Genre Craft: Expectations of a Hybrid Genre

[Vryce]

Not sure how common-place magic users will be yet, but for the most part they will augment normally existing professions. For example, a Blacksmith is still a blacksmith with all the normal tools of a blacksmith. Having a Fireslinger or an Earth/Metalslinger around to help you melt or shape the metal would be the same blacksmith with more high-tech equipment.

when I read this i get the feeling of guilds, Blacksmithing guild that sends out people to populated areas based of strength of magic/tech/skill.  these blacksmithes need to send money back to the guild via "stage coach"  (think ponkerton trains in the old west.).  just a thought

[Lanodantheon]

But regardless of the specific kinds of magic you are using, I personally find it very confusing to have so many different types of magic flying around. I like it better, when there is one principle of magic that can be used in different ways. The outcome might be similar to what you have now, but it seems more satisfactory to me, if there is a base theory about it. That way the magic is not simply put on top of the world, but it is truly part of it and feels that way. But I am a physics nerd when it comes to this, so YMMV.

Wanted to address this one up front, they all follow the same , "Rules of the Game" as my writing profs called it. They are just different approaches to the same game and certain aspects of the rules taken to their logical extreme. The nuts and bolts are all unified.

How about aether? At least to me it seems that is pretty much what you want, and there is also a physical concept of aether (though no longer in use today), which would fall neatly in line with your Newtonian physics magic, I think.

I was thinking about using Aether since a bunch of other parts of my Wizard designs already use old Alchemists terms.  I guess now I will.

So this would especially be good with a familiar of some sort, an animal companion that provides the magical power to its master. I like the idea.

Yes they would.  

Now this is interesting. Great minds think alike, as they say.

(truncated quote) Yes, I did originally think of this for an rpg system.  

Like I said, this one is the most unoriginal of the 4. To be honest, it made sense to use SHinto influence in my setting so why-the-hell not have Pokemon Masters on steroids?

Does it work like the magic under 1 and they just don't have to learn, or is it something else entirely?

Yes, like #1. There's a bit more sophistication, but I'm still developing it so it doesn't come out as an Assassin's Creed ripoff. It's based and rooted in Ancestor worship.

An example of the sophistication is the difference between knowing something and understanding something. If a long line of swordsmen pass on their swordsmanship through this system, for example. Using Mind Magic from #1, they just know it. They don't understand how they do the swordsmanship, they just do it instinctively. But that's one method.

I'm still working on the theme and variation.

[The Corvidian]

For doing your spellslinger characters, take a cue from the character of Mississippi from the movie El Dorado. He was played by James Caan, and he could not shoot a six gun at all, so he was a knife thrower who was faster then most gunslingers. Later on, he used a sawed off shotgun. Have it where they use knife like foci for their spells, something like bo shuriken or kunai knife.

Perhaps guns are only at the percussion cap level, and the gun belt would look more like a web belt with pouches for shot, powder, and caps. These pouches would be warded against magic that would destroy them, and they could taken off fast incase them magic gets through.

[Gruud]

This just popped into my head , spawned by the poster above ... my apologies if its already been mentioned.

Maybe its just too dangerous to walk around with a gun, whether it shoots bullets or balls, because the casters can make the gunpowder spontaneously explode.

This might give rise to really eloborately made, single shot guns, designed to ward the powder from the mages.

[Paynesgrey]

I actually brushed on that on the last page a little.  It's an idea would work for sixguns as well, while still keeping the weapons scarce enough to not overwhelm the sword and armor culture.

[Vryce]

In a world of Wizards, artificer, and alchemists I cant see gun powder working.  I think someone would have invented it but it would not be practical.  A man would have to buy a warded gun.  His bullets would need to be individual warded, or a pouch to put them in warded.  It would suck to have only 6 bullets in your gun and have a wayward sorcerer exploding your gun belt.  As wells as it being doubly expensive.  You have to have the materials to make the gun powder and the materials to make the wards.

I think the idea of a gun make sense, it’s a wand/rod with a handle.  As well as bullets being ruined projectiles that can have different functions.  Lighting, force, fire, etc…  the cant misfire or explode because you stand up to a wizard with enough power to by-pass your guns/bullets wards.  the cost would be just the spell placed on the gun to make it throw something fast and then the type of bullets you want. 

Of course the above would only work in a place where magic was common, or common enough to have a artificer in most city and towns. 

[Paynesgrey]

It's as easy to fix, gimmick or protect as is needed by the author to create the atmosphere the author desires, the level of scarcity preferred, etc.  For example, the author could decide that it's the mechanism of the gun that gets hexed unless warded properly.  Remember that this isn't a "this is how it would work" issue so much as "how could we make it work to give the author the tools to make the world they want."   

[Vryce]

That true, i get caught up in the why things happen a lot. 
and i think i would miss the smoke from old world guns, the smells you would loose from simply using magic.  or course that could be changed depending on the type of ammo used.

[The Corvidian]

Vryce, in a fantasy setting gunpowder would be the providence of wizards, alchemists, and artificers.

Here is another take, one use foci that look like minni balls. They are put into the chamber, and when they are fired they turn into a type of elemental attack. Things like lightning, fireballs, or ice pellets.

