Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Puzzlemaker]

quote:Originally posted by Lyrax:
<STRONG>How I (a relative outsider) see the magic, as it has been presented in this thread:

Gem Magic:

Pros: Can create just about any effect you want, has a wide range of levels and wouldn't be too hard to implement.

Cons: Would be a pain to actually use.  Collecting specific gems and placing specific animal parts in them?  Worse than collecting sand for glass.

Runic magic:

Pros: Would be easy to use and implement, and could be very powerful.

Cons: Would be hard to introduce anything truly new.  Might make engravers waaaay powerful.

Magic Flows:

Pros: Fits the game, and player skill becomes a huge factor, which is a very DF way to do things.

Cons: Achieving specific effects would be frustrating.

As a Mineable:

Pros: Also very dwarflike, allows creation of great artifacts, and can be used in a very wide variety of items.  You can control what items they go into.

Cons: Less variety of effects than flows or even runes.

Magic Sources:

Pros: You can do anything, with any race, and change it for each one.

Cons: Can you imagine keeping that straight?  Or organizing it?  Hideous.

Elementalism, Runic, and Flow magic all look like the most promising ones so far to me.</STRONG>

I agree with this post.

My two cents...

I saw something in the dev log.  Something about how decorating items should work, where slots would open up.  Like, if you carve a turtle on a shield, then there would be two slots for gems for the eyes, and maybe a slot for turtle shell decoration, etc.

Well, howabout if that system is implemented, and is also used for dwarven magic?

Carve a rune, you can put other decorations in to change and/or increase the items bonus.

I also do like the idea of flows, sorta.  I see it as more of areas or magical "Rivers" underground, where you can find small amounts of special rock and gems, and these give a much larger bonus to any runecrafting dwarves.

[winner]

I really like the magic flow idea if it works like a  aquifer except instead of sinking, it rises (and is below a solid layer of rock) maybe it flows slowly through the magic bearing stone

you could create cisterns of magic, or just poke a hole in the ground and see the interesting effect

[Mikademus]

quote:Originally posted by Lyrax:
<STRONG>Elementalism, Runic, and Flow magic all look like the most promising ones so far to me.</STRONG>

You forgot to mention Artificing or Geomancy (stonesinging) in your summary.

Artificing

Pros: Very Dwarfish, natural extension of items with attributes, easily extended to similar ideas (like items gaining experience)

Cons: Cross-dependency with other skills (forging, engraving, runic) creates many permutations whose effects can be difficult to predich (note: this can be considered an advantage)

Geomancy

Pros: Dvarfish, easy to implement, very functional, does not really disrupt game balance or mechanichs

Cons: Limited, not very spectacular

My 2 cents. From what has been discussed in this thread, a good, believable, unique and relatively complete Dwarven Magic would consist of

* Runic
* Artificing
* Geomancy

[Mikademus]

Since magic has been brought up again[\url], I thought I'd bump this thread.

I wish this board had the feature to sticky threads...

[Align]

I just wish it was an Invision Board.

[Silverionmox]

Dwarven magic. Dwarves are, whatever the mythos, characterized by their propensity for crafting, digging and building - in other words: shaping cold, hard matter.
So we would expect dwarves to commit magic the dwarven way: by shaping matter. Runic engravings, forging artifacts, digging tunnels and rooms in a certain shape, crafting golems, cutting gems, etc. fit that attitude.  Learning spells by heart, worshipping gods, praying, dreaming, etc. would not. There is room for interpretation here, of course. Alchemy with sulphur, quicksilver and hematite could qualifie; alchemy with eye of newt, wing of bat and moonshine probably wouldn't (that's for other magic users).

Magic, on the other hand, is characterised by its unpredictability, personal importance for the creator and rarity/uniqueness.
- Unpredictability can manifest itself in different ways. Changing magic rules over time is difficult to implement in the game, and probably just as frustrating as pure randomness would be. It is possible however to make magic strength vary with place, so the concept of magic flows becomes interesting: you are essentially working in two topographies at once. (This could be an explanation why wizards (let dwarves) build towers or dig dungeons in remote places, while it would be much easier to live in the city, where there are plenty of people to do their dishes and such. They need to reside at places with strong magic flow to be able to perform any magical feats. Those spots just happened to lie a few hundred meters above the treetops, or a mile deep beneath the surface.)
Another way to implement unpredictability is to take timing, the nature and/or the specific implementation of the effect out of the player's control, like it artifacts currently.
For example, one could have artifact-grade (or merely masterwork) engravings have a magic effect appropriate to their contents and/or creator, if they happen to be situated on a magic flow. Or the strengths of a rune-inscribed weapon only manifest themselves in accordance with the strength of the local magic flow. There could also be background cycles of magic strength, possibly connected to the phases of the moon or other celestial objects or seasons, for specific subtypes of magic or in general.

