Collaborative Conworld

[KathTheDragon]

IMO, purely psychological powers are too limited for what we want. Sure, placebo is very powerful, but it can't pick up rocks. It can't let you move faster than you can naturally. All it does is let you mess around with how other people think, full stop. Where's the usefulness in that?

And he'd be better off just pushing the boulder.

[Hallow XIII]

"Oh, well, in this case he was just strong enough to move that boulder."

Er. If you really fail at keeping your characters' powers in line, make char sheets for them. And cross-reference.

Also, I don't care how weak or strong the magic system is, as long as it is internally consistent. And frankly, clairvoyance without lots o' magic everywhere creates complications.

Whut?

You achieve the combination of psionics and clairvoyance by shifting the actual energy release involved to a parallel dimension composed of exotic matter with a temporal axis in reverse polarity to our own. That way, you can see into the future without enabling Fireball spells, but it has the side-effect that any actual magic cast (which, FYI, consists entirely of space-time ripples that influence the target's clairvoyance organs) travels backwards in time. Of course, that can be interesting; after all, the farther the information travels, the earlier it arrives. That way, magic hits far away targets earlier, and clairvoyance expands inward.

[KathTheDragon]

IMO, magical foresight is bad. I do not want it.

[Hallow XIII]

IMO, magical foresight is bad. I do not want it.

Really? Remember that the future is highly variable. Unless you have divine levels of proficiency in clairvoyance it's going to be of almost no use to you under any system, bar very vague applications.

[Sacemd]

Well, messing around with what people think is about the most powerful magic possible, it's not merely driving your victim crazy:

- Shape shifting: by making others think you are someone/something else, you are in a certain way (people believe you are, and that is often all you need). Plus it is more credible than actual shape-shifting, which requires messing around with the magician's cells and stuff.
- Magical cages: making the victim believe he is trapped is enough to trap him. Sure, the fire surrounding him won't cause any actual burns, but the pain is still there if the magician is strong enough. The same counts for hurling fireballs and the like.
- Well, whole lots of secondary applications.

The only thing our magic can't do which other magic systems can is cause actual wounds, but a stone or a sword or a kitchen knife will do instead of magic. The trick is that it is both real and unreal. It is unreal because the magic itself doesn't do anything, but it is real because of how people react to it.

As for magical foresight, I agree with Hallow the Thirteenth: the future is not set in stone, and can be changed. The views of the future are only possibilities. The usefulness of foresight is that it may reveal how a certain future can be reached.

[Sacemd]

And now something really different:

- Do we have only humans or other intelligent beings as well? If yes, how are they related to the humans biologically? And how similar are our humans to earth's?
- Any animal-ideas?
- Where do we place our proto-cultures? I heard Kanejam likes the islands on the planet-side and I like the large mediterranean area in the upper middle of the map.

[Lyhoko Leaci]

I like the islands as well. There's plenty of them for having multiple groups living in the area, as well.

I like the idea of having dinosaur-like life at least in some places on the planet, also having two different intelligent beings can be an interesting idea.

[Sacemd]

Well, I like dragon-like creatures, and we could have both. They are probably related. They may belong to the same class (The Losnan equivalent of reptiles) or to two different classes (Like birds and reptiles: birds descended from dinosaurs in this world).

My ideas:
- A blue fresh water snake dragon. Lives in rivers and lakes in temperate climates, eats fish.
- A feathered serpent with wings. Usually white, but the males are coloured extravagantly during the mating season.
- A small green dragon which is anatomically small enough to fly. Four legs and wings.

I know they are not the most original fantasy animals, but they give us some place to start (if anyone really hates them, they could be left out.). It already gives us three orders for the dragons: no appendices, two wings and four legs and two wings.

What kind of dinosaurs were you thinking of?

[Lyhoko Leaci]

If we do have those, then the basic body plan would have 6 legs instead of 4 (though there could be groups of creatures that have lost a pair of legs or two... or all three) which would be something to keep in mind for other groups. (Maiyan has the same idea, with a bunch of creatures that have fused the two front pairs of legs, which result in a pair of legs with a double set of bones. Simply losing a pair of legs altogether would also work, just remember that once a branch of life has lost a pair of legs, its not going to suddenly regain them somewhere else along the line. Though if a pair of legs fuse, they could conceivably unfuse...)

I was thinking something sauropod-like and possibly some raptor-like things.

