When the real world and D&D magic collide.

[roseembolism]

In a recent discussion thread the question was brought up: visualize a modern world where D&D magic was developed in the middle ages. After considering what D&D magic is capable of, my personal view is that it would resemble nothing like either our world or the standard D&D world. For example, consider the effects of:


1431: Roun France
Joan of Arc: "You. Are going to burn. Me. Me. Do you want fire? Here's some fire- FIRE STORM! And while we're at it (summon) Talk to the Arcon about God and heresy."

(High level clerical spells and summonings could easily start, or end a crusade, and have really strange effects on religion.)


1512: Italy
Machiavelli: (hand gesture) "You will stop supporting the Medici's attack against Florence."
Pope Julius II: "I will stop supporting the Medici's attack against Florence."
Machiavelli: (hand gesture) "You will appoint me as your personal adviser."
Pope Julius II: "I will appoint you as my personal adviser."

(The effects of Dominate, Charm Person and similar spells can't be understated in completely warping he political state of the world. Just consider how many events in history could have been changed if a single ruler had decided other than he did.)


1540; Germany
Martin Luthor: "How DARE the Papists monopolize Healing Altars and Hero's Feasts for the wealthy! My Healing Altars and Hero's Feast Altars will serve everyone for free!"

(The ability to create magical devices will have the greatest effect on the world. It's possible in 3.X to create immobile chargeless at-will devices for spells up to True Resurrection. Sure they would be expensive, but the ability to bring back any deceased with no ill effect would massively change warfare, and the costs could be amortized over thousands of people. Similar devices for curing diseases could render plagues irrelevant, and at-will Heroes' Feasts devices could render most agriculture redundant.)


1505: Florence
Leonardo de Vinci: "And so we see by guiding the stream of water from the Decanter of Endless Water against the vanes of the screw, we have a source of motive power for pumps, cranes, carriages and an endless assortment of other devices. In fact, I am now working on a self-propelled balloon which will..."

(I've mentioned before that medieval and Renaissance engineers were very talented and ingenious in their own right, and their main limitations in construction were materials and power. Magic eliminates those restraints. Spells like Fabrication and Wall of Stone could revolutionize construction and engineering.)


In other words, very shortly the world will look nothing at all like history. We're talking about a Renaissance Singularity where the major limitations of the era are eliminated, and the political landscape subject to shifting at the whim of people with the right spells. And I think that considering what powerful magic could do to change pre-industrial Europe may be useful in thinking about creating unique fantasy worlds, and making them look more unique than a faux-medieval Europe.

So does anyone have any ideas of what bizarre things do you think could come out of a D&D/Historical Renaissance?

Comments

[chaos-israel.livejournal.com]

>at-will Heroes' Feasts devices could render most agriculture redundant

That right there is effectively The Singularity.

Does 3.X still have the Minor Creation/Major Creation spells that allow you to conjure up simple inexpensive items out of thin air? Items with those spells would effectively be replicators.

Greater Teleport: "Distance is not a factor."^[1] So the 12 guys who have been on the Moon? Could go back any time they wanted to. Depending on the number of people they could teleport with them, we could have a permanent colony on the Moon by now.


^[1](I think Einstein's head just exploded.)

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the social upheavals caused amortized good food would be drastic. ell they would even in today's society.

And yes, 3.X does have Creation spells, and fabrication spells, though I believe complex items require skills. But the effect on manufacturing would be dramatic. As would the "Wall of Stone" spell.

And never mind the moon. Greater Teleport would allow quick travel anywhere in the world. And anywhere two cities are connected by a teleport portal, sailing ships and caravan routes would be obsolete. Step through the portal in Florance, walk out in Beijing.

[seawasp]

Again, though, depends on the frequency of magical capability, and is looking on the positive without remembering the negative.

On my world of Zarathan (my main FRPG setting and part of my main writing world, mentioned once in Digital Knight and the central location in my partially completed "Balanced Sword" trilogy, which I hope to see published one day), there are or were things like flying ships (airplanes), teleport gates, etc., but a lot of these get balanced out or negated by opposing magicians and gods. Teleportation is ... REASONABLY safe, but it's less so for major characters/beings because their attempts to bend space and time will be subject to a lot more attention. Just a LITTLE interference with a teleport can have Bad Effects.

There are still farmers, etc., but what they DO have are charms which are as good or better than our best fertilizers, etc., enabling them to produce a lot more, reliably, on less ground.

