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

[palecur.livejournal.com]

Assuming magic to be both useful and reliable, what distinguishes it from technology? Both end up being 'perform these actions in this way, get this result'. This might sound snarky, but it is not meant to be. Dang text interface.

edit: technology is not science

[seawasp]

Depends on whose universe you're talking about.

In mine, there's several points that distinguish it from what WE generally call technology:

1) You can't teach it to everyone. Or rather, you can teach and teach all you like, but if you haven't got the talent, you won't get past the most basic of magical effects. Technology, you can teach to anyone with the intellect to build/use it, and that's a pretty basic thing.

2) It's limited to living beings to perform. This means you CANNOT DO MASS PRODUCTION except with some very peculiar and limited approaches. While you can in fact go out and buy a Wand of Cleaning Cantrips for your house use, and get it recharged every few months, you can't crank out Flying Cars for All; each car needs either a single wizard of very high power to spend months and months working on, or a bunch of middle-power wizards doing gruntwork with high-power wizard coming in to lock things down.

3) It's very personal. A wizard develops his power throughout his life, putting his own "stamp" on it. Moreover, unlike technology, a SINGLE wizard can in a reasonable lifetime go through the ENTIRE progression of magic, from the very weakest spells to ones that can shake the fabric of reality itself. A single human being CANNOT go through that progression; he cannot start with chipping flint and go to building jet aircraft by himself. He can't carry the gadgetry, the manufacturing and mining plants, etc., that would be needed, and doing anything at the higher ranges of technology (that we know) takes a LOT of time. He also cannot BYPASS certain things to get to what he wants; you can't decide to ignore learning that boring metallurgy and chemistry and construction stuff and go straight to making portable .50 caliber machine guns, because you need to KNOW that stuff to build a .50 cal. A wizard, by contrast, can choose not to bother with spells to make materials and build things and go straight to shooting fireballs.

4) Magic is not generally transferrable. While a magician CAN make items others can use, that's a specialized act, a difficult one, and for any reasonably powerful item one that costs the wizard some of his own power for a while. Technology is infinitely transferrable. Anyone can use any gadget as long as they don't lack the physical capabilities.

5) Magic is subject to belief. A gun doesn't CARE if you believe in it; there's no protection for you in that. Disbelief can damage a spell, focused will can blunt or unravel one directed at you.

There are some other differences, but in my universe these are probably the most important.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

That's one reason I picked D&D (Specifically 3.X/Pathfinder) magic, because it is essentially a very powerful technology. It's also a perfect example of the writers of a game not looking at the logical results of their magic rules, in the form of the item creation rules.

AD&D magic is still a technology, but the difficulty of making magic items reduces the effects greatly. D&D 4E magic...well 4E has an overactive law of thermodynamics, making mass magic item creation impractical.