Random Stuff VI The Return of the Admins

[Kobold King he/him]

Do they? I thought in most of then magic was tied to the presence of highter beings or to sapience, that is so far in the complexity ladder evolution can't guide many things towards unless they are close enough.

 

 

In some, but in no ways by all. In DnD there are plenty of non-sapient magical beings. Stormlight is crawling with them. The Star Wars expanded universe includes quite a few animals which utilize the Force, and classical mythology includes plenty of beings like the hydra which are unintelligent but possessed of potent magical survival strategies.

 

Even in settings where magic is a function of intelligence, the rule should still take effect given enough time. Unless humans become entirely homogeneous over the face of their planet, they themselves will evolve into different forms to fill different niches, a la H. G. Wells' The Time Machine. If human magic provides a sufficient ecological advantage, then adaptive radiation will ensure that eventually the major roles in the ecosystem will be filled by a variety of evolved humans.

 

 

Honestly, the only setting I can thing of that fits Kobold's rule on the top of the head is Roshar/the Stormlight Archive. Granted there are many fantasy settings that have "magical" creatures like giant spiders but they don't really evolve all that much to a specific magic or ecosystem and are more just stuff thrown in there because you can do that in fantasy.

 

 

It's not about which settings do follow the rule and about which settings should follow the rule, if realistic ecological principles were considered. I think that Stormlight presents a realistic look at what magic would do to an ecosystem, while most fantasy settings don't seem to process the full impact of a system that violates the conservation of mass and energy and can be manipulated to do just about anything the plot demands.

[DreamEternal]

In some, but in no ways by all. In DnD there are plenty of non-sapient magical beings. Stormlight is crawling with them. The Star Wars expanded universe includes quite a few animals which utilize the Force, and classical mythology includes plenty of beings like the hydra which are unintelligent but possessed of potent magical survival strategies.

I meant either sapience or the existence of higher beings like gods. Plus, you assume magic is all advantages no cost and that non-magical beings can't survive with alternative strategies.

Althought settings were magic is commonplace and acess to it is easily achievable by simple biological characteristics, your rule is a very precise way of seeing things.

EDIT: And on evolved humans, I lost you completely. Why would natural selection move humans towards filling more ecological roles? Being on the top of the food chain and able to reshape it, either by magic or traditional means, is a good enough position to survive in. We can adapt the enviorment, no need to be selected by it.

Edited January 2, 2016 by DreamEternal

[Kobold King he/him]

I meant either sapience or the existence of higher beings like gods. Plus, you assume magic is all advantages no cost and that non-magical beings can't survive with alternative strategies.

And I think you are viewing evolution the wrong way, if you think that extra oerks for reaching a theoretical "sapience threshold" will make evolution move more especies towards sapience, since they would need to be in the brink of it anyway for natural selection to care.

Althought settings were magic is commonplace and acess to it is easily achievable by simple biological characteristics, your rule is a very precise way of seeing things.

 

 

The rule isn't applicable to 100% of settings, any more than Bergmann's rule is applicable to a hundred percent of all polar animals. But in most settings that I see, the cost of magic is marginal and easily overcome by evolution. For instance, if you need to sacrifice blood to cast a spell, then animals would simply evolve marrow that produces more blood. (Come to think of it, that would make for an interesting race... a species with blood magic that needs to cast spells regularly to be rid of excess blood cells and remain healthy.)

 

In the specific case of sapience-correlated magic, I don't think you're quite gathering what I'm trying to say, for which I am to blame. There would be no additional incentive for life to evolve intelligence in a fantasy, but if it does--and let's be honest, it usually does multiple times in a traditional fantasy setting--then adaptive radiation will ensure that magic spreads further across the ecosystem.

 

Personally, I would speculate that orcs, goblins, elves, and dwarves represent a case of adaptive radiation in precisely the way this rule suggests should happen. At some point a humanoid species diverges into multiple subspecies, all of which use magic in conjunction with a different niche. Orcs use it to become apex predators, elves use it to help them adapt to a woodland ecosystem, dwarves use it for burrowing and acquiring material resources, etc.

 

 

And of course, this rule depends on evolution being applicable in a setting, which it not always is.

[DreamEternal]

And on acess to magic being achievable by evolution alone, not divine will/investiture. And if it is based on sapience, well why should it be treated differently from technology for evolutionary purposes?

Your rule is very interesting and should be something fantasy writers should always remember, but saying it can be applied to most settings arguably(sp?) untrue.

[+Slowswift]

Well, the word "suppose" was used a lot, if I recall correctly.

[DreamEternal]

Well, the word "suppose" was used a lot, if I recall correctly.

He also said it holds true for most settings.

[Zathoth]

While I find Kobolds Rule interesting I have some problems with it, from a story telling perspective, at least.

