The Sociopolitical Impact of Reliable magic upon Civilization?

[Logos&Eidos]

In my own world-building I've found myself coming to the realization that a society that actually had access to magic would be very different than the psuedo-past earth with all myths being true that is the norm in fantasy.

The development ofmagitek is just the tip of the iceberg. The people of such a world would have a radically different development path than what we consider normal;as long they had a human like mentality something would remain recognizable but much would not be.

Regardless of how that magic worked, spirit-pacts,channeling energy from the environment/other planes,taping ones own internal power. As long as it behaved in an at least semi-reliable manor and could be applied on a large scale it would alter the course of civilization.

 

[WooHooMan]

This is kind of a hard topic to discuss since magic is different in just about every setting. You really can't have a generally discussion of "magic".
In my setting, for example, "magitek" isn't really a thing that could possibly exist. At least, not as TVTropes describes magitek.

Perhaps we can discuss exactly what qualifies as "reliable and applicable" magic? Then we can move on to looking at its impact on a setting.

 

[Svrtnsse]

This kind of question is one of the main reasons behind why I started creating the setting I'm working on (and within) at the moment. The specific sociopolitical impact of magic isn't something I've written about in any detail, but I'm slowly exploring the world I've set out to create.

To be brief: my idea is to take as many as possible of the most common fantasy concepts and put them in a world similar to the real world of today and see what happens. I'm not working with the actual real world as the backdrop, but the technological, social and political level is meant to be roughly the same as in the real world.

As mentioned I've not explored the impact of magic at any significant depth yet, but I've had a poke at seeing how the existence of elves, dwarves and anfylk (hobbits) have affected the world. In my current work I'm also touching upon how the verified, beyond-any-doubt-proven, existence of gods affect the inhabitants of the world (hint: they're still bickering about how to interpret the scriptures).

One of the specific details relevant to magic that I've dealt with is the existence of a shamanistic department within the police. The main purpose of the shaman-police is to keep an eye on the spirit of the land for the benefit of public safety. If the spirit becomes worried/unruly, they are to identify the cause and if possible address it.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

This is kind of a hard topic to discuss since magic is different in just about every setting. You really can't have a generally discussion of "magic".
In my setting, for example, "magitek" isn't really a thing that could possibly exist. At least, not as TVTropes describes magitek.

Perhaps we can discuss exactly what qualifies as "reliable and applicable" magic? Then we can move on to looking at its impact on a setting.

This thread is about how magic can and would impact the worlds that it exists in, a discussion of how magic works in a given setting is necessary.

As for what defines" reliable and applicable" , any form of magic that can be used consistently with minimum risk to the user environment and produces physical/spiritual effects that are useful to human endeavors.

 

[WooHooMan]

This thread is about how magic can and would impact the worlds that it exists in, a discussion of how magic works in a given setting is necessary.

But if every setting has (for the most part) it's own magic system, wouldn't this kind of thread just turn in to people explaining their own settings?
Or did you make this thread because you wanted to hear about other people's magic and its influences their setting?

 

[Hainted]

You'll never get ALL of the changes. Some things are unforeseeable, and others are grasped by minds different than yours. In my setting I've not allowed healing magic.That's a purview of the Gods, and their representatives and is wholly dependent on whether the Deity in question decides to heal you or not. This means medicine has advanced technologically, though medicine, and the scientific specialization of Chemistry was split off from Alchemy centuries ago. Some other ways I've tried to apply reliable magic include.....

Golems- Do much of the work that Robots do in our world so assembly lines were discovered much sooner. Also because of their diverse applications they serve as Service "Animals", Sport Mascots/Theme Park performers, and various adult industry functions from actor to stripper to prostitute.

