Answering Fastball and Sendaz in one:

Fastball, the main problem with very recent awakening is that there's been no real chance to develop much knowledge, so while wild and woolly can be fun, there's no coherent theory of the world to offer.

Oh, and to me (you may feel free to differ) immortal elves are like a dead possum in a duct. Unwelcome and unsavoury.

I'm a bit more OK with the magic reduction as a point of departure, but here I think Sendaz's approach is more useful, perhaps in combination with some of my earlier ruminations on prepared magic and real flexibility in spells. I'm still trying to work out a good mechanic for that.

Sendaz: broadly I like what you had to say, but I'm iffy about reagents as standing in for spell power gathering. I'll have to take more time to flesh out ideas for spellcrafting which I'm working on, but I think that the reagents might have to be appropriate to the spell, and physically manipulated ... and maybe some other stuff. Still thinking.

I agree, that was just a kick off idea, it still needs a lot of tweaking.

The main problem is timing/power ratio.

On one hand if spells take too long then most fights will be over before the mage even gets off that higher Force spell. And unless damage is tweaked you are going to need a second spell which means going through all the power up again.
Although with the severe lack of cyber, there may not be as much init enhancing stuff so fights may go longer, but we don't want single fights going on forever either.

Another method for raising power might be to use a modification of the Fibonacci Sequence (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34) but we start at the second 1 in the list.

So first raising action gains 1 Force worth of power, 2nd raising action gains 2 more pts worth for a total of 3 force , 3rd raising action raises 3 so we now sit at 6 force, and so on.

So lower power spells could be charged up in 1-2 actions while magic as force (4-6) levels are reached by 3 and overcasting will takes 4-5 at the top.

Initiate grades may also be used to add to this, but this may need some considering as it might give too good an advantage since a level 4+ initiate would basically be able to gather the required power in one IP ( 1+ 4 (grade) for 5 force in one action, plus another 6 (2 +grade 4) if reckless gathering for a total of 11 force available.)

Going to get huge DBZ flashbacks whenever a couple of mages are fighting.

Well if the mage is silly enough to yell KAAAAAAAAAMEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAMAAAAA while gather they get what they deserve.

yeah that is one downside as 'geek the mage' now has more geeking potential while you stand there and gathering power.

But again, a good enchanting system will help a bit, since they may be more focus on items that can discharge quickly so long as they are prepped in advance.

To help this, maybe Potency should decrease by 1 for every dawn/sunset by default rather than an hourly rate to allow a bit more usability. So even a Potency 2 item is good for a full 24 hours.
If they enchance it with a bit of Karma via the Fixation Metamagic this may make it last one lunar month per Potency.


There should be a risk though of carrying too many items though, resonating magic interference or some such handwaving so that stockpiles of magical goodies can become... unstable.

"Oh no, his power level is over nine thousand!"

"Ho, ho, ho! You fool, you will have to concentrate if you are to defeat me!"

"Gah! I will have to concentrate!"

... and so on. *ahem*

Actually, I think that by slowing mages down, but allowing them to prepare packaged spells which can be given as one-shot tools to their comrades, we both reduce the whole point of geeking the mage first as well as reducing the degree to which they imitate mobile artillery and field hospitals rolled into one. One of the big problems with MagicRun was always that mages rolled buffer, healer and DPS into one, and could deliver any of these functions at a few seconds' notice. My approach is not to reduce their flexibility, but to reduce their role as instomatic destructionoids. By requiring thought, planning, scheduling (because prepared spell talismans or what-have-you don't last forever and cost money to assemble) we turn them into more cerebral characters who nonetheless should probably leave the fighting to the sandpaper-jawed hard men with whom they work.

I spent my time in the militia, like pretty much any able-bodied man,
but afterwards I wanted to build a career in something nice and peaceful,
something involving maybe rescuing kittens from trees, and fixing grazed
knees on schoolboys. Something the magic would let me do.

This world is hard, uncompromising, and doesn't play to anyone's rules but
its own.

Three hard faces were in my workshop. The hardest physically was the troll,
with all those bony warts, but the steeliest eyes were in the woman's face.
If women are the softer sex, she got in the wrong line when they handed out
pillows.

Still, she wanted the impossible.

"Listen, lady - yeah, you won't give me a name and if you did it wouldn't
be real - I'm telling you that it doesn't matter how nicely you ask, I just
can't pick locks on ten seconds' notice - or not quietly, anyhow, and I'm
guessing that if you want a lock picked, you don't want loud."

"Then prepare us the talisman." Her eyes didn't glare. They didn't need
to.

"For what kinda lock? Lever tumbler? Pin tumbler? Combination? Magic is
magic, but I need to have some idea here."

She pulled a torn scrap of newspaper from her cleavage. I was slightly
amazed that it hadn't printed off on that soft, pearly bosom, but I knew
better than to say anything.

The paper had an advertisement for a fancy yankee safe. It boldly advertised
that it was unpickable - a lie, of course - because it had both a warded
lock and a lever tumbler lock. Two keys, probably in the possession of
two different people.

"OK, so which one do you want me to open?"

"Both of them."

"At the same time? Lady, that's two spells. That's double the work."

"Then make it one spell."

I half laughed, half groaned. "Oh boy, you have no idea, do you? It'll take
me probably twice as long that way if not longer."

"We need it in two days."

"Really? Ma'am, would you also like a flying carpet run by your own pet
djinn? This is four days of work, if you want anything reliable."

She glanced at the man who stood a little behind her shoulder. He shook
his head, but said nothing.

"Two days. And two hundred dollars in gold."

I closed my eyes for a moment. Thought about my rent. Thought about the
price of food. Thought about the price of ironwood for that staff I was
making.

"OK. Two days. Fine. Half up front."

"On delivery."

God dammit. "Get out. Come back in two days, with gold. If it worked,
you get your tool and I get the gold. If not, you get to keep your gold.
Either way I get to sleep afterwards because I'll have been up for two days
straight. And next time, don't bother with a dumb-ass deadline like that."

She shook her head. "Someone stays here to keep an eye on you. This has
to stay under wraps."

I folded my arms. "Then find another wizard. I work in private, or not
at all. That's what the magic says." Not strictly true, but there are rules
and they do matter.

She hesitated, looked hard at me, then said: "Fine. Two days. But if this
gets out, we'll know where to come."

"Put a guard on the goddamn door, I don't care. I'm not going anywhere.
But if your gold don't sparkle right, we'll have words. Make sure it's
good."

They left. And a good thing too - they gave me the creeps. The fact is,
I probably only needed one day to do the work right, but I could almost bet
it would be fine. The extra day was to save my skin. I would catch a nap,
and summon a few friends as insurance for the next time they showed their
faces.

To craft a spell like this, you need a few things. You need to define your
target - easy enough, the talisman would be placed against the door of the
safe, and the magic could find a couple of keyholes no problem. You need to
define your action - this is harder, because it needs to figure out how to
move tumblers to open the locks. You need to give it power, because without
power nothing happens. And it needs to know when to start. I'd use an
activation key in a word. She'd annoyed me, so I took a sheet of paper
from a notebook, tore it off, and wrote on it: Ragtime Girl.

Then I turned to my cabinets, and started to pick up components.

Sorry folks, I know it's been a while, but I've been thinking hard about this problem.

