Whew. I miss one day and look how far this topic gets!

Anyway, I guess you missed that part of the Action clause section, Siemova. Fire does have an equivalent state of matter: plasma. And I guess we could even go so far as to describe the sub-molecular properties and how each is affected by a magic spell of that element. But that would just be silly. In fact, it's already easy to be going overboard in the details.

We should be careful about what we bring to the player's attention. If we raise some of these metaphysical arguments, the player would start thinking about it and notice any inconsistencies, etc. However, if we keep it simple enough (which, for this system, may still be complex), the player will take certain things for granted; he will suspend belief in the facts he knows about his own reality. And THAT is perhaps the most important function of a fantasy setting; not whether it upholds previous traditions of the genre, but how immersive and engaging as a fantasy world it is.

Anyway, I'm starting to take us off topic. Back to the ADML stuff...

Remember the context in which this magic system has sat dormant for centuries, possible millennia. Antareans have fostered this ancient magic language, though very few know what it really means or what it's used for. Proteans have the ore (which we have occasionally called "Pylocite", but I'm open to a better general name), and need it to run their civilization as well as use their morphing ability. (As Temp pointed out, and I agree, we're in the story section, and so arguments here should be made in that context.)

Also, and this is my fault, I reread that first ADML post and realized that it left the topic very open-ended. I want now to start focusing on firming some of this stuff up; can we all start establishing this proposal as accepted, or are there things that, in your opinion, need changing before it can be accepted?

Hmm, that's something I never considered before...the idea of peace magic. Seems obvious now, but way back in the day I would guess that magic was a way of life more than simply a weapon or a tool. Magic would have governed everything. If you compare it to technology then you could draw a parrallel between it and our dependence on technology. Without tech. we wouldn't be able to this project, and a massive amount of other things in our lives. So to lose that would be like going back to the stone age. I would imagine that the Antareans loss of their magic language would be similar.

Here's an example. Say there's a Fire crystal (or a fire related amount of 'pylocite') in a city. The people could use that crystal to cook food like we use microwaves. You specify the source (the crystal) cook magnitude (power level), target (the food), and bam! Cooked food! See what I mean about depending on magic like we depend on technology?

I bet the Antareans were nice and peaceful until they realized that their magic could be used as a weapon.

EDIT: Yes, Dev I realize that it's been dormant for millenia. I was refering to way back in the day. (read: millenia ago) When the language was used, and very much alive.

Dev, why do you keep re-writing history on me and then acting like it was always that way?

When we originally game up with this magic stuff, the idea was that the Proteans and the Antareans both use magic quite often. They are just both limited in their abilities because:

• The Proteans do not know the language, but rather know the exact syllables of a few individual spells. Because they have a vast supply of ore, they can cast these basically all they want, but they are still limited to a small set of spells, none of which are incredibly powerful.

• The Antareans know the magic language itself, but have no ore. As such, their only source of magic energy is their natural internal energy which all beings posess. This is like knowing every spell there is but only having 20 max MP. Like the Proteans, they are prevented from casting anything particularily powerful.

The key is, if one side were to steal the other's power (and thus obtain both the language and the ore), then that side would be able to do absolutely anything they wanted with the language. Thus, the two have been at war for all of history.

The funny thing is that they no longer remember what exactly it is that the other side has that they want so bad. All they know is that whoever wins the war will become the all-powerful race.

Magic is considered a myth on the Titan continent because only humans live there (most of whom can't cast magic). The Proteans and the Antareans live on Kay Pacha, where magic is very much alive.

At least, that's how I remember it. I remember discussing this recently, and I thought we came to the same conclusion again. But now you are saying that magic is gone everywhere. So, um, which is it?

Hmm ... a dilemma; what to do? Consult the outlines! From the as-of-yet-unrevised Chapter Nine...

After rereading things yet again, I guess no one is really disagreeing on that quote above. Whether there is no magic whatsoever, or just relatively little, makes no difference. Since it's virtually inconsequential, I suppose some of us assumed it was one way and the rest of us assumed it was the other, and that's where the confusion's coming in. We just have to pick one or the other and get it established.

