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  1. #1
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    <edited to split thread>

    except if the regent is a wizard, or have really powerful wizard adviser who will use that power of the nature in the name of the regent
    I do like it when people mention the magic in the mix of these type of ideas. There are two thoughts on the matter.

    Renewable resources like timber could have sections of land magically resewn with rapid growth varieties of lumber so you get lumber faster. If you take it one step further and something like the infinity vines of spelljammer space (or something similar) have genes magically spliced into redwoods, then you can see that the "old growth" elvish woods would be the last thing on the timber industries mind.

    The second bent, is on the non renewable resources. In this case mining using magic could be turned into a renewable resouce with spells like Renew Deposite, which the dwarves would be won't to cast in the richest deposites of mithral or dare I mention Tighmaevral, over and over again.

    There are any number of magic augmentations using mage or clerical magic that would lead to rich deposites or rapid regeneration of resorces regardless of their nature.

    It is hard not to think about the possibilities.

    Later

    Last edited by AndrewTall; 09-18-2007 at 07:57 PM.

  2. #2
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    Pre Industrial era - Pre steam power - raping the land is much harder - thousands of slaves in a open cut mine is not really Anuirean either.
    There is magic that can easilly take the place of machinery and steam power of the true industrial eras. A simple dig spell could be cast repeatedly. Now those thousands are simply removing the material that is already dug up. For enough gold (or other minerals) a mage (regent on no) might take an interest in putting their skills to good use.

    Also you could have a druid on site to help minimize or repair damage created by the mining.

    There are many other spells that can also aid in moving materials around in order to save the damage that can come about for your work force, so they might have feel better about their work.

    I actually have a spell written up that disentigrates (selectively) around an ore that is part of the casting process. This leaves the viable ore in place, but it does leave some 10' diameter holes through the region. When cast the affect is limited so that the mine can be shored up to prevent cave ins.

    Other renewable resources could come from the elvish use of cystal/plant magical creations. The material could lend itself to a whole gammut of porducts that would generate income, without damaging the region. The elves can direct the plant/crystal growth so they could practice planned harvesting of the materials after a set time.

    Later


  3. #3
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    The whole point about Talinie and other lands however is that the guilds are doing things the cheap way. They aren't replanting, or using any other method to prevent or restore damage, it's just log every tree in sight and float it down to the coast, rip open the land for mines and leave a scar, etc.

    There are of course many ways to reduce the damage or restore the land afterwards when logging, mining, etc - particularly in a magical society, but all of these will have a cost and therefore reduce profits. That appears to me to be the difference between the guilds in Talinie and elsewhere, the guilds are acting in an unsustainable fashion and as yet only the elves (and their wizard stoge) are complaining - everyone else is growing fat of the increased profits without connecting the landslides, successively poorer crops, flooding, etc to the way the guilds are working.

    Magic can easily as MT pointed out replace technology, his 'disintegrate silicon' spell works both as mining and as refining tool, etc but that risks turning BR into Ebarron; fine if you want it of course but not for all tastes.

  4. #4
    Site Moderator Sorontar's Avatar
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    The thought of a mage and druid working in industry like that just doesn't work for me. It just isn't right for Cerilia. Druids just don't help large scale guilds. The Emerald Spire is actually actively against it.

    However, I could imagine a guild or province mage/cleric regent developing a "Locate resource" realm spell to do the exploration for particular ore bodies etc.The issue is whether they would bother using it when a lot of the resources are first found on the surface and whether they could get any underground resources out of the ground to a large scale.

    In the Rjurik provinces, the populations up north seem so low that there is not enough man-power to over harvest any resources. Plus the temperature and the druids wouldn't allow it. Therefore the province level does reflect the production level of the province.

    Sorontar

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewTall View Post
    The whole point about Talinie and other lands however is that the guilds are doing things the cheap way. They aren't replanting, or using any other method to prevent or restore damage, it's just log every tree in sight and float it down to the coast, rip open the land for mines and leave a scar, etc.
    <snip to split thread>

    And magic is something that is, for the most part (and the useful part), limited to the nobility* and clergy; or the treeh... I mean elves. So we have retrograde feudal lords and cadets wielding magic, retrograde fairies wielding magic, and retrograde priests wielding magic - with only a possible minority that actually gives a thought to industry at all (and they most likely do not live in Anuire, which would, economically, be something of a feudal wasteland in comparison to Brechtur, Khinasi or Rjurik). Every time the "magic replaces technology" schtick (often in discussions about gunpowder, but someone would do a victorian-ish BR and people would probably still be screaming Magic! at every turn, and now there'd start to be a justification for the 0-level sources all-over Anuire; any deviation from the standard anachronic fantasy perception of the early renaissance seems frowned at, to say the least) is brought up in BR, I think it needs to be remembered.