Proposed shell of new magic system for Dieselrun.

Design principles:

• Magic is very flexible.
• Magic is very powerful.
• Magic is highly difficult (although the form of effort will vary among traditions).
• Magic is much better prepared ahead of time.
• Creating or preparing a magical effect requires a magical gift or talent.
• Prepared magical effects can be triggered by appropriately equipped and informed people regardless of whether they have a magical gift.
• The more complex, more powerful, more specific or more enduring an effect, the harder the creation or preparation will be. The execution remains unaffected.
• Magic can be analysed while it exists. Afterwards its traces fade rapidly, although not instantly.
• A magician may analyse an effect executed by a magician of a different tradition, but only in his own terms, not those of the originator.
• Magical devices can be created, but are vastly harder to make than a one-shot item.
• Setting up a spell requires understanding of the intended result, and the magical forces to be employed. A magician won't do much good to a damaged sword if he doesn't know much about metals.
• Knowing how to do something is a necessity for doing it.
• Knowing how to do something is no guarantee of being able to do it reliably, or safely, or at all.

A shell of a procedure:

• Mike the Mage wants to create a spell.
  

  
  

• He describes the spell to the DM (DieselMaster): Within line of sight, in a spherical area two yards across, create one second of furnace heat flames.
  
• He demonstrates to the DM that he has sufficient knowledge of fire (he spent some time working a forge)
  
• The DM assigns a difficulty based on the complexity (not very - this is basically point-and-spew), the power level (this is a hard punch, but not titanic) and complicating factors (Mike's alone and bored in his workshop, so no penalties)
• The DM rolls secretly.
  

  
  

• If he fails, he can't work it out. Maybe he kicks a puppy. Mike isn't a nice guy.
  
• If he fails catastrophically, he has a formula! .... which will have questionable effects according to the DM's lights.
  
• If he succeeds, he has a formula.
  
• Assuming Mike got a formula, he enters it into his Big Book o' Formulae, which is useful to him and anyone in the same tradition. It's basically useless to someone who isn't in his tradition even if they understand everything he wrote. Different magical traditions are incompatible in their entire approach. If he doesn't enter it into his book, he can use it this once but will have to re-examine it later.
• Mike wants to make with the fire.
  

  
  

• He can try casting it out of hand - easiest if he has the book right in front of him. If not, he gets a circumstantial penalty.
  
• He can try creating a one-shot widget. Probably the easiest single thing to do with the formula. Subsequently he, or Bog the Trog can use the widget as per the directions, and BOOM.
  
• He can try creating a point-and-shoot fire-o-matic. If he is lucky, this will only take a month. Hahahahaha. Sure. This is why talismongers make the big bucks.
  

A few random thoughts:

• One-shot widgets don't take expensive materials except for the most lunatic of effects.
• Enduring artefacts are insanely expensive to create. Orichalcum is the least of your needs.
• Force matters, but more powerful effects can have a force baseline below which they do nothing much.
• While knowledge of the topic of a spell is important, it doesn't have to be exhaustive. One doesn't have to understand cellular death do knit a broken bone, but a decent grounding in first aid sure would help.

Thoughts welcome. Obviously, this just touched on sorcery. Conjuring is a whole 'nother discussion. And metamagic yet another.

Hmm, I like the idea that in order to do something with magic, you need an understanding of what you're trying to make the magic do. Fits in with the idea that spells are not intelligent, and require direction from the caster--you can't just point some mana at a problem and go "fix it", you have to actually understand what it is you're trying to accomplish.

This would naturally lead to spell slingers having a lot of practical knowledge about various things--or at least subjects related to the kind of spells they cast. Even a "blaster" combat mage would need to have a general grasp of the physical forces they're flinging around. It makes magic more of a shortcut or extension of their skills and knowhow rather than a replacement for it.

For instance, casting a spell that opens locks would require a decent understanding of locksmithing. Basically, magic lets the caster do things they could probably do anyway, but in less time and without the tools that would normally be required.

Of course, if it's possible to learn other people's spells, then it's also possible that people *could* learn to do things with magic that they have no idea how to do mundanely. Though it'd be interesting to tack on a penalty for "flying blind" like that--or maybe just give a bonus to spellcasters who actually possess the mundane knowhow to match the effect.

One of the side-effects I like about it is that it also justifies cooperation with other people. If the magician doesn't understand the topic of the spell, another character with appropriate knowledge (such as metallurgy, for firearms repair, perhaps) would be a part of the process. It also means that a magician would be useful even without magic. Need a weird document interpreted? Call the magician. Want a piece of rock analysed? Call the magician.

The other side of the coin is that you can divorce karma expenditures from spell creation. Magicians will soak up that karma learning skills to make their magic more useful. I imagine that most magicians would be pretty handy at first aid, if not in fact good combat docs.


A large part of the problem would be figuring out if they are applying the spell correctly, or whether the spell is even relevant - it is a huge problem.

Of course, I have yet to cover shamanism, and what form spirits take (and how the metaphysics works) and what spirits even can do, or know. There will be more coming on this topic, and I believe it will make a big difference between types of magic.

Replacement for Essence:
Devotion.

Instead of the question being how much of you is original flesh, the question is how much time you have spent in spiritual practice. The practice in question will vary immensely, from meditation through chanting through tantric sex to virgin sacrifice.
Devotion levels may fluctuate, but devotional practice is linked to magical style.

Shamanism

The guiding principle of shamanism is a transactional relationship between the shaman and spirits.

This also covers possession-related effects, although not necessarily in obvious ways.

I have diverged substantially from some elements of classical shadowrun metaphysics, to make the whole thing work better. Sorry, purists, the consequences of the alternative milieu are hard to integrate with the original rules in a coherent way.

Design principles :

• No free lunches. Quid pro quo is the order of the day.
• Spirits are all aspected, and they all have areas of influence such as a churchyard, a house, a person.
• Spirits benefit from possession, if they have the opportunity to serve their own principles.
• Spirits exist in the spiritual context of sapiences. The spiritual realm, such as it is, is a projection of sapient emotional and intellectual activity.
• Spirits are emergent entities in the spiritual realm. Desolate places have few, and generally malign spiritual presences.
• Spirits can be cajoled, bribed, and compelled. Compelling is harder.
• Devotional practices more closely aligned to a spirit make bribes and cajoling easier.
• Devotional practices opposed to a spirit's nature can make compelling a spirit easier.

Outline sketch:

• Perceiving the spirit world is basically a simple process of assensing, which many people can do to some extent, even if only by intuition.
• Communicating with spirits requires being able to perceive their communications, so assensing is a precondition.
• Anyone who can communicate with a spirit can try to negotiate with it for a service, but unless the person in question has engaged in significant devotional activities, outcomes are less likely to be positive, or the effort provided by the spirit is unlikely to compare well with the effort or sacrifice offered by the person.
• Summoning a spirit has two levels - inducing it to manifest on the spiritual level so that it can be negotiated with, and permitting (and possibly forcing) it to take a physical shape (this includes channeling and possessions).
• Binding and Banishing take a similar level of interaction. The key is to overcome the spirit's inherent power to compel it to stay, go, and possibly attach conditions to release.
• Summoning, Binding and Banishing are all sorcerous effects. If you can't work the powers of magic, you can't apply them to spirits (or anything else).
• Ergo, shamans necessarily are sorcerors as well, and generally vice versa. This doesn't mean hermetics are good at handling spirits, or that shamans are good general purpose sorcerors.

