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[Necromunger]

DESCRIPTION

My suggestion is a new fortress noble known as the Magician that can learn about magic and record them as "theories" to be stored in his library as books.

When your magician first begins he has no understanding of magic. With the use of paper over time he can develop "theories" and save them as books in his library as actual items.

Once the magician has written about a theory he will require a certain set of items to continue researching that area.

Once his research is finished the theory book is removed and a Tome is saved with the information about the specific magic.

EXAMPLE

A magician studies and learns the theory of alchemy.

You then select that theory to be studied and the dwarf says what he needs to do that.

In this case the dwarf asks for lead.  He then practices on lead, destroying it most of the time.

Then the dwarf will learn how to turn lead into gold. He then updates his Theory and then saves it as a Tome.

The Tome in this case is titled "The Tome Of Alchemy"

It reads "This book contains the secrets of the elements".

LIVING REQUIREMENTS

The Magician requires:

Bedroom
Study
DinningRoom
Library


This idea still needs a lot of work but i think its an EXTREMELY fun idea.

Your dwarf may learn the secrets of fire and in his research of the theory set a few people on fire.

I think if this idea is worked on it can work in Dwarf Fortress.

This idea would also tie in with the games "Secrets".

Thank you for reading,
Necromunger.

[Necromunger]

I just wanted to add a note.

Things like this: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=119081.0

Could also be one of the things that the magician learns and studies to get right.

There would also be a lot of !!FUN!! involved in researching Golem creation like dwarfs being squished by a disobedient Golem.

[GreatWyrmGold]

First off, "Nobel" is the guy with the peace prize. Not exactly, but you should get what I'm saying.

Second off, this seems like more of a "researcher" than a magician.

Third off, why would it be a noble?

[Putnam]

Have you played Legends of Forlorn Realms? It has much of what you want modded already.

[Necromunger]

Its a noble because that enables the user to pick one.

[CaptainArchmage]

First off, "Nobel" is the guy with the peace prize. Not exactly, but you should get what I'm saying.

Second off, this seems like more of a "researcher" than a magician.

Third off, why would it be a noble?

The reason to have the magician as a noble is the way it works.

Most people use "noble" and "position" interchangeably. The expedition leader, chief medical dwarf, book-keeper, manager, militia commander, hammerer, sheriff, mayor, captain of the guard, and militia captains aren't true nobility but they are selected in the nobles screen because in terms of the game engine, you need a way of organising the way these people do their jobs. This isn't as simple as selecting their job in the labors menu and making designations or giving work orders.

True nobility are technically the king, baron, count, and duke, but you could possibly extend that to include the generals as well. There may or may not be reasons to have the true nobility in a different list from the rest of the position-holders.

Actually, in the entity definition you just define "positions". That's all there is to it.

When you select a magician, you'd use the settings in the noble screen to have them research a particular thing (assuming you have spheres of magic or individual spells). You could also have multiple magicians researching different things. It would also be possible to define the minimum living standards required for research i.e. office, casting chamber.

A possible alternative is to do a UI improvement, but that still doesn't eliminate the need to use the noble positions. For example, the chief medical dwarf activates the health system. This would probably allow you to have one head mage, which would allow you to co-ordinate other magicians to do stuff. However, unlike animal training, there isn't really a specific labor associated with magic - the settings screen in the nobles menu is more appropriate.

Technically, positions also assign a rank in society. A high-level wizard could actually hold a noble position, and in fact some human civilisations are ruled by a wizard.

These are good reasons to use the nobles screen to select your magician or magicians.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Its a noble because that enables the user to pick one.

First off, "Nobel" is the guy with the peace prize. Not exactly, but you should get what I'm saying.

Second off, this seems like more of a "researcher" than a magician.

Third off, why would it be a noble?

The reason to have the magician as a noble is the way it works.
Most people use "noble" and "position" interchangeably. The expedition leader, chief medical dwarf, book-keeper, manager, militia commander, hammerer, sheriff, mayor, captain of the guard, and militia captains aren't true nobility but they are selected in the nobles screen because in terms of the game engine, you need a way of organising the way these people do their jobs. This isn't as simple as selecting their job in the labors menu and making designations or giving work orders.
True nobility are technically the king, baron, count, and duke, but you could possibly extend that to include the generals as well. There may or may not be reasons to have the true nobility in a different list from the rest of the position-holders.
Actually, in the entity definition you just define "positions". That's all there is to it.
When you select a magician, you'd use the settings in the noble screen to have them research a particular thing (assuming you have spheres of magic or individual spells). You could also have multiple magicians researching different things. It would also be possible to define the minimum living standards required for research i.e. office, casting chamber.
A possible alternative is to do a UI improvement, but that still doesn't eliminate the need to use the noble positions. For example, the chief medical dwarf activates the health system. This would probably allow you to have one head mage, which would allow you to co-ordinate other magicians to do stuff. However, unlike animal training, there isn't really a specific labor associated with magic - the settings screen in the nobles menu is more appropriate.
Technically, positions also assign a rank in society. A high-level wizard could actually hold a noble position, and in fact some human civilisations are ruled by a wizard.
These are good reasons to use the nobles screen to select your magician or magicians.

