Hello friends! Welcome back and thank you for joining me again this week. Sorry I completely missed last week and that this week is late, I’ll try to get back on schedule next week. If I’m being honest, I almost skipped this week too, because I’ve been having a hard time coming up with something to write about, but we’ll see what we can do here.
We’ve had a couple of pretty nice weather days here in Michigan lately, which have afforded me some opportunities for long walks to get lost in music and imagination. One idea that I had the other day was . . . what if magic was real?
I know that’s not a unique idea by any stretch of the imagination – there are soooo many TV shows, movies, books, etc. that explore that concept. The thought I had though was less ‘magic is real, but it has to be kept secret from non-magical people’ (like Harry Potter) and more ‘let’s say something happened a few hundred years ago to introduce magic in to the world, so by 2020 it’s just commonplace, what would that look like?’
That one question got me to dive down a rabbit hole and got me to thinking of how magic got introduced in to our world – what were people’s reactions back then? How long did it take for magic to become accepted? Would there be any limitations to the magic or any kind of legal restrictions or anything? Can everyone do magic or is it a gift only bestowed upon a few? Did other fantastical creatures (elves, dwarves, fairies, etc.) that we typically associate with magic also get introduced in to our world at the same time, or was it just the raw arcane energy itself?
The more I thought about it, the more questions I came up with, and with each answer, I started to get a clearer picture of what the world would look like in this alternate reality. As the world began to become more solidified in my mind, I realized . . . I had just begun creating my very first home-brewed D&D campaign!
Yeah yeah, I know, I suckered you in to another D&D-based blog post. With quarantine 2020 in full-swing, our experiences and things are pretty limited at the moment so there’s bound to be some repeat topics. Bear with me.
I don’t want to give away too much here, just in case any of my future players decide to read this, but I can give you some of the high-level basics of the campaign I’m building to give you a feel for the world I’m envisioning.
~1740
A once-in-an-eternity astronomical event occurred. The cosmic positioning of not only Earth and the Milky Way, but our very plane of existence coincided with an exact mirrored positioning of a world in the plane of magic, opening a rift between the two worlds. The rift was only open for a week’s time and was opened in the hills of Ireland, but that allowed beings and arcane energy to pass from the other world to Earth (and some humans and animals from Earth to pass the other way as well), introducing not only magic, but fantastical creatures to our world.
As you may expect, this introduction of creatures and beings not of this world did not go very smoothly. Just imagine aliens randomly appearing one day, and tell me that humans’ first reactions would not be to freak out. There were instances of brutality that humans rent upon the newcomers, convinced they were sent by the Devil himself. Some of the beasts unleashed upon the world devoured stray travelers, but in bizarrely animalistic ways not seen by even the most experienced and seasoned hunters. There were stranger stories yet of the humanoid newcomers being able to perform completely impossible actions, like vanishing in the blink of an eye to appear some 60 feet away, or creating fire out of thin air with no flint or kindling of any kind. The first year or so after The Event (as the rift opening came to be known) was a very dark, scary, and confusing time.
Not everyone was so fearful of the newcomers, however. Some humans (especially children, with their wide-eyed curiosity and innocence) sought peaceful interactions and sought to understand the newcomers and to show them hospitality and kindness. Over the next decade or so, relation tensions between humans and The Others began to ease, as we began to understand one another and learn each others’ languages and customs. As tensions began to ease, the newcomers started to feel more comfortable with sharing their knowledge of the arcane with humans. This helped to spark the Industrial Revolution around 1760.
~1790
About 50 years after The Event, magic had begun to be more widely accepted, and mages started to find themselves employed as political and religious advisors. King George, still bothered by the loss of the colonies in America, decided to gather up some of his most trusted mages, and hatched a plan to send them on a diplomatic mission to convince George Washington to have America come back under English rule. He also asked his advisors to bring with them some of the otherworldly beasts as a plan B, so if the diplomacy did not work, the beasts could be unleashed upon America to wreak havoc and sow fear, and then the ‘diplomats’ could swoop in and vanquish the beasts in the name of the crown to convince everyone that they were more safe under British rule.
Thus the envoy was deployed to America. Once they got here however, and heard the other side of the story of the revolution from the Americans, and the reason they fought to be free of the British rule, the plan was abandoned. Unfortunately though, the beasts brought along on the trip escaped before they could be dispatched, and made their way in to the American wilds.
1790 – Present
As years went on, the different races began to intermingle and learn to live together as one. That is not to say that all was sunshine and rainbows and singing kumbaya though. There was still xenophobia (from all sides) and distrust and fear, but by and large, Elves and Dwarves and Halflings and Humans and all manner of folk were able to accept one another and find ways to live together and prosper.
As far as magic goes, there are three main ways that one may gain access to magical abilities: They may devote time, energy, and practice to the study of the arcane energies and learn to hone them (such as wizards or bards), they may make a pact with a higher entity – such as a god or a demon – (in the case of warlocks, clerics, palladins, etc.), or, most rarely, one may be born with inherent magical abilities (sorcerers).
The study of magic is very widely accepted and even revered as a great service to the furthering of society, and universities and acting studios and music colleges all have sections devoted to the integration of magic in to learning. Though to be able to properly hone the arcane energy, you must show some particular aptitude, meaning only ~1 in every 10,000 people has the capability to wield magic. So being a magic-user is common enough that it is not shocking to anyone, but still rare enough to make those able to practice it ‘special’. In the modern world, magic institutions are government-funded, but also government-regulated, to ensure that only those seeking to use magic for good are able to obtain the training needed to be a magic-wielder.
Those looking to obtain magic from higher powers are even rarer, as the deities, demons, devils, etc. are very selective in who they decide to grant abilities to. This means that only ~1 in every 100,000 people or so are able to become things like clerics, warlocks, palladins, etc. By the very nature of these pacts, it is impossible for the government to be able to regulate the acquisition of power in these instances, however, the more lawful-bent of these types (clerics and palladins) tend to voluntarily register themselves with the government after obtaining their powers.
The most rare type of magic user is the sorcerer, or those that are somehow inherently born with the power of the arcane within them and able to tap in to the potential without rigorous study or pact-making. These types only occur ~1 in every 10,000,000, meaning currently worldwide, there are only ~750 sorcerers, though that number is just an estimate, as only a couple dozen have been confirmed. The inherent nature of this magic means that it is impossible to control what types of magic the user decides to wield, which means that of the three types of magic-users, sorcerers are the most unpredictable and capable of using their powers for evil. As such, society has grown distrustful of sorcerers, and there have even been stories created to scare young children in to behaving involving sorcerers (think boogeyman type stories).
Overall though, magic helps to further society, inventing new technologies and expanding our knowledge of the cosmos and pushing the boundaries of what is possible.
That’s about all that I feel I can share about the world I’m creating for now, and I hope it was an interesting read for all of you, because I’m having a blast coming up with it! I’ll do my best to make next week’s post another non-D&D based post for those of you not interested in this sort of thing, but I can’t make any promises.
Thank you all for joining me again, and feel free to leave me a comment below with your thoughts or questions or anything that you may have. See you all next week! 🙂
Musings Of A Struggling Creator 