A brief example:

Siobhean the Shaman is a regular devotee of nature. She tends the creatures of the wild, sacrifices to spirits of wild places, and spreads seeds from wild places in the cities. She wants to discreetly stop a car from operating.

First, she looks for a spiritual entity. This is an assensing task. She expects a spirit there, however diminutive, so she persists until she finds its native goblin peeking out from under the chassis.

Next, she communicates with it, offering to shine up the car if it will just rest for a while, and not run until sundown. This is contrary to the goblin's engine-related urges, and she's not of a friendly devotional aspect, so it refuses despite her blandishments.

Finally, she works her sorcery to bend the goblin to her will. This is a fairly straightforward aspect of sorcery, given her understanding of matters spiritual. It's tricky, because she doesn't have days to work it all out, but she can work something out off the cuff, including effort on her part (dancing around the car, and weaving naturalistic devotional patterns in the dirt around it with her feet), and binds the goblin to stasis until sundown. This involves a resisted roll between her and the goblin, where for a change her naturalistic devotions stand to her benefit as strengthening her in opposition to the goblin.

She could possibly have forced the goblin to leave the engine entirely, and displaced it with a number of kudzu gremlins in her service, but keeping it passive was sufficient for her purposes.

Dieselpunk magic system.

OK, this is the biggie and I welcome any insights which may be offered because I'm pretty sure I'm not getting this right first time.

Types of Magic

There are four types of magic, which fundamentally apply to everyone, metahuman or not, shamanic or not, adept or not. This classification of magic depend on what it affects.

• Physical - screwing in a lightbulb, lighting a fire, turning a bullet to dust. If it deals in dead matter, raw forces, classical elements - it's physical.
• Living - healing a wound, speeding up a runner, turning grey hairs red, curing a (mundane) disease, causing instant hyperemesis, creating a butterfly - all living magic.
• Spiritual - binding spirits, summoning spirits, banishing spirits - spiritual magic.
• Abstract - no direct effects. This includes countering and unweaving magic, magical analysis, all the good metamagic stuff.

For each form of magic there is the active skill and also the related academic skill. You could be a total wiz at patching up wounds, but that doesn't mean that you'd be able to work out from a cold standing start how to cure syphilis.

Abstract magic is a particular point of interest in terms of the divide between practice and theory: everyone has some degree of instinctive countering capability, but it takes both knowledge and skill to carefully unweave a curse.

There are also compound forms of magic, based on combinations of the above four types. Compound magic is harder to design, harder to execute, but allows for more actions. Here are a few illustrative examples:

• Physical/Living - turning a toy beetle into a living one. Or vice versa.
• Physical/Spiritual - making a spirit material. Binding a spirit into a living thing to create a fleshform - the Insect Shaman's delight!
• Physical/Living/Spiritual - binding a spirit into a toy beetle which is also converted into a living being thereby creating from a toy a fleshform horror.

At any table, for any spell, it shall be the sole discretion of the DM (DieselMaster) to determine which types of magic are relevant to any one particular effect.

Difficulty

The difficulty of spells, in terms of die rolls, varies. (For those who forget, we are basing DieselRun on Shadowrun 3rd Ed.) This means that target numbers will vary.

Also, remember from previous posts that there is the design roll, which is separate and different from the spellcasting roll. They are not necessarily equally difficult. It can be very easy to design a spell which is a hammer the size of Manhattan falling on your enemy - casting it is quite a different matter.

Each form of magic is a separate skill, and designing or performing compound magic shall be done thus:

• Calculate your die pool using the lowest relevant magical skill.
• If you are casting compound magic with two aspects (such as Physical/Living) then take a one die penalty (on top of all circumstantial penalties).
• If you cast compound magic with three aspects, take a three dice penalty.
• Merlin, we admire your skill and ambition in attempting a spell which requires all four spheres of magical attainment. Take six dice off your pool. Yes, you can cry if you want to. Hurts, doesn't it? You still have to do it.

Spell design is based on the academic/knowledge skill relevant to a particular branch of magic, while casting the actual spell is based on the practical thaumaturgic skill.

As a general guideline, to be used by DieselMasters who are trying to decide how difficult things are:

• Easy design - Thog smash! Anything pure, simple and straightforward. Physical magic which lights a candle, cracks a nut, creates a small steel nugget.
• Tougher design - Some delicacy in effect. Touchy timing. Detection and analysis of situations. Picking a lock. Setting a broken bone.
• Definitely difficult - Complex situations. Creating fleshforms. Reading minds. Planting mental commands.
• Merlin, we know you've been working for twenty-three years on your miniature pegacorn rainbow conversion spell, but your daughter has already moved on.

Preparing spells is a separate sort of difficulty:

• No juggling, an easy lift - Lighting a candle, healing a papercut, summoning a well-disposed spirit.
• A little tougher - Hurling fireballs the size of grapefruit, binding a gremlin into Captain Abominable's pneumatic prosthesis.
• A hefty challenge - Creating fleshforms, binding a ghost, binding a cooperative goblin into Captain Abominable's pneumatic prosthesis along with a mental link to his intentions.
• Merlin, we know you want to give Snagglefang the Scaled Terror a case of explosive flatulence, but every time you've screwed it up you've given it to yourself. Can you please, please give it a rest now?

Other Topics

Grounding.

Grounding in this system basically means that you cast a spell which has sufficient Abstract magic capability to locate and positively identify the astral signature of something with an astral reflection (whether a spell, a person, or that cat which keeps yowling on your roof) and then has the additional complexity in other spheres to cross over the veil to make manifest in physical or in living form its purpose. So, it's possible. It is also very difficult, and has a high propensity for going wrong because of misidentified targets. It requires some magical complexity, power and multifaceted operation to actually achieve - even a simple spell to locate a known magical beacon at a known location and then shine a light on that location would be abstract and physical magic together, and definitely on the tougher side of things in design and execution. Figuring out a spell to identify Hot Henrietta in a crowd and undo all the seams in her clothing at the stroke of noon is the kind of thing pimple-faced apprentices dream about - and never achieve in their whole magical careers.

Countermagic.

Countermagic takes two forms: carefully defusing the bomb while the clock ticks and sweat drips down your nose on the one hand, and blocking a punch coming at your face on the other.

Unweaving an existing effect is difficult, time-consuming, but relatively safe. It takes all the knowledge and skill it would take to comprehend the spell's formula (so, domain-relevant real-world knowledge as well as academic magical skills) and then undoing the spell is analogous to untying a knot. Tedious, time-consuming, possibly even difficult, but not a world-beating challenge.

Blocking active magic requires that the magician be near the spell's area of activity, and conscious. Line of sight is not required, but proximity is. Dense barriers like heavy walls will prevent this sort of countermagic. Thin plaster layers, paper screens and the smiles of babies will not prevent countermagic. Even mundanes get one die of this sort of countermagic, unless they're magically crippled. This makes targeting crowds quite hard. The general TN is 6.

Adepts.

