Mundanely Magical

What does the fact that your game is a fantasy or magical world mean to the everyday fundamentals that make the world go round? Well that depends on a lot of things like how much magic your world has or how rare is a magic user. But I’ll try to run down the basics using my current games as examples. The important thing to remember is if you have decided that magic is an integral part of your world then that magic will seep into everything, even if its just in little ways.

Keep in mind this is going to be a glossing over since the subject itself is actually a rather long and complicated one I’ve fought with for all of my years as both a player and a DM. I will however be posting more deep dive rambles on some of the more intricate things – medicine and healing, transportation, agriculture, the sciences, etc. For now though we are going to look at an overview of how weaving the mundane and the magical together helps define your world.

The most obvious question we need to tackle is how much magic is in your world? To what degree does the magical, and therefore the fantastical, exist and interact with what creatures you populate your world with? When I do my world building I think of this as kind of a grid with X being how much magic exits (with the farther right it is being the more magic there is) in the world and Y being how much interaction (with the higher it is being alot of interaction) with it happens. But JustKaaaaaaaaay~ what does that even meeeeeeeean~? I’m glad you asked fake internet person created for the purposes of propelling this post. Lets look at this as applied to a few existing worlds.

Game of Thrones

Low X, High Y – There really isn’t alot of magic in the world at all. The magical things we do see via dragons and White Walkers, are very contained to those things. We don’t see any spell slinging, magic fey, etc. But those magical things that do exist have a high impact on the world around them.

(Honestly haven’t watched the show or gotten past the first chapter of the book, not my cup of tea. So I apologize if there is a misinterpretation I’m just trying to pick well known examples that are either pop culture or have had alot of pop culture redone versions.)

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

High X, Low Y – Lots of magic exist in these tables. Ladies in lakes, dragons, fairies, etc. However their interaction with the world at large is extremely limited, it is in fact a shine of worth that they happen to you or that you are able to defeat them. A noble knight fighting and killing a dragon. A strange fairy lake lady handing you a blade from the deep. These things don’t effect the larger populace at large and instead of statements of fact are often seen as fanciful tales of grandeur to be used as allegories for actual deeds.

Harry Potter

High X, High Y – Magic is literally everywhere and in everything, especially at the school. Food, cleaning, studies, class work and more all heavily involve magic or the magical in some way. This weaving of magic into daily lives also means its extremely important and impactful to wizards as they go about things. And actually several times in the stories the fact of not having magic or not being able to use it (either all together or certain types) is used as a plot device itself. Most notable, in my mind, is the banning of ‘Defense Against the Dark Arts’ magic and the subsequent underground that is created for its practice and mastery.

Dr Strange

Mid X, Low Y – The only ones with ‘magic’ power we see are those in the monastery training under the master. When the magic is used in the wider world no one seems to react to or notice its use as if part of the magic either is unknowable to the untrained or exists on a different plane that ours. Now deep breaths comic fans I know this isn’t the explanation in the comics but I’m going based off of what most people will have observed if they have only seen the movies. Again, deep breaths.

Now as you can tell even with the examples above simply shifting a few things or focuses of the existing stories and where they are told from can change the scale as well. Of course this would also drastically change the stories themselves, but quick example. You can take Harry Potter from a high X, high Y on the graph to a high X, low Y simply by making his whole story happen in the muggle world instead of the wizarding one. What all that would change for the story is a can of worms I don’t need to open and go fishing with at the moment so we will carry on.

Establishing this baseline for your world opens up a pathway to enriching the game for your players. And as you all know, yes all 6 of you who read this, I am all about dat hot immersion. Give me that sweet character buy in any day of the year and I am one happily satisfied DM. Before I get too deep into what some of that enrichment can look like though we have one more question to tackle. How rare is a magic user in your world?

You are probably thinking, well duh JustKay we already answered that. Just go with me on this one though I promise its not just for funsies. Take a moment and think about how often someone with powers appears in the population. Are we talking Avatar the Last Airbender percentages (20 – 40% average between the tribes except for the Air nomads who pre-genocide sat at 100%), Harry Potter (where there are 10x the amount of muggles to wizards plus the rate of squibs from wizarding families lets say is 1/10000 which actually probably higher then it really is), Sky High (really rare and kids of two powered individuals aren’t even guaranteed to be powered), or any wild range in-between. Yes, this will be tied into your previous answer some because I’m building on things here. However, for a fun twist to your world you could make it vary greatly from that answer. Just be prepared to do the leg work to make it work AND MAKE SENSE in your world.

The big thing is how rare a magic user is in your world will effect how the world reacts to, interacts with, and fights against those individuals. This goes for both NPCs and our good old players. It could even be a really great roleplaying thing for any magic power wielding players in the group. Knowing that to build it into your world from the beginning kind of hard bakes in some easy attitudes of NPCs for the DM to fall back on when thrown for a loop-de-loop by players. It also gives you, I’m assuming you are a DM here if not please feel free to pass this blog along to your DM, the chance to surprise your players with a little something extra.

Enrichment – that thing you are all here reading this ramble for. How do our answers above help weave the mundane and magical together and let us create a further immersive experience for our players. Remember these are just going to be glossy overviews, with deeper dives coming later. But lets get started with some examples cause I love ’em.

(Again this will be the glossiest of glossy overviews to help trigger your create juices. For more Mariana trench like dives follow the blog to keep updated!)

Law in a high X, high Y world. When so much is magical and everywhere how does that effect criminals. It might create an arms race of magic between law enforcement and criminal organizations. Especially given some of the more mind control like spells of Pathfinder and D&D. Because of this the government banded magic without a permit, with a permit process that looks alot like pay to play. So what about that Sorcerer in your party who never did?

Entertainment in a high X, low Y world. People in your world know about magic like whispers or think its all trickery, but they love to go to the fantastical shows tropes out on. Maybe just one time though that funny looking guy is actually an wizard from the school of illusion magic. The dancing dragons and flying weasels aren’t really there so its still technically a trick they can hand wave away should trouble arise, but what if a life like that isn’t enough for that wizard soon to be player?

Religion in a low X, low Y world. Miracles are not seen in this world. Those that stay dead never come back to grace this mortal plain. Churches prophesize stories of those blessed who wield the power of that god to punish the wicked and raise up the the faithful. Each faith has their stories of the coming of vessels of their gods. How then does that world react to the paladin of the group wielding great magic and strength?

Medicine in a low X, high Y world. Magic isn’t particularly strong or spectacular in fact its mostly regulated to tiny mundane tasks like washing. No one really wields any big magics no matter what the fairy-tales and folk lore say. When you get sick the doctor employs some magic to clean your wounds and mix the right herbs together to help. There is no great heal all magic so nothing is guaranteed. What then of the tales told about a traveling cleric who can lay hands to cure wounds?

What we as DMs are trying to do with exercises like this is take our flat blank worlds and crumple them up a bit. Try to make a ton of dimples, nooks, crannies and little gripping points for our players to get ahold of. To give them better footing to really dig deep into the world and into each others characters. We are there simply to guide an experience of friends playing together in a place that can be as different or as similar to our own world. These simple little thought exercises about our worlds lets us create truly magical experiences. And really what else could we ask for as a DM?

With that little rambling over with, I’m JustKay your regular DM Dalliance on the web and I’ll see you next post.