Counter-example: Assigning labors.
You don't need to assign a Mining Whatchamacallit noble to mine.
A Head Mage might be a noble, but a Magical Researcher would be a profession.

[King Mir]

I agree with GreatWyrmGold, this makes more sense as a profession and skill, like alchemy. There's no reason why more than one dwarf would not be able to do magic, and having multiple dwarves would speed things up.

[Putnam]

At the risk of a higher chance of failure. The more people involved, the more chance there is for something to mess up along the way.

[Necromunger]

So the conclusion in my opinion is that there is a profession for being a researcher.

There is a "Position" called Magician/Chief researcher and when this is set this allows you to specify in what you want your dwarfs to be looking into.

In the same way a bone doctor can fix bones but you don't get a medical report unless you have a chief medical dwarf.

So in essence a dwarf can migrate to your fortress that is a researcher. He in his spare time will research theory's in his room as he sees fit.

Its only when you make a Chief in research can you direct and coordinate efforts to crate Tomes of understanding in the types of magic you want.


Do we have an accord?

[Cobbler89]

This makes sense enough, and seems like the best way to go about it if Fortresses are to have magic. Might want to do like animal training and have it tie in to civ magic knowledge, so a civ with little to no magic knowledge (which for dwarves would be most civs to start, though not as few/little as humans) would require you to work harder to get Tomes completed, thus preventing magic from being something too common in dwarven civilization.

Also, turning lead into gold wouldn't be half as useful as the creation of adamantine -- maybe it could be a more advanced application of the same branch, alchemy? After all, some ancient gods must have sealed the demons in...

[Carp McDwarfEater]

Since magic is supposed to be rare in Dwarf Fortress, I don't think the idea of having multiple researchers is good. I think a good idea would be to have a noble called the court wizard come with the baron (or maybe even duke) that would research and possibly help defend the fortress or act as a bodyguard for the baron/duke/monarch. Perhaps you could appoint some apprentice wizards that could help (and gain magic skill in doing so) and eventually replace the court wizard. In any case, I feel that only 3 or 4 dwarves in any fort should be able to perform magic, and that to gain much skill they would need to spend years as an apprentice and read a lot of rare magical tomes; wizardry shouldn't be something dwarves can just teach themselves by doing some menial labor set to repeat.

[Necromunger]

wizardry shouldn't be something dwarves can just teach themselves by doing some menial labor set to repeat.

How do you suppose the understanding of magic began in the game?

It began from elves hitting rocks together to learn something about the world and i think the dwarfs could do the same.

[Starver]

(Elves and... rocks?  Maybe be being hit by them, but "carefully cultured wooden offgrowths" would be more in line with what they were and are and want to be...)

With magic still in development, I'd be hesitant to suggest that practitioners thereof should be of any particular kind, as doubtless there's already a Plan^TM in the works.  The alchemy example may or may not be "magic", as well.

For what it's worth, I like the idea of a researching task, where a dwarf can research one of a whole gamut of different things, from better metallurgy (in the more mundane, non-alchemical, way) to new mechanics, and perhaps magic, alchemy, and <foo>omancy of one kind or another...  Like "storing item in stockpile" it would be a cover-all name for all kinds of actual subjects being covered, and could be much as the magician suggestion when being applied to the theme of magic (or alchemy... also noting that we already have an "alchemist", albeit more mundane and "chemist-like".)

And/or a "librarian" who needs to maintain books such that any profession can go to the library and (with the right books available, either brought in or made by prior expert visitors) get a bonus to skilling up their animal training skills, or wood-carving skills, or whatever it is that they're doing.  (Perhaps an absolute skill-cap on how much you can gain through books alone, but together with more traditional 'immersive' training would be quicker if the necessary materials are available.)  Magic users would be as welcome to use (and, as necessary, work towards building up) such a resource, w.r.t. their chosen field.

(I'm now getting visions of a stockpile-like 'library' to which you can set storage of books of specific or general subject types, like "books on alchemy", "books on crafts>woodcrafts, but not any other crafts>*", etc.  Set the "books on farming>planting" library zone close to the farming plots for easier and quicker reference by the farmer, while you put the "books on smelting" one down near where you have the magmaforging set-up built for handy reference by those workers...  Also books that can be used as entertainment near the meeting area or dining room, but watch out for idle-spirals where most of the fort have their noses in some book or other...  Like "It-Was-An-Accident-Honest-Guvnor! On The Minecart Express", "Urist McPotter and the Noble's Bedroom With the Mysterious Lever In It" or "50 Shades of Cyan"...)

[Necromunger]

Nice response Starver, i agree that the idea for a library in the terms you explained would be epic.