From 30 Days of Worldbuilding (I've modified it a bit):
1. Revise your cultural write-up from Day 10 to include your speculative element
ANSWER: I originally wrote it with my magic (magklik) in mind. I reviewed it and that is still true.
2. Answer the questions.
--a. How does the addition of magklik, with all of its powers and limitations, affects your culture and society?
ANSWER: This is a VERY open ended question. I think Days 13 and 16 went into this exhaustively and it should be pretty clear by now.
--b. How are people different in your culture, now that you have magklik?
ANSWER: It is a power that they fight over; it is the technology that drives progress and wealth. Imagine how much electricity changed the world, agriculture, automobiles, railroads, telephones, and computers. That's the kind of change it had over people. The GOE has no magic, but they have Romanesque technology. The introduction of magklik to them was like introducing gunpowder or the printing press to the Romans would have been.
--c. With magklik in the world, does that change how people react to unexpected situations?
ANSWER: Magklik is very predictable and permeates society. People today don't think twice about computers, but some still believe in magic and fairies. Within the framework of magklik people aren't surprised, but outside of it they are still just one step into civilization. Magklik didn't change that.
--d. Do people still bother to pray?
ANSWER: This question was in 30 Days specifically for stories that have a mythological bent. Mine doesn't but I wanted to touch on this. Wizard magklik is technology, Klelryn magklik is religion, but it's regular, organized religion like Catholicism. Catholics take for granted that the bread and wine are miraculously transformed into Flesh and Blood. Devotees of the Klelryn, the followers are no more surprised by the priestesses powers than the followers of faith healers, in fact they expect it. Do they pray? If the Priestess tells them to they do.
--e. How do crimes happen, or do they not happen at all?
ANSWER: Precognition is not a power of magklik. Postcognition may be available and enchanting witnesses to discover forgotten memories are available. These are controlled by the Priestesses. Law and law enforcement is a very interesting topic and deserves more time and space than here.
--f. How does a teen go on a date?
--g. How is society the same? What do you think basic, unchanging human behaviors are? What do you think people will continue to do, with or without magklik?
--h. How do "ordinary" people react to those with or without the ability to use magklik?
3. As a bonus, you can get back to your character sketch and figure out where your protagonist and supporting cast fit into your speculative elements and society.
ANSWER: That's exactly what the story is about, so it doesn't really make sense to do that here.
(more to come)
A place for social awareness, support, and the writings of the Inner Prop.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Day 17 – Moody Review
1. Pull out the list of adjectives you wrote down that set the mood for your novel...Read them out loud.2. Take out your notes on your speculative element. Read your rules out loud.
3. Try describing how your speculative element works in your novel. How do you feel when you describe it?
4. Look at what you decided to name your speculative element. Say the name out loud and decide if you feel the way you want to feel when you read your novel.
5. Rename and rework your speculative elements and their rules if you need to.
I was thinking of recording myself reading these things and posting the audio link, but that would just be silly. You can read them out loud yourself if you want.
1. ADJECTIVES: Sexy, Dangerous, Magical, Larger than life, Erotic, Powerful, Action-packed
2. Rules, they were just back one post.
3. I won't write the description, but when I describe the parts that the Priestesses use, I think they're a bit naughty (which IS what I'm shooting for) and the Wizard stuff is a bit mundane, but it is supposed to be mysterious simply because Wizards love the details so much that no one not a Wizard can penetrate the jargon. The heroic feeling comes from the Paladin's use of magic, just as it's supposed to.
4. Name? Name? I haven't really (cough cough) named magic yet. I guess I'll have to do that now huh? How about the power, the force of magic is called klik and the use of magic is called magklik.
5. NA yet.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Day 16 - More Speculation
"Well, today is another day to nail down the rules for how your magic… work[s] in your story."
I'm conflicted. On the one hand that's what I've been doing right along and it was even the start of the idea for the story in the first place. On the other hand the details have been escaping me and that's why I came to the 30 Days of World Building in the first place, I was looking for a guide for generating a Magic System.
I haven't really gotten any help with creating a Magic System in these exercises. I can regurgitate what I already have for rules, but I still have a lot of questions.
What is magic? What is the power that the Sourcerers produce? How exactly do the Wizards, Priestesses and Paladins use it?
