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[Felblood]

I like thge idea of mana concentrations passed on a tile by tile basis, so we can build runic systems to route and cencentrate mana. however, I fearwhat that would mean for memory and cpu costs, especially if thereis more than one type of mana, such  as sphere specific mana.

Having sphere base"side effects" like bursting into flames from poorly cast spells is cool. It makes tampering with magic moredangerous,and makes cautious exploration wiser. You could have any fire spell raise the caster's temperature, based on how poorly he cast. Spells that would barely warm a real wizard could reduce lesser men to ashes. Gives peasants a reason to fear magical  knowledge.

It might be better to just make global mana levels that regenerate over time, for the entiresite. It wouldn't be as cool, but it would be way easier to implement.

Asfor the parser issues. This is a subtley differnt issue from  the traditional parser problem, and there are some triedand tested methods that Toady could use to make this word.

The finite word pool is a wonderful asset, that gives us a number of advantages. If we further limit the number of possible was players can arrange the, the system becomes relatively easy.

These limitations can even be made to seem natural. Deciding that a spell casts itself the first time you speak a verb, both makes a sort of logical sense, and keeps sentences from growing out of hand. Targets, sub-targets, modifiers before you give a verb, or face the concequences.

In this example Orc Neck Slice is fine, but attempt to cast Slice Orc Neck, and you're going to get cut in a random place, before you can specify the target.

[Eagleon]

One question is, what happens to excess mana if you're doing something that only requires so much before adding more becomes meaningless? For example, if you're teleporting something, the person is either there or isn't (although it'd be amusing for teleportation spells that -don't- have enough mana to go horribly, horribly wrong). Does the rest of it just disappear? Seems like a conservation of energy problem.

I really like the idea of raw sphere-aspected mana affecting things in dangerous ways. I don't think you'd be able to have different levels of aspected mana in flows, as there are a lot of spheres and eventually Toady will probably allow you to add your own. But I think that for situations where there's excess mana for any reason (either leeching off an unskilled caster's spell, or from the above situation), magic could manifest itself as simplified creatures with sphere-based behavior. Think ball-lightning, appearing without warning, flying around mysteriously, and disappearing just as quickly in a flash.

When one of these "creatures" (let's call them manifestations) forms, they wander around for a while until they hit something they can affect. They may be attracted or repulsed by things aspected to specific spheres, specifically I'm thinking opposites would attract them because high levels generally flow to low ones. So a manifestation of Salt mana would move towards things aspected with Water (like blood), but away from Sea or rock salt blocks.

They can move differently or look different, using effects like electricity spreading and reforming with lightning mana, or water mana creating a bit of actual water around it as it moves. They could even have different physical properties - many manifestations may fly, but it'd be more thematic if a manifestation of Minerals would creep along the ground, encrusting things it passes in stone and crystal. This stuff would be possible with a reasonable amount of CPU load because it's not always present. Regions might have a certain amount of ambient aspected mana but unless it's crazy rich in the stuff, you won't see it happening just whenever.

The other thing I think would be cool is if fragments of the spell that created the manifestations could travel along with them. If you're casting a lot of different spells, this could be especially dangerous, as manifestations could attract to each other and create new ones outside your control - imagine a foolish mage over-casting "burn wood" and then "heal friend", and having manifestations with the words "burn" and "friend" combine. Who is the manifestation's friend?

Better, what happens when a manifestation is aspected with a truename? It might last a lot longer, becoming a sort of simple ghost, as truenames are supposed to be somewhat permanent and intrinsically powerful. It could grow into sort of a curse for the person, flying around and absorbing other manifestations, building up mana until a critical point is reached and the spell releases.

[Felblood]

That extra mana wouldn't get used, so it would just stay where it was, ready for someone else to cast, or you to cast another spell.

Perhaps, there should be combinations of runes that simply condense and collect environmental mana. Fire mana collectors would need to be made from materials with high melting points, but would provide extra oomph and re-casting capability to fire aligned spells.

