PDA

View Full Version : DM Help How do you describe a Kingdom populated entirely by magic users?



MonkeySage
2016-02-24, 12:43 PM
There's a fallen kingdom in my setting; it was at one time a sort of paradise, in which everyone could at the very least cast a couple of cantrips. Magic was so common place that it dominated every facet of even the lowliest commoners' lives. Basically, to call it a "magocracy" would be redundant.

It was eventually destroyed in a war between celestial and demonic forces, and the inhabitants were punished for magic abuse.

It is unlikely that my players will ever come into direct contact with this place, but it plays a central role in the history of my setting and an even bigger role in the plot of my current campaign. The people of my setting have mostly forgotten this place ever really existed, and even scholars dismiss it as mythology.

TheYell
2016-02-24, 01:25 PM
Not sure I understand the question.

But, it sounds so unique, the name itself is the label. Like Camelot or Atlantis or Mu.

MonkeySage
2016-02-24, 01:33 PM
Well, in the 'painting a picture' department, I'm pretty bad. I would like to impart a sense of mystery or something when my players come across this place, even indirectly. I wanna make them want to dig deeper.

b4ndito
2016-02-24, 01:57 PM
Be brief. Tell them it was a civilization of magicians. Trust your players to imagine the rest

TheYell
2016-02-24, 02:10 PM
From a distance the city glows faintly like moonlight.

Coming closer you see utter rubble. The city walls are not leveled, you realize they have been stove straight down so that the top of the wall is at ground level all around the city. It is as if no two bricks were left in place with each other. Looking closer, you notice no straight lines in the rubble, no mortar joining any angles. Some of the buildings looked to be clusters of spheres that fell and shattered. The topmost layers of rubble appear to be shattered walkways of natural wood as if buildings had grown smooth flat branches between them.

Walking through the radiant city, you notice a faint pleasant scent that changes by district, cinammon, lavender, lilac, honeysuckle, hot coffee, ginger.

Through the city you notice squat blocks of basalt rock man-high with steps carved along the faces. The tops are covered with ornate glyphs in a circle with broken pillars. The glyphs blaze with cold fire when you stand in the center, but the secret of the teleports is lost.

Pavements sometimes end in pools of water in front of cliffs, but the secret of the elevator fountains is gone.
There are grates in the pavement, some of which steam and give off a noise of distant underground machinery.

In the center of the city are rings of basalt stone statues, left upright but with the carved names and the faces melted to lava. When you reach the city center you realize that there is no wind in the city center, but walking to it or away from it the breezes blow from the center outward. Once the center of the city was marked with an ornate pool of mosaic tiles showing children eating a teeming platter of fruit; this has been broken and standing looking from the the south you see stamped into the tiles in stone-cracking footprints:


GEFALLEN
DER GROSSE
BABYLON

GrayDeath
2016-02-24, 03:05 PM
You shall not google-translate.
Write it three dozen times!


If you wanted to repeat the usual sentence "Fallen has Babylon" in German its not quite...what you intended.
You wrote "Fallen The Big Babylon", which is somewhat funny, especially since you used the masculine form of "the big". ^^



The rest of your post however is really good.

Add in some remains that CAN (with difficulty) yield real information and its a go.

Segev
2016-02-24, 03:23 PM
I would let them notice, with a perception check, a lack of tools amongst the detritus. Few wheeled conveyances, or even signs of beasts of burden. With magic being ubiquitous, mage hand, unseen servant, and tenser's floating disk would replace a lot of those things. Prestidigitation being a common thing would mean that colors are not a big deal, either; make everything in utilitarian colors, at least in terms of personal garments and items. People just color them as they wish whenever the mood takes them, as a rule.

Describe it in lavish colors, too, when anything references it; this should stand in stark contrast to their lack in the remains. (Again, prestidigitation was responsible, and without it, those colors are gone.)

You might also read a novel called Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson, for ideas. Whenever the eponymous city is discussed in terms of what it used to be, it's pretty good for the kind of thing you might want.

