Mythic City is a game I play in.  I decided tonight that it'd be fun to do rather cartoon-ish portraits of various characters.  For some strange reason, I decided on Diesel here as my first one.

I'll try to get another one done some time this week.

Most of the ink came from a nifty little brush pen I'm trying out.  The drawing is just a little to small to use it to best effect, but it'll do.  I may work a little bigger on the others.  If so, don't feel bad Cale.  It doesn't mean I love you less than everyone else :)

David G.

Something is wrong with the Oraculator.  It works on my computer, but it won't download for some reason.  I presume I did something wrong when publishing it.  I'll try to figure it out in the near future.  Till then, I suppose you'll have to rely on tarot cards and bird entrails for all your divinatory needs.

David G.

Today, we introduce an exciting new feature: Software!

I'm trying to learn C#, and the best way to do that is to write programs, so I'm writing programs.  They're not, at this point, very GOOD programs, but there you go.

This one was written to fill the vital need for on-the-spot predictions of the future.  I call it the Amazing Desktop Oraculator.  Its results are absolutly guarenteed to be acurate.  Unfortunately, the nature of quantum uncertainty means they might not remain accurate in any specific timeline, but they're accurate in some reality.

Desktop Oraculator Mk1.application (5.28 KB)

You'll need to be running .NET 3.5 to make it work, but it's survived extensive testing.  (I tried it twice before I posted it)

Here's some more doodling from work.

Still considering what I might do with David's Nearly Adequate Web Comic, or if I want to do something completely different in the same style.  I like the sketchiness and think it could be used to interesting effect.

I haven't done one of these in a while.  I have some of them laying around.  This one comes courtesy of my friend (and landlady) Kate.  I've had it for months now, but been too lazy to scan it.

The original document is a flyer from a Chinese place, and a recipt stuck in the top.  I'm not sure why it was written that way.

Prepare to be unimpressed.

I know.  Wow, huh?

Sorry for the quality.  I did this in pencil and rammed the threshold all the way up to make it visible.  I've been thinking that I'd try to put up SOMETHING on my blog every week day for a while.  This is today's entry.

But I know you're asking yourself "why?"  Or else you're looking for more Unisystem stuff.  If you are asking "why?" I have an answer.  Long, long ago, I had a webcomic called David's Nearly Adequate Web Comic.  It was kind of mildly amusing, but suffered from fairly bad art, and from the fact that I didn't have the time to really dedicate to it.  So I've been thinking about maybe rectifying that situation, possibly.

If I do restart DNAWC, it'll be with some changes, like much simpler art, as seen above.  The simplified art will mean some changes in the script.  In fact, I'll probalby throw out the old one and start all over, with a different take on the comic.  I'm still in the early stages of thinking about it.  I have a couple more sketches to throw up, and after that we'll see.

Welcome to another installment of the project that never ends.  I've decided to change my organization style a little bit to take on "magicians" all at once instead of spread out over Magic of the Lower Air and Magic of the Underworld.  For one thing, I realized there was still more Magic of the Land that didn't quite fit the mold of the earlier article.  For another thing, I'm hideously disorganized, so that's just the way I roll.

Ways of Magic

The Land provides power to kings.  The Stars provide destiny to Men.  But there are other powers and principalities in Creation, and those who learn their secrets can become powerful, or go mad.  Men call them wizards and witches, sorcerers and shamans, or sometimes darker names.

Wizards, by whatever name, are set apart from other men by knowledge.  They know secrets, both arcane and mundane.  They seek out knowledge known to no other.  Their knowledge is their power and often their downfall, because there are things Man should not ken.

Not all wizards have the same secrets, and not all men who know any secrets would choose to call themselves wizards.  The smith who sings the songs of fire and iron and blood as he hammers ore into a blade has found a secret, likely taught to him by his master long ago, but he may very well know no others and would never think to learn them.

Common Magic

The bow bends as your back must bend.
The string holds, as your will must hold.
The shaft is straight, as your sight must see.
The fletchings are of falcon's feather, better to hunt.
The falcon strikes not where the rabbit is, but where he will be.
You do also.
-- A huntsman's rhyme.

The simplest magic, used by practically everyone, is the magic of harmony.  The Spirits of Land and Lower Air follow patterns and forms.  Even without knowing their languages, it is possible to interact with them in minor ways.  In fact, it is impossible not to.  The spirits are everywhere, suffusing everything.  The magic of the common man is built upon harmony with the spirits.  The Smith knows how to appeal to fire and iron.  The farmer knows how to appease the spirits of the Land and those of his crops.  The mother is familiar with the spirits of the hearth and asks them to keep her barins healthy.

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Gamespeak: Common magic is just skills, at least at the beginning.  There will be some sort of mechanism for really magical uses of skills.  A normal smith can make a sword.  A magical smith (or a wizard) can make a sword that can slay a dragon.

When we talk about the Starborn later on, we'll see something similar with them, I think.

The main thing for now is to get the idea that the way this world works is that spirits are part of everything.  A fish really does participate in the category of "fish," as Socrates would have said.  So when people manipulate their environment, they're doing "magic" in a small sense.
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Hedge Magic

The bitter draught cures many ills
-- Old proverb

Somewhere near every village is a hermit's hut or a witch's cottage.  Here, the small folk may go to intercede for help with the spirit world.  So-called "hedge wizards" are often not very powerful, as the mighty masters of magic reckon such things, but they can heal simple hurts and prepare minor charms and potions.