    *Of course, the lack of unblooded mechanics means trade and high level clergy is too; for high level clergy, it's not that anachronic, but for trade, unlike nobility in the three other mentioned regions, which should have a good-sized minority involved in trade, Anuirean nobility in guilds should be a stark minority, given a mentality that is frequently hinted at.
    Last edited by AndrewTall; 09-18-2007 at 08:07 PM.

  6. #6
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    MatanThunder schrieb:
    > This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
    > You can view the entire thread at:
    > http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3984
    > MatanThunder wrote:
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > ------------ QUOTE ----------
    > Pre Industrial era - Pre steam power - raping the land is much harder - thousands of slaves in a open cut mine is not really Anuirean either.
    > -----------------------------
    >
    >
    >
    > There is magic that can easilly take the place of machinery and steam power of the true industrial eras. A simple dig spell could be cast repeatedly. Now those thousands are simply removing the material that is already dug up. For enough gold (or other minerals) a mage (regent on no) might take an interest in putting their skills to good use.
    >
    > Also you could have a druid on site to help minimize or repair damage created by the mining.
    >
    > There are many other spells that can also aid in moving materials around in order to save the damage that can come about for your work force, so they might have feel better about their work.
    >
    > I actually have a spell written up that disentigrates (selectively) around an ore that is part of the casting process. This leaves the viable ore in place, but it does leave some 10` diameter holes through the region. When cast the affect is limited so that the mine can be shored up to prevent cave ins.
    >
    > Other renewable resources could come from the elvish use of cystal/plant magical creations. The material could lend itself to a whole gammut of porducts that would generate income, without damaging the region. The elves can direct the plant/crystal growth so they could practice planned harvesting of the materials after a set time.
    >
    > Later
    >
    >
    Perhaps that is just me, but that sounds like Forgotten Realms to me.
    IMHO I don´t see magic used for mundane daily work in Birthright.

  7. #7
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    Perhaps that is just me, but that sounds like Forgotten Realms to me.
    IMHO I don´t see magic used for mundane daily work in Birthright.
    In a campaign of realm based magic, ley lines, and the uber powerful I hardly see Faerun as that far from the Birthright setting. The Uber magic of ley lines and that of Weave could easilly be part of the same thing.

    In a world where the magic of the land powers some of the most powerful spells, it is hardly surprising that druids and mages might use magic in order to help repair the land and thereby the magic source levels of provinces.

    They already have a system of reverting a provinces magic level to a previous level. Using this idea to make repairs to the land are hand in hand with the restoration of source levels.

    <snip to split threads>

    With magic you could have great gains in transportation of goods (gates) and also in reforestation. Imagine the local mage buying up a series of clear cuts (complete with stumps). He casts regular or realm spells that speed growth in conjunction with local druids (with the promise to allow a sacred undisturbed grove later). The land could be harvested much faster, and our Lordship the mage could easilly get his investment back in spades. Now plant exotic trees and he really makes a profit.

    And magic is something that is, for the most part (and the useful part), limited to the nobility* and clergy; or the treeh... I mean elves. So we have retrograde feudal lords and cadets wielding magic, retrograde fairies wielding magic, and retrograde priests wielding magic -
    The limits you are expressing here about the uses and access to magic have less to do with the setting, and more with how "You Personally" percieve the setting. Each to their own, but I don't see magic as controlled solely by the clergy and nobility in the setting.

    Mages are more free willed than this, even if they are subordinating some of their will for a paycheck. They will try to enrich themselves before their employer if they can find a way to do it. They are just as greedy as the next guy, and have magic to back it up (and powerful friends if they are not free willed mages).

    Later

    Last edited by AndrewTall; 09-18-2007 at 08:13 PM.