TheYell
2016-02-24, 03:46 PM
well its a quote and anyhow he stamped it into the pavement as graffiti and left out IST and the commas. And as Martin Lawrence once said "The man's in Hell not in college"

glad it suits tho :p

OK I checked on my PC and the quote was "Sie ist gefallen, sie ist gefallen, Babylon, die große, " which makes me a cretin :smallfrown:

JohnnyCancer
2016-02-24, 04:57 PM
I have heard that the most common documentation to survive the civilizations of antiquity are related to agriculture and finance. Maybe invoices for eye of newt survived the fall of your magic civilization.

Sam113097
2016-02-24, 07:34 PM
Emphasize its sheer alien-ness. This place was not built by normal tools, and it should show. If magic was omnipresent, the very buildings themselves could have been held together by magic. What is now a pile of overgrown rubble could have once been a series of floating gardens. There should be tools, magical devices, and inscriptions that make no sense, even when they are translated. In the real world, there are many specific terms used in science or computing. If these people were so magically advanced, they probably had magic down to a science.

TheYell
2016-02-25, 12:49 AM
One of the ways to indirectly reference it would be to involve the legends of its fall. It might be said that Twenty celestial captains fought Twenty demonic knights for control of X__ and the demons lost so X__ was razed but not enslaved. And your party could meet one of the Forty of X__.

Erik the Green
2016-02-25, 02:14 AM
If you're looking for atmosphere and attitude, I strongly suggest you get a hold of a copy of the 2005 collection of M. John Harrison's _Viriconium_ stories, especially "The Pastel City." These are in the same thought-space as Vance's _Dying Earth_, but less in a "the Sun could go out any minute" mode and more (if I can get the quote right) "the last of the Afternoon Cultures wrote their very names in the stars, not that any who came after could read them. Having achieved such satisfaction from the Universe as their abilities and desires would allow, they moved on. Years later, there came Viriconium." Anyway, Harrison's world-building has always struck me as more real than Vance, in the sense that even the mysterious things that no-one understood anymore were half-apprehendable and seemed like they had been made to do a thing, not just to be pulled out of the Sack O' Plot Devices.

P.S. And you could troll your players by having a clockwork metal raven swoop out of the sky periodically and warn them to "beware the geteit chemosit." :smallwink:

ImNotTrevor
2016-02-25, 05:13 AM
There's a fallen kingdom in my setting; it was at one time a sort of paradise, in which everyone could at the very least cast a couple of cantrips. Magic was so common place that it dominated every facet of even the lowliest commoners' lives. Basically, to call it a "magocracy" would be redundant.

It was eventually destroyed in a war between celestial and demonic forces, and the inhabitants were punished for magic abuse.

It is unlikely that my players will ever come into direct contact with this place, but it plays a central role in the history of my setting and an even bigger role in the plot of my current campaign. The people of my setting have mostly forgotten this place ever really existed, and even scholars dismiss it as mythology.

If it is a place only rumored to exist, speak of it through children's stories and tall tales. Have it be the fictional backdrop for proverbs and parables. If it is forgotten and/or treated as myth, just do exactly that. Treat it like it's a myth. People who have artifacts from there should tend to be obsessive, insane, paranoid, or conspiratorial.

It should be the subject of a common saying, especially of incredulousness. "Oh yes, you're a guard. And (city) is a real place."
Or
"Stories of (city)" could be a common phrase for outlandish lies and stories.

You want to drive home "This place doesn't exist. It never existed." But don't be in their face about it (unless the whole story is obviously about tracking down this city). Just let its name trickle in as turns of phrase, old stories, or even viewed backwards as a zionistic yet-to-be paradise.

Fri
2016-02-26, 04:15 AM
A magical realm :smallamused: A cookie to whoever know what this a reference to

Storm_Of_Snow
2016-02-26, 04:43 AM
A magical realm :smallamused: A cookie to whoever know what this a reference to
Ah, you mean Tahiti. :smallwink:

Whatever survives would be heavily influenced by the most powerful mage in the area - from the architectural style to the plants in the area, and could wildly differ from one place to another within the kingdom (Archmage-dom?). Native plants may have started to grow back if the area's been abandoned, and some of the transplanted plants may have died because they can't handle the local weather conditions and were protected by magic that's now faded, but there could also be highly invasive species that are spreading virulently.

