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[Deboche]

Since Dwarf Fortress is all about realism and detail, I think it'd be cool if the magic and alchemy to come would also be based on existing esoteric and occult traditions, when it comes to symbols, chants, tools and rituals.

Elves could be wiccans and use crystals and gems, cauldrons and crafts and contact fairies. Gigantic wicker elf burning for fertility and all the elven women turn up pregnant, for example.

For dwarves, maybe freemasonry; humans, some form of qabalah or eastern yoga/tantra; goblins could have nordic rune magic or satanism; gnomes some form of shamanism or voodoo. If kobolds do magic, either some African or Native American stuff.

Alternativelly, the different religions would be available with their own magical system. It'd be pretty cool to have them craft statues of specific deities, totem poles, African masks, candles, robes and so on and to perform simple and more complicated magical rituals such as the wicker man burning or something like in Eyes wide shut.

Magically charging artifacts and summoning a spirit to inhabit an animal to make a familiar would also be pretty awesome.

[CaptainLambcake]

gnomes?

[10ebbor10]

I dunno, it'd feel shoehorned in. Also hardcoded.

And when we get procedural cultures, you'd get Nordic humans doing Eastern Yoga, or something like that.

I'd rather have a procedurally generated system, that runs based on it's own laws, rather than a heap of the world's weirdest traditions shoehorned into the system.

[Neonivek]

Elves could be wiccans and use crystals and gems, cauldrons and crafts and contact fairies. Gigantic wicker elf burning for fertility and all the elven women turn up pregnant, for example.

For dwarves, maybe freemasonry; humans, some form of qabalah or eastern yoga/tantra; goblins could have nordic rune magic or satanism; gnomes some form of shamanism or voodoo. If kobolds are smart enough to do magic, either some African or Native American stuff.

I feel like I have been transported back in time to 1930s comic books.

I will say this now, you don't know what you are talking about and this is rather offensive.

[Deboche]

gnomes aren't in the game, sorry about that but who knows they might make a comeback

Neonivek - actually I'm not familiar with wicca practices, just a bad example based on the movie, but it wouldn't be too hard to do a little research and come up with the correct rituals and symbols. It'd certainly be easier than a lot of the research they already do for the game

If the African or Native American commentary was offensive, I apologize. I just meant that kobolds wouldn't have a very advanced civilization and some African and native American magic would be adequate considering it's very close to nature, low tech and less organized. I didn't mean that those peoples aren't smart but I see why it could be read that way, I'll change the wording

[Neonivek]

It was all mildly offensive and clearly drawn not from the actual sources themselves but a hollywood interpretation. Hense why it feels like a old comic book version. Anyhow let not this stop the conversation, if you had a point then you can expand on it. Afterall clarification and expansion are important for any suggestion.

I am not sure Wiccan works for elves anyhow. It feels a lot more like a human religion anyhow even thematically (Burning of effigy for elves who worship every tree?)

As for Kobolds I think the religion we should start with is animism or the Neolithic human understanding of cause and effect. Then expand from there.

[Manveru Taurënér]

There are gnomes in-game, but they're not really civilized (probably due to lacking any language) and aren't planned to either afaik. They only appear in good/evil mountain areas and only show up to steal your booze if possible.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Mountain_gnome

[Deboche]

I dunno, it'd feel shoehorned in. Also hardcoded.

And when we get procedural cultures, you'd get Nordic humans doing Eastern Yoga, or something like that.

I'd rather have a procedurally generated system, that runs based on it's own laws, rather than a heap of the world's weirdest traditions shoehorned into the system.

well, magic and alchemy are gonna be in and they'll have to work one way or another, why not make realistic?

as for cultures, it's just a matter of attaching a religious system or a deity to a certain culture so that you have a nordic-based culture using runes and an eastern-based culture using yoga and so on

[Boea]

Has magic, or alchemy been realistic?

Besides I much prefer the Contract Magic, and Xenosynthesis being posed by Kohaku, and the rest can be placed on sphere interactions and spheres that are procedurally hooked onto supposedly mundane items.