So far, I've considered having "internal" latent magic energy within beings erronious with the concept of needing ore to power magic spells. I'm starting to think otherwise for a few reasons, which involves our two puzzle pieces (ADML and ore).

We describe the Protean-Antarean war as being in balance for millennia, so the magical features of each race should balance out. The Antareans have no ore, so the Proteans must not have ADML. I consider the Proteans' morph ability as an evolutionary development; Proteans have one or two "ADML-less" spells. So conversely, it would make sense that Antareans have one or two "ore-less" spells. It would only be fair if we say that Antareans can cast minimal magic without ore and Proteans can cast minimal magic without ADML.

Sounds good to me. If spells came in latin for example, and I said "omnia mortibus" and everyone died then I would have cast a "death" spell without knowing the actual grammar or the full lexicon of latin words. I just know that when I say "omnia mortibus" with the proper inflection/ [operative words for spell casting] then everyone in the area of the spell dies. (omnia mortibus = death to all. or literally all => death) So yes. I would agree with Temporal here regardless of what was said previously :D

on a side note: I chose Latin on purpose. One because I know that phrase. ;) and two because it is a dead (in its true form) language that has been used in myths/legend/modern tv shows for a magic language. (presumably because it's thought to be the highest language ever devised or so. personally I'd say ancient or new testament greek is but hey?) My point here is that in a Latin spell the operation of the spell is described in detail, and formally. Then the spell works. With the ADML we have a much more utilitarian, and scientific aproach to spell casting. (source => magnitude => target with minimal language use. Like a computer program almost) That still bothers me a bit. I don't think we'll have to change the operation of the language at all, but I think we should make it more descriptive. The better the description the better the spell works you know? that is: the better command of the language one has not the amount of words used. So the Proteans would be limited in their spell casting because they only know memorized phrases that have degraded over the millenia of being passed down. EX: "I call down a massive, mountain of fire to destroy all who opose me!" (meteor spell) vs "Fire rocks hit my enemies!" which one do you think has more power? The first one because the language is stronger. The second one has little description, and it sounds like little kid is casting it. The first one would be the original spell in the ADML, while the second would be the Protean memorized version as it has been passed down in my example. Am I making any sense? I'm not calling for a total rewrite, but if we're doing fantasy we should have a fanciful magic system in it's execution as well as it's conventions.

Yeah, Mystik, that's what I was getting at. To me, being able to cast magic without ore should be no more feasible than being able to cast it without ADML. I guess Temp's question is, what do we mean by "without"?

Whatever we mean, my point is it should be equal on both sides. We could mean it literally; Proteans don't use ADML to cast the spell, they do it instinctively; Antareans don't use ore, they have some innate inner source. (This is the way Mystik and I took it, I believe.)

Or, we could mean that they effectively have none, but in reality have just enough to squeeze out a little spell here and there. Proteans would actually use ADML that they are taught at Labyrinth Grove on their coming of age. Antareans ... well, they wouldn't have hardly any ore at all, or else we throw this balance thing off. Perhaps an Antarean's skeleton (exoskeleton?) is actually made up of a small consistency of the ore.

That actually would be quite interesting, and just now gives me an idea as to what disaster occured during the Battle of Tarikun when Kydran was responsible for all that death. Perhaps he concatenated all the ore within the skeletons of his army, and used it to cast an upper-level spell against the Protean forces housed in the Tarikun fortresses. This would explain massive death on the side of the Proteans and the surface dwellers; perhaps an Antarean loses his life if he channels too much energy through himself? Thus Kydran killed his own army by casting the spell ... this would make his willingness to use Resurrection magic later on more interesting. But is that plausible? It's an idea to play around with.

I like this idea a lot. Perhaps, then, Antareans should have some innate "warning mechanism" which doesn't allow them to cast spells over a certain power? That is, cast something really weak, they might get a little dizzy. Cast something slightly stronger, and they start to feel nauseated. A little stronger, and they become violently sick. Stronger than that might do permanent damage, or even kill. The threshold could vary for each person (higher for bigger Antareans?), but always remain relatively low. This could be incorporated into the plot with little trouble, too.

Well now that we know how it works, how do we learn new spells? Also, can regular humans use spells if they have ore and know the language?