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[Neonivek]

Oddly Wizards having the ability to go through time (and thus having access to modern things in medieval times) used to be somewhat common.

Whatever happened to it?

[Tlaon]

I like these ideas.  They do a good job of keeping magic from being a pedestrian, everyday effect.

My own conception of DF magic is based around the idea that a single magic user has to be either insignificant, or very short lived, if magic is going to be as powerful as I'd like it to be.  Thus, I prefer group ritualistic magic: large numbers of magic users performing a ritual that invokes a powerful, yet subtle and dangerous magic: A magic of inspiration that causes your workshops to produce more masterwork items and more artifacts, but also encourages grudges to become fel moods, essentially turning all your dwarves into moody artists.  Things like that.  War Magic would be... incredibly dangerous.  Maybe you could call a meteor to crush an opposing army, but it would bring with it a whole meteor shower and rain death on the whole land.  Or maybe you could summon up some lava from the depths, but where the magma erupts would be uncontrollable, based on the natural point in the earth where it would emerge.

Going along with ritualistic magics, there would need to be a place to cast them.  I imagine dwarves gathering in a grand subterranean chamber with a sacrificial goat, doing some crazy dance, and then slaughtering the goat.  Perhaps the power of the magic could depend on the opulence of the chamber to some degree?

[PaperJack]

I was thinking of a morality system.
Your dorfort can be "evil" or "good", and thus some magic is accessible only by a good fort or a bad fort. A bad fort for istance, could make zombies out of living creatures, but a good fort could resurrect dorfs.

[Lord Dakoth]

"In other words, your fort's wizard should be mostly "off the hook."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I apologize.
I really do.

That made me chuckle.
Did you go through all the trouble of Photoshopping that just to respond to my post?

[Neonivek]

I was thinking of a morality system.
Your dorfort can be "evil" or "good", and thus some magic is accessible only by a good fort or a bad fort. A bad fort for istance, could make zombies out of living creatures, but a good fort could resurrect dorfs.

Except that good and evil for the most part are taken out and in a sense extrapolated into Spheres. (by that I mean, some spheres will seem a lot like good)

[Hakazaba]

I wonder if we will see randomised spells.

Urist mc'wizard casts matchburns the spire of howling

Urist mc'wizard is encased in ice

You Die...
 

[Vester]

I was thinking of a morality system.
Your dorfort can be "evil" or "good", and thus some magic is accessible only by a good fort or a bad fort. A bad fort for istance, could make zombies out of living creatures, but a good fort could resurrect dorfs.

It feels a bit cookie-cutter, honestly.

Besides, all forts are evil. We know that.

[Neonivek]

It really depends Vester

Is it true Good and True evil

Or is it spheres based around the concept of good and evil?

The reason why I think we don't even get good and evil spheres is because of the subjectivity. Alright that isn't all... but one of the reasons.

[Vester]

Well, the spheres thing brings up magic powered by, for example, kittens.

That would be a better use for the catsplosion.

(Wait, there isn't a good or evil sphere? Maybe they're blanket spheres for the other ones...)

[ArkDelgato]

"In other words, your fort's wizard should be mostly "off the hook."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I apologize.
I really do.

That made me chuckle.
Did you go through all the trouble of Photoshopping that just to respond to my post?

Yes.
That makes me sound less creepy then having that for other reasons.

[Silverionmox]

I was thinking of a morality system.
Your dorfort can be "evil" or "good", and thus some magic is accessible only by a good fort or a bad fort. A bad fort for istance, could make zombies out of living creatures, but a good fort could resurrect dorfs.

Spheres are more interesting. You can base your fort around the spheres of Pain, Torture and Hierarchy or around Growth, Health and Safety. Sounds obvious which one is which, isn't it? But the first one might be the prison camp where captives from an agressive are interrogated by the army, and the second one might be a place where giant scorpions are raised before releasing them on the unsuspecting peasantry. Any system that tries to shoehorn actions into a simple dichotomy is doomed to feel contrived and be exploitable.