Hedge magic is often drawn from local Spirits of the Land rather than any spirits of the lower Air.  It is sometimes drawn from no spirits at all.  A wise old woman can dispense advice that seems supernatural, but is really nothing more than the benefit of years of experience.  That same woman probably knows every plant in the nearby forest, and which will cure a fever or cause a pox.

Most often, hedge wizards have no power to compel spirits.  They can bargain with those they can see, and they know what those spirits want and what they fear.  Some of this knowledge is useful everywhere, but much of it is strictly local.  As such, hedge wizards are often rooted to one spot, a locus of power where they have struck pacts with local powers and learned the simple secrets of the people around them.

The Hedge Wizard's tricks:
- Healing craft and herb lore, and natural knowledge.
- Gossip:  Often, Hedge wizards have spirits of one sort or another to collect intelligence for them.  This is generally passive watching, rather than active spying.  Besides that, the hedge wizard is often someone respected for wisdom, so people tell him things.
- Spiritual favors:  Anyone can learn to bargain with the local Spirits of the Land, and most people at least learn to live with them.  Hedge magicians learn their habits and manners, and can interact with them more easily than other people.  This primarily involves learning what minor Spirits want, what they fear, and where they can be found.  If the local mischievous sprites can't abide the presence of iron, then a Hedge magician who knows this fact can ward his home against the faeries for the price of a sack of old nails.  If he knows they can be trapped in wicker baskets when they're drunk, and that they can't resist the lure of honey mead, then he has a way to force them to do his bidding.  That could be dangerous, but useful.  Bribery can also be efficacious.
- Minor powers:  In their truck with Spirits of the Land, some hedge wizards earn or buy supernatural abilities.  These will vary widely depending on what the local Spirits of the Land have to offer.
- Speech with the dead: Hedge wizards probably pick up a little about how to deal with Spirits of the Underworld, particularly those that manifest without being summoned.

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Gamespeak: Hedge magic is minor magic that just about anyone might know a little bit of.  In fact, the real keys are perfectly mundane skills with supernatural, or seemingly supernatural, applications.  A hedge wizard is likely to use his Etiquette (Barrowmen) skill to do stuff like bargain with the Barrowmen to find lost sheep or to fight enemies.  Anybody else in the village could do the same thing, but they're prevented because (a) they're afraid of the Barrowmen, or (b) they don't know what they can use to curry the Barrowmen's favor.  Mechanically, this isn't stuff the hedge wizard has on his sheet, but to any superstitious peasant, it's plenty magic enough.

Hedge wizards are likely to have hit up any local spirits for supernatural abilities, if such things are available.  For instance, if there were a Spirit of the Land who could convey the power of true seeing by kissing one's eyes, a hedge wizard is the person in the area who's likely to know that, and know how to ask the Spirit for the power without getting cursed or killed for his trouble.

Those powers will probably be some kind of Advantages/Disadvantages with pretty straight-forward rules, and would be available to anyone who took the correct actions.  It's just that a hedge wizard is more likely than anyone else to know what the correct actions are.
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High Wizardry

Jared Dun was the seventh of seven brothers.  When each of his brothers had reached his naming day and asked the village god for a gift, they had asked for strength of arm; sharpness of eye; for swords that would not blunt; for courage that would not quit; for limbs that would not tire; for fortunes that would not fail.  But Jared Dun asked "May I always know what I need to know."  His brothers mocked him for his weak gift.

In the neighboring valley, there was a king who's daughter had come under a curse, and together with her the whole valley.  Everyone slept in endless sleep, circled round by great thorn vines.  Thus it had been for all of Jared's life.  And practically every young man tried his luck to enter the enchanted wood to free the princess.  But no matter how strong their arms or sharp their eyes or swords, no matter how tireless their limbs or their courage, they could not pass the thorns.

After Jared Dun was named, he took up his staff with a bundle of his meager possessions and assayed the dark wood.  Although there was little movement, he could hear the songs of birds, and Jared Dun reasoned that if the birds could move through sleep and thorny vines, might he not as well?  Whistling the song of the birds, he entered the wood, which parted before him.

There came he to the castle gates, which were locked.  But Jared Dun reasoned that all locks opened with a key, and if he had one key, might it not be persuaded to open many locks?  He took an old iron key from his pack and whispered to it "Open," and the key opened the ancient lock.

Onward, Jared Dun walked, whistling his birdsong, and the vines parted before him.  Where they parted, they revealed rich hangings, piles of coin, and the possessions of a wealthy king.  At last, Jared found the princess, who slept on in a bower, perfectly preserved except for a wound on her finger where she'd pricked it on a spindle.  Jared reasoned that the wound was magical, and if it were treated, she might awaken, and with her all the others.

But then did Jared Dun reason further.  He knew this magical wood must have been the work of a powerful Lord or Lady of the Fey, who would likely be offended to see his work undone.  So Jared Dun left the princess to sleep, with naught but a kiss.  He filled his pack with coins and jewels and returned from whence he came, and at the edge of the wood, he buried three coins as payment to the lord of the wood.