Let me give you the rest of the exercise for today and then I'll compile all the rules I have so far in this post.
I boiled the exercise down to three bulleted question and two bulleted instructions:
1. What are the limits of your speculative element?
2. What is that cost? If there's no cost, then what's the trade-off?
3. What keeps it from being used all the time, for everything, or is it used that much after all?
1. Write down your rules, specifically focusing on what's impossible…
2. Establish the limits and boundaries of your spec element today.
Things we already know about Magic:
From Day 7 – Recent History:
1. The people of the GOE don't have magic at all and think they can sacrifice Sourcerers to get it. It doesn't work that way.
2. Wizards can make magical devices, given magically "charged" raw material to work with.
3. Magic is known/available only to descendants of the aliens, but it was not known to the aliens when they lived in what is now Emptyland. It also didn't appear as soon as the Mega volcano erupted, but thousands of years later.
4. The most powerful source of magic is the Sourcerers of the Golchin, followed by Sourcerers of the Fidchin, the Paladins of Fjordland and least of all by the Sourcerers of the Desert people.
5. Several groups have been formed to control magic. This started with the Old Priesthood of Magic (OPM), then the Klelryn Priestesses and the Wizards. Each had a slightly different way of using magic.
6. Magic can be and has been used to great effect in war, but it is not all powerful.
7. People without magic can be very powerful, but they must acknowledge and respect the power of magic wielding people, even among Golchin and Fidchin.
8. Once you have set your magic system in place it doesn't seem that you can waver from it (e.g. Wizards only work with inanimate objects and are powerless to affect people directly).
9. Sourcerers are really not in control of their own lives or destiny.
10. Magical devices (not just magical items) had to be invented.
11. Magical devices are more effective in war than the way the Klelryn use magic.
12. Wizardry is regulated by a Wizards' Council. Though I hadn't thought of it at that time, this council would be subject and under the control of the Academies.
13. The Klelryn didn't always lock every Sourcerer away. This development somewhat mirrors the development of insane asylums as the industrial revolution grew.
From Day 8 – Economics and Politics
14. Magic seems to be a byproduct of the alien originated races and so it is absent from the people of the GOE. They never really needed it when they didn't regularly encounter magical people. They substituted community.
15. The greatest resource of Goldland [Goldan] is Magic. Only Golden [Golchin] people produce pure Sourcerers. They have fought over this resource among themselves for hundreds of years, but recently it has become a valuable commodity outside of Goldland [Goldan].
16. Sourcerers born to Forestlanders [Fidchin] are usually less autistic and less powerful magically. They are always abducted by the Klelryn.
From Day 11 – Focus In
17. The Klelryn are divided into Village Priestesses, who have no interest in any more power than to be able to aid and nurture their villages; and the Klelryn Web, or the "nobility" of the Klelryn who fight amongst themselves and with and against the nobility.
From Day 12 – Speculative Element
18. Here was where I wrote about many images of things within my magic system.
19. Wizards do not cast spells, they create magical artifacts that can be manipulated and/or triggered.
20. Klelryn Priestesses do cast spells, with words, song, music, dance, gestures and most potently with sex.
21. Fjordlander magic was explained pretty thoroughly.
Then there is Day 13. Day 13 is almost all about the magic, so go there and read it.
Day 14
This was about education and there we found out that Wizard magic can be learned by anyone bright enough and with a flare for it, just like any advanced degree we have in reality. Priestesses learn their craft in seminaries and abbeys. Sourcerers are born, but they can be coaxed and taught to go into deeper, longer trances if they aren't particularly powerful. The most powerful are the most like people with autism; no one can teach them or coach them to be more or less than they are.
Paladins are born with abilities and have to be taught to use them. They must devote their lives, and must be trained as clerics.
So there you are. What is magic? I'm still not really sure. How exactly is it manipulated by Wizards and Priestesses? It is drawn out and stored until it is used, like energy, but there are still details I haven't decided.
I'm conflicted. On the one hand that's what I've been doing right along and it was even the start of the idea for the story in the first place. On the other hand the details have been escaping me and that's why I came to the 30 Days of World Building in the first place, I was looking for a guide for generating a Magic System.
I haven't really gotten any help with creating a Magic System in these exercises. I can regurgitate what I already have for rules, but I still have a lot of questions.