Physical adepts are a special case. They have what amounts to permanent spells woven into their very being. They can't be blocked, can't be countered, and can only be deliberately unwoven by overwhelming force (such as a great dragon with time and a grudge) or by the adept's own will, while changing magical effects. Adepts can't do this on a whim, it needs special focus (think of a training montage over the course of a week per point of change applied).

Whew! Please let me know if you think I missed anything important.

Quick footnote on the topic of mundanes and countering magic:

They don't know how they do it, they don't understand it, they can't control it, it's instinctive.

And it depends on their level of devotion. Most mundanes don't have all that much - sure they go to confession once a week, or something, but that doesn't get you more than the one default die to save your pathetic mortal skin.

A truly devout follower of a creed, whose life is a monastic testament to devotion and piety (regardless of the nature of the creed itself) might have as many points of countermagic as half their level of Devotion. That's all, folks!

re: the fundamentals of magic



Sorry that this is a very late response to the fundamentals of magic statement, and I know you’ve moved on based on this. For some reason I’d forgotten how fun this thread is. But I have a question and a concern.

The question: why is the premise that magic is powerful, but difficult? This always makes balancing very difficult in a game, as the item in question easily becomes dominant if the difficulty can be reasonably dealt with, or almost unusable if the difficulty is too unwieldy. In traditional SR magic is certainly powerful, but in general taking an opponent out with spells is not easier than with weapons, magic can’t interact with a key part of the game (the matrix), and while magicians are very flexible (and in some editions spirits/elementals are very powerful) they tend to be relatively slow.

The concern is that much of the difficulty you are building into the system translates into additional spotlight time for mages. They won’t always be able to build up the right spell at the right time, but the process alone makes them special, and when it all comes together it is a highlight moment. Your intent is to not make it magic-run, but when so many special rules revolve around magic, to some degree it is from a play-process point of view, even if not from a raw power point of view.

You have by far put the most work into this setting, so I’m just going to leave those thoughts there, and you can make of them what you will—if you are content with how things look, then I’ll put my trust in you

re: dragon domination

The greatest threat to dragons, it would seem to me, is other dragons. While Dragons could dominate much of the globe, there is also the chance that in trying to lay claim to rich territory, full of much treasure and slaves (i.e. people) they provoke the jealousy and combined opposition of other dragons. And it seems that dragons tend to cooperate about as well as do cats.

I could imagine dragons collecting tribute more often than ruling directly, as ruling directly forces you to be in known places at known times (so an easier target), plus having to deal with a lot of annoying humans. Likewise I could see some become involved with some of the great mercantile companies....in fact draconic sponsorship could be why they survived VITAS more than did many other organizations.

The reason I'd push this approach is that dragons are difficult to handle in game. We all understand people, to some degree, and we have all sorts of lovely historical models of how people actually did organize and interact back then--totally re-writing all of that to make it dragon-run adds a lot of difficulty in grokking the background at both high and low levels.

Don't get me wrong, it is COOL! But there can be a danger in cool things, and I think it really ups the effort level for creating the setting, running games set there, or even playing in them.

re: VITAS death rates

Does VITAS have to have behaved similarly to how it did in the traditional time-line? It is easy enough to explain why it could be more or less lethal, so I would think the objective should be setting the death-rate at a level that makes the setting maximally interesting. Of course, no three people are apt to fully agree on what that point would be....some would like to totally re-set the world, others to leave it much as it was with just enough death to justify interesting changes here and there.

re: orichalcum

One thought that occured to me was that perhaps orichalcum plays a slightly larger role than in traditional SR. Perhaps those magical enhancements all require it, and maybe it is key to building up the more powerful spells. Heck, maybe it has even become the underlying valuable metal behind currency? (that might be taking it too far).

But no matter how you put it, a lot of the globe is still a fairly mysterious place, and people who have made finds of the stuff now ride around in carriages with matched teams of horses. So there would always be those looking for it, smuggling of it becomes a high stakes activity, maps to supposed deposits can inspire murder, etc. All that happened with gold, but more. Maybe the Confederate states are considering going to war with their western neighbors over rights to mine certain deposits, Austria-Hungary is a weak state, but their orichalcum reserves are large and none of the other power want to allow Prussia to claim them, if the vaults of the Republic are revealed to have been burgled before the material is recovered, the resulting French weakness might tip the continent into war, rumors swirl that an ancient kingdom near the source of the Congo river is rich with the stuff, but feeds intruders to their guardian spirits (or dragons?), etc.

For that matter, perhaps some of the great mercantile companies are in part pursuing this too? Maybe the Hudson's Bay Company kept its trading posts throughout the areas draining into Hudson's Bay, but the real treasure is now not the furs but the occasional grains of orichalcum that get brought in? (yes, I know, in canon it is very hard to handle, but allow an impure form to be found and handled perhaps?)

PS: sorry for jumping in late and spamming so many responses.

Yay! At least one person is reading!



You're welcome to comment at any stage, and I'm very open to discussion and/or criticism and/or hideous editorial soul-eating. Seriously, have you tried my soul? It has that deep-fried crispy goodness. You'll love it.

As to your question: why is the premise that magic is powerful, but difficult? *followed by commentary on game balance*

Answer: Magic isn't necessarily powerful because of the awesome godlike powers magicians have, but because they sidestep some usual limitations. Instead of throwing fireballs, you could throw petrol bombs. Instead of knitting flesh, a doctor could stitch you up followed by a stint in rehab. And so on. If you look at my later post on the topic of difficulty and complexity, magic is most assuredly not a one-way ticket to the Hall of Godlike Power. It's more analogous to being a machinist. I can go to a machineshop, lay down money, and they will build me things which I couldn't buy off the shelf because what I want doesn't exist on any shelf anywhere. It also takes a while - well, so can magic. The concern about spotlight time for magicians is, I feel, a little misplaced because in a real game the spotlight will be all of one minute.

"While they're making their road trip to buy that ammunition, I'll be designing my sandwich-making spell."

"OK. You're in your lodge, doing your thing. Let me roll some dice ... cool. You'll have a formula in about a week's work. Back to the ammo deal ..."

*five minutes of RP passes*

"OK, everybody's back in town. Here's your spell formula, you're meeting up at the bar. What do you do?"

"AbracaDAGWOOD!"

.... and the crowd goes wild ...

Rub the serial numbers off that process, apply to a number of other circumstances, and it still holds good. Moreover, bear in mind that if as I proposed the magician also needs to understand whatever he or she is magically altering, to at least a reasonable extent, they become portable sages and thus valuable for reasons other than KABOOM. Bear in mind that if magic isn't powerful in the sense of, at the very least, making difficult (but basically possible) things a bit easier, then there's no incentive to sink a lot of points into it because it's basically a sideshow where Magical Bob runs the lights by magic and then everybody shrugs, pities him, and goes home. The way I've proposed it, magic is more like electronics. An expensive, complicated but very useful pain in the arse. People don't like their smartphones because electronics are better than sex. They like their smartphones despite all the massive problems, delicacy, constant lust for a power outlet and so on because they're actually darned useful. Well. To some people. I gave mine up because it was too much of a pain and not enough gain. But we already know I'm a freak.