So-called "High Wizardry" is only a few short steps from simpler hedge wizardry.  They are steps that few people take, though.  Much that magic can accomplish can be accomplished more easily by strength or human cunning.  The rewards of wizardry are long in coming.  "Wizardry" itself is a difficult term to pin down.  Wizards learn to deal with all manner of spirits, and thus no single wizard knows more than a fraction of all the possibilities.

Spirits of the Lower Air: Wizards who learn the secrets of the Lower Air master the powers of the physical world.  They can call down fire, dissolve into clouds, heal wounds, and the like.  This is accomplished through knowledge, rather than supernatural will.  A wizard learns the ways of different spirits, and ultimately their special languages, which he may divine through meditation, study of ancient texts and natural philosophy, and the revelations of the stars.  At the last, a wizard transcends mere mortal knowledge and can understand things as the spirits do.  Then, he can call upon spirits, compel them, bind them, and use them for his own ends.

Such arts have limits.  A spirit can not be summoned where none exist.  Nor can one be commanded to do things beyond its personal ken.  Thus, a wizard of fire might need a raging bonfire o're which to work his arts, and he could bend a spirit of flame to the task of burning something, but not to the task of knitting wool into cloth.  If a true example of a Spirit's bailiwick cannot be produced, a symbolic representation will suffice, but the true thing is almost always to be preferred.

A wizard can command a spirit in almost any way inside these limits.  Classically, the commands wizards give fall into these groups:
- Banishment: forcing a spirit to leave an area.  Banishing a spirit ends that spirit's influence.  If the Spirit of a fire is banished, the fire will flicker and die, although it might catch again and have a new spirit.  If the Spirit of a city is somehow banished (no easy feat), then the city would die.  In time, no stone would be stacked upon another.  Although it is far more likely that the banishment would end before the city fell.  For a banishment to be permanent, the wizard would have to find some way to make his pronouncement permanent as well.
- Binding: trapping a spirit in a place, person, or object.  Spirits do not always object to this treatment.  Binding by itself is a useful way to trap a spirit that has become hostile or dangerous, but it is more often used in the creation of magical tools.  Spirits can be most easily bound into objects similar to their own natures.  Thus, a fire spirit might be bound into a lamp easily, an iron sword with a bit more effort, but only into a milk pail with the greatest of difficulties.
- Service: forcing a spirit to do something.  A spirit can exert influence directly over its bailiwick.  It can control, aid, change, or harm that bailiwick.  Powerful spirits can create or destroy their bailiwicks.  Spirits can also scry on things at a distance, after a fashion.  They are only really aware of their environments in the most basic ways, though.  A cloud spirit can see all the Land beneath its cloud, but it doesn't really /recognize/ that land in the way a human would, so asking a cloud spirit to describe what it sees is like to be an exercise in frustration.
- Summoning: Calls a spirit to the fore.  Normally, spirits of the Lower Air are content to follow their functions without notice of human activity.  A spirit must be Summoned before it can be interacted with in any other way.
- Warding: Warding prevents spirits of a given kind from entering an area, person, or object.  Warding is a useful way to provide defense.  However, Wards have limited strength.  A wizard would have to expend great effort to ward the bottom of a lake against water, likely far more than any one wizard (or even a dozen) could muster.

The practice of the magic of the Lower Air always requires at least speaking, and sometimes a great deal more.  The more complex or powerful a command, the more difficult it is to communicate.  Thus, a wizard who wanted to create a castle out of empty air might need to appeal to spirits of stone through a lengthy ritual in which he invokes symbols, makes sacrifices, dances, and chants for days.  The duration of a spirit's command depends on how permanently it is invoked.  Spoken words will compel weak spirits for days and strong ones for only hours or minutes.  Written runes last longer, and carving in stone or metal lasts longer yet.  Wizards of different lands use different methods and trappings, but the end effects are generally the same.

------------------------
Gamespeak: This is the bones of a freeform magic system.  I am very fond of the one from Buffy, and if I end up building this, mine will be similar.  A wizard can generate any effect he can think of, but he'll need three things.

- He'll have to know the right language.  In a system with a lot of skills, each kind of spirit could have a different language skill.  In a lighter system, there will still have to be some kind of limit for that.
- He'll have to have the time and resources to do the necessary spell.  The bigger, more powerful, or more complex the effect, the more effort it will take to "explain" to the spirit.
- He'll have to be able to scribe the spell in a way that will last long enough.  There are some options here: carving in stone, repeating endlessly, etc...  For simple, quick effects, just a few words and a gesture will be enough anyway.

A few classics:
- Fireball: Pretty simple.  Get a fire spirit and tell it to blow something up.
- Flight: A wind spirit can make you fly on the winds.
- Transmutation: A spirit of whatever you want to transform something into can, with great effort, transform it.  The further removed the target state is from the original state, the harder it is.  Turning a prince into a frog until a princess kisses him is a massive effort.  The wizard who can do such a thing is not to be trifled with.
- Scrying: essentially involves communication with a spirit who can go where you want to see.  Sympathetic links help you scry on specific people.
- Invisibility: Pretty hard for the magic of the Lower Air.  Spirits of darkness or fog could conceal you under limited circumstances.  Wizards who can do this might be using different magics.  Spirits of the Land can turn invisible, and might grant that power in return for some sort of favor.  Spirits of the Underworld can probably also turn invisible, or at least make people not want to notice them.
- Cursing: A curse brought about by a Wizard probably involves placing some sort of spirit mark on the subject so that one or more classes of spirits are hostile to him.  A sufficiently vexed Wizard could blight a town's crops, make it so that a warrior's sword writhed in his hands unless he fought for true love, or something similar.  A really powerful one might level all sorts of difficulties, just making every Spirit in the area somewhat hostile to the target.

