published 2024-01-05
I was thinking about worldbuilding stuff again and struck gold for why there are basically no "wizards" anymore and there's only magical items:
- Casting spells is a learned skill and some people (eg the wizards of past eras) did in fact know how to do it.
- Casting doesn't consume spell slots or mana, but time.
- The amount of time it takes to cast a spell depends on the effect it would have on the world. Small, localized changes would take several dozen minutes. Large, worldwide changes would take millennia (a person wouldn't be able to cast those because they'd die before it finished).
- Enchanting an object, giving it a magical ability is a bit of a loophole:
- An enchanted item becomes the thing that experiences the casting time, allowing the human who uses it to continue living life.
- Enchanted items would (as a result of their increased time experience) would decay faster (from the perspective of people).
- This could be a neat mechanic in a game to encourage finding new enchanted items.
- Or it could be hand-waved with "most enchanted items have an additional durability spell cast on them".
- These items fall into basically two categories:
- Slow, persistent recharging that (for many items) happens at a fast enough rate that it's not noticeable to a person using the items.
- Bursts of recharging that work more like spell-casting items in D&D, with charges that are replenished on a daily basis. (In universe, these would recharge on a steady rate, but in-game it's easier to manage daily recharge).
- The wizards of previous eras created a bunch of items to build their legacies, competing to make the best items. But they of course subsequently died because they used so much of their time. In modern days, people have basically forgotten about the history of the items, but the items themselves are still in use.
published 2024-02-13
The above system works well for a world in which magical items are uncommon or rare, but particularly are unique. A couple of tweaks are needed for a world in which magical items are common or non-unique (perhaps in some era, most middle-class households in medium-sized towns have a magical lantern that needs no fuel to provide light).
Below are a few approaches:
The Great Wizards of the past did create single, rare, incredible magical items. But after that era, some lesser wizards were still around and began to create some kind of magical forge that allows for the enchanting of items without the normal cost. In a later time, the magical arts have been lost (i.e. no wizards anymore), but the forges could still be operated by non-wizards (just like how magical items can be used by non-wizards) to mass produce the more common magic items.
The Great Wizards of the Past created single, rare, incredible magical items. They also orchestrated a slave trade to create more mass produced items: Because enchanting requires a person's time, the wizards would ① acquire slaves, ② teach them to cast just enough magic to enchant, and ③ force them to enchant items until they died. Some major event happened (wizards had a war, some connection to the magic was severed, the slaves rebelled against the wizards, etc) and the world was left with only the magic items that currently existed.
Some combination: the Great Wizards of the Past created single, rare, incredible magical items. The slave trade for mass produced items existed. After a rebellion, the most powerful wizards were killed; the apprentices (who didn't enslave) then created magical forges to take the place of slaves. Maybe some wizards still enslave, but it's rare. The remaining wizards might still run the forges, producing new magical items even in the era of the story/game. In this case, they might be secluded away or might be a powerful political force.