I think we're actually in agreement here, I just didn't have time to really flesh this out. I certainly was not proposing that all dragons would coordinate, or be naked rulers, but it seems to me that by canon they certainly would be running a lot of the show, even if it only means that they're the de facto head of the council of elders in a given valley, or crime lords in some NYC slum.
On the other hand, the Great Dragons like Lofwyr would probably be delighted to dominate major port cities and/or the great mercantile companies as well as vast holdings of land, regardless of who wears any nominal crown. Their desire for dominion is well-established canon.



If it were similar to the traditional timeline, given adjustments for medical technology and so on, VITAS mortality in the combined two primary waves would be around or above 90%. I think that may be a little too disruptive, which is why I suggested something nearer 50%. I'm open to persuasion on the magnitude and the consequences.



I'm fine with this idea. More yet, permit it to be either recycled once used, or it sublimates but has sources other than mines (perhaps some sort of mystic still or generation at intersections of ley lines). Do you think you could come up with some sort of mechanic around that, as well as creation of enduring magical devices, or preparation of spells?



No problem. It's not as if a huge conference were suddenly disrupted by a lunatic protester demanding to be Queen of Abyssinia for a day. This is more like you tapping a street preacher on the shoulder and engaging in discussion with the froth-mouthed wild-eye.

Read your response....on my smart phone, which I don't find that useful for typing

Will think, and volley back when I have time at a proper keyboard.

It strikes me that a quick postscript might be appropriate.

The idea is not really that magicians would be necessary to a Dieselrunning group. Magicians would be quite viable as support NPCs, who provide particular spells in prepared form before a run, provide medical care after a run, and provide analytical services between runs. On the other hand, they would be viable PCs as well, provided that they knew when to keep their heads down and when to run.

Think of a team in terms of noire archetypes.

• The bruiser. Big. Tough. Mean. Can probably handle a gun as well as brass knuckles.
• The detective. Smart. Street savvy. Can handle himself in a dive bar or a nice dinner. Should probably drink less.
• The femme fatale. Gorgeous. Suave. From money, even if her current circumstances are somewhat diminished.
• The honest Joe/Jane. Doesn't quite know how they got there, but not about to let that get in the way of doing the right thing. Surprises everyone with that right skill or contact at the right time.
• The gangster/moll. Tough as old boot leather. May be ice cold or warm and squishy within. Knows everyone and everywhere on the wrong side of the tracks. Can get you guns, knives, even an old cannon if you have the money. Maybe even knows someone who'll patch up your gunshot wounds and not ask too many questions.

Seriously, there's a lot of potential to which magicians don't have to be party at all.

Actually the thing I love most about setting in this era is all the stock roles available to work with, or cross-up (depending on taste). Plucky mid-shipman, taciturn but cunning frontiersman, snake oil salesman, former slave trying to overcome that background to become established, dregs of the aristocracy (Flashman with magic, anyone?), daring newspapermen, veteran of various colonial wars, and so on and so on..... none of which bring in magic at all.

So I'm entirely eager not to make magic the dominant thing in the game.

On the other hand, I'd want to leverage existing assets as much as possible, including people's understanding of existing SR rules (of whatever vintage). Which is why I'm less enthusiastic about seeing extremely different magic rules. But it is a fair question as to whether magic can be adequately contained without massively different rules...

And just as a btw, I really did like the 'diesel-punk' idea of post-WW1, too. Also an interesting period, which would call for a different balance of elements again I think.

You're right (although one could make an argument for the way that capable magicians would change the snake oil dynamic).



And here's the problem. Normally magicians are a hybrid of mobile artillery and mobile hospital, with a sideline in tradecraft.

Transplant the SR3 magic rules wholesale? Any powergamer jumps right into magic without so much as a second thought. After all, there's no cyber, no matrix, and no rigging.

The naive response: convert magic to be about as potent as nerf darts and aspirin and groucho masks.
The powergamer response: screw magic and magicians, no point.

By striking the balance I did, magical spells in prepared form can be carried by anybody, used by anybody (thus making geeking the mage less important and less useful on the battlefield) but can't be created just by anybody (thus making a cooperative magician a good team player). By slowing magic down, I make magicians less battlefield useful, but give the entire party more investment in preparation and timelines and ingredients.

On the other hand, the balance shifts if every magician is still as karma-bound on the sheer number of possible spell formulae available for use, to the point that being a magician is kind of a niche interest at best (read: undesirable) so by motivating broad knowledge as well as allowing for actual magical flexibility we have magicians who can achieve the miraculous, just like before - but only with reasonable notice, and after an allowance of time for design and creation, while also being useful for their sheer knowledge and flexibility when magic isn't flying everywhere.

The overall result is a magician who's rather similar to the decker, without making everyone check out while the decker runs the matrix. Too useful to ignore, too powerful to be uninteresting, too limited to be overwhelming. An interesting PC, an indispensible NPC.

I'm not one to bow down to the altar of Game Balance in the teeth of a coherent milieu, but these items just make sense. It's also a rather pointed vindication of the idea that the rules are specific to the milieu, and that they go together.

Process for preparing a spell for later use:

• Have the formula. This should include the difficulty of casting the spell.
• Take time. There is no way of just slamming prepared spells out quickly. They have to be crafted.
• Have the materials for your single-use object on hand. It has to be something craftable, by the magician. Calligraphy on paper is common. Chalk on a prison cell wall will work.
• Determine the trigger for the spell. Usually this is grasping the item and saying a trigger word, but it can be any combination of gesture and verbal action.
• Roll your dice to do your crafting, and to cast the spell.

Some modifiers:

• The fancier your craftsmanship, the easier your spell. Chalk on your prison cell is very much a fallback position. Meticulously polished intaglio work will get you as much as -3 on your magic roll. Blow your craftsmanship? Don't even bother for magic.
• One source of cooperation is if a craftsman does the crafting for the magician, in direct cooperation, with precise direction and oversight.
• Complex spells are harder to cast, so the difficulty range is higher. This is in direct proportion with the complexity penalty for designing the spell in the first place.
• More powerful spells (i.e. a fireball the size of a car instead of a basketball) are harder to cast.
• Distractions, poor environment and so on will screw you up as usual.

Results:

• If the craftsmanship doesn't work, as mentioned above, you don't have anything suitable on which to prepare the spell, so don't bother rolling for the spell.
• If the craftsmanship works and the spell fails, the object still exists but is magically screwed up. Start again, new materials.
• If the craftsmanship succeeds, and the casting succeeds, you have your single-use magical widget. Anyone can provide the trigger, if they know how, and use the spell.
• Prepared castings like this take about half an hour per comparative level of complexity and/or power. It just takes longer to harness more power or do more complex things.
• Because of the extended time involved, there is no significant residual fatigue or other drain or penalty other than being tired from extended concentration and demanding work.

Watchers:

Watchers are spirits of the magician. They are always of puny size and capability, but they are also always with the caster - although they are limited in number and capabilities and summoned longevity by the caster's Devotion level.

Example:

Bob the Boxer, a burned out old bastard who barely remembers to doff his cap when passing by a gym, can generally summon one minibob which can take a message as long as it isn't too long or complicated to someone Bob knows, if he has a fair idea where to find that person or the search doesn't take too long.

Katja, fanatical devotee of Thor, can summon six angry, armed versions of herself which will not do much in the way of harm to anyone, but they'll hang around for much of the day and do her bidding with energy, intelligence (if not much knowledge) and determination.