- Personal importance:
Magic is more art than technology. Without personal inspiration and passion, good art rarely is conceived. The same should go for magic. This would require dwarves to be dedicated to something in order for some magical effect to manifest (high skill, or a family member is killed, or an artifact is lost, or he finds himself in great danger, has an accident, etc.). Or the other way around, great inspiration makes the dwarf dedicated (fey moods).
For the effects of magic, personal preferences might even be more important. A rune might harm anyone that passes over it except the ones who wear tin armor (a favourite of the engraver). Or another might cause dimple cups to grow spontaneously on the tile. Or deter flies, or goblins, or titans. Or attract them.

-Uniqueness:
For the sake of game balance, and more importantly, enjoyability: let magic be rare, unique and difficult. It should either be unreliable or require a lot of effort. Artifacts are unreliable, runes could work only in certain circumstances or on magic flow. Geomancy (feng shui-like tapping of magic fields or flows) is naturally more under control of the player - since he controls the placement of corridors and furniture. One also would expect these effects to extend to the whole fortress (eg. lighting or heat everywhere, no rotting), or all dwarves (eg. reduced chance of falling, greater fertility), or have a focal point somewhere (eg. golem animation cube, entrance wards). So the requirements can be quite stringent to have it work at all, and furthermore its power could depend on its size (eg: turning flint to gold requires a setup the size of a whole map; turning lead to gold might require but 1/32).

PS: Please, no connection between gods and magic (like that most foul of DnD creations, the cleric). Religions can serve as a focal point for desires and motivations of dwarves, and as an organizing principle of society. There's no need to confound magic with that. Ask not what your deity can do for you, ask what you can do for your deity. (And that doesn't bar the gods themselves from performing a miracle... when they feel like it.)

[Grek]

I'd like to see magic as a flow of sorts. Not a world map flow, but an invisible (unless you are/get a wizard or something) think that drifts around the map. There would be different types of flows. Good, Evil and whatever other forces Toady adds. Good would flow towards Good, Evil to Evil, etc. making them tend to bunch up.

Artifacts, Temples, some actions and objects would produce magic flows. It could also be moved around/stored my magic users.

Magic would have effects, the frequency and intensity of which depending on how savage the map is and how much magic is present. It could create aligned vermin (demon rats or pixies), make water more or less pure, calm/upset people in the flow, make dead get up from the grave, effect harvests, etc.

Examples:
A dwarf goes insane and murders his family in his home. The home gets full of evil magic and becomes haunted by the ghosts of his family, forcing him from the house. He leaves and goes to live in the barracks. All other dwarfs that try to stay there get bad thoughts and move out. Only when the murdering dwarf jumps of a bridge does the curse end.

You build a grand temple to Ethil, Goddess of underground rivers, peace and gems in your fortress. There is a cave river running through it, out through your farms to a waterfall and off the map. A dwarf hanging around the waterfall gets a fey mood and makes a perfect saphire with images of rivers on it, which is hung up in the temple. This pleases Ethil and your farms start to produce more produce. Later, a goblin horde busts down your defenses and kills your preists, spilling their blood in the cave river and stealing the gem. Your crops all wither when the bloody water touches them, leaving your fortress in famine. A dwarf is given a vision of a beautiful maiden weeping tears of blood. He recognizes it as Ethil and sets out to find the gem. He has many adventures, reclaims the gem, heals the farmlands and returns to the fortress to become Ethil's new high preist.

A poscessed speardwarf living at a fortress with many fisherdwarfs creates an artifact iron helmet with images of snakes and fish upon it. He wears it and soon after, starts hearing voices telling him to go to the water. He struggles, but eventually goes out to the lake bear the fort. He stands near a cliff and looks out over the water. As he gets closer, the voices get stronger, telling him to jump. He resists and throws the helm into the water. A massive sea serpent, looking just like the one on the helm, bursts from the water and attacks him. He kills it and is proclaimed a hero.

At the temple of Ingurt, the God of Sludge, they have a massive pool of water around the main altar. Every fall, the worshipers throw someone in and they come out as a mud golem.

