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[Rasputin]

Just been listening to the Dwarf Fortress podcast, I was really glad to hear the reservations that Toady had regarding this, and rightly so.

Part of the brilliance of DF, is the survivalist raw edge, and feeling of danger from mythical beasts etc.

Magic is a big hammer to wield and will break most of the more delicate mechanisms within DF.

However, in the fantasy genre it is difficult to avoid, and the DF world would benefit from the additional depth that magic could bring, so I was thinking of how this could be implemented without breaking the game.

Initially I thought of Divine magics I stead of arcane, building a temple, assigning a priest, and having some magic available:

Heal,
Bless,
Resurrect,
Etc.

However there would need to be a cost for these, and as magic is made more mysterious the rarer it is, the cost needs tone high.
Paying half a dozen artefacts, and 20 gold bars for a resurrect should make people stop and think first! It should really be a tough decision to make so magic does they spammed.

Then I thought more on this with a view to the Arcane.
Again it needs to be very rare, with a extortionate cost to maintain.
So I thought of a visiting noble classed as Mage, who can arrive at a certain point, and as long as his intricate wizardly requirements and needs are pandered to, he will stay and help the fort, fail to look after him, and he leaves for another fort.
This way magic is kept rare ( only one Mage per fort max) and expensive, (regular demands of difficult and expensive items)

Maybe these thoughts would help put the right flavour and feel to magic in the DF world?

[micelus]

I have a feeling that your going to be told to search more and look at old threads. And to look at the old dev log.

[Neonivek]

I think for divine magic Toady is going more for a blessing systems where people recieve blessings of the gods

Rather then developing spells.

Besides divine magic being the healing magic (in a game with magic) is a rather dungeons and dragons invention (sort of) and I doubt even with divine magic that channeling healing from... lets say "the disease lord" or "The fire god" would be appropriate.

[i2amroy]

HEALING FROM THE DISEASE LORD!!!!
(AAHHHH!! IT BURNS!!!!)

I couldn't help myself. But yeah, checking out some of the old dev logs and older threads will net a lot of discussion from both the community and Toady himself about this. Also I'm pretty sure that the main reason that Toady is avoiding specific spells is that he wanted the magic systems for each generated world to be unique in their own ways without all of them necessarily having spell 1, spell 2, spell 3, etc.

[Roraborialisforealis]

HEALING FROM THE DISEASE LORD!!!!
(AAHHHH!! IT BURNS!!!!)

I couldn't help myself. But yeah, checking out some of the old dev logs and older threads will net a lot of discussion from both the community and Toady himself about this. Also I'm pretty sure that the main reason that Toady is avoiding specific spells is that he wanted the magic systems for each generated world to be unique in their own ways without all of them necessarily having spell 1, spell 2, spell 3, etc.

ITs like being revived by the lord of tentacle penetration. You wish it never happened.

[Deimos56]

HEALING FROM THE DISEASE LORD!!!!
(AAHHHH!! IT BURNS!!!!)

I couldn't help myself. But yeah, checking out some of the old dev logs and older threads will net a lot of discussion from both the community and Toady himself about this. Also I'm pretty sure that the main reason that Toady is avoiding specific spells is that he wanted the magic systems for each generated world to be unique in their own ways without all of them necessarily having spell 1, spell 2, spell 3, etc.

ITs like being revived by the lord of tentacle penetration. You wish it never happened.

Healing from a god of disease... probably not pleasant.
Maybe a cancer of some flavor in the area being healed... Your arm grows back quickly, but it doesn't stop once it's back to its original shape...
[/grimdeimosisgrim]