[Neonivek]

Has magic, or alchemy been realistic?

Besides I much prefer the Contract Magic, and Xenosynthesis being posed by Kohaku, and the rest can be placed on sphere interactions and spheres that are procedurally hooked onto supposedly mundane items.

Kohaku's magic system only functions for certain types of magic and systems. With Xenosynthesis being a mechanic of which the flow of magic can be derived but it isn't one where the mechanics of magic can be.

Contract magic as well is only one type of magic.

[Deboche]

Has magic, or alchemy been realistic?

Besides I much prefer the Contract Magic, and Xenosynthesis being posed by Kohaku, and the rest can be placed on sphere interactions and spheres that are procedurally hooked onto supposedly mundane items.

As for whether it works, you'd have to ask practicing occultists. But the practices do exist and they have been used throughout History. Say if you have a spell in the game to cause harm, why invent a new system of magic instead of using voodoo or satanism? In this game, it makes sense because the developers strive for realism and attention to detail.

I'm still reading and catching up to contract magic and xenosynthesis. It seems to me that if you're going to make such a complex system, it might as well be based on existing magical practices. They are not exact sciences; you'll find some people who swear by karma and others who say there's no such thing, for example, so you can pick and choose what makes sense with the game. When it comes to spheres of good and evil, why not go ahead and call it karma?

As for a source of magical power, some faiths speak of cosmic energy, others of ether that exists everywhere at once, others of chi. Again, use whatever makes sense with the game.

It comes down to having the creatures do something magical in order to cause something to happen. It's an action and may involve the use of specific items and possibly buying spellbooks(grimoires) so the spells can be learned. All of this can be taken from real world sources.

Here's a good example: I just read Kohaku saying dwarves could do something to change the alignment of a certain region. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the guru that taught transcendental meditation to the Beatles, says that if a small percentage of people do transcendental meditation in a given city, there will be less accidents and violent crimes throughout the entire city.

[NW_Kohaku]

As for whether it works, you'd have to ask practicing occultists. But the practices do exist and they have been used throughout History. Say if you have a spell in the game to cause harm, why invent a new system of magic instead of using voodoo or satanism? In this game, it makes sense because the developers strive for realism and attention to detail.

I'm still reading and catching up to contract magic and xenosynthesis. It seems to me that if you're going to make such a complex system, it might as well be based on existing magical practices. They are not exact sciences; you'll find some people who swear by karma and others who say there's no such thing, for example, so you can pick and choose what makes sense with the game. When it comes to spheres of good and evil, why not go ahead and call it karma?

As for a source of magical power, some faiths speak of cosmic energy, others of ether that exists everywhere at once, others of chi. Again, use whatever makes sense with the game.

It comes down to having the creatures do something magical in order to cause something to happen. It's an action and may involve the use of specific items and possibly buying spellbooks(grimoires) so the spells can be learned. All of this can be taken from real world sources.

Here's a good example: I just read Kohaku saying dwarves could do something to change the alignment of a certain region. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the guru that taught transcendental meditation to the Beatles, says that if a small percentage of people do transcendental meditation in a given city, there will be less accidents and violent crimes throughout the entire city.

The thing is, why should we do "realistic" religion/magic practices, when we can just create elements of those religions and ideas of magic, and cut-and-paste them together to form procedural religions?

Especially since religion is already procedural, why take whole religions and make wicca serve a fish god of agriculture, when you could instead have a few dozen religion elements that you might procedurally associate with different spheres and types of gods?  Then, you could have all argiculture-related religions have some sort of harvest festival associated with it, and a custom based upon sharing of bread or food with strangers giving good luck, or other elements that could be sensibly associated to make more diverse cultures.

DF tries to be accurate to real life, but since we are creating whole new worlds, "accurate to real life" has to mean including the flexibility to handle cultures that realistically could have happened, even if they didn't actually happen.