[Hallow XIII]

Quite frankly, I'm of the opinion that if you're gonna do dragons you should do them properly. Having them as non-impressive unintelligent animals is horribly repugnant to me; not only does it ruin the entire appeal of having dragons, but if all you wanted was another predator you could really have come up with something more original.

[KathTheDragon]

Quite frankly, I'm of the opinion that if you're gonna do dragons you should do them properly. Having them as non-impressive unintelligent animals is horribly repugnant to me; not only does it ruin the entire appeal of having dragons, but if all you wanted was another predator you could really have come up with something more original.

Agreed. It's also not difficult to evolve dragons, and give them all sorts of natural abilities, like fire-breath (which isn't the only option, btw!).

I personally would like to have either a sentient avian race, or a sentient race of creatures something like the mer-folk of Earth mythology. Whichever I get would be completely distinct from dragons & related creatures.

[Sacemd]

I know, I could have been more original... But I just wanted some place to start, okay. I'll just take my water serpents and call them "Losnan freshwater snake" (or some shorter name like that. They don't need any fire-breathing abilities. They're aquatic.). Any better ideas for wild animals?

If we're going to have an avian people, we have to keep in mind how large they can be to support flight. Losnan gravity is slightly lower than Earth's, but there is still a significant limit as to how big flying creatures can get. I don't really like dragons as an intelligent race, too, I like just them as a basic idea to create predators around.

[kanejam]

Magic
The psychological magic is more of a compromise for me, who wanted 'very little' and sacemd who wanted 'some'. Magic is still widespread but limited in the amount of magics. This doesn't mean that the magic is limited in scope at all; there are still a huge amount of applications and it will integrate much better into society rather than a group of twenty people who can cast fireballs and throw boulders with their thoughts living within a magicless population. @KathAveara, it seems that the only thing you want on top of what we have is telekinesis; why do you want it so badly? @Lyhoko Leaci, what do you want? Because so far it seems that sacemd and I have had the most influence on the magic system.

Geology
I do like the islands but then I'm open to going anywhere. One quick question for Lyhoko Leaci, the large Mediterranean are looks like it should be plains with the huge mountain range just below it and the are below the mountain range should be monsoon area rather than desert as it's in a similar position to Earthly India. And also the desert on the left continent seems to extend quite far south, almost touching the equator.

Biology
Two intelligent species would be very interesting but provide some difficulties, especially if both species are spread over the whole planet. Maybe one could be confined to one or two continents or completely isolated on the middle southern continent which looks like it would be pretty difficult to populate as there are no island chains to it.

Dinosaur-like animals might be alright as long as we don't make them too dinosaur like. Also I vote for giant shelled squid in the oceans. The dragons are fine as long as they're not called dragons and are really just the reptilian equivalent of a bat (for the flying one) and freshwater dolphin (for the river one).

As for plants, maybe there could be some plants that generate magical energy? They might be rare though or only grow within a few miles of a magical hotspot.

[KathTheDragon]

@KathAveara, it seems that the only thing you want on top of what we have is telekinesis; why do you want it so badly?

Because it seems rather a shame to create this wonderous system of some people being able to do whatever they want to other people, but nothing at all to their environment! Sure, it might just be telekinesis, but that also has a vast range of applications, from simply moving rocks, to collecting a globule of water to quench your thirst. It also reaches into controlling energy, which allows healing of all sorts of injuries and infections, which, IMO, is an important part of magic. That is not to say that it should still be easy. On the contrary, it should be more taxing than simple psychological magic. After all, if all you can do is affect people's minds, then it really is nothing more than glorified hypnosis.

[Lyhoko Leaci]

I also want to have telekinesis, it doesn't need to be anything extreme, just simple things, like being able to use it to grab something that would otherwise be just out of reach, no lifting massive boulders to throw at your enemies.

Also, the climates have been modified as well. I seem to remember someone mentioning the oddity of that one desert south of the mountains back in Etheria as well...

Note that Losna will probably have a thicker atmosphere than Earth (to help keep out UV rays) so flight will again be somewhat easier.

[Sacemd]

But then again, what would be a limit in size for flying beings? I'm not a physicist, so I don't know how much the change in gravity and atmosphere add to it. Also, in what respects are the avians bird-like and in what respects are they different? A non-humanoid intelligent race would be interestening, but manbirds or birdmen would be fine too.

If we want telekinesis, we need rules for it. It is probably powered by the same mechanism as the other kinds of magic: the energy from the magic springs. What can it do and what can't it do?