Same goes for animals, especially those that can have components for spells/magic items harvested.

Or you could have the magical equivalent of the exclusion zone around Chernobyl - something PTerry looked at with the Wyrmberg in Colour of Magic. And there's also Sourcery to look at for what happens when it all falls apart. And treasure hunters and similar scavengers might give the place a wide berth, despite the potential riches on offer, because so many protective spells still exist, while other spells are beginning to fade and are dangerously unpredictable, while some of the items that could be recovered are unstable.

Going back to tools, some mages might insist that people use tools for various tasks, and have to earn the right to use spells. Other people might have to use them because they never quite got the hang of the cantrips for, say, reaping wheat, removing the ears and binding the stalks up, but still have to bring the harvest in.

Fri
2016-02-26, 09:03 AM
Oh yeah, or you could have the magical version of the zone in Stalker/Roadside Picnic (though the original roadside picnic novel works better)

Basically there's this zone of magical radiation filled with dangers and mutated animals and mysterious warped environment and magical storm (though might still be beautiful in weird way instead of a desolate wasteland). The stronger you are to the center the stronger the warp and mutated monsters are. The zone is filled with ancient artifacts, so people still venture there to scavenge them, but it's very dangerous, and nobody ever reached the center.

You can add what other suggested in the zone, like ruins where even the lowliest hut have weird things, and the magical artifacts aren't necessarily magic armor or weapons, but frying pan that heat itself, self-filling inkpot, shovel +2 against manure, etc.

goto124
2016-02-26, 09:16 AM
self-filling inkpot

http://intl.rakuten-static.com/i/ae322160-2dbc-11e4-8fc5-005056b701b7/20141025/8d8a92bf-6a71-4ddd-b7b3-bebff5e23462.jpg

Kantaki
2016-02-26, 09:51 AM
You shall not google-translate.
Write it three dozen times!

If you wanted to repeat the usual sentence "Fallen has Babylon" in German its not quite...what you intended.
You wrote "Fallen The Big Babylon", which is somewhat funny, especially since you used the masculine form of "the big". ^^

The rest of your post however is really good.

Add in some remains that CAN (with difficulty) yield real information and its a go.

Eh, "der" aside* the sentence is fine. The phrasing is a bit poetic/archaic sounding, but for a fallen magocracy it should be fine.
*"das" or maybe "die"** would be a better choice.
**Unless I'm wrong it should be "die". Cities are like ships. They count as female



http://intl.rakuten-static.com/i/ae322160-2dbc-11e4-8fc5-005056b701b7/20141025/8d8a92bf-6a71-4ddd-b7b3-bebff5e23462.jpg

What's the problem? They didn't starve and got a fancy wall for their city.:smallbiggrin: They might come to hate Porridge after a while, but that's a minor drawback.
Ink would even less troublesome, it flows away.

Coidzor
2016-02-27, 04:17 AM
What's this about Germans going on about Babylon and being so frazzled they bork their grammar?

ThinkMinty
2016-02-27, 05:05 AM
A magikopolis, or something to that effect. A magocracy is merely ruled by magicians, but a magikopolis is a state of magicians.

Guran
2016-02-27, 10:27 AM
In the homebrew campaign world I built I named the magic driven "kingdom" the Magiperium. Or at least that is how outsiders refer to the land.

Coidzor
2016-02-27, 02:54 PM
I'm reminded of the Greek(?) Conception of there having been several races of Men that came before them, made from different substances, one of which challenged the gods and we're destroyed for their hubris.

They also thought that the grand constructions of the proto-Greek culture there had to have been made by great giants, the cyclopses, hence Cyclopean architecture.

So that leads to a potential for either A. Thinking it's some other creatures' work or B. Associating it with a mythohistoric race of High Men.

Or they could call it a den of witches, I guess.

Donnadogsoth
2016-02-27, 04:06 PM
There's a fallen kingdom in my setting; it was at one time a sort of paradise, in which everyone could at the very least cast a couple of cantrips. Magic was so common place that it dominated every facet of even the lowliest commoners' lives. Basically, to call it a "magocracy" would be redundant.

It was eventually destroyed in a war between celestial and demonic forces, and the inhabitants were punished for magic abuse.