What is magic? What is the power that the Sourcerers produce? How exactly do the Wizards, Priestesses and Paladins use it?
Let me give you the rest of the exercise for today and then I'll compile all the rules I have so far in this post.
I boiled the exercise down to three bulleted question and two bulleted instructions:
1. What are the limits of your speculative element?
2. What is that cost? If there's no cost, then what's the trade-off?
3. What keeps it from being used all the time, for everything, or is it used that much after all?
1. Write down your rules, specifically focusing on what's impossible…
2. Establish the limits and boundaries of your spec element today.
Things we already know about Magic:
From Day 7 – Recent History:
1. The people of the GOE don't have magic at all and think they can sacrifice Sourcerers to get it. It doesn't work that way.
2. Wizards can make magical devices, given magically "charged" raw material to work with.
3. Magic is known/available only to descendants of the aliens, but it was not known to the aliens when they lived in what is now Emptyland. It also didn't appear as soon as the Mega volcano erupted, but thousands of years later.
4. The most powerful source of magic is the Sourcerers of the Golchin, followed by Sourcerers of the Fidchin, the Paladins of Fjordland and least of all by the Sourcerers of the Desert people.
5. Several groups have been formed to control magic. This started with the Old Priesthood of Magic (OPM), then the Klelryn Priestesses and the Wizards. Each had a slightly different way of using magic.
6. Magic can be and has been used to great effect in war, but it is not all powerful.
7. People without magic can be very powerful, but they must acknowledge and respect the power of magic wielding people, even among Golchin and Fidchin.
8. Once you have set your magic system in place it doesn't seem that you can waver from it (e.g. Wizards only work with inanimate objects and are powerless to affect people directly).
9. Sourcerers are really not in control of their own lives or destiny.
10. Magical devices (not just magical items) had to be invented.
11. Magical devices are more effective in war than the way the Klelryn use magic.
12. Wizardry is regulated by a Wizards' Council. Though I hadn't thought of it at that time, this council would be subject and under the control of the Academies.
13. The Klelryn didn't always lock every Sourcerer away. This development somewhat mirrors the development of insane asylums as the industrial revolution grew.
From Day 8 – Economics and Politics
14. Magic seems to be a byproduct of the alien originated races and so it is absent from the people of the GOE. They never really needed it when they didn't regularly encounter magical people. They substituted community.
15. The greatest resource of Goldland [Goldan] is Magic. Only Golden [Golchin] people produce pure Sourcerers. They have fought over this resource among themselves for hundreds of years, but recently it has become a valuable commodity outside of Goldland [Goldan].
16. Sourcerers born to Forestlanders [Fidchin] are usually less autistic and less powerful magically. They are always abducted by the Klelryn.
From Day 11 – Focus In
17. The Klelryn are divided into Village Priestesses, who have no interest in any more power than to be able to aid and nurture their villages; and the Klelryn Web, or the "nobility" of the Klelryn who fight amongst themselves and with and against the nobility.
From Day 12 – Speculative Element
18. Here was where I wrote about many images of things within my magic system.
19. Wizards do not cast spells, they create magical artifacts that can be manipulated and/or triggered.
20. Klelryn Priestesses do cast spells, with words, song, music, dance, gestures and most potently with sex.
21. Fjordlander magic was explained pretty thoroughly.
Then there is Day 13. Day 13 is almost all about the magic, so go there and read it.
Day 14
This was about education and there we found out that Wizard magic can be learned by anyone bright enough and with a flare for it, just like any advanced degree we have in reality. Priestesses learn their craft in seminaries and abbeys. Sourcerers are born, but they can be coaxed and taught to go into deeper, longer trances if they aren't particularly powerful. The most powerful are the most like people with autism; no one can teach them or coach them to be more or less than they are.
Paladins are born with abilities and have to be taught to use them. They must devote their lives, and must be trained as clerics.
So there you are. What is magic? I'm still not really sure. How exactly is it manipulated by Wizards and Priestesses? It is drawn out and stored until it is used, like energy, but there are still details I haven't decided.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Day 15 – Resources
This is a gimme day. The 30 Days of World Building exercise takes this day to tell you to read some world building books. I have read several and I have gone to several of the websites suggested. So I can sit back and relax today (I've been waiting for this day for a long time).
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