However, what you DON'T have are countries as we know them. "Countries" like the State of Elbon Nomicon or the Empire of the Mountain are, in actuality, a long string of cities with islands of relative safety and stability around them, connected by roads that are enchanted and well defended, but mostly with what amounts to variable wildernesses between them. The largest city on Zarathan is probably Zarathanton (the human name; the Ancient Sauran/Dragon name for it is Fanalam' T' ameris' a' u' Zahr-a-Thana T'ikon), and it's probably got between 150,000 to 200,000 people in it. Possibly as much as twice that, but no more.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

The rarity and power of magic will indeed be key. One reason I picked D&D magic (besides the familiarity) is it's both common (anyone with an above-average Int can apparently learn it) and extremely powerful for magic systems. Something like Gloranthan magic would have a very widespread, but much less drastic effect, and Ars MAgica style magic would probably disappear. ;')

And I do want to read your Balanced Sward trilogy one day. It sounds interesting.

[seawasp]

Well, how COMMON it is in D&D is actually GM's choice. A *PC* can choose to be a mage, but then, it's assuming that the PC has the talent, period, and that spell selection is the only constraint guided by INT. You've got to be bright enough to cast it no matter what your talent.

However, a GM could (and I do) rule that in the GENERAL population the percentage with the talent to become a full-blown wizard (as opposed to learning simple cleaning cantrips) is very, very low.

Similarly, how many people the gods choose to actually bestow their powers upon could be very small.

The Balanced Sword trilogy begins with "Fall of Saints" -- I have that one done. I posted some sections of it in my LJ some time ago.

[seawasp]

Well, the Heroes' Feast bit is dependent on the number of clerics able to cast it.

The same thing applies to most of the others. How many clerics and mages are there? One out of ten, a hundred, a thousand, a million? Any number will change things, but how MUCH they change things, and in what way, will depend greatly on how many there are.

The teleportation thing? Anyone able to do "Adaption" and Teleport can get to the moon in a very few steps. As in, if you're a reasonably high level mage you can get there with no problem.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

back in AD&D times, that was true. But in 3.X and Pathfinder, one can make a "use activated" item, that operates every time a command word is said. Sure such a Hero's Feast item would cost 132,000 gold, but it can cast a hero's Feast 600 times an hour, feeding 6,600 people. Charge one silver per person, and it makes it's cost back in 200 hours of use. Or you can be cheap and spend 30,000 gold, and make a Create Food and Water item that could feed 14,400 people a day. At 1 copper piece per person, that makes its costs back as soon as 210 days. Scary, right?

Now consider the same with a True Resurrection spell.

And oh yeah, I see some peasant writing "Wizard's on the Moon".

[seawasp]

No, I know the calculations. It's still limited by money available and by how common the mages are -- each an individual GM choice. If they leave it "mages are as common as those with the intellect" and "132000 gold is easy to come by, even though that's FOUR TONS OF GOLD, worth about a hundred million dollars in today's money", then the world D&D shows is so nonsensical as to be not worth even thinking of. And I don't. If it makes that little sense, there's factors that they're not showing to make it work.

In mine, for instance, a silver piece PER MEAL? Commoners can't afford that. Hell, the middle-class artisans would find that pricey. Even a copper per day isn't affordable by lower classes; a copper will get you a room in a cheap inn, and, well, the commoners can't afford to stay in inns very often.

Resurrection/Raise dead is another. "Order of the Stick" plays around with this, but also shows the usual solution: if the soul doesn't want to COME back, you can throw all the Resurrections at it you want, you get nothing. Same for Speak With Dead; if the soul, or the soul's owner (Deity who took the soul to its realm) don't want to play, "I'm sorry; your call cannot be completed as dialed."

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

Hum. Did medieval Europe even have 4 tons of gold to play with? Notwithstanding the assumption that any character of the appropriate level has that much wealth to play with I wouldn't assume that devices using that much wealth would be first or second generation magic items. Multiple or even many iterations of wealth generation by lower level devices (say, a command operated Plant Growth item), and spells like Fabricate, Wall of Iron and the Creation spells would be needed first. But cities that manage to spend the wealth for something like a Cure Disease gateway would have a ready-made source of wealth as a pilgrimage point.

Also, bear in mind the medievals were able to build some very extensive structures by amortizing the construction costs over decades. 30,000 gold isn't as unattainable by a city when divided by say, 20 years.