We don't yet have and suggestions for how to fit truenames into this. Maybe we shouldn't. Truenames are kind of hokey to me. Only the god who created someone, and maybe the person themself should know their true name.

Blood seems like the natural solution to the target-a-specific-person-over-a-great-distance problem. Toady has already said he wants to use this and started laying the groundwork for it, and it seems properly mystical. Give the game a "Blood" noun and have certain spells, cast on a blood sample, instead effect the donor.

Figuring out which spells work this way and which ones don't gives experimenters something to explore.

[Eagleon]

Well I can also see truenames being set at birth, by chance, and the ability to later determine what it is through a powerful magic ritual or some deep introspection on the part of the person himself. I just think it'd be a cool extra element to have, and fitting with the system as described. What's any noun but a name for a thing? Sure most can describe a group of things, but "The Ring" implies something very different from just "ring". Anyway, they wouldn't have to come up a lot, but truenames for important people would be very valuable to many buyers, and they could aspect the person to different things, which could affect them in a lot of subtle ways.

What I meant by extra mana is having large rituals, or deciding to chant a spell for much longer than necessary. I think there would be only so much mana available in one area, so for certain spells you may need to do more to attract it in from others.

The question is, how is the mana supposed to know that you don't want all of it to teleport a person, that you just want the minimum amount necessary to do the job? Since the person is gone after expending a fairly limited amount of mana, the excess can either flow back as normal, or it can try to rush to do more. The way I see such a system is that you're either creating a structured path for the mana to flow through by telling the universe at large what you want it to do, or you're imprinting on the mana itself a task using your words, giving it a sort of psuedo-intelligence

Either way, I think it'd be a lot messier (and therefore more fun) if it went out of control a bit. Makes using a wizard's tower's giant crystal focus chamber to light your fart on fire suitably disastrous.

[Felblood]

Truenames are very potent as a literary device, since giving yours away represents a tremendous act of trust and intimacy. I can't see any way to put that in a procedural game like DF without trivializing that aspect of it.

I assumed that the words would shape as much mana as they could, such that mana gets used until it either runs out, or the command is completely fulfilled, at which time no more mana can flow down that path. The words suck up mana, instead of the inherent pressure of the mana pushing it through the words.

This is the root of the "make a way to limit your spells, so they eat up less mana" concept. If the whole pool of mana is going to get sucked up/ disturbed anyway, there's no reason to cast anything, except the biggest flashiest magic you can manage.

Open ended words like "Many" would be extremely dangerous, particularly if the resulting could  spell channel so much mana through/past you that you burst into flames from magical friction.

However, you make some interesting points about making even minor magics dangerous, in the presence of an intense mana field. The raw energy isn't just necessary for casting large spells, it alters the nature of spells cast in it's vicinity.

Perhaps, large masses of mana do create a pressure of their own, that seeks to burst out through even minor spells, greatly increasing their side effects, or even spawning secondary, sphere effects.

[Mel_Vixen]

Truenames are very potent as a literary device, since giving yours away represents a tremendous act of trust and intimacy. I can't see any way to put that in a procedural game like DF without trivializing that aspect of it.

You dont need to make all truenames avaibable cause it works only as very dominant describtion.

The concept exists for demons in christian mythology too which have even lesser true names.

You can also figure out truenames by not so moralic ways for example can you order an irish kobold to tell his truename if you posses his pot of gold.

Others might trade truenames they got knowledge of how ever this was possible.

Also by Mantik, parakognition, visions, propheterie, mindreadin and telepathie you can get knowledge of truenames.

The truename of an dragon might even be public knowledge as some sort of defence.

[Faces of Mu]

The more I think about tile-based magic, the more thrilled I get at the idea of racial limitations as dependent on tiles. Elves get more power/greater successes near trees, humans from above ground tiles, grass tiles, or above-ground developed (built-on) tiles, dwarves from underground tiles, rock tiles, or developed (smoothed/engraved or built-on) rock tiles, goblins from destroyed constructions, same-as-dwarf tiles, or any undeveloped tile.