It is unlikely that my players will ever come into direct contact with this place, but it plays a central role in the history of my setting and an even bigger role in the plot of my current campaign. The people of my setting have mostly forgotten this place ever really existed, and even scholars dismiss it as mythology.

Try this world, it's close to what you describe.

Darksword
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darksword

Darksword Adventures: The Complete Guide to Venturing in the Enchanted Realm of Thimhallan
http://www.amazon.com/Darksword-Adventures-Venturing-Enchanted-Thimhallan/dp/055327600X

Beleriphon
2016-02-27, 04:27 PM
To a degree a kingdom populated entirely by magic users is going to be much like Harry Potter's world. At least the magical one, where everything and I mean everything has a ridiculous magical way of doing things even though mundane functions might be easier to use.

LokiRagnarok
2016-02-27, 04:56 PM
Eh, "der" aside* the sentence is fine. The phrasing is a bit poetic/archaic sounding, but for a fallen magocracy it should be fine.
*"das" or maybe "die"** would be a better choice.
**Unless I'm wrong it should be "die". Cities are like ships. They count as female.
Not true. Mostly you don't use any articles with proper names, like city names.
I'd translate it as "Gefallen ist Babylon".

GrayDeath
2016-02-28, 11:10 AM
Indeed, the proper translation for the abbreviated variant.
If you add in "Die Große" its a bit more melodramatic.

Also we Germans dont bork our Grammar. it is borked already, we just ... live with it. ^^

Kantaki
2016-02-28, 12:57 PM
Not true. Mostly you don't use any articles with proper names, like city names.
I'd translate it as "Gefallen ist Babylon".

That is certainly true for „normal” speech. If you start using more poetic, flowery, melodramatic speech, titles and epitaphs articles can be appropriate.
In this case calling Babylon „die Große” is fitting.
Poetry usually can break/ignore/creatively reinterpret grammar rules.

On topic: Depending who is describing that city it could be called Utopia, Abomination, Nightmare, Home, the (old) Enemy... or simply (and most likely if it was unique) by its name and/or epitaphs.

Bohandas
2016-02-28, 02:57 PM
http://intl.rakuten-static.com/i/ae322160-2dbc-11e4-8fc5-005056b701b7/20141025/8d8a92bf-6a71-4ddd-b7b3-bebff5e23462.jpg

The version I heard as a kid had pasta

Concrete
2016-02-28, 03:55 PM
I'd suggest using charlatans.
Let the most gullible people around be those who'll buy anything connected to the place.
Let the most outrageous con-artists claim to have extrapolated their secrets and turned them into a hair-tonic.
Let the laziest bards tell of outlandish journeys there, let them use it as a backdrop for any bawdy lay about magic.

But if it's forgotten, maybe it survives in words. Words alluding to hubris. Words cautioning against making powerful enemies.
Or maybe words used to describe great skill or genius.
Or words used as in-jokes between the smuggest of scholars?

Depending on how much has been forgotten, it's hard to describe it at all.

Kantaki
2016-02-28, 05:14 PM
The version I heard as a kid had pasta

I think I heard it with mashed potatoes. And/Or some other kind of mash/pap. Doesn't this story exist (almost) everywhere? Usually with some local version of simple, but filling (and usually tasty) food?

Belac93
2016-02-28, 06:16 PM
How do you describe a Kingdom populated entirely by magic users?

Dangerous. Very dangerous.

Donnadogsoth
2016-02-28, 07:19 PM
Another book series set in a land not only populated by magic users, but entirely saturated in magic, is the Xanth series by Piers Anthony.

Quertus
2016-02-29, 02:04 PM
Based on the title, I was going to just post "paradise", but I see that word was already used.


Few wheeled conveyances, or even signs of beasts of burden. With magic being ubiquitous, mage hand, unseen servant, and tenser's floating disk would replace a lot of those things. Prestidigitation being a common thing would mean that colors are not a big deal, either; make everything in utilitarian colors, at least in terms of personal garments and items. People just color them as they wish whenever the mood takes them, as a rule.

Describe it in lavish colors, too, when anything references it; this should stand in stark contrast to their lack in the remains. (Again, prestidigitation was responsible, and without it, those colors are gone.)