Been away so still catching up on all bits.

A thought to add to the magic steps: Astral Perception must be engaged.

In SR our spells lock onto the 'aura' of the target and we just do this instinctively and it's up and over so fast the casting is just a blip on the astral radar.

But what if the magic process required you to be properly shifting your perception to see the various auras/threads/mana itself to really manipulate it into spells or even providing defense like counterspell and similar?

So you would start off the process with a simple action (like the adept ability) to switch to Astral Perception and one could handwave the -2 penalty for magical actions like casting / counterspell (doesn't make sense to penalize that since its a requirement) while normal physical actions like shooting or other would still be affected.

Perception stays up until turned off by a free action, so it would mean casters are open to the astral on combat rounds they are casting as well as maintaining spell defences.

While a bit more work, it also makes the Astral a bit busier place with mages and spirits sniping one another and would tie in well with your bringing back Grounding.

Edit: Adepts will have to be considered and raises a few issues. Missions allows adepts to turn off their adept abilities which is useful when crossing high Background count areas, so maybe this could be used here as well.
A 'powered down' adept is one who has his abilities turned off and could easily pass for a normal joe astrally as well as to most scrutiny though an Assessing could reveal this of course. Powering up the abilities bumps him into dual nature status which can prove hazardous to one's health, but then they probably won't keep the powers going long.
Astral Perception is not required for the majority of their abilities as they are mostly internalized, though many probably will grab this given the change and one should consider either cutting the cost or even making it automatic to all Awakened types.

I realize many probably won't like it, it smacks too much of WizFi™, but it is not too far a stretch to consider.

As for your idea on Adepts being able to rearrange PP, I like it but a week per point effectively kills it as they would probably not realistically be able to change it within a single session or even a couple depending on circumstances. Maybe shortening the time a bit and also include a test with each success cutting that time further. Even with the best rolls it should still be several minutes for even the most minor change, so no shifting on the fly in combat, but between fights should be possible.

Excellent. Makes sense, and easy to apply as a rule. Consistent. Two thumbs up.



If you read the thread you'll see that I'm pretty much in favour of broad-based access to at least basic sensitivity, so no problem there. I expect that for a lot of adepts the default position will be unpowered to keep them stealthy.



I was thinking of a week per PP because it really is a shift in focus, but what if it's a week base time, reduced by successes on a refocus roll? Or at least a day per PP, reduced per roll result?

I would say try to make the time align with what it takes magicians to set up a new spell. i.e. if the mission is take what you have and charge in, then there is no time for new spells or for adepts to adjust their build. But if the mission is going to involve more time (and many will, due to slower travel and communications) players could make planning out their magic part of their preparation. It would feel unfair, I think, if one type of magic user could make such adjustments, and another couldn't.

And probably similar time for any sort of alchemy/enchanting of consumables sort of work. (maybe it takes aurichulum tipped bullets to hurt supernatural beings, and these are something that somebody with low magic can cast? Things like that make use of lesser talent levels) (and yes, I have just been re-reading "Harlequin's Back" and am totally thinking of the 'Silverpoint' bullets used in the 'western' metaplane)

So, we have sorcery, we have summoning, we have assensing, some outlines of metaphysics, we have spirits, we have the idea of Devotion (as opposed to Essence), we have grounding and watchers and adepts ...

Here is what I'm thinking in terms of initiation:

It works pretty much in similar terms to what we see in the rules for 3rd Ed. Metamagic remains broadly the same, with centering, quickening, dispelling, shielding, and masking looking pretty much the same. Anchoring is sort of written into the dieselrun approach already, so that seems redundant, and I suggest getting rid of Metaplanes on the principle that there's no clear context for their existence in the metaphysics as currently described.

I also propose that initiates can boost their Devotion over 6 by their initiation level.

Two questions:

What else are we missing?

Maybe it's time for someone to try a test run and see how it goes. Kick the wheels, see what falls off?

Any volunteer GMs/groups for playtesting?

Alternative background vision.

Basic outline
[*] The Great War happened just the way the history books said.
[*] The Great Influenza of 1918 was, in fact, VITAS.
[*] 1919 is the Year of Chaos, with the Black Tide hitting the North Atlantic shores, and Ryumyo appearing on Fuji-yama.
[*] 1925 is the Great Ghost Dance.
[*] 1929 is Goblinisation
[*] 1930 is Vitas II.
[*] Current date of play: 1958

Global outline:

WWI happened.

WWII might have happened, but instead the Sixth World came.

The Roaring Twenties roared - and the whole world trembled. The confusion and slaughter of the Great Ghost Dance, the massive return of nature, UGE and all the other confusions and convulsions changed the world to a strange, twilight place. The USA was rent asunder into the Yankees and the South, the Midwest and the mountains were lost (mere years after attaining statehood, in many cases) and Hawaii and Alaska were left largely to their own devices. The pacific coast states lost any cohesive identity save for a corner near Canada, incorporating Seattle, and a strip down the California coast. In the Appalachians old greybeards who still remembered the humiliations and the destruction of the War of Northern Aggression mumbled their wishes to their still-vigorous sons, and these founded the Confederated States of America - a challenge a weakened and confused USA could not stave off.

Canada remained a british colony, and happy for whatever support the british could offer - buying their existence as a few provinces in the east with the bulk of the land to the West. Quebec is an independent rump of what it once was, but the bulk of the rest finds safety with the global wounded lion of Mother England. Mexico dissolved into chaos (not a far step in those days) and rose again as Aztlan. South America, mostly insulated from the conflicts of Europe, nonetheless was shaken to its core by the changes, and Amazonia took shape as a new land.

Germany, staggering under the burdens of war and a staggering, impossible debt is given a body blow by the rise of dragons who divide it anew - economically a strengthening move, since a reformed Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony and other demesnes under draconic control now all repudiate a war debt they are quite unable to pay. France, with her own problems, is mollified to see the apparent dissolution and humiliation of a unified Germany, even as a recently unified Italy crumbles once more under disaster after disaster, and the Pope becomes once more a potentate of great temporal as well as moral authority.

Colonial properties around the world might have been expected to rise up and snatch freedom, but in the wake of all these changes, most are far too enervated to do more than beg for aid, or turn on each other as UGE and goblinisation rend the fabrics of their societies.

The greatest change, perhaps, comes in China with the re-establishment of imperial authority. Dragons, cunning enough to see the benefits of declaring the Mandate of Heaven, bring stability to a sick country, and China is rising in authority and strength even as the nascent USSR struggles with the implications of a magically shaped world for the ideology behind their workers' paradise. Smaller states with a history of chinese hegemony waver between supporting colonial masters, and turning back to chinese protectionism. Korea brought in China to evict the loathed japanese, but Hong Kong remains a british colony for now.

Technologies:

Computers are rare, slow, limited, and huge. Transistors are in use, but integrated circuits are still a laboratory dream. However, the era of paper tape, punched cards and microfiches is well under way. Most information technologies are written, typed, printed or possibly photographed. It is the jet age, with screaming passenger jets moving the jet set from city to city, trying not to anger dragons. For the less well-heeled, trains and buses must suffice where roads and rails lead - and boats, where they do not. In many hinterlands which are taken over by the resurgent powers of nature, superhighways never penetratedand roads can dwindle to dirt, dusty tracks and eventually nothing.

