May 9, 2024: The May '24 Report is up.
News: April 23, 2024: Dwarf Fortress 50.13 has been released.
News: February 4, 2021: Dwarf Fortress Talk #28 has been posted.
News: November 21, 2018: A new Threetoe story has been posted.
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"... and what will your punishment be should you break this oath?""You could attack someone - Wstfgl, for example - and then only kill them after they defend themselves by attacking you. Therefore you stick to the wording of the oath by only killing them in self-defense. Doesn't sound particularly effective, does it?""Easily solved by adding a subclause such as: 'Fights initiated by Landria will not count as self-defence, even if the other partie(s) fight back'"
"Depends, is the news provided fair, informative, and unbiased?"
"Wstfgl seems to be suggesting otherwise."But I'm not lying? I'd be willing to swear a binding oath to the effect that I will kill no more gods except in self-defence."Mumuski who had been watching the world for this time looks at who she assumed was Landriain a different form. "Oh...I'm sorry for not noticing your imprisonment for I mostly have been ignoring the state of godly affairs in favor for the ones down below in the world. However, killing gods that seem to be unrelated to what happened is...bad, so please stop this.""As it is now impossible to resurrect Mani, this one has no further intention to kill gods."
"You never told lies well, friend. You bring me great shame."
Propose system: ALL magic stems from the gods. If a worshiper needs magic they actually have to pray for it and the god must sacrifice their own essence income. 1E is sufficient for 3pops of magic users.
"A quote for the ages.""By my name, you are denser than a black hole sand god..."
"Yea but your name ain't worth a sandy, brown underpantaloon..."
"Not everything can be boiled down to numbers. Love, beauty, justice, for example.""i agree we need 1 System""I don't want to over complicate the system. Perhaps a compromise between the two systems would be acceptable? Why not create both systems? The races of the world could decide what they prefer"
"That's not a compromise, that's putting two systems in place when one would suffice."
"I think you can reach into abstract concepts by making connections to geometry and thus ultimately to mathematics. By finding out magic numbers and the True names of abstract thought one can connect them magically. So the concept of harmony is a form and a colour a number a name a feeling a sound. The mage searches for these things."
"I don't want to over complicate the system. Perhaps a compromise between the two systems would be acceptable? Why not create both systems? The races of the world could decide what they prefer"
Magic functions via connections, and sympathy. In short, like effects like. Elementalists form miniature elemental replicas of large scale things they wish to affect, then manipulate the model to effect the original. Taking material from the target increases the strength of the connection and thus magic, for example, a magical doll of a rival with some of his plucked hair placed in it, so you could torture him using the doll.
Factors effecting connections are distance, similarity, familiarity with the target, whether the target can currently be sensed, knowledge of the target's secret truename, and more probably.
A mage could spy on a friend they are very familiar with who is ten miles away with the crystal figurine made to look like him, celestial mages draw power for spells from the stars through the connection of the stars with their past lives on the planet, divine mages use the principle of sympathy to imitate the miracles of the gods, the spell being fake worshipped as a fake god until it gains enough power.
The gods may hand down tokens to favoured mortals, granting them a connection to that god which can then be used to perform powerful magic, with the danger of the connection potentially being used against the god.
