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[Shadowclaimer]

For starters, hello my name is Shadowclaimer, long time reader, first-time poster, been a DF player for a bit now, highly highly enjoying the game and the versatility it brings, done a bit of modding here and there and figured for what I can't mod, I might as well suggest.

Ontopic, lately seen a lot of discussion about magic around the web, people thinking its evil or such, that it has no place in DF etc. I've decided to throw out my take on it, the thing I've always pictured magic as is something that helps, but isn't required, its not something you should HAVE to have to survive anything, it should be a supplement for your fortress, giving you slightly more control over things. It should be a tool that in the hands of a capable player is powerful, but can be equally horrifying and full of consequences.

So here's my notes so far on the subject (Just me typing in notepad and discussing things with my fellow DF'ers)

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Magic: How to and Why
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Destruction (Destroys enemies and material)
-Fire (Flamethrower) (Offensive, chance to ignite foes)
-Water (Tidewalker) (Balanced, chance to drown foes)
-Earth (Earthshaper) (Defensive, chance to stun foes)
Alteration (Changes items in your fortress)
-Enchanting (Enchanter) (Add properties)
-Alchemy (Alchemist) (Change items)
-Psychology (Psychologist) (Changes people's thoughts/behaviors/skills)
Conjuration (Creates material, summons constructs, changes weather)
-Geomancy (Geomancer)
-Pyromancy (Pyromancer)
-Hydromancy (Hydromancer)

Libraries and Labs are various workshop-like structures that are available to dwarves wishing to study the art of magic (Alteration has Labs and Conjuration has Libraries). Conjuring Dwarves will choose "study" at the Library to gain skill in their chosen school of magic, you can actually order Conjurerers to perform a spell at their Library. Alteration followers will practice their skills on various people/objects/etc. and begin to get better at it (Experiment option at the Lab) eventually they will unlock spells you can specifically choose and choose specific targets (with chances for catastrophic failure for everyone, it won't be uncommon to see an apprentice Flamethrower murder all his fellow students in an accidental miscast or a Psychologist to accidentally make a Dwarf go berserk)

Destruction is a military form of magic, your Dwarves actually cast spells at a given Focii, which is a magical target, which trains them in their specific skill, the mastery they end up with is chosen based on what the Focii they are practicing with is designated as. As they get better their actual attack with the spell type is more powerful and effects are more likely. They must have a Spellbook chosen as their weapon. Flamethrowers are more offensive, Tidewalkers are a balance, and Earthshapers are more defensive.

Magic overall is a useful tool to assist your dwarfs, maybe you've been dying for some rain, you'll order your Hydromancer to call in a storm, however this could backfire, causing a drought for months maybe years. Maybe you need some powerful soldiers to supplement your army, or maybe you want to modify your Dwarves or their Items to your will. Magic will allow that, and will provide you a bit more control over your fortress.

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Religion: The Good, the Bad, and the Neutral
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Randomly a Dwarf may be chosen by his deity to be a Rambler, this dwarf will answer the call and will gain Apprentice in the Priest skill as he talks to Dwarves around the Fortress (as he normally would) he'll tell them how great his Deity is and how they should follow him. The more he converts the higher his skill gets. Eventually you may want to construct a Temple. Once you have a Temple you can select to go with the majority's Deity or the other ones worshipped in your fortress (This may anger some dwarves and make some happy, not like go crazy anger however). Depending on the Deity chosen your magic-using dwarves will gain access to a 4th skill type of each magic tree at their Libraries, Labs, and Focii. (Dependant on Good/Natural/Evil base for the Deity) Your Dwarfs that just hang out will go to the Temple and Worship (Priest skills are gained for former Ramblers), dwarfs that follow other Deities will go to other areas of the fort (Meeting halls or dark corners) and discuss their Deity still.

Good Magic (Light)
Destruction - Retribution (Avenger) (Offensive, frees converted/morphed allies)
Alteration - Emancipation (Emancipator) (cleanses magic effects on allies)
Conjuration - Restoration (Lightspeaker) (Summons Spirits to fight your foes)

Neutral Magic (Natural)
Destruction - Spellweaving (Spellweaver) (Balanced, chance to change enemies into creatures)
Alteration - Shifting (Druid) (Morphs enemies into natural creatures)
Conjuration - Restoration (Grovecaller) (Summons trees and plants, natural creatures)

Dark Magic (Dark)
Destruction - Shadow (Shadowcaster) (Offensive, chance to mind control)
Alteration - Assimilation (Assimilator) (Mind control enemies and naturals)
Conjuration - Necromancy (Necromancer) (Summons the dead to fight your foes)

