Isolation Magic

[Swimmingly]

So, I've got this idea, but it needs a lot of narrowing down.

 

The driving force of this magic is isolation. It doesn't work as well when other people who can use it are anywhere within a huge perimetre - think not geographically insignificant - the more, the worse. I'm thinking that each additional person roughly halves it for all present, so at a certain population density, it's negligible in strength.

 

The setting is an effectively endless ocean populated by occasional coral reefs, coral atolls, and very rare volcanic islands. There are no metals, poor soil, and very little fresh water apart from what can be collected from the rain - unless I want to make it a fresh water ocean.

 

The culture of magic-users is roughly based on pre-colonial Polynesian tech levels, though that can change based on what the power is.

 

Now, what powers do these people have?

 

Firstly, this is not something designed for combat. They think of themselves as gods, small g, but not in an egotistical way - their custom is to find a deserted island, make it their home by shaping it somehow, and only then go traipsing in canoes across the archipelagos looking for a family.

 

So, they need to be able to somehow turn an island into a personal paradise/fortress/comfy home. The ways this could happen are up in the air: Do they shape rock and stone with their will? Can they control the island's vegetation? Can they speak to the island's soul and make all its creatures obey them?

 

It needs to be on the large scale, and it needs to be scaleable to a much weaker ability - for example, in a village, nobody can shape mountains to their will, but they can mold stone as they touch it - scale it similarly. Maybe it consumes fuel, maybe not.

 

There is another culture around - one more advanced. Think an island the size of England, and it and the archipelago of surrounding islands, all smaller, are the only place on the planet you can mine metal ores above the seabed. They exist on the other side of the planet, where the seas are much rougher, the ships much tougher, and metal tools and weapons exist, though they haven't discovered gunpowder yet.

 

Most importantly, they don't affect the isolation power because they don't have it - however, they've got some defence against it, not necessarily magical.

[A Joe in the Bush]

I Like the Island Soul Speaking. Honestly, all of those powers sound like they would work. Maybe have an Order. First, Shape the Stone, then eventually, you can affect Living mindless things, the Vegetation, and then the plants.

 

The Way I interepet this, is that the god makes a deal with the soul of the Island. The island gives the god these powers in exchange for help with something. Maybe Getting rid of an invasise species or something.

[Swimmingly]

That's a neat idea. It would also mean that the probability and scale of a problem would increase directly proportional to its size and diversity - a hundred yards of beach with a few coconuts would be much easier to take control of than a square mile of jungle growing on volcanic soil.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Swimmingly

[A Joe in the Bush]

Also, what's the Personality of the Islands? And is there any side effects to this Magic?

[Ashiok]

Or spirit avatars... They take up a certain amount of energy to be a certain size, and energy is limited by area, therefore the more people, the smaller and weaker the avatar (which can move stuff)

[Swimmingly]

The thing is, I want it to be just a function of the number of people. You can't have a town with the elected mayor being the only one connected to the island. Perhaps the island needs a person to act through in order to do anything, but the presence of humanity dramatically reduces the spirit's power? This would also mean that any family or community on an island would have to be on very good terms with the island, because their very presence would erode its power.

 

Perhaps each island can only have a single person bound, but that bond can be passed around. I'm thinking that a solitary person on a powerful island would be able to pretty much sense and control the seas around the island, its vegetation, even shift masses of rock out of the way. With two people within the radius of control, the sensory input would get fuzzy, the degree of control would be much lower, etc - maybe now you can't move forests on a whim, but you can make small clumps of trees shift out of the way. More, and you only get the fuzziest of senses from the island, and your control doesn't extend much beyond your fingertips. This way, if, for instance, a god conferred with the island and decided that a community would be better than control, the bound party would still have minor supernatural powers. 

[Bunnyburn]

This is a cool concept. It seems like it would work well for a element of the story rather than a means of conflict-resolution. I am imagining a sociopathic or power hungry member of an island community performing an act of genocide to increase his power and control. But as he whittles away the population the remaining population are growing in strength and becoming more and more powerful themselves, turning the island against one-another, etc.

It seems like these societies would have to be close to utopian to exist for long periods without some kind of periodic culling of the population to prevent the power from becoming too diluted to support the society within the confines of their archipelagos.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Bunnyburn

[A Joe in the Bush]

Aaaaannd, we have our next Elimination Game.

[Delightful]

This is a cool concept. It seems like it would work well for a element of the story rather than a means of conflict-resolution. I am imagining a sociopathic or power hungry member of an island community performing an act of genocide to increase his power and control. But as he whittles away the population the remaining population are growing in strength and becoming more and more powerful themselves, turning the island against one-another, etc.

It seems like these societies would have to be close to utopian to exist for long periods without some kind of periodic culling of the population to prevent the power from becoming too diluted to support the society within the confines of their archipelagos.

I was thinking the opposite: one person makes everyone give their bond/share of the bond to the leader who becomes overpowered, and they then can't take it back, until a foreigner comes along and dilutes the power of the ruler.

[Swimmingly]

I don't want it to be possible to both have a community and have power through the magic system. That's one rule I'm keeping - regardless of who holds the bond, the presence of other people weakens it. Only one person might hold the bond, or everybody.

[Darkarma]

Sounds a bit like Demonreach in Dresden Files.

 

For some reason I see this as if each person has their powers bound to a particular biome. When they reshape an island into their haven, its can only change as much as they can to match that particular biome. For obvious reasons they may want to choose to preserve portions of the original ecology of the island so that after they make their changes they have a means of letting it recover should something go wrong or they have a habitable location to live in if they are unlucky enough for their own soul to be aligned with an arid desert.

 

Their own methods of magic might reflect this in some way as well in terms of flavor

 

Between the island's soul and the magic user's soul you could have some very interesting confrontations between who's doing the shaping and who's being shaped. The island itself could bleed into the one who is bound to it.

 

I also imagine that given the nature of your magic system the energy source is considered highly valuable. If there is ever a means to bottle it then who ever develops that kind of ability would be probably very fearsome compared to others.

 

There also might be something in your use of coral too. Maybe coral often forms the soul jars of the island? Dunno. Might make for some good plot points if there is a physical element someone can attack to take down an island and sever a magic user's connection to it.

 

Another aspect is fresh water.. This could be the means in which your mana circulates through the world a little faster than normal diffusion. Coral and simple air currents bring in small amounts of your energy source to the island at a constant rate. Fresh water though as it circulates through the atmosphere collects it in large amounts, essentially sequestering it in the clouds until a downpour.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Darkarma

[blad3mast3r]

Sounds like skyblock