agriculture. He introduced the Moldboard Plow into Gaul and also the Box Bellows and the Spinning Wheel. The local year is 870 AD or 1624 Ab urbe condita as the folks here would say.

Rumors are getting back to Rome of islands as far away as Ultima Thule or further. The Northern sea raiders claim to find while bears and exotic ivories in these lands. "We shall send an admiral to discover the truth of this."

Basically, Romans and Vikings in Greenland and Vinland .