[ March 29, 2008: Message edited by: Grek ]

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Kogan Loloklam]

quote:Originally posted by InquisitiveIdiot:
<STRONG>To contrast these, when our dwarves dig too deep we get to see the whole thing play out.  We may not know why this FUN STUFF is HIDDEN, but we get to hear every single choked scream gurgle gurgle crack whimper gurgle.  And I think that's a very good thing.</STRONG>

Yes we do. Boatmurdered had one.

We don't know who imprisoned them in there, but we do know that they WERE imprisoned.

[ArchMageOmega]

Not that it means much, but I wanted to throw in my 2 cents. I like the idea of a combination of flows/ley lines/magical fonts combined with runes. My idea for how this could work is that ley lines and/or fonts would generate different types of magic as either a gas or liquid. This would be invisible (under most circumstances) but would be effected by tunneling (either flows faster or slower through air). Normally, this only causes minor effects, like making certain minerals glow, or causing food to spoil faster or slower, but in the presence of a rune, it could cause much more obvious effects. Of course, since the magic is invisible, it'd be hard to direct enough of the right magic into an area to do what you want. Imagine carving a rune that should channel light mana into brightening up your dining room, only to find that it was fire mana instead, and now you have one big oven.

Anyway, this is just one idea. It may be too computationally intense to implement anyway. (Handling fluid motion for the entire map for each type of mana sounds pretty slow.) In the end, all of the ideas sound like fun.  

[Lyrax]

If we're going to resurrect a thread like this, let me take a new angle on it.

I would like to see something that allows me a moderate amount of control over the products.

I would NOT like a system similar to the decoration system, where I have to micromanage the proximity of available items to the decoration site.  That's not fun.  Decorating existing items, unless it's like bars of metal or blocks of stone, and it doesn't matter which one gets decorated.

Something that allows me to make magic items from scratch would be good.

I want to be able to do at least the following:

1) Dictate category of item created.  I want to say it's going to be a weapon.  Or an armor piece.  Etc.

2) No chance of using crap.  I don't want to say "make me a weapon" and it gives me a -silver vorpal axe- or a +chestnut sword of fire+.  Seriously?  That would suck.  This is triply true of any magic system that would use rare or otherwise limited materials to make these items.  Like gems, for example.

3) Use existing framework.  At least as much as possible.

What would you like to see?

[Mikademus]

Of course we're resurrecting this thread: it is the recommended practive in the rules and mentioned as a principal thread on the wiki page.

Anyway, reading the post above, where you said "chesnut sword of fire" (or something similar), I had a rather wild idea I wanted to try on you.

What if making of magic items was in a way similar to fey moods? That is, a "magician" (artificer) is a dwarf that has a workshop of some kind, and on a job task goes there and sits around and concentrates until he enteres a non-stat-boosting fey-like mood and maked an item. Not a mega-artifact, but something of power reflecting his abilities. This would work well and be in the mood and style of DF.

[Lyrax]

Hmmmm... that sounds really cool, actually.  Never mind that it disobeys two out of three of the 'rules' I just posted.  It would be workable, and would allow more powerful items than normal.

Thing is, I probably wouldn't like it after the first few days or weeks of using it.  Once the novelty wears off, it'll be exasperatingly difficult to do anything I actually WANT to do.

[Neonivek]

Before I start: I didn't read every single post... so sorry if I repeat something someone has said.

I looked over Toady's notes and I find it unfortunate that "Elementalism" completely ignores his want for "Planes"...

Afterall... he did plan on eventually using the Planes to collect resources but that it could backfire and lets say while exploring the Element of Fire a few Fire elementals pop out or something.

Anyhow... because Magic is supposed to be rare enough that parts of the world can be completely devoid of it... Yet strong enough that "Wizards" can with magic alone start to become a powerful force in the world. Id probably say that any potent magic, that goes beyond charms that may or may not work, would have to be found or go through great lengths to harness it.

So for Runic you should have to find or barter for runes possibly from powerful beings or send scouts to magical locations to collect them. Also Fay Moods could end with finding new runes when they imprint them on artifacts.

This all kinda makes me pine for the Wizard Arc... It is one of my favorite V2 Arcs.

[Mikademus]

quote:Originally posted by Lyrax:
<STRONG>It would be workable ... it'll be exasperatingly difficult to do anything I actually WANT to do.</STRONG>

Doesn't thst sum up the core of DF?