[lt_murgen]

One thing to keep in mind about "the old west" is that there were really 2 periods in history, but films tend to muddle them together.  The first was the antebellum West.  It was the time when frontiersman, trappers, miners, and explorers pushed into the vast unknown.  Towns were few and far between, established along with military forts.  Most people passed through the area on their way to the west coast.  Others moved huge herds of cattle from grazing land to graing land, never staying long.  Resource rushes (like the Gold Rush) brought a group of people in, but left ghost towns behind when the resource ran out.  Also this was the time that the Mormons moved west (religious groups fleeing repression?).  It is the setting for most of the man-versus-nature or man-versus-man stories.  Most weapons were single-shot muzzle loaders, right up until the very end.  Casting metal balls was easy, and powder can be stored in bulk if properly maintained. 

The second was the post- civil war era.  The west became a place of wealth, of industry.  Railroads pushed into the vast praries.  The vast open cattle lands were claimed by farmers and guarded by barbed wire.  Cities grew up to concentrate the wealth- cattle pens at rail-heads, banks to loan money to farmers at a profit, etc.  This is the setting for most of the man-versus-society classic Westerns- the travelling cowboy who defends the poor homesteaders from the rail-baron who wants the land, taming of a town run by evil men, etc.  Mass prodcution and common parts were key to making repeating rifles.  Without common bores with tight tolerances, repeating firearms are impossible.  Most of them had to be made back east and shipped.  People did not make ammunition.  It had to be bought.  At best, a larger frontier town might have one small shop that bought brass and did re-loading. 


Deciding what  kind of struggles you want to write about helps define what kind of 'frontier' should look like, and what kind of weapons were available.

[Quantus]

Since you said you were wanting to feature the arms race of the guns fairly heavily, a few notes on that. 


Any arms race is a constant struggle between Offense and Defense, and each one inevitably determines what you get from the other.  Sword shapes were dictated by the armor they needed to defend against, which was often a matter of what could be safely worn/carried in that particular climate. The crusades make a good study of that, where the mid-eastern slashing swords couldn't get through the heavy plate and mail (being slashing weapons made to battle quilted cloth and leather armor) while the Europeans were slowing dieing from the heat of wearing pounds and pounds of steel in the desert.


When guns first came around to the Western civilizations, they didn't replace Swords, they replaced Bows and Arrows (or crossbows), but were still too inaccurate, slow to reload, and sensitive to moister.  We're talking muskets.  Armor was still a common thing.  In fact, the term "bulletproof" was originally referring to a mark on a piece of armor left by a musket ball, which the smith would fire point blank at his product to prove that it could stop bullets.  The major leaps in gun technology were:

Rifled Barrels - increased Range/accuracy significantly but were slow, expensive, and fragile, and did not work well with a muzzle-loading balls.
Conical Bullets - increased Range/accuracy dramatically, had hollow base that would expand to engage barrel rifling when fired, allowing muzzle loading without damaging the rifling. 
Cartridge - Significantly simplified loading, increasing rate of fire. Allowed for Breach-loading design, birth of modern guns.

With the advent of the cartridge, various things like the revolvers you typically think of in westerns became possible.  This was when the gun really started replacing swords as the primary killing tool, because it allowed you to fire multiple shots before an enemy had time to close the distance. 

As these developments were going on Armor was becoming increasingly rare in for several reasons.  It was far less effective in the face of gun developments, it was heavy and expensive to include in military standard issue and was phased out by the American civil war.  As a result those who chose to wear it would face a stigma as cowards.  Breastplates were in use  in the early 19th century, but had been phased out by the end.  Ballistic vests were experimented heavily, but weren't widely adopted until new materials and increased manufacturing capabilities made them practical in the early 20th century. However, armor adapted to stop high velocity bullets in free flight operate on different physical principles than that meant to stop wielded stabbing implements, which is a problem still being researched today. The most common solution is to simply layer the two types of armor together. 




Not sure how you want to treat bullets for your magic guns (if you intend to have ammunition at all), but hopefully this will give you some ideas for the progression/stages of your arms race.

[Lanodantheon]

@lt_murgen: I was not aware of that historical division. It makes some of those old Westerns make a lot more sense now.

I've been doing research on History, but mostly I'm using it as inspiration and just building the timeline organically. The presence of Magic affects how people understand the world, transport goods, build towns, etc. I'm just going to have to see what it looks like after I model the ripples on the pond.


@Quantus(In regards to the arms race): Thanks for the refresher.  

It's been a few years since my "War & Society" in college, so I thought I remembered the flow of the real life Arms Race, but that picture you painted is a bit clearer than what I remembered.

Not sure how you want to treat bullets for your magic guns (if you intend to have ammunition at all), but hopefully this will give you some ideas for the progression/stages of your arms race.

I'm not sure how ammunition will factor in either. That's one of them big stones on the pond.

[OZ]

When guns first came around to the Western civilizations, they didn't replace Swords, they replaced Bows and Arrows (or crossbows), but were still too inaccurate, slow to reload, and sensitive to moister.  We're talking muskets.

Yes. I still find it amusing that the Three Musketeers were known for their sword fighting rather than their musket shooting. . . Of course I am easily amused.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Yes. I still find it amusing that the Three Musketeers were known for their sword fighting rather than their musket shooting. . . Of course I am easily amused.

They use muskets pretty effectively during the siege-of-Rochelle sequence, iirc.  Some day I am going to do a riff on that, because "we need somewhere to talk where nobody can overhear us, let's go have breakfast in the middle of a battle" is a moment of crowning awesome.