The system for Spirits of the Underworld will probably be somewhat similar.  There are just different things Spirits of the Underworld can do.
---------------------------

Necromancy

The Underworld is the echo of the Lower Air.  While the Lower Air contains what is, the Underworld contains what was.  Those who learn its secrets are more often concerned with the past than the present.  The Underworld is not inherently evil, but it is a place of darkness.  Necromancers aren't evil by definition, either, but those who delve to the deeps of the Underworld are certainly drawn in that direction.  After all, the Underworld is between the Land and the Deep.

In some ways, Spirits of the Underworld are easier to treat with than Spirits of the Lower Air.  Human dead are still fundamentally human, and can be appealed to through human reason or human vanity.  They often retain some of the goals they held in life, and can be induced to cooperate by one who will advance those goals.  Besides, Necromancers have the most potent currency of all, the ability to bridge the gulf between the Underworld and the Land, however briefly.

That ability is the key to Necromancy.  Every person who treats with the Underworld has touched its dark shores in some fashion.  A child born with a dead twin, it is said, will be able to see ghosts all his life.  A man who dies and returns from the dead will hear the whispers of the dead.  The only survivor of a village wiped out by plague, or one who lived through a battle because a wound made him seem dead, might find that some part of himself was left in stygian realms.  Some pursue this path deliberately, through self-mutilation or the drinking of poisons, or through mass sacrifices to attract the attention of the Underworld.  There are, it is said, even less savory ways to draw up the voices of the dead.

Not all methods need to be so dire, however.  Some Necromancers, particularly those who are satisfied with lesser power, began with a very weak thread tying them to the realms of the Dead and strengthened it through study and practice.  Wizards who dabble in Necromancy are often so empowered, and might be better prepared than some to resist the call of deeper and deeper power.

--------------------------
Gamespeak: Necromancers aren't just Goth wizards.  They're intimately connected to Death, and draw power through that connection.  Necromancy is all about feeding energy into that connection and taking power out of it.  Spirits of the Dead can't normally exist in the Land.  When they do, it's unnatural, and probably bad.  Necromancers are able to give Spirits of the Dead, even corporeal ones, access to the Land.  That power can be used responsibly and well, but it can easily be abused.

An early thought is that a Necromancer's power will be largely measured in how strong his connection to the Underworld is and how deep he's willing to go into it.  A simple medium who only talks to ghosts and never even channels them into herself doesn't need much of a connection and doesn't have to feed much energy into it - her own personal strength is probably enough.  A terrible Dark Lord who wants to raise an army of rotting corpses to smite his enemies probably has a very strong connection to the Underworld - to the point that he might look like a corpse himself - and he's going to need a lot of energy.  He might get it from ritually killing people, or from killing a powerful being like the local Genius Locus.  Or he might have some kind of magical artifact that gives him the power.  (A black cauldron, maybe...)
------------------------------

Liuz was born with a dead eye.  That milky white orb saw things no one else could see, and her ears heard things no one else could hear.  The people of the village feared the girl, but they feared more to kill her and be haunted by her shade, so instead they drove her from the village.  Children would fling stones at her, and merchants would sell her only shoddy goods at too high prices.  Everyone called her names behind her back.  The cruel spoke them to her face.  And the cruelest spat on her shadow when she passed in the street. 

Her mother and father protected her as well as they could.  They told her that even though the villagers were her cruel and ignorant, they were her kin and she should try to love them.

But in time, the old couple died, leaving Liuz alone.  Of course the people of the village began to whisper that the girl with the dead eye was somehow responsible, even though both of them had been old when their daughter was born.  Soon, Liuz found life in the village intolerable and she fled into the darkenvold, where none of the villagers would go at night, and few even in the daytime.

There were faeries in the darkenvold, but they avoided Liuz, all except Master Wolf.  He told Liuz that he hated the villagers as much as she did, because they hunted his children and denied them their rightful food with fence and spear.  He told Liuz she would be his bride, although she always refused him.  She said she was of the human world, not of the Spirit world, and would not leave her kin even though they bore her no love.

One day, black ships sailed up to the village, and warriors with black armor and black swords spilled forth to raid and slay, to plunder and steal.

Liuz watched from the shadows of the darkenvold, and Master Wolf watched with her.

"All your kin are dead now," he said.  "Come be my bride."

"I will come to your bed," she said.

When the Wolf was sated from their lovemaking, she took her father's gutting knife and gutted him as easily as she would a fish.  Then, still naked and wet with the Wolf's blood, she took up her cloak and went back to the village.  Through her living eye, she saw the black raiders as they took their pleasures from the few survivors.  Through her dead eye, she saw the pitiful spirits of the villagers.

And with a voice long dead to human words, she bade them rise up and have their revenge.

