Domhain Sceal 2nd Edition

The rules are simple. The Assistant District Executive Producers will posit a question, how should such and such element of this setting be handled and then everyone and anyone can chime in with their opinion. Mostly, we're porting over the 1e elements.

Begin!

Da fuck is Domhain Sceal

Are we starting with magic and metaphysics? Because if so...

Here is the original entry for magic.

I'm surprised by the amount of entries for magic. Need to simplify it all. Especially since including above we have ethrgy and this as magic (the Natural Mystics can be interpreted as a form of tapping into the universal magical energy, by ethrgy implies that there is also "energy" from the souls. Not that the two cannot co-exist but ethrgy and variants have not been used much). Keep both? One or the other?

TvTropes own homebrewed tabletop campaign setting.

Is that our starting topic? Alrighty!

How Does Magic Work?

I think this calls for a vote:

Should:

1) Magic be an External resource that Magic Users need to cast magic (things like Ley Lines, etc) or

2) it be an internal resource within the magic users themselves (with the possibility of a cost and mana and such), or

3) both co-exist?

These are the basic systems that I can think of at the moment.

edited 27th May '13 8:11:21 PM by IraTheSquire

Don't you guys already have a thread for this (or several).

Exe dropped out.

Exe made a thread? I looked up and down for one and didn't see it.

Also, no vote, no. This is discussion time. But I go for both, co-existings, and I want to write a more nuanced post about it.

edited 28th May '13 7:43:58 AM by God_of_Awesome

One system or both?

Because I have an idea about the internal magic system.

edited 28th May '13 2:22:13 PM by IraTheSquire

x4

This is the 2nd edition, think of it like how magic or Dnd or Warhammer have multiple threads for their respective editions, spin offs and ect. Also we might have two accidental threads for the same purpose but this one is being actively used.

Also I'm for magic being strong in lay-lines and node like areas but being throughout the world.

edited 28th May '13 8:41:24 PM by Vyctorian

I'm thinking having both system together, as that path lies in variation and possible conflict (as mages using different system accusing the other of "corrupting the science of magic" when both theories are actually valid).

edited 28th May '13 10:00:41 PM by IraTheSquire

Having both systems also allows for different levels of interactivity between them in the form of magic users; which helps to justify multiple schools of magic aka classes.

You have the Aether, the raw ocean of mana that pours forth the rivers called ley lines. This ocean is itself fed and churned by the thoughts and emotions of the living, which itself feeds back into them, our mind and souls essentially being a part of it. Mages can build reservoirs, inside or outside themselves, or tap into natural sources, such as themselves if they are particularly gifted, as ley lines, as nodes that form where ley lines cross or the Aether itself. Each of these methods carry their pros and cons which can be discussed in further detail.

I like that, kinda poetic :)

For the internal source, I was more thinking in the lines of "mages who tap into their souls for power, while it does not require ley lines (and thus avoid the resource struggles), pays the price for damaging their souls. The greater the magical effect, the greater the damage, so while the soul does heal from such damage, slowly, using it too much can lead to self destruction."

There needs to be a price for not needing an external source of magical energy, or else the who don't need an external energy will be exceedingly more powerful than those who do, and the latter will try to find out why the latter doesn't (and you end up with a sort of X-men situation. Which works if that's what you're going for).

edited 29th May '13 4:41:50 AM by IraTheSquire

Bleh, I'm still feeling bad from my hurt back, have been mostly bedridden these past few days. I'll come back with something more useful soon. Anyway happy to see the new thread started (though it could have used a more clear introduction, but whatever.) Carry on folks.

What I was thinking: If you have an internal source, it's a lot easier to tap that than an external source, but first you have to build that internal source (Or are an X-Man who naturally has one, in rare cases). If you don't have an internal source, it's easier to tap an external source than build an internal source.

Some schools of magic even involve tapping both, usually using your internal reservoirs to shape a funnel to channel greater amounts of external reservoirs.

I myself was thinking of something along these lines: magic is a kind of energy which flows freely from and to living beings, non-living beings, mortals, immortals, planes of existence and whatnot. The soul, as it is made of pure energy, naturally drags small amounts of wild, free energy from the environment (in both the material plane and the energy plane, I see the former as the proper physical world, with big and small ley lines all around it, and the latter as some kind of "quantum", or invisible layer that holds together all the planes, in a way energy flows from it to the material world, and that's how it originally comes from) to itself, and then releases the unnecessary amount back to the environment, oscillating slowly. Most of that energy is sent to the material world, and some of it sticks to the living being. Those with a faster and bigger oscillation manage to build up a natural magic reserve that doesn't rely on the magic that is flowing through/stickied to the environment. Also, since the soul stores/is the mind, it works as a way to shape and manipulate the magic, through thought, imagination and instincts. This would explains how wild, non-sentient animals can use primitive forms of magic.

I think this got a bit confusing, so in short: magic flows from the Aether to the material world through some ways, one of them being throught the souls of the living beings. While most need to use the magic in the environment because those within them doesn't refuel fast enough to be reliable, a few people's souls do. The manipulation of magic is done through the mind, which is the soul, and can work with any level of mentality: instinct, thought, imagination. I hope this was less confusing.

BTW, shouldn't we discuss magic as a world-making power instead of how it works for casting?

That's too separate questions there:

How Is Magic Manipulated By Mages?

How Does Magic Shape The World?

Which one should we try to answer first?

Well, currently we're on that first one.

Well, I noticed...

edited 29th May '13 9:53:06 AM by Victin

I think we should decide how magic affects the world and gods before we deal with mages, the first two I mentioned affect the mages more then they affect the world and gods.

edited 29th May '13 1:49:37 PM by Vyctorian

Fair point. Got a bit distracted.

I'm seeing this world as sort of a living organism, a massive being where its inhabitants are to it like bacteria are to us. "Magic" is its lifeblood. Its desires and emotions congregates in different places and expressed within the reality: the clouds gather an drain pours as it cries in sorrow: earthquakes and volcanoes erupts in places where its anger gathers; calm cloudy skies signifies its calm and peace, etc.

Borrowing the idea of celestial gods, apart from a facet of reality they are also conducts of the world's personality facets, much in the same way as we have different facets of our personality, except since the World is so great and massive that its facets of personality are big enough to form entities. The Goddess of nature is the World's nurturing, motherly side. The God of Disaster is the World's Hatred, "misanthropic" (for lack of a better word) personality. Etc.

edited 29th May '13 2:29:07 PM by IraTheSquire