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[Elliott_Thinas]

One of my old forts had a group of priests; I built the fort on a human town and after undermining most of the buildings, I demolished the temple and used the dust to capture the priesthood. I then constructed my own temple underground and released the priests into it. No real purpose to it but it was a lot of fun.

[Endek]

No spells, no quaffing magic potions, no enchanted armour.
Magic is not needed, it's such a tired and cripplingly tedious fantasy trope. If there is magic it should not go beyond environmental magic like the undead and creatures which are obviously magical in origin. Magic should perhaps play a larger part in the ages of myth and legend, and not be prevalent - or perhaps not present at all - in the Age that that player exists in.

Let DF be a game about establishing an outpost, running a pseudo-medieval fortress, repelling invaders, trading, growing an empire and things like that. Like it is now.

[AtomicPaperclip]

I just want to be afraid of elves.

[Iroel]

No spells, no quaffing magic potions, no enchanted armour.
Magic is not needed, it's such a tired and cripplingly tedious fantasy trope. If there is magic it should not go beyond environmental magic like the undead and creatures which are obviously magical in origin. Magic should perhaps play a larger part in the ages of myth and legend, and not be prevalent - or perhaps not present at all - in the Age that that player exists in.

Let DF be a game about establishing an outpost, running a pseudo-medieval fortress, repelling invaders, trading, growing an empire and things like that. Like it is now.

While I do, of course, understand your reasons, I am afraid that magic in DF is unavoidable. It is already a planned aspect of the game (For example, take Core 80 or Bloat 134). I do believe, however, that it might have been mentioned somewhere that it could be turned off manually, just as female dwarven beardlessnes.

As for me, well, I can honestly say that while I've always been a huge fan of magic, there's plenty of stuff in that market. I'm hoping for some innovative stuff in DF, and judging from Toady's previous work in this magnificient game, I think it will be.

[Balathustrius]

Ante Scriptus: (That isn't proper Latin!) I only try to lay out a solid argument for randomized, organic, "low" magic as Rowanas mentioned.  Actually, as I was writing this, Rowanas brought up his suggestion that is along these lines, so...

The thing is magic in general is hard to get right in a fantasy setting without falling into the usual pitfalls of it existing in the first place.  Most magical universes just sorta throw it in and give no rational for it, and allow it to do pretty much whatever it wants with no consequences and the only real downside being time and fairly uninteresting and easy to acquire resources.  This is especially true of many fantasy videogames. 

Look at D&D: past 12th level, magic users are so over-powered it's ridiculous.  The spells are also on the whole kinda unimaginative, involving the summoning of stone walls out of nowhere, "spongey" balls of rolling fire, and magical beasts decidedly outlandish and inappropriate for the character in question to even be aware of.  Much of that comes down to the DM, of course, but it is often glossed over.

This is all largely due to (in my opinion) the Disnification and commercialization of the entire idea of magic and the supernatural.  Just recently someone brought up including the "fair folk" in DF, but the real faeries, that is, the badass little bastards that will make your life hell, even if you've done nothing, just because they can.  Steal your children, kill your livestock, that kinda jazz.  Such things are not included in most fantasy because it is not the popular conception of the topic.  Magic is the same.  The depth of the topic is lost in spell lists and magic wands, artifacts we've created after the fact to romanticize magic, make it sorta "sciencey," perhaps as some way to appeal to the nerdy asthetic of SCIENCE!

The fantasy magic we are often presented with is plastic and orderly; there are discernible and predictable rules, theories even, that govern it.  There is no room for chaos, no room for the raw creativity and destructiveness of dealing with things beyond the scientific, observable world, things that exist outside of explanation.  Wizards are presented as people who can simply order the universe around like some play thing, rather than ask it do something for it.