The black-clad men were slain, and their dead rose up likewise until nothing but Liuz stood in the village, and only crows and flies lived there.

She still had her kin, but now she had shed her last connection to the world of men.  She took her people into their fishing boats and the ships of the raiders, and now she sails the seas, looking for the land of the men in black ships.  Her kin are hungry, and only the flesh of Men will feed them.  They waylay such sailors as they find, and leave the ships stripped of life, but otherwise untouched, because Liuz is not a thief.  Or so say the tales.

A Necromancer's power is proportional to his connection to the Underworld and the energies he can bring into play.

The least power is the ability to hear or see Spirits of the Underworld that have the power to reach the Land on their own, either by being bound to a fetter or having found some sort of fissure up from the Underworld.  With this power, the Necromancer can interact with Spirits, but has no power but his charisma and wits with which to compel them.  Even this is more than most can do, and some Spirits can be turned from harmful courses with the right words.  Further, if a Necromancer of even this minimal power has the fortune to bend a few Spirits into allies, he can listen to their counsel and sometimes benefit from their powers.

With greater power, a Necromancer can call up Spirits from the Underworld.  He still cannot command them, and more powerful spirits can refuse to answer.  This is a dangerous power, since hostile spirits can answer a call if it is not sufficiently specific.

Many Necromancers develop the ability to command the dead in limited ways.  One might have the ability to shroud himself from their senses.  Another could make them flee his presence.  Still another might learn to trace runes that will turn the dead away from a living dwelling.

Others learn to borrow power from the Dead if the Dead are willing.  The spirits of the Underworld hold the sum of the past, and some have supernatural powers as well.  Without some sort of external energy source, a Necromancer must allow the Spirit to enter his own body, or the body of another.  This is a dangerous game, since the Spirit might not be willing to leave, and his presence exacts a toll that will eventually be fatal.

Beyond this level, a Necromancer's own personal energies are likely insufficient to bridge the gulf between worlds further.  He needs sacrifices, gifts of power, or some other means of supplying his Spirits.

The greatest Necromancers can summon and command more powerful spirits.  They can force Spirits into dead bodies to animate them, or fetter Spirits into specially prepared vessels.  They can call forth armies of shadow creatures, and they can wield the powers of the Dead.  A Necromancer of this puissance needs external sources of power, and by channeling so much of the darkness of the Underworld begins to become like a Spirit of the Underworld himself.  In fact, the ultimate fate of all who pursue the powers of darkness for too long is to become indistinguishable from a dead thing.

----------------------
Gamespeak: Necromancers have abilities similar to Wizards, but rather than needing a huge breadth of knowledge, they need a depth of power to pull off the most amazing feats.  The powers a Necromancer can use fall into a hierarchy, with greater ones requiring both a higher "Necromancy Score" and more "Fuel."

It might seem that Wizards have a better deal, and indeed they do in some ways, but Necromancers make out well on the low end.  At least some Spirits of the Underworld understand human language and desires, and can be appealed to on that basis.  And some Necromantic powers are passive.  Everything a Wizard can do requires conscious effort.  He has to project his psychic senses "upwards" where a Necromancer's naturally draw "downward."

The energy requirement is the reverse, of course.  Energy naturally cascades downward, so Wizards can call on massive power, whereas Necromancers have to find fuel for the more outrageous things they want to do.

Will it all be balanced in practice?  Who knows.  I'm still not making up real rules yet.
-------------------------

And that covers the two "middle realms" in the great club sandwich that is this setting.  Next up is the Magic of the Greater Air, and possibly the Magic of the Deep, since I'm not really sure how much of that I want to go into.  Given my attempts at symmetry so far, there should be ways that people can call on/be seduced by the Spirits of the Deep, and special people who are their personal champions.  Which is a sort of scary thought.  I'm reminded of Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke.  He might have been touched by the Deep and is now a "champion" against his will, slowly being overcome by it even as he's forced to use it.

Cool.

More generally, I've been thinking about Magic and how one of the great complaints of many games is that it's not very "magical."  When a guy in a robe and a pointed hat levels his staff at you and shoots out a ball of flame, you don't think "Amazing!  That man can call flames from nothing!  We're doomed!!!"  You think "He's got at least 3rd level spells.  Could be a problem."

Some games try to get around this by making magic really freeform, but that doesn't really solve the problem.  In a system like Ars Magica, you can still narrow down what the wizard did, so the mystery is gone.  In a really loose system, you just get a host of problems relating to exactly how much the wizard SHOULD be able to do.

You could try to conceal the inner workings from the players, but that presents another problem - the players need to know what their characters can do so they can properly play their characters.  The guy in the funny hat isn't going to point his stick at a hostile force unless he's pretty damn sure a ball of fire is going to shoot out.

So I've been musing on the idea that what magic can do at any given moment may change, but the players can see how it changes.  Castle Falkenstein's magic deck is like this in a way.  You can see how much "juice" is available within 100 miles or so, and that's all there is.

I wonder if I can think of something similar.  It might not be too hard.  A Wizard's training would tell him what spirits are in the neighborhood, and he'd know generally what he can tell spirits to do.  To add a layer of mystery, there might be some kind of arbitrary restrictions on spirits' behavior that are based on local conditions.  The Wizard is trained to be able to figure out what these conditions are and how they affect his powers.  To other people, they seem mysterious.