This sort of magic makes sense as to what draws the race to the particular biome for a habitat, particularly when it comes to megabeasts and other fey creatures. Evil and good biomes would also play into the magic somehow, but probably not racial modifiers so much as outcome modifiers.

Oh, and by race I mean the race grown up with as opposed to genetic heritage. But I'm sure Toady could make both influences weigh heavily on adoptees.

[Grek]

We'll want pronouns. Heal me, burn them, etc. Who's the second person pronoun, though? Who is you when casting a spell? Who is you all?

[Neonivek]

Evil and good biomes would also play into the magic somehow

No such thing by the time we get to Magic. They are being removed for Sphere based lands... none of which includes good or evil (though some get pretty close...)

[Felblood]

We'll want pronouns. Heal me, burn them, etc. Who's the second person pronoun, though? Who is you when casting a spell? Who is you all?

Will we? Pronouns can be dangerously inexact, not to mention hard to implement.

I assume that the command is spoken to the mana directly, or possibly the universe itself. Unless we can direct magic to act on itself, there's no reason to have second person pronouns.

What if someone told the magic to cut itself? If the mana can't cut itself, it might just cut the caster.

"Those guys" is simply Targeted Creatures or something to that effect.

Some equivalent of Me or Self could be handy, but if mis-targeted spells typically affect the caster, if he's a viable target, it might be redundant.

[WaS]

About the mana system: we could include into language a construstion, which chooses the mana source, for example, "With power of Armok, Sacrificing my left arm, Raise Skeletions" would be much more powerfull than just "Raise Skeletions"

[Org]

Creatures and certain special objects may also have Truenames - proper nouns that affect the creature directly if used in a spell. Typically for sentient beings they're only created so that any random mage can't do it later on in the person's life. Creatures with truenames are also associated with whatever sphere(s) the name implies, and to a limited extent may take on some of their characteristics. A person truenamed "Sunblood" would be courageous, while "Hatesneeze" might get sick more often and be bitter. It's easier to Truename a creature or object predictably while it's young. Truenaming an adult can lead to some amusing consequences.

/facepalm
Ugggh, why does this remind me of Eragon.

Pretty good, except for this part. Dont like it. Its dumb. Stupid even. But the rest is good.

EDIT: Healing would be cool. Hate how long it takes to heal normally. But what else? Can you summon food, or send messages to other kings/druid for help/or trade through teleportation? Can you mess up?

Urist McMagicDwarf cancels heal Sibrek Axedwarf:burns him.
Sibrek Axedwarf has been incinerated!

You can enchant things right? That would be cool, but what kind of enchants? Maybe things like bonus stats, speed, or abilities. Fire weapons would be amazing, but would that sort of thing be a mood for magic? Are there moods for magic? Maybe Wizard would be the skill, while the individual proffesions would be like:
Enchanter:enchants weapons/armor/ maybe furniture to make it better
Mage:offensive wizard, does like fireballs and all that
Sorcerer:defensive, maybe can buff other dwarves for a temp time, or make walls stronger(i.e. harder to destroy)
Alchemist:stone to other stones maybe
Healer:i dont know about this one.......what does it do?

Will other races be able to have wizards? Maybe they are like leaders. But only Mages/Sorcerers/Healers, as the others cant do much.

I think this would be cool.

[FoboslC]

This is actually a great idea, but its too hard to implement.
So lets think, a dwarf mage says smething like "Keskal zirilbiban vetek gakit", it would shoot a fireball at thief.
But if it would say "Gakit keAskal zinilban", it would make a thief shoot fireball. Besides, how would stuff like "Agak ganlel sedil"Be handled? Since it would be quita hard to make all the analysis for what mage chants, and since it would be nearly impossible hard to make it analyse what was MEANT to happen, it would probly lead to limitation of mages can do, which wouldnt be FUN
Also, think of chorus mage possibility. whole lot of new stuff and many lulz ensues.

[Org]

Were you talking about my post? OR the OP?

[Foa]

True names? Have been reading Earthsea?

Seriously, come on, do we need a rant about every single opinion/angle/approach/etc of magic.