  8. #8
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    druids and mages

    As I tried to indicate before, as a rule Druids and Mages don't mix in Cerilia. The Rjurik don't think much of mages and that is where most of druids are. Therefore it can be taken that is is very uncommon for any large scale interaction between a mage and a druid. Once perhaps in one province, but if you want to do it more than once or over a larger area, I would suggest that the druid is seriously going to push for lots of official recognition of his/her church and will want a couple of temple holdings. I know my druid would.

    Sorontar.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by MatanThunder View Post

    The limits you are expressing here about the uses and access to magic have less to do with the setting, and more with how "You Personally" percieve the setting. Each to their own, but I don't see magic as controlled solely by the clergy and nobility in the setting.
    It has everything to do with the setting. Anything more powerful than a magician has to either be blooded or an elf, unless it's part of the clergy. Hence, any useful wizard in Anuire will be noble, and old nobility at that. And they're just as free willed as the rest of the nobility, it's just that they're most likely to carry with them a lot of the same prejudices.

    Sorontar: And it would be a right way to play a druid.

  10. #10
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MatanThunder View Post




    In a campaign of realm based magic, ley lines, and the uber powerful I hardly see Faerun as that far from the Birthright setting. The Uber magic of ley lines and that of Weave could easilly be part of the same thing.
    The difference is that of "scale" more than anything else.

    Those in Cerillia capable of manipulating true magic (or "the weave" for those who really insist on making similarities between the Realms and Birthright {there are a few others out there}) are few and far between when compared to the number in other settings (except for perhaps Dark Sun, but that is more along the lines of "surviving being hunted down" instead of being capable.)

    In a world where the magic of the land powers some of the most powerful spells, it is hardly surprising that druids and mages might use magic in order to help repair the land and thereby the magic source levels of provinces.
    Quite true except for the fact that a wizard and druid would be relying on the fact that there are fewer people in the area. Wizards capable of repairing the land via magic as you propose should only be able to do so with realm magic - anything else would make it far to readilay accessable. The spells that affect provinces in that way are Realm Spells in the second ed material. So if "mining" or "foresting" then the sources are being reduced which reduces the effectiveness of the magic needed to repair them in the first place - thus results a death spiral of sorts.

    Also if the population increases then the potential source levels are reduced which also gets you into that spiral, since the reason for getting out resources is because of the fact that there are more people there to use them.


    With magic you could have great gains in transportation of goods (gates) and also in reforestation. Imagine the local mage buying up a series of clear cuts (complete with stumps). He casts regular or realm spells that speed growth in conjunction with local druids (with the promise to allow a sacred undisturbed grove later). The land could be harvested much faster, and our Lordship the mage could easilly get his investment back in spades. Now plant exotic trees and he really makes a profit.
    And using magic for means of transportation also has great risks in Birthright - spells like "gate" will lead to the Shadow World and that causes all kinds of risks when attempting to use it as a more "mundane" manner of moving things rather than a "spectacular" one. Birthright Campaign Setting Rulebook (2nd ed) pg 88) "Many dimensional magics such as dimension door and shadow walk use this property to create short-lived passages through the Shadow World. Wizards must be extremely careful of using these spells; more than one mage has vanished while using such a spell and never returned from the Shadow World." It is fairly easy to equate spells such as "gate" as falling into this grouping as well as it fits more into the truely "specatacular" effect of true magic in the setting.



    The limits you are expressing here about the uses and access to magic have less to do with the setting, and more with how "You Personally" percieve the setting. Each to their own, but I don't see magic as controlled solely by the clergy and nobility in the setting.
    It depends on the definition of "nobility" being used. If that is used instead of being a scion then it is absolutely in accordance with what makes up the setting. Only scions of those of elven blood can cast true magic - period. Magician level magic should not be allowed to perform the type of "miracles" being mentioned here. In 2nd ed magicians were limited to 2nd level spells, except for divination and illusion - no spell that does a permanent restoration of the land should fall into those categories.

    It is also very true (per the 2nd ed material - that the Vos and Rjurik distrust all arcane casters. Bards were special in 2nd ed Birthright (only illusion, divination and enchantment/charm spells), the Rjurik had a very special place for them (although they still did not like non-clerical magic being used) and the Vos thought less of bards than did the Khinasi (who thought them tricksters and untrustworthy).
    Duane Eggert

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