But that could just be a useless layer of rules and complications.

I DO want magic to be mysterious in this world.  This is a world of mysteries where Men face things beyond their ken (and generally stab those things with swords).  We'll have to see.

It's also about time to start thinking about a system, if I'm ever going to use one.  If I just decide to use this setting for my writing, I don't really need rules.

RPGnet participant, occasional blog reader, and Domino Girls fan daHob has been making noises about wanting to write up this setting as a Savage Worlds PDF, so I suppose I'd better get on with it.  Now we're getting into the hard parts.  It's time to talk about magic.

By "Magic" I refer to all the means that humans have to manipulate the supernatural aspects of the world.  Of course people in the setting have a different view than we do.  To them, there's no division between the supernatural and mundane worlds.  And don't even get me started on religion vs. magic.

Magic of the Land

The Lord is the Land.  The Land is the Lord.  This relationship is sacrosanct and unalterable.  Once the Land recognizes a Lord, it takes its shape from his will and gives him power in proportion to his strength.  The mechanisms of rulership vary, but they generally involve dealing with a powerful Spirit of the Land who dominates an area.  If a Land doesn't have a powerful spirit, one will arise to challenge its new Lord soon enough.  Then he must either defeat it or reach some kind of accommodation with it.  The nature of this encounter will determine, to some degree, the Land's destiny under its Lord.

Qin-Zhang was a master of the sword and a poet and philosopher.  He wandered the world, battling for causes he believed to be worthy and elegant, defeating bandits and kings alike.  His legend was, if anything, a shadow of the truth of his deeds.  But time flows like a river from the mountains of birth to the seas of death.  Qin-Zhang knew that in time his blade would dull, as would his wits.  He wished for a lasting testament to his life, and for a place to lay his head when he slept, and his bones when he died.  The warrior and philosopher wanted a home and a wife.  But what land could be equal to his brilliance, and what woman could be worthy of his seed?

Qin-Zhang took his parchments and inks, and his sword and armor, and went in search of his destiny.  He followed the Jade River to its headwaters, and there he found a beautiful land nestled in the shelter of five mountains.  He climbed the first mountain, and there he found un-men with arms like tree trunks and skin of bronze.  He slew their leader and they bowed down before him.  He left that place and climbed the second mountain.  There, he found a serpent of fire, which he slew also, although it cost him the finest sword he'd ever forged.  But the serpent's entrails were of ever burning flame, and its scales were of bright steel.  He forged a new blade, better than the old, and journeyed to the third mountain.  On the third mountain, he found nothing to battle, but voices howled on the winds and spoke riddles.  In a shrine on the mountaintop, Qin-Zhang meditated for a year until he could answer every riddle, and when he'd answered the last one, it began to rain.  Each raindrop became a silver coin.  Qin-Zhang filled his pouch with silver, because even heroes benefit from good rice wine and a soft bed, and journeyed to the fourth mountain.  There, he found water spirits, immune to his blade because their flesh was as water.  He could not pass them nor defeat them, so he paused and wrote a poem of such sadness that it made the water spirits weep.  As they cried out their tears, they dissolved into nothing, and joined the river of Jade.  Qin-Zhang left that place and climbed the fifth mountain.

The fifth mountain was higher than any of the others, almost as high as the stars.  Qin-Zhang's steps became heavy.  He abandoned his pack, then his scribe's pouch, and finally his silvery sword, and ascended the peak in only his robe.  Unarmed and nearly starved, Qin-Zhang looked up into sky more black than blue and fancied that he could reach out and touch the stars.  As he reached up his hand, he saw a dragon descending from the sky.  The sight so inspired him with awe that he was overcome with euphoria and fainted. 

When he awoke, a woman stood over him wearing a robe of gold silk with a dragon's scales embroidered into it.  The robe was open, and he saw her charms.  She gave him rice and wine and told him that this land was hers, and that she had been waiting for one who could take it.

Qin-Zhang had no sword, but he had substantial charms.  He opened his own robe and claimed the woman.

After she was sated, the woman, who was a dragon, told Qin-Zhang that he would have a place to lay his head when he slept, and to lay his bones when he died.  He would have a land to rule, and his land would never forget his name.  But he would never have a wife, and if he ever took one, she would take away all that she had given, for what mortal woman could be worthy of his seed?  Qin-Zhang accepted this with equanimity, and descended the mountain.  He retrieved his sword and his scribe's pouch and his pack, and when he descended, he found a great palace.  There, he ruled for many years.

Each year, Qin-Zhang would ascend the mountain again.  In time, his blade and his wits dulled.  Age bent his back.  And one year he did not return.  But one claiming to be his son descended the mountain holding his sword and wearing his robe.  The man had skin of gold and eyes of darkness, and ruled over the Empire of Qin for many years, stretching out his hand to conquer all of the nine kingdoms.

<2>Powers of the Lord

Once a Lord has claimed a Demesne, he has power over it.  This power can take many forms, depending on the character of the Lord and the care he takes over his lands.  Strong Lords have strong Demesnes, and have greater power over them than weak Lords.

Broadly, these powers fall into three areas.  There are powers of the Heart, powers of the Eye, and powers of the Hand.