Cybernetics and the Matrix are a long, long way off because the miniaturisation technology simply has not made them possible. The ruling technologies are high precision machinery, chemistry, and macro-scale electronics. The radio, telex, telegraph, telephone and physical mail rule the roost, where the infrastructure exists. Elsewhere it might still be a runner with a cleft stick, or a swifter spirit for those with the means.

The space age has not yet dawned, because the particular impetus to rocket technologies of WWII never materialised, but aircraft are flying higher, balloons are probing the upper atmosphere, and hungry eyes are looking every upward.

Society:

Fascism as such never took proper hold, although many of its lines of thought did. The revulsion created by the horrors of WWII never hit, so institutionalised racism is easy to find in many places. The USSR is a haven of relative openmindedness - up to a point. The union regards magic as an elitist aberration to be co-opted, controlled or driven out. Still, this heavily depends on where one is, and the context. Agents with the wrong skin or teeth can often pass as servants of luckier ones, and there are havens of comparative open-mindedness and even-handedness. The remainder of the USA is surprisingly open-minded, in self-conscious contrast to the CAS. England, consciously continuing a tradition of philanthropy is often racist, but egalitarian as far as the common people are concerned.

There is no UN. The League of Nations never dissolved, but it is a truly toothless talking shop. The USSR exists as a largely stable organisation, but in actual fact vast areas of it are not under the supreme soviet's functional control. Most of Africa nominally exists under somebody's control, but in reality those authorities have more theoretical than real power. India agitates for independence, but VITAS was pitiless, the famines were worse, and the confusion wrought by UGE and goblinisation dissipated a lot of energies which would otherwise have gone to the fight. The northwest frontier is a perennial source of trouble.

Israel never was created, and in the current climate there is no prospect of it being created despite the machinations of a zionist minority. The area is Palestine, still under british control.

Finance and Corporate life:

The Almighty Dollar is wrestling for pre-eminence with the Pound Sterling, but in the wake of the division of the USA the pound is still ahead. The massive industrial power and energy of the USA, even in its reduced form, gives the dollar a lot of credibility, but the pound is still the currency of a (wobbly, creaking) empire.

The exigencies of the world situation have given rise to the supranational corporation. No longer merely multinationals, these titans of the scene have become the organisational tools of governments too constrained to run their own ambitions. The supranational is the reacreation of the great chartered company, and wields similar powers. They have soldiers of their own, navies of their own and now air forces of their own. They step into troubled, confused and chaotic environments and arrange for the extraction of minerals and other valuables to feed the hunger of industries worldwide. There is no corporate court, and companies have to contend with the jurisdictions of nations, but they create their own countries in which their jurisdiction is final, and even wage ugly wars on each other.

And in the diesel-scented shadows of the great corporate railyards and harbours, Free Agents count their bullets for the coming raids.

We huddled against the warm side of the train. Well, it was warm, but it was also pinging the song of cooling metal. We were on the shady side, and the breeze was much cooler than the black metal that had been in the sun most of the day.

I glanced over at Mathilda. She was the new guy, the untried team member, inevitably the weak link, but she was necessary. Nobody else knew the systems we were aiming for, and she hated the New India Company more than anyone I knew. She seemed calm enough in her boiler suit, squatting down next to Gurog. No knowing why he called himself that, but for a troll the size of a motorcycle, sidecar, and trailer, it made sense.

Up ahead, the clanking footsteps of the railway policeman moved along the railcars, and the connecting doors slammed one by one. Two cars away, one car away ... count to ten, nod at Gurog.

There was no need. Gurog wasn't even looking at me, but his punch slammed the railway cop into the door he had just opened so hard that he just sagged, and slumped.

"OK, Mathilda. Door's open. Let's get inside."

She averted her eyes from the guard, but stepped right on his hand so hard I heard bones break. The guard didn't even twitch. I stepped in behind her, and said: "Is this what we're looking for?"

She whipped out a magnifying glass, and looked at a microfiche she pulled from one of the hundreds of boxes that filled the railcar. It took a moment, and then she nodded. "It's in here somewhere. Now I just have to find it."

Kenneth looked across the table at Mister Johnson. This worthy swirled the brandy in his glass, admiring the play of light on the surface.

"Mister Johnson, you must understand that the team are specialists. They can do the amazing, but they do not do so for free - or cheaply. Now, if you could increase the remuneration, we'd have something to discuss, but right now I don't see it."

Johnson put the brandy down on the polished mahogany table, and leaned forward. His tie stayed neatly pinned in place, but his suit jacket swayed over the creaking leather of his seat. "What if I told you that the vault in question also contains the blueprints of Tadellos Incorporated's HQ?"

Kenneth stared back coolly at Johnson, eyeing the tan, the crow's feet, the slight hint of five-o'-clock shadow on the chin. Inside his mind raced. He took a sip of his sherry, partly to stall and partly to keep Johnson waiting. "Fine, what if it does? And more importantly, what if it does not?"

Johnson nodded firmly. "It does. I'm sure."

"Magnificent. Then you won't mind putting up security."

I love your thoughts on these settings. As usually I’ll toss a few thoughts your way, use or not as you see fit.

War often leads to making big leaps in innovation – taking chances that lead to entirely new ways of doing things, rather than incremental improvements in existing technologies.

Taking WWII out of the equation, this could mean things like:

- Jet planes are still an experimental new technology, but large propeller driven airliners are connecting the world (albeit more slowly that jets were doing in our world at that time).
- Radar is known and used for some applications, but the large networks for defense purposes have never been funded (so planes are harder to detect, making aerial smuggling much easier)
- Highly sophisticated mechanical calculating machines may be the most common form of ‘computer’ (most frequently seen in places like cash registers or large clunky ‘calculators’ used in accounting departments. Electronic computer could still be fairly exotic.
- ‘Atomic energy’ and the ‘A-bomb’ may still be well into the future, things people are still speculating about and studying the principles of, with uranium still be very rare.

Some thoughts about the fate of parts of North America.
- The dustbowl in much of the prairies in the 1930s could be seen as an effect of the Great Ghost Dance?
- In the Canadian west the natives were mostly pushed off the prairies, but the settlement of those lands would have only just reached its peak when things changed. There were a lot of Ukrainian immigrants, who in times of such stress might have turned to those who shared a language and culture with them to help protect their new lands. This could result in some states in the norther prairies that are non-native, ethnicity-based states of some sort (The Republic of New Kiev or something). Half a million or so farmers working together are hard to kick off their land … (there would have been far more farmers then, than in the standard SR timeline)
- Canada was formally independent from 1967, and the first world war led to much more independence on the ground (and I believe it had a similar impact on Australia). Neither is apt to have returned to being a British colony, but I could certainly imagine them taking on a stronger British affiliation.
- Quebec at the time had not undergone the ‘Quiet Revolution’ which overturned the authority of the Catholic Church and English business owners, and which released the independence movement of our timeline. It could still have become independent, or more independent – it generally had strong objections to the country-wide sacrifices made to help Britain in the first world war, which given the subsequent turmoil could have resulted in it becoming at least quasi-independent. But it would be a far more church dominated society.