 

You got the price of magic (Lets say blood) and that is a pretty bad price, you only have so much blood, if you use too much you'll die, that is interesting, there is drama in this.

 

But wait! The life forms of the planet produce more blood than they should thus it is not a bad price at all!

 

It kills the tension of magic having a price.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

While I find Kobolds Rule interesting I have some problems with it, from a story telling perspective, at least.

 

You got the price of magic (Lets say blood) and that is a pretty bad price, you only have so much blood, if you use too much you'll die, that is interesting, there is drama in this.

 

But wait! The life forms of the planet produce more blood than they should thus it is not a bad price at all!

 

It kills the tension of magic having a price.

 

Smaller forms of magic would be free, I think, but larger forms might require more blood than even the being's accelerated marrow could produce at once. So the weaker forms of magic would have no tension (kind of like how standing and walking to the fridge has no tension for us, our bodies being suited to such a mundane use of energy) but the larger forms would have tension proportionate to the power they granted. 

[Edgedancer he/him]

Smaller forms of magic would be free, I think, but larger forms might require more blood than even the being's accelerated marrow could produce at once. So the weaker forms of magic would have no tension (kind of like how standing and walking to the fridge has no tension for us, our bodies being suited to such a mundane use of energy) but the larger forms would have tension proportionate to the power they granted. 

Or alternatively magic is a jerk and the effect is based on how much blood you sacrifice relative to how much you have, so evolving to produce more blood would for example make 10ml of your blood less efficient.

Edited January 2, 2016 by Edgedancer

[Kobold King he/him]

And on acess to magic being achievable by evolution alone, not divine will/investiture. And if it is based on sapience, well why should it be treated differently from technology for evolutionary purposes?

Your rule is very interesting and should be something fantasy writers should always remember, but saying it can be applied to most settings arguably(sp?) untrue.

 

 

Magic achievable by divine will or Invesiture is often hereditary. Technology requires a massive social infrastructure and access to specific resources, while the majority of magic systems that I've seen don't require much physically from the user. Dragons in D&D have largely the same requirements as a mundane predator of their size, for instance, but their firebreath and invulnerable scales gives them a tremendous edge over their competition.

 

I stand by my statement that it covers most settings, though I will make an addendum that it leaves out settings that deliberately go out of their way to eschew evolution and limit magic to a single non-changing sapient race. I think if we compared in which magic is an ecological factor to those where it isn't, we'd find that the rule truly is applicable to any world in which a deity is not actively suppressing it. (These are rare, since gods created plants and animals as well and rarely have a vested interest in suppressing their development.)

 

The rule should thus be relevant in the following settings:

 

• All D&D settings that I am aware of.
• Both worlds depicted in The Riftwar Saga.
• The Potterverse.
• Classical mythology.
• The Wheel of Time (Even without the Dark One's direct control, magical Trollocs and Shadowspawn would have overrun the world centuries ago if it weren't for the intervention of the Borderlanders.)
• The Elder Scrolls world.
• All Star Wars planets, since the Force connects all living things.
• Equestria
• Earthsea
• Oz
• Westeros has dragons, right?
• Middle-Earth
• Any other world in which magical forms of fauna and flora are seen to coexist with a mundane ecosystem, which is frightfully a lot of them.

Those are only a few that come to mind immediately. There is an occasional ultra low-magic setting in which it doesn't apply, and on most Shardworlds the Shards seem to have an interest in keeping their planets earth-like and preventing the animals from accessing magic. I stand by my statement that the laws of evolution hold true for all living beings equally, and that the rule is applicable in any setting in which the author hasn't gone out of his way to thwart the rule and keep the magic out of the ecosystem.

 

 

While I find Kobolds Rule interesting I have some problems with it, from a story telling perspective, at least.

 

You got the price of magic (Lets say blood) and that is a pretty bad price, you only have so much blood, if you use too much you'll die, that is interesting, there is drama in this.

 

But wait! The life forms of the planet produce more blood than they should thus it is not a bad price at all!

 

It kills the tension of magic having a price.

 

 

From a narrative perspective you're totally right, unless the human protagonists have been imported to the world and don't possess the same adaptations. But that's how life works. Life evolves to overcome limitations. 

 

Single-celled life overcame the hostile oxygen atmosphere by evolving to breathe oxygen.

 

Single-celled life overcame scarcity of resources by collaborating, eventually becoming multicellular.

 

Multi-celled life overcame gravity by evolving bones.

 

Animals overcame the elements by evolving thick fur, long ears, claws, fangs, echolocation, big brains, or one of a million other adaptations that all living things possess to overcome specific environments.

 

If magic were in the world, life would overcome any costs and necessities that come along with it.