Zombies- The Haitian variety. The country where my story's set doesn't have the death penalty. Instead they remove your mind( or higher soul) bind it into an object, and use your body in menial labor. Whatever someone would earn at that position(mainly positions that are repetitive and require no skill) goes to maintenance of the body with the extra going to pay off court costs, fines, punitive damages, and settlements. Upon the death of the body, whether natural or through misadventure, the object is broken, and the higher soul allowed to pass into the next world. In certain cases criminals can volunteer for this treatment to pay off debts incurred.

There are others but that's two examples of the impact reliable magic has had on my world.

 

[Svrtnsse]

But if every setting has (for the most part) it's own magic system, wouldn't this kind of thread just turn in to people explaining their own settings?
Or did you make this thread because you wanted to hear about other people's magic and its influences their setting?

I'm fine with reading what others have come up with and what aspects they are addressing. Their exact systems aren't all that relevant but the ideas and the reasoning behind them are. It's the kind of thing that can serve as inspiration or eye opener for other ideas that do fit within my own system. It could also help me get on to new trains of thought to help me solve issues I'm having.

 

[WooHooMan]

I'm fine with reading what others have come up with and what aspects they are addressing. Their exact systems aren't all that relevant but the ideas and the reasoning behind them are. It's the kind of thing that can serve as inspiration or eye opener for other ideas that do fit within my own system. It could also help me get on to new trains of thought to help me solve issues I'm having.

Yeah, I'd be cool with that too. So, if that's what Logos&Eidos is looking for...

My magic system is pretty New Age-y. It's also a very long explanation but try to bare with me.

The actual nature of reality, in my setting, is very malleable. The world is an illusion - comparable to a dream. In fact, on its own the world operates under dream logic. Laws of reality must be imposed on the world from some other sources, like gods or whatever.
Naturally, there is no time. "Time" is just the time god's magic.
Life and death are false, the distinction between the two is the death god's magic. Outside of the gods' (or whatever) influence, there is no time or death.
Magic users are basically different levels of self-aware dreams who can impose their own will onto the fabric of reality.

Lower level magic users can throw fireballs and things like that. Not much but it's something. There's a political movement in the setting advocating for feudal magocracies. A wizard lord would accept apprentices who would offer their fealty to their lord in exchange for teaching. So, the teacher-student relationship is like a lord and his knights. And the serfs pay tribute to the wizards for their protection/services.

Higher level magic users are gods and operate on a grander scale. In fact, the Gods directly control the world's largest empire.

So, in short, magic is a pretty big deal. But no one realizes what magic is at its highest level. Pretty much everyone sees powerful magic as "natural" without understanding that it is, in fact, magic. Most gods don't even realize their divinity is really just magic.

I got the idea for this system from Through the Looking-Glass. The Red King is the dreamer and he's also a king. I thought it was a cool idea.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

I'm fine with reading what others have come up with and what aspects they are addressing. Their exact systems aren't all that relevant but the ideas and the reasoning behind them are. It's the kind of thing that can serve as inspiration or eye opener for other ideas that do fit within my own system. It could also help me get on to new trains of thought to help me solve issues I'm having.

You pretty much just the answers on why I made this thread.

Of the four magic systems in my setting only the Adept's magic was an issue for me, first in figuring out what it was and how it worked , them how it impacted the world. One of the first things that I solved was the nature of war. Given what the quasi-psionic power of the Adepts let them due, pretty much RPG standard, the militery force would be closer to a team of ninja than a legion. Adepts would have had brought the factors that modern tech did warfare, logistic,recon,artillery, and made the massed army a impractical.

 

[ThinkerX]

I have touched upon this in my tales. My world(s) were 'shaped' by races of technologically advanced aliens...who also possessed great psionic ability. Much of their technology required psionic ability to operate. When these ancient aliens started collecting humans (among other races), they decided to turn some members of these species into technician's, imbuing them with a bit of psionic ability of their own as part of the process. When the ancient alien civilization collapsed, these psionic humans became the first wizards.