Powers of the Heart: The most elemental of a Lord's powers, and among the most subtle.  Powers of the Heart are those that describe a Lord's relationship to the land he rules.  His heart pumps blood and life into his Demesne.  If his heart is weak, his land is weak as well.  Powers of the Heart affect the Demesne more than the Lord.  They shape the character of its terrain, the fertility of its fields, and even the nature of its people.  A cold, cruel Lord will rule over a harsh Demesne.  It might be prosperous, but its prosperity will come only with struggle and pain.  Its people will be either fearful or cruel.  Its Spirits will be dangerous.  A kindly Lord will rule over a kindly Demesne, with happy people and lush fields.  But it is easier to be strong and cruel than strong and kind.

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Gamespeak: Powers of the Heart are the stuff that determines what the land is like.  I'm the kind of guy who would model this by hand waving.  If I were going to define a system for it, it'd be something like the Organization rules for Angel.  You'd have various attributes of your land that you could assign points to.  You'd earn points by doing lordly stuff.  I think they'd need to be a fluid resource, rather than something you pay character points for, because the whole point is that they can be gained and lost.  In a balanced point-gen system, being a strong Lord would be difficult because you'd need to spend points on Lord stuff OR personal stuff, and the system I'm trying to create says that the more personal strength you have, the stronger your Demesne is.

Powers of the Heart will probably work as kind of a shopping list of attributes and ratings.  You can customize your Demesne by choosing the ones that fit best.  They'll cover a lot of things like the general weather, the terrain, what kind of natural resources there are (although this can't be changed radically), and even the people.  People from a land where the Lord venerates physical strength might really just tend to be stronger than their neighbors, but they might also be quicker to anger or a little less intelligent.
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Powers of the Eye: The connection between a Lord and his Demesne gives him supernatural knowledge over it.  Not all Lords have the wisdom or insight to excel in this area.  All Lords have at least a vague sense of the health of their Demesnes, and they receive some kind of warnings when their lands are in immediate danger.  Depending on the character of the Lord and the Demesne, this could come in the form of prophetic dreams, whispers from Spirits of the Land, or supernatural intuition.

More perceptive Lords begin to develop means of scrying over their realms.  They might be able to locate game, know the status of distant cities, or call into vision different parts of their land.  Often, this knowledge comes from totem animals or Spirits of the Land who answer the Lord's call.  Lords schooled in magic might employ scrying rituals instead.

The knowledge gained this way is of concern to the Land, not always to the Lord.  He might be able to send ravens to track an invading warband, but not to follow his wife who he believes is unfaithful.  Or perhaps he might.  The Land can be fickle.

Still more perceptive Lords begin to know their Demesnes as well as they know their own bodies or minds.  They know when to plant, when to harvest, and when to seek shelter from a coming storm.  They can look upon a suspect in court and know his guilt or innocence, and what punishment is most appropriate.  The wisest and strongest begin to become infallible, at least insofar as ruling their Demesnes is concerned.  As with the other powers of the Eye, these powers often have an external focus, but just as often, they are purely intuitive.  The Lord simply is his Land, and knows it as well as he knows himself.  Of course, this also means that a Lord can deceive himself about his Land as easily as he does about anything else.

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Gamespeak: These are fairly straightforward.  A Lord will have some kind of perception level, and as it increases he gets access to deeper levels of information and insight.  Players will probably be able to define their own "special effects," but the powers will be pretty constant.  There's room for some customization, though.  A Chinese Emperor might want to know which bureaucrats will be best for certain jobs, while a Plains Indian chief wants to be able to find buffalo.  So some of the specific insights might vary.
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Powers of the Hand: A Lord in his place of power is fearsome to behold.  He rules his Demesne through magic as much as through will and action.  The stronger a Lord is, the greater his power over his Demesne, and the greater power he can draw from his Demesne.

By keeping his Land healthy, a Lord keeps himself healthy to some extent.  While he's defending his own Demesne, very little can harm him, and he will not fall ill or fall victim to misadventure.  But if hostile spirits blight his lands, or treachery weakens his will, he becomes vulnerable.

The Demesne also begins to answer the Lord's will.  Its' people's loyalty comes as much from the bond between Lord and Land as from his decisions.  Thus do strong, but cruel, Lords hold their people in bondage.  They might hate him, but fear him too much to rebel until some greater force inspires them.  Some Lords also learn to master the beasts of their realms, or even the weather.

All Lords have some sway over the Spirits of their Demesnes, but this is not a sure or certain power.  Often, there is a price for invoking it.  At the minimum, any Spirit of a Demesne will recognize its Lord and not commit treason upon him.  Lords who take time to court their Spirits' favor might be served by spectral knights, or ride upon steeds of fire.

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Gamespeak: This will be another thing to spend points on and to advance at different rates.  In fact, the whole thing will probably work that way, with a Lord player choosing what aspects he cares most about and getting more points to spend over time.

One way to balance this against other players would be to follow the example of King Arthur's legend.  While Arthur was the king, his Knights were often more powerful in specific ways.  Lancelot was the greatest of sinful knights, for instance.  So a PC party might have a Lord with all kinds of cool Demesne powers, but his companions might be a powerful, mysterious wizard, a Starborn bard who can literally sing birds down from the trees, and a Starborn warrior who can't be defeated in battle.  Having those people as friends is part of the Lord's strength.