The best example of this I can think of is the magic of the Discworld series.  There are two types: Wizardly (males) and Witchcraft (women).  Wizardly magic is more like pop magic: lots of books and wands and devices, magic punk if you will.  There are explicitly described as geeks, too.  They have laws that work exactly like conservation of mass, and spells require much preparation and experimentation to get right.  Witches on the other hand don't mess around with that crap; hell, it barely matters what objects they have sitting around to do their work.  The cauldron need not be made of anything in particular, it could even be a tin bucket, the wand doesn't even need to be a wand (they've used a wooden spoon and laundry soap before); they just sorta, you know, do it.  They don't have to force possession of an animal, like switching out the consciouness like a wizard would, they just simply ask to tag along for a bit, and do so.  No worries, no accidents.  Hell, a Wizard will never ask a creature to do something, they will order it to do so through mind control.

So some static system would be...disingenuous to the whole atmosphere of DF.  We have cannibalistic elves, for Armok's sake.  In a videogame it is hard to have something organic, but a randomly generated system would be far more appropriate and may approximate such an earthy paradigm.

What I'm getting at is specific effects for things are poppy, kinda bleh.  (Don't take this personally, please) A sword that paralyzes at long range?  Why?  Wouldn't you rather have a sword blessed by the power of Armok, via some totem or such, that could do anything, that might even affect combat in unnoticeable ways?  If you really want a sword of heat beams, what do you think you'd have to give to ask the universe to do it for you?  Your soul?  Another's soul?  Fielty to Armok?  Would you let demons possess you in your sleep for such power?

If real consequences of magic are not included, it implies that the universe properly behaves in that manner.  If it did, it would be completely destroyed by ambition and evil (what if the Golden Spear actually did give Hitler all-powerful might?).  It also means that magic would necessarily be mundane, boring, commonplace.  If I can combine an ounce of water, two raisins, and a pinch of sugar to create a highly flammable liquid (no joke, that is an actually 3.5ed spell component list), why aren't I doing so on a massive scale, creating energy from practically nowhere?  Magic is meant to momentarily violate the rules of the universe, the mundane, predictable day to day rules.  And to violate the laws of existence, you'd better damn well be prepared to deal with the cost and consequences.  Dwarves can't just go around firing heat rays and raining divine pestilence on the enemy willing nilly, because why have traps?  If I can train a dwarf to explode enemies off hand, why bother with anything but three champion level Warlocks?

That was such a good post.  And I agree 100%.

[Goose in a jar]

I would like to see a wizard's tower mode or some such instead of spindlies CORRUPTING my dwarfiness.

The wizard is basically a great big noble-like git who won't do labour outside of researching way to pervert the natural magic of the plane, white tower tripe, making magical junk, scrawling runes and crap on any suitable surface he can get to and casting.

All the hard labor is done by his school appropriate servants. Golems for earthyness, and zombies for baddiness and all that stuff. Obviously they are going to eventually rebel and snap him like a twig (magicky and learny skills shouldn't up your stats), or he figures out a highly lethal demon summoning spell or some other magical mishap. And that's the way the caster crumbles.

Magical schools should be genned to be based on the organic magic of the plane and their own organic concept, they should be able to recruit members of any race depending on the appeal they have to said race. Religious orders should be based on the Gods and objects of worship. 

Religion knights and such go after each other and the magical schools with ample smiting (in their God's flavour). In the case of objects of worship, followers should be able to somehow resurrect them.

The strength of the spells and invocations should vary. Most should be weak to utility strength, whilst a few should be grossly overpowered with little ground in between. If you are mining the very nature of a world, the strength of the discoveries will vary like how in reality the atomics trump all the other weapons.

[Elliott_Thinas]

Well of course DWARVES should never use magic. They don't use ridiculous hocus pocus; if magma can't solve the problem, it cannot be solved. Still, gentle elf magic that lets them do whatever elven stuff they do and wandering wizards who do cool tricks and the occasional enchanted sword would all be cool things to see in adventure mode or in the visitors to the fort.

[Goose in a jar]

Well of course DWARVES should never use magic. They don't use ridiculous hocus pocus; if magma can't solve the problem, it cannot be solved. Still, gentle elf magic that lets them do whatever elven stuff they do and wandering wizards who do cool tricks and the occasional enchanted sword would all be cool things to see in adventure mode or in the visitors to the fort.

That gives me a great idea. Making an inn in fortress mode that attracts adventurers, door to door salesmen types and others. Quality of rooms correlates to quality of visitors however. 