One of my old stories, unfinished, and in dire need of a rewrite, features two magical organizations that created a large teleport network to keep their domains together. In other tales, my wizards use their magic for trivial things: clothes that will not stain, lighting a room, long distance communication. All too often, writers (and especially gamers) jump straight to the more destructive types of magic, ignoring everything else.

In general, though, I am a bit leery of very common, everyday type magic. Magic is supposed to be wondrous, rare, and at least somewhat unpredictable. Making it an everyday thing takes that aspect away. There is also the issue of just who uses magic in these settings, and what the eventual cost will be.

Do mages constitute a small percentage of the populace, working overtime to turn out miraculous devices by the hundreds or thousands? Or does every third or fourth person know at least a handful of spells? The former results in mages wielding immense clout; the later makes magic more of a trade than an art.

 

[Jabrosky]

Do mages constitute a small percentage of the populace, working overtime to turn out miraculous devices by the hundreds or thousands? Or does every third or fourth person know at least a handful of spells? The former results in mages wielding immense clout; the later makes magic more of a trade than an art.

I gravitate more towards the former scenario. It makes sense that, in a culture with a division of labor, mages would constitute another class of specialists like merchants or blacksmiths*. At the same time, the very power mages would acquire would grant them a more prestigious status in society as you suggest. They might even wield influence in politics and religion.

* Though now that I remember it, in some West African societies, blacksmiths were considered to have special magical powers...

 

[ThinkerX]

Though now that I remember it, in some West African societies, blacksmiths were considered to have special magical powers...

I seem to remember blacksmiths thought of as having magical power of sorts in a number of ancient societies.

Then again, to the people in these societies, magic was already responsible for everything from the weather to plague to ill fortune in business.

 

[WooHooMan]

I seem to remember blacksmiths thought of as having magical power of sorts in a number of ancient societies.

Then again, to the people in these societies, magic was already responsible for everything from the weather to plague to ill fortune in business.

You're right to an extent.
Writers have power in societies with written language. Hence why runes and incantations are common forms of magic. Hence why they're called "spells". It helped that the ability to read and write was a trait of the upperclass, which added to the mystic.
Societies without written language (like a lot of ancient Africa) would instead make it so craftsmen had magic powers. Instead of spells, they had magic objects like totems or fetishes.
This is a generalization; there was a lot of overlap.
What magic could actually do was mostly the same in both and it was usually linked to the spiritual or divine.
Modern depiction of magic has traits of both.

 

[ThinkerX]

You're right to an extent.
Writers have power in societies with written language. Hence why runes and incantations are common forms of magic. Hence why they're called "spells". It helped that the ability to read and write was a trait of the upperclass, which added to the mystic.
Societies without written language (like a lot of ancient Africa) would instead make it so craftsmen had magic powers. Instead of spells, they had magic objects like totems or fetishes.
This is a generalization; there was a lot of overlap.
What magic could actually do was mostly the same in both and it was usually linked to the spiritual or divine.
Modern depiction of magic has traits of both.

True enough, from my recollections (its been decades since I last looked into this in depth).

Spirits of wind and plague and passion, each with its own true name, the goal of many a wizard. Concept was (and is) found throughout the world pretty much, even in Christianity. I adopted a twisted version of this concept for the magic system in my worlds.

I remember reading some of the old Greek and Roman historians; they'd be talking about farming or commerce or some such in a fairly matter of fact way...then up and drop a ridiculous piece of folk magic right into the middle of the mix, accepting its workability without a skeptical thought.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Do mages constitute a small percentage of the populace, working overtime to turn out miraculous devices by the hundreds or thousands? Or does every third or fourth person know at least a handful of spells? The former results in mages wielding immense clout; the later makes magic more of a trade than an art.

In my setting, magic is done by channeling and weaving the aether. Some people are able to channel and some are able weave, but only very few are able to do both. As a result magic is usually wielded by a channeller-weaver pair rather than by a single person (except among elves who are always able to do both, but there's very few of them).