[kanejam]

If people want telekinesis then we can have telekinesis. But then it should be strictly limited by actual physical ability: picking up or throwing a pebble is possible but picking up a boulder or firing a pebble fast enough to kill is impossible. It should also have a strictly limited range: you can pick up the salt across the table but not a book down the hall. This way we have telekinesis but it is limited in its ability.

Hopefully this agrees with Leaci, sacemd and Hallow XIII but maybe not KathAveara who does want to be able to lift boulders... Also if I have my way with this, telekinesis would be the most difficult magic to master or the most tiring or the most rare as it is the only one that is non-psychic. This way we avoid a Harry Potter society where every mother cooks and cleans with floating knives and mops etc. while the father is weeding the garden from a deckchair and the kids do their homework with floating pencils.

[kanejam]

Also, the climates have been modified as well. I seem to remember someone mentioning the oddity of that one desert south of the mountains back in Etheria as well...

Note that Losna will probably have a thicker atmosphere than Earth (to help keep out UV rays) so flight will again be somewhat easier.

Sorry I didn't notice the updated map. That looks much better! Do you have any other old Etheria maps on hand at all? Were any region names made? Maybe we could use them as placeholders until we decide on better names.

Edit: also, the thicker atmosphere coupled with the brightness of the planet during the planetside's night and the increased volcanism would make the planet slightly hotter than Earth, right?

[Lyhoko Leaci]

Continent map:
http://etheriaproject.wikia.com/wiki/File:Contin.png

Or for an older, unused version:
http://images.wikia.com/etheriaproject/ ... Contin.png

Losna would probably be slightly hotter than Earth, but not too much so.

[kanejam]

Continent map:
http://etheriaproject.wikia.com/wiki/File:Contin.png

Or for an older, unused version:
http://images.wikia.com/etheriaproject/ ... Contin.png

Losna would probably be slightly hotter than Earth, but not too much so.

We should just use the old names, maybe shortened? Zephyr, Borea/Bora, Arbor, Austra, and Inco. What would also be good is a name for the island region (Isla?) and splitting Borea up into two or maybe even more continents (extra names from old map, Nixi, Jupi, Jambe). Borea just seems too big and disjointed to be called a single continent.

[kanejam]

Looking through the Etheria project, it seems that there was actually quite a high level of detail reached before it fizzled out; judging by the recent changes, Leaci was the only person working on it for quite a while. I only want to be using the map for our project if Etheria is truly dead.

On the other hand there were also quite a few people involved in that project. Maybe we could recruit some new members from them. I almost suggested merging the two projects completely but then I really that the two projects diverge quite a lot and things that we are want to work on such as the biology are already largely done in the Etheria project.

[KathTheDragon]

If people want telekinesis then we can have telekinesis. But then it should be strictly limited by actual physical ability: picking up or throwing a pebble is possible but picking up a boulder or firing a pebble fast enough to kill is impossible. It should also have a strictly limited range: you can pick up the salt across the table but not a book down the hall. This way we have telekinesis but it is limited in its ability.

Hopefully this agrees with Leaci, sacemd and Hallow XIII but maybe not KathAveara who does want to be able to lift boulders... Also if I have my way with this, telekinesis would be the most difficult magic to master or the most tiring or the most rare as it is the only one that is non-psychic. This way we avoid a Harry Potter society where every mother cooks and cleans with floating knives and mops etc. while the father is weeding the garden from a deckchair and the kids do their homework with floating pencils.

Picking up a boulder should be possible, but liable to make you collapse with exhaustion, and possibly kill you, and it would drop the few inches you managed to lift it. And TBH, my way automatically prevents the Harry Potter scenario. You can't concentrate on all those things at the same time, and do something else too. One thing at a time.

[Hallow XIII]

I don't care what you do with our magic system, but I would like to know the set of natural laws that keep it running. Magic whose function is handwaved is liable to change in power depending on the whims of the writer, and quite frankly removes a ton of consistency points from the world.

[KathTheDragon]

I don't care what you do with our magic system, but I would like to know the set of natural laws that keep it running. Magic whose function is handwaved is liable to change in power depending on the whims of the writer, and quite frankly removes a ton of consistency points from the world.

Do we honestly need natural laws, so long as we keep it wholly consistent?

[Hallow XIII]

Codified consistency is a natural law from the perspective of the conworld.