Spheres in each Good/Neutral/Evil (need suggestions for changes)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

GOOD - 48
Art
Beauty
Birth
Charity
Consolation
Courage
Crafts
Creation
Dance
Dawn
Day
Discipline
Duty
Family
Fame
Fertility
Festivals
Forgiveness
Freedom
Games
Generosity
Happiness
Healing
Hospitality
Inspiration
Justice
Laws
Light
Longevity
Love
Loyalty
Marriage
Mercy
Music
Oaths
Order
Painting
Poetry
Rebirth
Revelry
Rulership
Speech

Strength
Sun
Truth
Valor
Victory
Youth

NATURAL - 48
Agriculture
Animals
Balance
Boundaries
Caverns
Children
Coasts
Dreams
Earth
Fire
Fish
Fishing
Food
Fortresses
Hunting
Jewels
Lakes
Lightning
Luck
Metals
Minerals
Mist
Mountains
Nature
Oceans
Peace
Plants
Pregnancy
Rain
Rainbows
Rivers
Salt
Scholarship
Seasons
Sky
Song
Stars
Storms
Thunder
Trade
Travelers
Trees
Volcanos
Water
Weather
Wind
Wisdom
Writing

EVIL - 34
Blight
Chaos
Darkness
Death
Deformity
Depravity
Disease
Dusk
Fate
Gambling
Jealousy
Labor
Lies
Lust
Misery
Moon
Muck
Murder
Night
Nightmares
Persuasion
Revenge
Rumor
Sacrifice
Silence
Suicide
Theft
Thralldom
Torture
Treachery
Trickery
Twilight
War
Wealth

Also to note, when I refer to "Modify items" or such, I actually refer to a system of perks/downfalls that could exist on items, especially artifacts. The examples I had given to a friend I was talking to was that an item may have up to 5 properties given the quality of creation, these properties may be as simple as "Higher/Lower Value", maybe they are Pristine or Sloppy (more or less happiness from viewing it), maybe they burn forever (tables would be awkward like this), weapons could have various properties that would make them powerful in the hands of a warrior, cursed swords that speak to their wielder and slowly drain his soul could be possible, etc. more on that in other posts.

[Capntastic]

I read this over and it seems to be just your typical elemental color wheel with slightly more creative names.  It boils down to "magic of different types will do different things and have different core values"- which is pretty basic.  I don't see how this would work as an actual system of magic for DF, especially with the planned procedural nature of it.

[Shadowclaimer]

With any magic you'll maintain the typical magic color wheel because that's about all its about. Magic/Religion in this game shouldn't be something so drastically game-altering, it needs to be minor, a side thing, something you can choose to foster for results that give you a bit of control.

With Conjuration you moreso select a location to cast a spell, a Conjurer will grab the materials necessary, run to the location and proceed to cast it, spells could vary from the creation of dirt, fire, or water out of raw materials, could summon a pet for the caster that will protect them if they get in harms way as well as doubling as a Hauler when Idle, etc.

Destruction moreso is your basic archer with chance for effects and the possibility for more pain.

Alteration being the odd one, the one with the capability to customize your things a bit more. Don't like the way Urist thinks? Fix it, don't like the material that table is made of? Change it. Think that chair needs to burn eternally, do it.

[Capntastic]

With any magic you'll maintain the typical magic color wheel because that's about all its about.

Not true at all.   Lord Dunsany's magic is rarely 'elemental' or aligned with anything.   Likewise, a lot of the magic in his works doesn't fall into Earthsea / D&D styled spell schools.  Even sorcerous occultists in H.P. Lovecraft stuff have rituals that aren't tied to any element (until August Derleth turned the Elder Gods into Pokemon) or even anything remotely Earthly.   None of those were confined to elements or nature or good or evil.   They were all something that would perplex and be somewhat unknowable to the viewer- often beyond full comprehension.


Edit:  Put succinctly, organizing magic- something supposed to be supernatural- into strict groups turns it into a science.   Magic needs to maintain a nature of elusiveness and mystery no matter how it is implemented.

[Shadowclaimer]

With any magic you'll maintain the typical magic color wheel because that's about all its about.

Not true at all.   Lord Dunsany's magic is rarely 'elemental' or aligned with anything.   Likewise, a lot of the magic in his works doesn't fall into Earthsea / D&D styled spell schools.  Even sorcerous occultists in H.P. Lovecraft stuff have rituals that aren't tied to any element (until August Derleth turned the Elder Gods into Pokemon) or even anything remotely Earthly.   None of those were confined to elements or nature or good or evil.   They were all something that would perplex and be somewhat unknowable to the viewer- often beyond full comprehension.