There will have to be a way to gain and lose power in your Demesne, involving events like going to war, being betrayed, or losing your heart, and acts of atonement like questing for the Holy Grail or going out again to fight your Demesne's Spirit.
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<2>Banes of the Lord

A Lord has to stay strong to keep his Demesne strong, and he must periodically renew his ties to the Land.

While a Lord is supreme in his Demesne, he may fall victim to a greater Lord's invasion. 

He might weaken either through age or lack of will.  He might always know what is best for his Demesne, but he can deceive himself, and his judgment can be clouded in personal matters.  A Lord who rests on his laurels and falls to drink loses his strength, and his land weakens around him.

Treachery is the greatest bane.  Any treachery weakens the entire realm.  A strong Lord's subjects might not be able to betray him directly, but powerful allies are not so bound, and even the least peasant is still a Man with the ability to influence his own destiny.

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Gamespeak: This is the stuff that costs you "Lord Points."  And generally, the GM gets to decide which of your advantages are degraded.  The typical way will be for them to all be degraded more or less equally, but there could be exceptions depending on the kind of bane that hit you.  It is, of course, especially nasty to lose your physical invulnerability in the face of a treacherous attack...
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The Land wants to be strong.  A weakening Lord will find his Demesne slipping away.  A blind Lord might not notice.  If he is wise or fortunate, he might have the chance to win his strength back through some kind of act of atonement.  Such a feat is at least as difficult as winning the Demesne in the first place.  Often, the best a weak ruler can do is to die to atone for his sins and leave a strong kingdom for his son.

<2>Succession

The Lord of a Demesne is not immortal.  If a Lord becomes so, the Land begins to twist, because immortality is not the province of men.  When a Lord dies, a new Lord is chosen.  A Lord's children share in his command of the Demesne, and very often his chosen successor takes his place.  The heir will have to face the same renewal ritual his predecessor faced, but this is often easier than conquering the land the first time.  Thus, in fact, begins the fall of many Demesnes.  The first Lord had to be very strong to take the land.  His son doesn't need to be as strong, and thus might not be.  Wise Lords send their sons abroad to face hardships and win victories, but this has a risk because the son doesn't have the protection of his Demesne so far from home, and enemies might seek to slay him.  That would, in turn, weaken the Demesne as the Lord grieves for his lost child.

The heirs of a Lord, and sometimes his feudal vassals, share in his ties to the Land to a lesser degree.  They will never have as much sway as the Lord does, but are often still quite powerful.  A deposed Lord's subordinates lose all their powers when he is deposed.  Of course, sometimes one of these subordinates is the one who claims the land from his ailing Lord.  In this case, he will, of course, retain his powers and might choose to share them with his brothers and sisters.

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Gamespeak: This is pretty straightforward up until you get to the Feudal system, where the King rules a big land that's cut into small pieces ruled by Dukes and so on.  In those cases, a Duke probably has a Demesne with its own Spirit, but that Spirit is subordinate to the greater Spirit of the King's Demesne.  The King has power over all of the Spirits and all the Demesnes, but a Duke probably has equal control within his own Duchy.  Lesser Lords only inherit power from their Masters, if they get any at all.  Some people just have to get by with strength, cunning, and charm.

We'll get into this a little more down below.
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<2>Conquest

The Land is a living thing, and its Demesnes have life, breath, and will.  A Demesne wishes to be strong, and has a natural urge to prey on the weak.  Strong Lords are often moved by this will to conquer their neighbors.  Just as much, a land with a weak Lord will slowly start to attract would-be conquerors as the Land searches for a worthy ruler.

A conqueror does not have to claim the Demesne as the original Lord did.  By force of arms, he makes himself the new successor, and so only has to continue the rituals of connection.  Matters are often not quite that simple, though.  The Land will seek to test its new ruler, and might not immediately grant its powers.  The new Lord will have to make some kind of accommodation with the Land before he rules it completely.

If the conqueror already holds a Demesne, the two lands are merged into one, dominated by the Spirit of whichever was larger.  Spirits of the Land follow after the mortals in their realms, so the conquered people may find their land changing around them as once-familiar Spirits are displaced by new ones.  The new Lord's character will start shaping the land within a year, as well.

Matters are more complicated yet if the old Lord and his heirs are not slain outright.  If they escape or are exiled, there is always the chance they can return.  The Land will accept a past ruler or his blood more easily than an entirely new conqueror.  If the current Lord is weak, a Demesne might even start answering to the "lost heir."  But sometimes a Lord of a Demesne bows his head to a greater Lord.  In these cases, both lands retain their Spirits, but the conqueror’s Demesne becomes stronger, and the High Lord's power extends into the new realm.

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Gamespeak: This isn't too complicated.  It probably doesn't need a formal system.  A deposed Lord who somehow escapes has the chance to come back and try to get his realm back.  A callow orphan boy could turn out to be the True King.  A King can grant power to his Dukes and Earls.  The actual mechanics of the power work however I design the system to work.
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Next up is Magic of the Lower Air, and possibly Magic of the Underworld.  They may end up being really similar, since a lot of the powers actually belong to the spirits, not to the magicians.  Sorcery and Necromancy are more about knowing secrets and being able to get spirits to do favors for you than having "superpowers."