I settled on about one person in 50 being a channeller and the same for weavers. This means one in 25 would have some kind of magical ability. This in turn means that in average school class, there would usually be at least one kid who was able to either channel or weave. As a consequence, most people would know, or know of, someone with magical talent.
My thinking here is that if everyone has some kind of relation to magic wielders it will be less of a big deal to people and something that's more accepted/taken for granted.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

Yeah, I'd be cool with that too. So, if that's what Logos&Eidos is looking for...

My magic system is pretty New Age-y. It's also a very long explanation but try to bare with me.

The actual nature of reality, in my setting, is very malleable. The world is an illusion - comparable to a dream. In fact, on its own the world operates under dream logic. Laws of reality must be imposed on the world from some other sources, like gods or whatever.
Naturally, there is no time. "Time" is just the time god's magic.
Life and death are false, the distinction between the two is the death god's magic. Outside of the gods' (or whatever) influence, there is no time or death.
Magic users are basically different levels of self-aware dreams who can impose their own will onto the fabric of reality.

Lower level magic users can throw fireballs and things like that. Not much but it's something. There's a political movement in the setting advocating for feudal magocracies. A wizard lord would accept apprentices who would offer their fealty to their lord in exchange for teaching. So, the teacher-student relationship is like a lord and his knights. And the serfs pay tribute to the wizards for their protection/services.

Higher level magic users are gods and operate on a grander scale. In fact, the Gods directly control the world's largest empire.

So, in short, magic is a pretty big deal. But no one realizes what magic is at its highest level. Pretty much everyone sees powerful magic as "natural" without understanding that it is, in fact, magic. Most gods don't even realize their divinity is really just magic.

I got the idea for this system from Through the Looking-Glass. The Red King is the dreamer and he's also a king. I thought it was a cool idea.

Like your Idea of A feudal magocracy. I'd been wrestling with what kinda of governments were likely to form in Magic based culture. Though I was leaning to words a republican-oligarchy or an elective-nobility. Part of what keeps a Government in power is the monopolization on the use of force. And a world where anybody could just train themselves into a walking WMD would have to take that into account. Your magic reminds me a lot of Mage: The Ascension have you ever read/played it.

I have touched upon this in my tales. My world(s) were 'shaped' by races of technologically advanced aliens...who also possessed great psionic ability. Much of their technology required psionic ability to operate. When these ancient aliens started collecting humans (among other races), they decided to turn some members of these species into technician's, imbuing them with a bit of psionic ability of their own as part of the process. When the ancient alien civilization collapsed, these psionic humans became the first wizards.

One of my old stories, unfinished, and in dire need of a rewrite, features two magical organizations that created a large teleport network to keep their domains together. In other tales, my wizards use their magic for trivial things: clothes that will not stain, lighting a room, long distance communication. All too often, writers (and especially gamers) jump straight to the more destructive types of magic, ignoring everything else.

In general, though, I am a bit leery of very common, everyday type magic. Magic is supposed to be wondrous, rare, and at least somewhat unpredictable. Making it an everyday thing takes that aspect away. There is also the issue of just who uses magic in these settings, and what the eventual cost will be.

Do mages constitute a small percentage of the populace, working overtime to turn out miraculous devices by the hundreds or thousands? Or does every third or fourth person know at least a handful of spells? The former results in mages wielding immense clout; the later makes magic more of a trade than an art.

As I stated my Adept magic is for all practical purposes Psionics. All sapient and some none-sapient beings have raw chaos inside them,a volatile force-substance that is the foundation of all things. With training it is possible to tap into this well spring of power, and generate chaos fields. These fields which can external or internal effect the world by re-tuning the things that they touch. Beneath the solid veneer all reality is just an arrangement of of vibrating chaos fields, with so called natural laws being the relationships between those fields. Adepts can use their own chaos fields to alter the behavior of existing ones;with most of those alterations manifesting as the common psionic powers.

