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StevenH · 06-18-2021, 07:58 PM

I've been thinking about spells and utility. Traditionally (gaming wise) spells have been aimed at adventuring, not supporting the functions of a village. Which is fine, for adventurers. Not so fine when trying to run a village that has access to mages and at least some control over which spells they are taught.

It seems that the lord of the manor (and thus village) would want his mages to be able to help the lord maximize the effectiveness of the village. Ultimately, this means taxes, but smart lords understand that happy, productive villagers pay more in taxes.

So the best use of the mages would then be to mitigate disasters, help with farming, reduce crop losses due to pests/mold/moisture, construction, and production of goods.

In the case of crop losses, pests would be best controlled by Beast Summoning: set up a box for the mage to hide in, surrounded by traps (of a type based upon what will be summoned). The mage then casts the spell, pulling in all of the pests of that type within 10 miles, where they run into the traps/nets/arrows of the waiting villagers. (The mage is in a box because the animals summoned stop when the mage is visible. The box could also simply be a tarp draped over them.)
Crop losses due to a hard rain just before harvest could be handled by the Rain spell, or by using Destroy Water, or Shape Water. The trick here is to not let the grains stay wet and get moldy.
Given the above, what other problems would a village run into? It's these kinds of things that the mages would be turned loose on, and their spell list and education should reflect this.

Thoughts?

06-18-2021, 07:58 PM	#80
StevenH Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Portland, Oregon	Re: Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3 I've been thinking about spells and utility. Traditionally (gaming wise) spells have been aimed at adventuring, not supporting the functions of a village. Which is fine, for adventurers. Not so fine when trying to run a village that has access to mages and at least some control over which spells they are taught. It seems that the lord of the manor (and thus village) would want his mages to be able to help the lord maximize the effectiveness of the village. Ultimately, this means taxes, but smart lords understand that happy, productive villagers pay more in taxes. So the best use of the mages would then be to mitigate disasters, help with farming, reduce crop losses due to pests/mold/moisture, construction, and production of goods. In the case of crop losses, pests would be best controlled by Beast Summoning: set up a box for the mage to hide in, surrounded by traps (of a type based upon what will be summoned). The mage then casts the spell, pulling in all of the pests of that type within 10 miles, where they run into the traps/nets/arrows of the waiting villagers. (The mage is in a box because the animals summoned stop when the mage is visible. The box could also simply be a tarp draped over them.) Crop losses due to a hard rain just before harvest could be handled by the Rain spell, or by using Destroy Water, or Shape Water. The trick here is to not let the grains stay wet and get moldy. Given the above, what other problems would a village run into? It's these kinds of things that the mages would be turned loose on, and their spell list and education should reflect this. Thoughts? __________________ Warmest regards, StevenH My current worldbuilding project. You can find the Adventure Logs of the campaign here. I try to write them up as narrative prose, with illustrations. As such, they are "embellished" accounts of the play sessions. Link of the moment: Bestiary of Plants. In a world of mana, plants evolved to use it as an energy source. It is also the new home of the Alaconius Lectures, a series of essays about the various Colleges of Spells.