Edit:  Put succinctly, organizing magic- something supposed to be supernatural- into strict groups turns it into a science.   Magic needs to maintain a nature of elusiveness and mystery no matter how it is implemented.

I don't directly agree, I've always seen Magic as its own science entirely, completely with organization. I'm sure if Magic were an active component that could be researched adequately human nature (dorf nature in DF) would research every corner of it until they've mastered it, then apply it to everyday work to make our lives easier.

[Capntastic]

Read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.   It's pretty much about magic as science versus magic as magic.

[Aquillion]

Man, I'm glad I put the quote I did in my sig.  People need to read it when they post magic suggestions.

Basically, the game is intended to be able to support a wide variety of theories of magic.  Not "colors" (that's one school broken up into different flavors), but entirely different approaches to it.  Basically, imagine if all the myths about magic in the real world were true -- something like that is the "ideal" case.

So you could have voodoo shamans from some island somewhere whose magic is all based around making little icons of things and sticking pins in them.  You could have shapeshifters in the north who ritualistically eat things to gain their powers.  You could have a group of scholars from some coastal city with a theory of magic based around big rituals and chants and these huge libraries fulled with books.  And so forth.  Not just slightly different types of effect, but entirely different approaches to magic, often with no relation to them.

And they would not be balanced.  Some kinds of magic are just going to suck.  There could be ancient wizards with the blood of gods in their veins wielding absurd power by natural right, and little hedge-wizards with a few collected scraps of magical knowledge.

But I don't like your suggestion.  It's too "smooth."  All prefab and generic.  There should be some arbitrary rules in magic, to keep it interesting.  There should be people who learn many different traditions of magic, or bits of magical cause-and-effect knowledge that sinks into popular culture.

[Euld]

So you could have voodoo shamans from some island somewhere whose magic is all based around making little icons of things and sticking pins in them.  You could have shapeshifters in the north who ritualistically eat things to gain their powers.  You could have a group of scholars from some coastal city with a theory of magic based around big rituals and chants and these huge libraries fulled with books.  And so forth.  Not just slightly different types of effect, but entirely different approaches to magic, often with no relation to them.

And they would not be balanced.  Some kinds of magic are just going to suck.  There could be ancient wizards with the blood of gods in their veins wielding absurd power by natural right, and little hedge-wizards with a few collected scraps of magical knowledge.

Finally someone puts the "procedural magic" thing into layman's terms xD  I'd practically given up hope that I would understand DF's magic before the appropriate arc.

[nenjin]

It's pretty much about magic as science versus magic as magic.

I found Mage: The Ascension by White Wolf games to be very, very helpful for getting out of the D&D/generic videogame RPG mindset. Since it's very much a story-telling game, so the magic system is very loose and can be adapted to almost anything the player wants to do.

It also talks about the relationship/conflict between magic and science. It states they can both be appreciated as the same basic effort guided by different philosophies, and accepting different explanations for how things work out. The line between them is really very thin though.

I'm a fan of the classic D&D/RPG magic systems and return to them a lot even when I'm trying not to. But I think DF demands something a lot more esoteric. The alignment/color/element wheel is just too simple and basic to contend with how complex the rest of DF is.

I'll be very interested to see how procedural magic systems work out in practice. In theory it sounds really cool. I can't help but worry that it will result in a lot totally indecipherable magic systems though, and therefore a lot of "not magic" happening on the players end. Magic is a system people want to eagerly explore. How do you create a framework that lets them explore magic when it's all procedurally generated?

I think over my experience with procedurally generated elements in DF already....and it's a lot of trial and error. Which is cool, but it's taxing on the player. Most procedural generation so far is about establishing gameplay elements you later interact with.

That would be true of a magic system as well, but it's different from what rock levels you mine/wood you cut/rivers you have, where HFS or a chasm exists or what variety of animal/megabeast/sentient life tries to kill you. There are standard interface and UI elements (rules) so you know you can dig obsidian just like granite, and you can stab a marmot just like a zombie.

How will the player even begin to access the possibilities of a procedural magic system though? A screen where they just mix elements like "chant some words" "burn some herbs" "stick pins in this doll," and see what happens? That's trial and error, but of the tedious kind. What about a procedurally generated screen? Are they assigned a particular interface for the kind of magic they believe in, or that dominates in their area? What about experimenting with magic outside the kind they started the game experiencing?

There's a million questions that can be asked of a system that doesn't exist yet. Still, it boggles the mind at times and you want some place to start from, some core rules.