[Zathoth]

Or alternatively magic is a jerk and the effect is based on how much blood you sacrifice relative to how much you have, so evolving to produce more blood would for example make 10ml of your blood less efficient.

I like this XD

I know a guy who is writing a low fantasy book where the magic sucks, it is interesting, but it sucks.

First of all humans cant do magic, unless they undergo extremely invasive surgery to insert parts of creatures who can do magic into their bodies (Dragon lungs for fire magic and so on)

If that wasnt enough magic always has a high chance of not doing what you want and just blowing up in your face. So attacking a mage mid-spell is suicide, because the spell will just blow up.

 

 

From a narrative perspective you're totally right, unless the human protagonists have been imported to the world and don't possess the same adaptations. But that's how life works. Life evolves to overcome limitations. 

 

Single-celled life overcame the hostile oxygen atmosphere by evolving to breathe oxygen.

 

Single-celled life overcame scarcity of resources by collaborating, eventually becoming multicellular.

 

Multi-celled life overcame gravity by evolving bones.

 

Animals overcame the elements by evolving thick fur, long ears, claws, fangs, echolocation, big brains, or one of a million other adaptations that all living things possess to overcome specific environments.

 

If magic were in the world, life would overcome any costs and necessities that come along with it.

 

I know how evolution works <.<

 

From a world building perspective you are right, I am not claiming otherwise.

 

So, we need to find the balance between Kobolds Law and Sandersons Zeroeth Law: Err on the side of awesome.

[Edgedancer he/him]

I like this XD

I know a guy who is writing a low fantasy book where the magic sucks, it is interesting, but it sucks.

First of all humans cant do magic, unless they undergo extremely invasive surgery to insert parts of creatures who can do magic into their bodies (Dragon lungs for fire magic and so on)

If that wasnt enough magic always has a high chance of not doing what you want and just blowing up in your face. So attacking a mage mid-spell is suicide, because the spell will just blow up.

 

 

I know how evolution works <.<

 

From a world building perspective you are right, I am not claiming otherwise.

 

So, we need to find the balance between Kobolds Law and Sandersons Zeroeth Law: Err on the side of awesome.

Ah, I had a similair idea once. It can end with some interesting looking magic users.

 

The easy answer to that is saying that magic doesn't evolve. I mean most fantasy works just have magical creatures and as Kobold points out these haven't come into being by the rules of evolution, so the simple solution would be to say that by whatever means these creatures acces magic (not sure if the Potterverse has an answer for that) is something that had to come from the magic first and can not be achived solely through evolution.

Edited January 2, 2016 by Edgedancer

[Zathoth]

Ah, I had a similair idea once. It can end with some interesting looking magic users.

 

The easy answer to that is saying that magic doesn't evolve. I mean most fantasy works just have magical creatures and as Kobold points out these haven't come into being by the rules of evolution, so the simple solution would be to say that by whatever means these creatures acces magic (not sure if the Potterverse has an answer for that) is something that had to come from the magic first and can not be achived solely through evolution.

I think it is an interesting idea as well.

 

How about... dragons can breath fire because magic, this is the only thing they can do because they are animals, they could, in theory do other magic, but they are animals, they dont care.

Humans however have experimented with magic, and that is why they can use more spells.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Makes me wonder if I could design a magic system around the plights of customer service workers. Namely, rudeness. 

 

Being rude to another person/deity/jinn/demon/whatever gains you what you want quickly, but it makes that entity despise you and be more reluctant to help you next time. If you're rude enough, they might attach a nasty surprise along with the request they grant. 

 

Being polite gains you what you want quickly and without the added price rudeness delivers. 

 

For some reason that surpasses comprehension, most magic users decide to be rude anyway.

[Edgedancer he/him]

Makes me wonder if I could design a magic system around the plights of customer service workers. Namely, rudeness. 

 

Being rude to another person/deity/jinn/demon/whatever gains you what you want quickly, but it makes that entity despise you and be more reluctant to help you next time. If you're rude enough, they might attach a nasty surprise along with the request they grant. 

 

Being polite gains you what you want quickly and without the added price rudeness delivers. 

 

For some reason that surpasses comprehension, most magic users decide to be rude anyway.

The polite magic can sadly only be used by enlightened beings that heven't been corrupted by the demonic forces of selfishness.

[Mistrunner]

My magic system was pretty much done, but then I started seeing hole after hole in its workings and stuff and now I basically have to rebuild it from the base premise up.

The interesting thing with it, though, is that I have a helper: Aura (see avatar). She works with the magic for a living (they call them alchemists), and she experiments with it a ton. (Well, she doesn't exactly use the magic, that's a different job entirely. But I digress.) I can run things by her or ask her to perform a certain experiment, and if she's in a good mood and not too busy she'll help.