[Bricks]

Going to jump on the "morality systems are meh" train here.  They make a lot of gratuitous assumptions about underlying philosophy, both in and out of game, that are frustrating and difficult to predict.  Spheres should dictate magic, and morality should be something out of the players hands and instead controlled by the dwarves (or whatever the hell you are controlling).  Otherwise, it reeks too much of mind control.

[Winterbrass]

If I have a fortress based on Silence, Light, Fire and Death, it could simply be an abbey of sun-worshipping dwarf cooks. Or it could be a fortress of warmongering fire mages. Unless a sphere is explicitly Good or Evil, there's really no morality to associate with it. After all, a barbarian civilization could see the sphere associated with barriers as evil, whereas a monastery could have the opposite opinion.

[Bricks]

If I have a fortress based on Silence, Light, Fire and Death, it could simply be an abbey of sun-worshipping dwarf cooks. Or it could be a fortress of warmongering fire mages. Unless a sphere is explicitly Good or Evil, there's really no morality to associate with it. After all, a barbarian civilization could see the sphere associated with barriers as evil, whereas a monastery could have the opposite opinion.

Is that 'aye' or 'nay' to morality?  Either way, good examples.

One of my major frustrations with fantasy settings (which good sci-fi often avoids) is that there is always one dude is just irrevocably bad.  You expect that he wakes up in the morning, kills a puppy, brushes his teeth with blood, and then arbitrarily burns down a village, because he is bad.  Sometimes they have some sort of weak motive, like "Oooo, the gods abandoned me, my dad was an alcoholic, I stubbed my toe," but it never provides a real perspective.  Dwarves, demons (and any other intelligent power), elves, humans, kobolds, and goblins should all have really solid cultural, ethical, and historical reasons behind who they are and who they fight.  I was listening to a podcast Toady was in, and the goblins were brought up as sort of a libertarian society, which I thought incredibly novel and interesting.  This is part of my problem with orcs (and one of my only complaints against Tolkien in general): orcs are designed to be antagonists only.  (To be fair, there were some fascinating scenes with the orcs, such as when Merry and Pippin were taken captive, but those moments were few, and usually resulted in some arbitrary head-smashing).

My point is, a large group of people with similar interests will always believe they are acting in the right.  Not that an absolute morality can't exist; it simply isn't a question that the average sentient being asks, and its a question that takes a lifetime to answer.  Elves, humans, dwarves, goblins, kobolds; they aren't perfect, and from any other perspective, they sometimes seem downright gruesome and backwards.  But they all tend to believe that their society is better, for whatever reason.  You would never run into a goblin that prefers evil, even though he may worship demons and enjoy torture.

[Winterbrass]

If I have a fortress based on Silence, Light, Fire and Death, it could simply be an abbey of sun-worshipping dwarf cooks. Or it could be a fortress of warmongering fire mages. Unless a sphere is explicitly Good or Evil, there's really no morality to associate with it. After all, a barbarian civilization could see the sphere associated with barriers as evil, whereas a monastery could have the opposite opinion.

Is that 'aye' or 'nay' to morality?  Either way, good examples.

Actually, the more I think about it in the context of what you proposed, the more I dislike the concept of morality in DF as anything more than a social construct.

After all, a Deity of Murder, Lies, and War is simply doing his or her thing - even when they're at their most malicious, they're no more culpable for their actions than animals are for killing for food. A race that values life would most likely see the deity as evil, whereas a race that was big into natural and social Darwinism would most likely love that deity to the point of monotheism.

In the same vein, the races would probably see a deity of Peace, Justice and Stability in the opposite manner.

No morality to it, aside from the morality that the player brings to the table.

ETA: And 'natural' magic (ie, arcane) would inherently be neutral in nature - just like technology. A gun isn't any more evil than paper or a chair.