Blog - Further thinking

Earlier tonight, before going to bed andbefore getting around to writing the piece about shaping and enchanting I was whining to myslef about how I was out of ideas. Having voken up in the middle of the night not being able to get rid of ideas I decided I’d note some things down that might inspire me next time I’m out of ideas.

Things that may or may not need considering:
 * Werewolves
 * Vampires
 * Ghost and what happens when you die
 * Paladins – Paksenarrion style
 * Unicorns – farting rainbows and crying sweet tears of sugar.
 * Gods and their people
 * Knytt and oknytt and good words for these in English.
 * Aether herders
 * Enchanted gearboxes for bikes
 * Domesticated cattle
 * Faeries
 * Mages working in pairs
 * etc etc…

Comments:

morkka says: 2011/05/20 at 10:36Paladins – Paksenarrion style would definitely be the way to go here, being quite toned down and subtle in their “magic”. This very much comes down to the debate about gods and divine magic though, which I think is a discussion that would need resolving first though.

Unicorns – They were real. We hunted them to extinction. Humanity sucks.

Gods – Yes. Too big a discussion for this tiny post though.

Knytt and Oknytt – I like feylings and wyrdlings as words for it. But yeah, they are not quite correct, just made up things that seemed to fit. Could tie their existance in with Aether, and having them be a bit like bugs riding the winds of the aether with their wings, much to the befuddlement of the arcane community. Physical wings flying on a metaphysical wind? ITS LIKE MAGNETS?!

Aether Herders – For what purpose, and how?

Mages working in pairs – Already included in the rules. Most likely this would be used by rich or important wizards using unskilled people as their very own Aether-batteries, so that they wouldn’t risk exhaustion themselves and be able to keep going for longer. The example you made of the doctor and nurse is a great one. If a proper medical wizard would require not only a full wizardly education but also a full medical one they’d be rare and very valuable, so having special nurses acting as their batteries would allow them to attend many more patients without rest, which would be good business and general common sense for the hospitals.

I did some musing on this. What if when magic is practiced (channeled and/or woven) some kind of waste product is created? Aetherwaste or something like that (better word needed). Kind of like when humans breathe. We absorb the oxygen in the air into our blood and breathe out carbon dioxide. When magic is practiced magic energy is consumed and aetherwaste (manapoop?) is released as a byproduct. To prevent the aether from filling up with manapoop we would need a process like photosynthesis. The process of recycling the manapoop back into pure Aether again is facilitated by aethersheep (needs better name, NOT manapoopeaters). The aethersheep consume the manapoop and re-realeas pure aether back into the aether streams. The aethersheep come in giant flocks tended by aether herders. Once an area has been cleaned from manapoop the herded and the sheep move on to greener pastures (places where there’s plenty of manapoop available). In the past all aether herders moved their flocks around regularly, but in recent times some have chosen to settle down near large population centers. In and around large cities enough magic is practiced that a flock of aether sheep can sustain itself without needing to move on. What sustains the aether herders we don’t (yet) know. Both the aether herders, their sheep and the manapoop is invisible to the eye – just like the aether itself. They can however, be observed through magical means. There is no evidence that the herders or the sheep have an ability or desire to interact with the rest of the world, nor that they pay any attention to or even are aware of it.
 * svrtnsse says:2011/05/20 at 20:58The unicorns were vicious predators and they are indeed extinct. There are however other types of unihorned mammals around, most of them hunted to near extinction. Notable is the one-horned ram. A goat like creature living in hostile mountain regions. Like the unicorn the one-horned ram is a meat eating predator that will put up a fierce fight when cornered. Surviving an encounter with one is not guaranteed even if properly armed. Hunting the one-horned ram in its natural habitat is about as bad-ass as hunting the great white shark by jumping into the sea armed with only a knife.
 * svrtnsse says:2011/05/21 at 00:19What is an Aether Herder really? I just liked the word and pictured a huge yet invisible troll like creature that somehow tends to the Aether streams for some reason.
 * svrtnsse says:2011/05/21 at 11:18Morkka raised the point that the explanation above makes magic too scientific in explaining how it works. He might have a point.
 * morkka says:2011/05/21 at 16:48Yeah, it just seems like it’d be more fun to say that Aether is. No one really knows how or why. People have theories though. Some group could of course claim that there are huge trolls that tend the Aether, while others might say that its remnants of another dimension which collapsed into our own eons ago, or that it is the will of the gods. Or anything in between really. But it’d all be the opinions of specific people, rather then an actual one true answer.
 * svrtnsse says:2011/05/21 at 23:19Aye, I know what you mean. This is more about what I know than what is actually known or knowable in the world. I see your point though, so for the sake of the mystery, the Aether Herders can’t be seen or detect by anyone or anything, no matter what.
 * svrtnsse says:2011/05/20 at 23:51As there is supposed to be a lack of cars trains will become important. Unfortunately laying down railroad tracks is hard work. It would be conveient if dwarves occasionally got it into their head that constructing railroads would be the hip thing to do. Unfortunately I can’t come up with any non-contrieved reason for them to do so.