You might also read a novel called Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson, for ideas. Whenever the eponymous city is discussed in terms of what it used to be, it's pretty good for the kind of thing you might want.

I like this. I like thinking through the logical effects of the proliferation of magic, and having them reflected in the archaeological remains.


I would let them notice, with a perception check, a lack of tools amongst the detritus.

But I don't like this. Even if this were the case, you shouldn't tell your players what's missing, just what they see. Let them figure out what is missing.

Segev
2016-02-29, 02:56 PM
Or maybe words used to describe great skill or genius.
Or words used as in-jokes between the smuggest of scholars?

Or words describing hopelessness, unknowability, or loss?

"Who is John Galt?"

"What of Magiheim?"

Segev
2016-02-29, 03:00 PM
But I don't like this. Even if this were the case, you shouldn't tell your players what's missing, just what they see. Let them figure out what is missing.

I disagree; your characters' roll for perception and intelligent interpretation of what they're seeing should let the character recognize the lack of something.

Sure, describe it with those things missing. But if they're investigating and the players don't pick up on the fact that you haven't mentioned a single tool, but the characters are looking around and one makes a sufficient search/spot/knowledge:archaeology check, it should be something you point out to them.

Just as you would point out, on a successful listen-type check, when the forest has gone silent. You don't simply hope the players recognize that you, the GM, have stopped describing forest-animal sounds every few sentences. That's the point of the skill check, to divorce player skill at whatever (in this case, "noticing (a lack of) something") from that of the character.

LokiRagnarok
2016-02-29, 04:02 PM
I think I heard it with mashed potatoes. And/Or some other kind of mash/pap. Doesn't this story exist (almost) everywhere? Usually with some local version of simple, but filling (and usually tasty) food?

I heard a Russian version of the tale, with semolina (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semolina#Sweet).

TheYell
2016-02-29, 06:28 PM
Higher rolls should result in more insightful results. Its interesting to think whether they forgo tools. Would they use magical hammers or master evocations of force to pound things? or summon something to do work? how about necromancy?

Maybe they began with enhanced tools and keep them as artworks having progressed to more productive magics.

It might be fun to speculate what crime brought down the kingdom. There might be celestial or demonic forces out to prevent the use of artifacts from the city as part of the ban on it.

Btw i figure i got it right vvv

BWR
2016-03-01, 12:43 PM
Since the OP is very vague about what exactly he is looking for, I will merely suggest looking up the 2e D&D supplement "Netheril: Empire of Magic" for Forgotten Realms, which is basically what he is describing: a high-magic civilization where just about everyone knows at least some magic.

It's also very similar to the original world of the Alphatian empire in Mystara (where a philosophical argument ended up in the destruction of the planet). Sadly, there is not much information on what that world was like, but a look at what the current Alphatian empire is like might prove useful.

MrZJunior
2016-03-01, 02:45 PM
I would come up with a couple of very powerful wizards who have taken over the legends of the city. Something like "in Atlantis, the city of shining walls and powerful magic, lived Merlin, the most powerful of all wizards." Sort of like how people in the Middle Ages attributed all sorts of tall tales to historical figures from previous eras. The interesting thing isn't the location but the people and the stories about them.

Donnadogsoth
2016-03-01, 03:07 PM
Another take on a high-magic society, and its downfall, is David Niven's The Magic Goes Away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Goes_Away

Bohandas
2016-03-01, 03:12 PM
Do we mean powerful magic, or replace level 1 commoners with level 1 magewrights/adepts type everyone uses magic.

Quertus
2016-03-01, 04:21 PM
I disagree; your characters' roll for perception and intelligent interpretation of what they're seeing should let the character recognize the lack of something.

Sure, describe it with those things missing. But if they're investigating and the players don't pick up on the fact that you haven't mentioned a single tool, but the characters are looking around and one makes a sufficient search/spot/knowledge:archaeology check, it should be something you point out to them.

Just as you would point out, on a successful listen-type check, when the forest has gone silent. You don't simply hope the players recognize that you, the GM, have stopped describing forest-animal sounds every few sentences. That's the point of the skill check, to divorce player skill at whatever (in this case, "noticing (a lack of) something") from that of the character.