[Sizik]

I think magic should be divided somewhat racially, with dwarves having artifacts, elves have druids, humans have wizards, goblins have demonology/necromancy, kobolds have shamanism/voodoo, and everyone can do alchemy/herbalism (as it's just chemistry/pharmacy with magical intents).

[Polymorph]

It will not be long before someone mods in a hukodwelblin to do it all.

I don't want to look at it..

[ManaUser]

I agree with LordZorintrhox's points, especially the chaos part. Magic just isn't very magical in most games. Of course seeing that is one thing, but fixing it is a whole lot harder (not that I doubt Toady's abilities).

Though there is one place where a little magic could be added that would be totally in keeping with that ethos: artifacts. They already have the chaos part down pretty well, and a nasty side (go insane and die if you fail).

[Rvlion]

At the moment I have read about 4 different things, that have little to do with each other.
- Magic in his full fury
- Religion and the use of tempels
- Alchemy
- Rune magic

If magic was to be really introduced I for one like the system that is used in the Dragonlance books, every day a mage has to study his spells to memorize them and once the spell was used… The mage had forgotten it and has to re-memorize it. While the magic in those books was extremely powerfull. Even up to the point a mage could challenged a god to become a god himself  it was useless in large conflicts and could still only be used discretely or the mage needed a large escort for protection due to exhaustion and lack of remembered spells.

Although in reallife not a religious man I like the idea of having dwarfs worship their god and after enough dwarfs have prayed for sufficient time you will be granted a gift. Depending on the gift it could be something in the line of the regrowth of all trees on the map, increased food harvest for a certain period or an entire seasons harvest added to your stockpiles, quality increase for certain items. For the militairy dwarfs perhaps a priest who works in the temple blesses the equipment the dwarf is wearing so damage done to the dwarf in battle is lessened.
Or perhaps receive a blessing which makes a door your priest is allowed to choose invulnerable too the [buildingdestroy:x] tag be it temporary or permanent.

Alchemy and the herbal lore. Creating potions that when drunk heal all wounds or a combination of herbs (when present on map) that would allow for fertilization of the farmlands for a 200% increase of farming for a specific period depending on skill.

Runes could be fun, but I would again focus more on healing, placing runes on armor to increase defence strenght, possibly a speed increase (walking faster, more agility). Instead of downright slaughtering your enemies with a few coloms of fire decending down from the heavens

In my honest opinion, after reading various fantasy orientated books also concerning dwarves and the use of magic in general. It is very rare to find a dwarf relying on magic instead of his trusted battle ax or warhammer. For this reason I don’t really see the need for magic used by dwarves.
Let some of the other races use offensive magic and let the dwarves use herbal lore for the day to day affairs and runemasters to enchant the fortress entrance with runes designed to scare goblins of with its magical aura or enchant the dwarven armor to be resistant against the other races their offensive magic.
This in combination with introduced religion and having several priests walking around blessing the “people”  (peasants and soldiers alike) and thus giving them happy thoughts would improve the game more then a mere fire/ice bolt fired at an enemy.

[Evil One]

Personally I think each race should have its own magic type some much more rare then others:

- Humans would have powerful wizards that are capable of casting spells of almost any type and are easily capable of destroying large groups of enemies but are vulnerable to a warrior sneaking up on them and these wizards would be very rare, the wizards skill would effect range, radius and effectiveness of each spell.

- Elves would use powerful natural magics to capture or hold their targets and to summon animals to their aid but this type of magic is pretty common to them and as their skill improves they can summon more powerful animals and hold their foes for longer.

- Goblin magic should be about improving their fighting abilities, enraging themselves that sort of thing greater skill would increase the effect.

- Dwarven magic should be strictly weapon and armour based, a runesmith would add various runes to a weapon or suit of armour, on a weapon the runes would grant things like fire damage but on armour it would grant defense against fire and greater skill would allow more runes to be added.

New spells and magic types should definitely be controlled by the raws though to allow people to not only mod in their own races but to also create new magic styles for those races.

[LordZorintrhox]

Thank you 2 people who seem to have read my post, ManaUser and Balathustrius.

[redacted123]

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