While everyone baring the few unfortunates who by birth or injury can not access this power,few have the combination of natural aptitude and dedication to be considered Adepts;So while true Adeptery is special it isn't considered supernatural.

The first fantasy world that I ever saw treat magic as though it was something normal was Saga Frontier 2. Giving everybody magic solved some of my world-building issues and made the setting a bit more distinctive. With everybody being a mage the issue of mages taking over the world was solved.

 

[WooHooMan]

Like your Idea of A feudal magocracy. I'd been wrestling with what kinda of governments were likely to form in Magic based culture. Though I was leaning to words a republican-oligarchy or an elective-nobility. Part of what keeps a Government in power is the monopolization on the use of force. And a world where anybody could just train themselves into a walking WMD would have to take that into account. Your magic reminds me a lot of Mage: The Ascension have you ever read/played it.

I guess a thing to note about my magocracies is that they really only work on small scales - like city-sized - with the gods being the only real exception. I never really tried to apply it to anything larger since I really can't imagine how well it would work. I've yet to find any kind of example that could give me an idea of how feudal-wizardry would be.

Also, this wasn't conveyed in my summary but the distinction between low-level mages and high-level "mages" is very clear-cut. It's like a light jog vs. piloting a jet with nothing in between.
Low-level mages aren't "walking WMD"-level. It'd be like fighting someone unarmed while they have a blunt weapon: your odds aren't as good but it's do-able.
Higher-level "mages" are way beyond WMD-level but becoming "lucid" is a great deal more complicated than just training yourself (or having others train you). In fact, you can't just "learn how".

Also, I haven't played Magic the Ascension but I am aware of it. It looks like there's similarities but I can't say for sure this is and it definitely wasn't an inspiration. I think I might try looking into it a bit deeper, maybe play it if I get the chance.

 

[Hainted]

In my world magic is a skill, anyone can learn it, but it requires years of training and dedication. It's like Martial Arts in our world. Lots of people take a few classes, some get ok with it, some turn it into a lifelong job, and a special few become legends.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

I guess a thing to note about my magocracies is that they really only work on small scales - like city-sized - with the gods being the only real exception. I never really tried to apply it to anything larger since I really can't imagine how well it would work. I've yet to find any kind of example that could give me an idea of how feudal-wizardry would be.

Also, this wasn't conveyed in my summary but the distinction between low-level mages and high-level "mages" is very clear-cut. It's like a light jog vs. piloting a jet with nothing in between.
Low-level mages aren't "walking WMD"-level. It'd be like fighting someone unarmed while they have a blunt weapon: your odds aren't as good but it's do-able.
Higher-level "mages" are way beyond WMD-level but becoming "lucid" is a great deal more complicated than just training yourself (or having others train you). In fact, you can't just "learn how".

Also, I haven't played Magic the Ascension but I am aware of it. It looks like there's similarities but I can't say for sure this is and it definitely wasn't an inspiration. I think I might try looking into it a bit deeper, maybe play it if I get the chance.

The gods In my setting are kinda hands off not because they want to, they have so much spiritual mass that physical reality rejects them. I'm of simpler line of thinking the difference in strength between low and high level mages is obvious, with the high levels being uneatable in a "fair" fight.



One of most interesting things that occurred to me was magics impact on relationships and well gender issues. In my own opinion and a few sociologist, the reason for many cultures constraining female sexuality was so that men could have some assurity that they're offspring where biological their's. Not a nice or egalitarian thing to do, but it makes sense in a very calculating way. A man's work is dangerous , and he want his offspring to benefit from the risks that he takes. the only way to be certain that his children are just that, is keep women from sleeping with everybody that they find attractive.

Well the life-magic in my world among other things gives a man the ability to test for kinship, thus eliminating the major and perhaps only reason for the suppression of female sexuality. That combined with control over fertility/virility would really alter the structure of families and marriage. At the time the only effect that i'm seeing is that polyamory might be more common and marriage is probably going to be closer to handfasting especialy the tempory/conditional elements of it.