Ok, I agree about giving them that information on a successful knowledge: archaeology roll. Just like the noticing the significance of the forest going silent is easier with knowledge: nature than with just listen.

The character's skill at noticing that lack is the knowledge skill.

I guess someone stricter than me might not let someone use the fact that they noticed the absence OOC unless they also had the knowledge skill / made the roll. I'll have to think about that.

Bohandas
2016-03-07, 04:50 PM
As an aside, I've always felt that the long-lived races (like elves and dwarves) should be partially this, with adepts and magewrights replacing such commoners as have sufficient stats (about three-quarters of them should have intelligence and/or wisdom of at least 11). One would think that with 100 years of childhood to be educated in even a very indolent student could be taught magic.

Sparklelord
2016-03-09, 05:36 AM
There's a fallen kingdom in my setting; it was at one time a sort of paradise, in which everyone could at the very least cast a couple of cantrips. Magic was so common place that it dominated every facet of even the lowliest commoners' lives. Basically, to call it a "magocracy" would be redundant.

Cat Food.


What? We all know how the gods destroyed that realm!

Ravens_cry
2016-03-09, 05:50 AM
I see it being either complete chaos or an absolute tyranny to try and keep everyone under control when everyone has super powers.

Concrete
2016-03-09, 06:57 AM
I see it being either complete chaos or an absolute tyranny to try and keep everyone under control when everyone has super powers.

Then again, much of the discord in a society springs from want and scarcity. In such a society, would anyone have to be poor or hungry?

JustSomeGuy
2016-03-09, 09:32 AM
As decided in another thread, a kingdom of magic users shall be described as "that land of -1 to movement/combat checks"

LokiRagnarok
2016-03-10, 08:06 PM
Then again, much of the discord in a society springs from want and scarcity. In such a society, would anyone have to be poor or hungry?
No, but they might still desire their neighbours spouse.

People. People's attention is still scarce. Even if you have a society where you can easily replicate somebody into a homunculus, some might decide they want "the real deal". How much more special would somebody spending time with you become if instead they might have a feast with hundreds of Unseen Servants reading every wish from their lips?

Then again, My Little Pony is effectively a post scarcity society, and emphasizes friendship above all...

Knaight
2016-03-10, 09:36 PM
On the name side, I'd honestly stick with something like kingdom. Everyone there used magic, it probably wasn't that significant to them. Every nation that has ever existed in real life has been composed entirely of people who breathe (albeit occasionally with a bunch of assistance when fun things like polio came around). Yet the term pneumarchy and similar never seem to show up.

As for descriptions, I'd expect four major sources of information from which descriptions could be pulled, all of which are different.
1) Modern ruins. The lack of hand tools is a good idea (though if the standard is a couple of cantrips I might localize it to certain areas), but it might also be fun to emphasize architectural oddities consistent with magic use (e.g specialized landing areas if there was magical flight, scrying pools if that was ever much of a thing, cauldrons, strangely small fields for all the buildings consistent with magical enhancement, etc.) I'd also recommend the occasional leftover magical effect, and magical artifact, in the sense of mundane things left over by a culture. You'll have your self threading needles, your leftover lanterns clearly not built to hold anything physical. If one of the expected routine abilities was easy near-instant repair, having things that are unbroken but clearly shoddily made around might be a good idea.

2) Ancient writings from the kingdom, plus possible oral tradition. Here magic is treated completely routinely. Magic abilities get mentioned in passing, magical items get described in a way that suggests less wonder and more annoyance at design flaws, and the bulk of writings are things like bills of sale. Occasionally you'll find something like a carving of laws, and on it specific magic use will be rolled right into the rest of them, as if there's no real difference. Magic was an everyday thing for these people, and it should look the part. On top of that, these people were very aware that they were essentially normal people in most respects.

3) Ancient writings from nearby cultures that weren't so magic rich. Here you might see a little more in the way of awe and envy, but it's worth keeping in mind that the kingdom wasn't a legend for these cultures either. It was probably a trade partner, an occasional belligerent in a conflict, and other such things. There will be an attitude of exoticism, but that's about it. There might be some odd beliefs about the people there, but again, they are known entities.

