idk maybe we can have a sharing session to check out eachother’s cool ideas and projects we have, just a thought haha-jk-unless.
I’ve been playing around with this idea of writing about the development of early agricultural society in a world with a soft magic system based around theory and praxis. Basically, any trade/skill can be magically enhanced as long as you have a working theory of why/how things are happening and then being able to put that to practice. Which means that while you can have far out and unscientific explanations for why something works, it needs to be close enough to reality so you can get your shit to work at least once for the magic to gel. I kind of want to explore how magic will shape the material conditions and power structures of the world as sedentary civilization forms, and how those will in turn impact the forms of magic that is practiced. It’s always bugged me how in so much of fantasy you have “basically medieval Europe but with mages” and that’s it.
Emh isnt that the definition of science. Artisans had material understanding of their craft without a scientific method for millennia.
Kind of? A magic artisan can have a theory system of knowledge for why heating and rapid cooling a piece of steel produces a harder tool. This may include spiritual or religious beliefs which will impact how the magic manifests. But what he must do first is produce an actually hardened piece of steel. The way I envision things is there being a dialectic between the depth of the understanding on a scientific level and the freedom of the magic. If an arisan had modern metallurgical knowledge he’d have a more powerful magical control over the physical properties, but woulnd’t be able to imbue the aura of the Weeping Sun or whatever.
What does the magic do then, cos simply saying “i know heat hardens metal so i will heat metal to harden it” isnt exactly magic thats just understanding cause and effect haha