[Deboche]

that makes sense but consider this: different occult practices have different ways to go about things and sometimes they plainly contradict each other. However, there are common elements, like meditation, ritual, dreams, symbols(usage thereof, not the symbols themselves), astral travel, sex magic, energy work and so on

whether you pick up an esoteric text from medieval europe, ancient egypt, ancient china or something more recent, some things are constant. If you took Earth and press reset and new cultures formed, these practices would appear again. Maybe not pentagrams, the tarot or the I-Ching but the actual work that you do would be the same

so I guess you could make procedural religions based on this but the working of magic, both what's sometimes called low magic(anything the user himself does such as clairvoyance or invisibility) and high magic(contacting entities on different planes of existence, angels, fairies, etc.), would always be the same

that being said, DF could have its own symbols, religions and entities but magic work the same way it does in real life

[NW_Kohaku]

I'll just put aside any further snarky comments about how well magic works in real life beyond this one...

But basically, what you really need is just some overarching principle of how magic is powered or supplied, and then you can put in particular rules or cultures beyond that. 

If something says that all magic either comes directly as miracles from their god, and all other magic is the work of demons, then they're wrong/lying.  You need to have that overarching principle/the system by which magic is distributed stay fairly the same, and then make the practices, themselves, differ by some sort of plug-and-play tokens into the system.  Maybe pentagrams are how one culture has developed magic, or reached out to spirits, while another works with paper talismans or mandalas.

I'd also point out that Elven magic right now is pretty well-defined in the eyes of Toady, with it being supplied by a Nature Spirit that can either give magic freely or revoke it on a whim depending on if the elves are furthering the Nature Spirit's own goals. 

I'd also have to say that "low magic" and "high magic" are generally used to mean something radically different - "low magic" refers to a world where very few people have access to magic, although it is there.  (Beowulf type things.) Whereas "high magic" refers to a setting where magic is commonplace, and you have flying island cities serviced by magic carpet rides for transportation.  (Like Harry Potter.)

[Deboche]

But basically, what you really need is just some overarching principle of how magic is powered or supplied, and then you can put in particular rules or cultures beyond that. 

If something says that all magic either comes directly as miracles from their god, and all other magic is the work of demons, then they're wrong/lying.  You need to have that overarching principle/the system by which magic is distributed stay fairly the same, and then make the practices, themselves, differ by some sort of plug-and-play tokens into the system.  Maybe pentagrams are how one culture has developed magic, or reached out to spirits, while another works with paper talismans or mandalas.

I'd also point out that Elven magic right now is pretty well-defined in the eyes of Toady, with it being supplied by a Nature Spirit that can either give magic freely or revoke it on a whim depending on if the elves are furthering the Nature Spirit's own goals. 

I'd also have to say that "low magic" and "high magic" are generally used to mean something radically different - "low magic" refers to a world where very few people have access to magic, although it is there.  (Beowulf type things.) Whereas "high magic" refers to a setting where magic is commonplace, and you have flying island cities serviced by magic carpet rides for transportation.  (Like Harry Potter.)

As for the definition of high and low magic, it's apparently not very well defined. Essentially, those are the two ways of doing magic. Either you develop an ability or call on an entity to perform some work.

I think there should definitely be different religions, different work each would require(in terms of rituals, symbols, objects and so on) and different deities. If it's possible to have a culture generate its own occult systems, symbols and dogma, that's great.

However, I do think the work itself should be as close to realistic as possible. Have the goblin shaman/warlock/<randomly generated clergy title> get into a trance through chanting, dancing, meditation or ingesting drugs. Have the dwarf magician do a symbolic ritual to cure another dwarf, whether it's a voodoo doll, a crystal or some new method. And have the human burning some incense equivalent to a certain deity at whatever time of some day because the planets and stars are in the right position.

The premise of chaos magic is that we can create entities to do our bidding and eventually turn them into godforms and that to cast a spell there's no recipe you need to follow and you can create your own. The underlying principles are just the same as in any other system though and those, I think, should be used in DF.