4) Modern legends. Here the hyperbole flows like water, the facts are distorted heavily, the routine is held up as wonders and the old people like gods. It's not necessarily a topic that comes up much, but when it does there's a canon of stories, and there might be a grain of truth or two spread between the lot of them.

Coidzor
2016-03-11, 12:37 AM
University.

Their greatest structures left behind are their now empty libraries and their sportsdomes for magic-sports.

goto124
2016-03-11, 12:52 AM
Applying magic to different items can activate the items for good use, much like how batteries can get electronic devices going. You've got to find the right batteries for the right devices though...

Khoram
2016-04-12, 09:15 AM
No one mentioned Glantri from the Known World/Mystara? It's a mageocracy where arcane magic users are nobility, non-arcane folk are peasants, and clerics/divine magic (and dwarves...) are killed on sight.

TeChameleon
2016-04-12, 09:41 PM
How do you describe a Kingdom populated entirely by magic users?
"Gone". Or possibly 'that crater that still glows on the solstices'. I think pTerry (as usual) said it best- "Once upon a time, the plural of wizard was 'war'."

More seriously, even if it was a kind of paradise, the walls of reality would be pretty thin there. Long-forgotten dreams and nightmares wander the streets, and mingle with the petty homunculi and animated brooms, still mindlessly following their last, eternal tasks. Lost lights guide insistently to places that aren't there anymore, or, perhaps worse, are. The pale magic of the present goes awry there, spells supercharged to the point of detonation, or simply snapping in a burst of wild arcane power.

Celestials and infernals war there still, caught in eternal time stops, or emerging, blinking, from portals from the distant past that snap shut behind them. They say that if you possess the right kind of sight, you can still catch glimpses, like a shower of mirror-shards, of the city's centre spire and the titanic infernal that smashed it, caught forever in the moment of destruction.

If you are clever, you don't go there without the most potent wards you can muster.

If you are wise, you don't go there at all.

Gildedragon
2016-04-12, 10:26 PM
Well, in the 'painting a picture' department, I'm pretty bad. I would like to impart a sense of mystery or something when my players come across this place, even indirectly. I wanna make them want to dig deeper.

Broken towers dot the area; still glorious in their decay. The floor cracks and crunches underfoot as the dust, fused into frost-thin glass, breaks.
A faint glow outlines the ruins; the air feels charged with magic or potential.
You notice a [motiff] repeated over and over in the debris; carved onto pillars, sculpted into the fountains. Could it be [city] of the [motiff]?

Lhyonnaes
2016-04-13, 02:21 AM
As many people have stated, the capacity for things gone catastrophically wrong is... high, to say the least. Wizards are known for their egos and for not playing well with others. Add a lot of magic, and... well, it could be trouble.

But there are other consequences of having a kingdom full of magic users. Mundane tasks get done a lot more quickly. Society as a whole has more resources to pour into development and understanding of arcana. Your casters don't need to be generalists - they can really afford specialize on one specific area.

You potentially get magic like there hasn't been magic before or since. Spells that aren't on any spell list because nobody bothered to make something so trivial, or because they death with intricate twists and weaves of magic that nobody has had the time and energy to look into and understand.

Someone's going to be specializing in creation and artifice. Multiple someones. Maybe working with some specialists in containing and manipulating magical energy. With their knowledge and their resources, who knows what's going to come out of that?

So there's potential for great ruin, yes. But even looking back, walking among those ruins, who knows what magic remains - long unknown or forgotten, or twisted from disuse? Who knows what treasures or discoveries might lie there, waiting to be discovered?

Bohandas
2016-04-16, 12:47 AM
Also, are we talking arcane magic, divine magic, or both? High level or low level? and NPC casting classes or regular classes too?

I know, however, that a surplus of adepts would likely eliminate the need for a settlement to be near a water source, as well as the need to store or cook food (except for purely cosmetic, flavor related reasons) as adepts have both Create Water and Purify Food and Drink as level 0 spells.

eru001
2016-04-16, 01:20 AM
have you ever played Fallout? That, but with every character being capable of magic but having few options to learn control due to the breakdown of society.

TLDR: Irradiated