Kobold, you did remind me of something I was thinking over a while ago. The magic is based on crystals, which grind into powder. That can dissolve into groundwater and water sources, thereby getting into crops and drinking water. Now I have to figure out what this does...

[DreamEternal]

On the blood magic exemple, producing more blood may make the creature more fragile(since they are walking bloodbags), weaker and less efficient from a biomass standpoint. So if their magic can't protect them perfectly and provide all their needs they can theoretically be out competed.

Sometimes simplier is better, from a survival-focused standpoint.

Edited January 2, 2016 by DreamEternal

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Kobold, you did remind me of something I was thinking over a while ago. The magic is based on crystals, which grind into powder. That can dissolve into groundwater and water sources, thereby getting into crops and drinking water. Now I have to figure out what this does...

 

First of all, must the crystals be in their powdered form for potency? Because if they can add trace amounts of power by sitting in water, then crystals that grow near water sources would have been adding small amounts of magic to those water sources for centuries before humans discovered them. 

 

Second, how many alchemists are there, and how often do they experiment with magic? How well-known is magic by the general public? Are there magical cures on the market, or is it more hush-hush than that? Is there a Masquerade in place? If magic is still somewhat arcane, then there's not much chance of powdered crystal getting into the water supply. If it's becoming more popular among the public or even just the nobility, then there is going to be more ecological fallout. Think what the Industrial Revolution did to America's rivers (though, in fairness, rivers in city centers were always very polluted, well before the mills came along) but with magic instead of ordinary pollution. 

[Seonid he/him]

I have to ask, Kobold, would you say that Kobold's law holds in Edassa?

[Mistrunner]

First of all, must the crystals be in their powdered form for potency? Because if they can add trace amounts of power by sitting in water, then crystals that grow near water sources would have been adding small amounts of magic to those water sources for centuries before humans discovered them.

Second, how many alchemists are there, and how often do they experiment with magic? How well-known is magic by the general public? Are there magical cures on the market, or is it more hush-hush than that? Is there a Masquerade in place? If magic is still somewhat arcane, then there's not much chance of powdered crystal getting into the water supply. If it's becoming more popular among the public or even just the nobility, then there is going to be more ecological fallout. Think what the Industrial Revolution did to America's rivers (though, in fairness, rivers in city centers were always very polluted, well before the mills came along) but with magic instead of ordinary pollution.

The crystals have to be powdered for magic to be accessible by people, but they exude a weak kind of magic aura (not to be confused with Aura the alchemist) when whole.

There's a fair number of alchemists, but most of them don't really experiment. It's just a job, and they just do what they're ordered to and take the rest of their time off. Aura's an oddball, and the powders are her life.

The general public aren't really supposed to know the magic's workings. The magic is monopolized by the church, and people that are the equivalent of priests make a show of being able to heal people, make crops grow, etc. The public knows that it exists, sort of, but they believe it to be a thing that can only be used by these priests.

One of the big problems is the fact that people started to use the crystals for decoration, especially nobility. Crystals can be purchased if you're ridiculously wealthy (and, usually, aware of their magicness). Usually they'll decorate using the purple crystals, which are very rare and almost entirely useless, as a display that they are so wealthy they can afford to buy useless magic. Others buy the powders that can be used as a protection against danger. The problem is that magical aura, which can seriously mess you up- depending on which color, of course. Take blue powder, which can cause paralysis.

The real problems come when ignorant people start decorating wells with crystals.

I like the magic ecological fallout idea. I mean, it's be terrible, but good for the plot.

[Kobold King he/him]

I have to ask, Kobold, would you say that Kobold's law holds in Edassa?

 

 

I called it "Kobold's law" tongue-in-cheek. I'm not nearly original enough for it to be named after me.

 

 

I don't know much about Edassan biology, but the creatures are for the most part fairly earth-like, yes? I don't recall any explicit discussions of creatures employing the magic, so to the best of my knowledge the rule doesn't hold true there.

 

I also shouldn't call it a "rule" in the strictest sense, as that would imply that people who don't follow it are doing something wrong, which couldn't be further from the truth. It should be stressed that it's really just a way of looking at a fantasy setting through the lens of biological principles... "metabiology," perhaps?

[Kestrel she/her]

Hi I'm back from Cali.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Hi I'm back from Cali.

 

Yay! How was it? 

[DreamEternal]

The horror story I started writing yesterday... it is turning into a weird romance where both characters may or may not be planning to kill the other, and I am not sure who of them is supposed to be the monster anymore.

I think that is part of the reason I didn't try to write horror before: I like when the many sides of a conflict are simetrical.

Edited January 2, 2016 by DreamEternal

[Allomancy she/her]

New years resolution:

Find more time to read books.