Elsewhere in the world:
- Japan was modernizing and militarizing even before WWI, so without WWII happening it could well be a very imperialistic state, and probably a rival of the USA and UK for domination of SE Asia and the Pacific Islands.
- With dragons strengthening China, Japan probably never would have invaded Manchuria, so more of their focus on resources may have gone elsewhere. Perhaps they are an economic and military influence on parts of South America? (I think there is anyway quite a large ethnically Japanese population in Peru?)
- If Italy splintered, I wonder what happens to its colony of Libya? The oil fields there are valuable – perhaps it becomes one of the first purely corporate states, with Standard Oil or the like ‘restoring order’ and then running the place?
- Perhaps control of the Suez canal could likewise have fallen into corporate hands, becoming a valuable point of intrigue as various companies try to get their hands on this most key transportation link.

Jets would have been developed, because of the need and desire to match dragons in the air, and in consideration of the fact that jets were under active development before WWII. I'd say that radar never developed much, and is still in development.

Yes and no. They were anyway, but the development of computers came from other concerns than simply wartime decoding and calculation, so given the invention of the transistor, the business and civilian government applications are large enough that I think it would have developed.



I agree. No prospect of it at this point, because the same pressures weren't there.

Agreed on the dust bowl - the Great Ghost Dance makes a lot of sense there. Agreed also on the rural developments in Canada, but those would be small and beleaguered groups. The various first nations would have been able to grab a lot of the land back with the help of the rewilding that came with the return of magic.

A lot of the impetus behind independence would have been blunted by the advantages of being in a commonwealth which were pulling together in the teeth of a world gone mad. I think that the decolonisation of the '50s and '60s would have been greatly reduced, if it had happened at all. Spain and Portugal alike would have tried to hang on to what they had - the question is how tenable that would have been.
I agree on that front. And Mummy England would have lacked the ability as well as the will to claw Quebec back.
Yes, no question. Japan had gone entirely through the Meiji Restoration at this point, and was taking advantage of the weakness and confusion of Russia at the time.

I don't know that Japan wouldn't have invaded. In fact, dragons would have strengthened Japan at least as much as China (which was very chaotic at the time) and so would magic. I see little reason Japan wouldn't have tried to attack a weaker China at the time.
I would go with the corporate state idea, but I would have gone with a french one, since the french were quite prominent in North Africa at the time.

Egypt was effectively a client state of a combination of the British and Ottoman empires at the time, and post-WWI the Ottoman empire was effectively torn apart by internal strains. I would bet on an english chartered company getting that job.

Africa would be a complete mess, but a hideously dangerous mess. The caribbean might actually be something of a free zone, because while large parts of it are colonised (and still are today), the enforcement would likely be very relaxed.

Clarence had had just about enough.

He had listened to the purring whispers of Cat since the earliest days of his adolescence, and gained much. Then this silver-tongued bastard had persuaded him to join the research laboratories of Andalene Cosmetics, hoping for some sort of infinite stream of magical face creams or other fripperies.

The first days were fine. After the fashion of a cat, he had poked and peered, sniffed and inspected, but gradually, day after day, Witherspoon had become an increasingly greater pain. "Why is Brylcreem still on the market? Why haven't we destroyed them? What have you done that's worth your salary, Clarence?"

Now Witherspoon came striding into the lab with a forehead like a thundercloud, and an expense report in his hand. Some clerk somewhere had misfiled it, but now Witherspoon was shoving it in Clarence's face and roaring about fraud. Clarence backed away, and again, and again, until his back was hard against the lab bench, and Witherspoon advanced step by step, shouting while the lab techs desperately left on any pretext or buried their faces in microscopes.

In the back of his head Clarence heard the rising snarl, and at first he tried to bury it, but finally the snarl turned into the feral scream of a cat defending her litter, and Clarence welcomed her into his body.

It was a blur, how his claws sank into Witherspoon's face, shredding flesh from bone, splitting eyes in their sockets. It was a blur, how his fangs rent Witherspoon's throat, guided not by eyesight but the feel of his whiskers, and then it was a blur as he dove over the bench and out of the wide french doors of the lab, across the trimmed lawns and into the streets.

Goodbye, career. Goodbye, normal life. Clarence listened for Cat, and heard the grumbling growl of anger still rumbling through his head. Cat was ready for Clarence to follow, and find a new den.

Alexander was a strange old man. The stories about him suggested he used to be a nobleman in the old Russia, but then he might just as easily have been a nobody who wove nonsense about himself. Weaving stories was certainly something he did all the time. Decades away from the old country had softened his accent out, but he still wore a precisely waxed moustache and van dyke beard.

Right now, Alexander was waving a strip of card with holes in it. "This is your key. This key will unlock the combination on the bomber's computer until the end of this week, when they change it. Friday evening, six is when they change it. To the left of that is a tape. You replace that tape with this one here." He slapped a reel of tape sitting on the desk.

Harvey lifted a hand. "Yeah, we got that. That part isn't the problem. Why are we being paid in french oil company scrip? What's the problem with pounds, or even francs?"

Alexander shrugged. "You don't want job, you don't need job. Walk out, and I speak with someone else." He plonked the card onto the tape and walked back around his desk to his chair. "Maybe someone who understands modern miracle of money changing, eh?"

Harvey was about to speak again, but he felt Jack's hand on his shoulder. Mild in tone, impeccably turned out, Jack smiled. "Of course, we'd love to do the job for you, Alex old friend. But we'd just feel better about it if the money were in a more readily changed form. I read the newspaper this morning, and the scrip in question has tumbled on the official markets, and tumbled far further in the black markets. If it's oil company scrip you have, how about offering us instead the equivalent in refined diesel? That always has a market somewhere, and is so much less politically volatile."

"All right, boys, grab your coffee mugs and settle down. We have here Inspector Van Houten here to help us with policing in cases where magic may be involved. The inspector is a licensed magician with a degree from Yale who now works with the FBI, so we'll be getting the best, latest information.

"All yours, Inspector."

"Thank you, sheriff. Could someone get the lights for the slide projector? Thanks.

"Fellows, magic has changed the world, and nobody knows that better than I do, but the first thing you all have to remember is that while magic might bend the rules from time to time, the basic rules you all know do apply. A gun is a gun, a shiv is a shiv and murder is still murder. The sun rose this morning and kidnapping was illegal, and it'll still be illegal tonight. What's more, you all know as well as I do from experience in the street that most crooks are dumb as a bag of hammers. It's a thug too stupid to hold down a proper job who's holding up little old ladies, not some kind of criminal genius, and nine times out of ten those thugs know less than nothing about magic. So what I'm saying is that most of your jobs haven't changed at all.

"Another thing that hasn't changed one bit is basic police work. Taking statements. Reporting cases. A big mistake I often see is officers on the street, deciding to drop everything the moment someone makes a claim of magic - or just discounting every report because it doesn't make sense. Take the statement, just as people say it. It might not make sense to you at the time, but with the right help, detectives can make sense of it. What they need from you is a solid report.

"Collection of evidence is one thing that has changed a little. Most of the time, as I said, a shiv is a shiv, and if you see a trail of blood on the floor, you treat that just the same as always. However, if you have any reason to believe that something looks like magic - and you have to trust your instincts here - be careful of touching things. Think of it as risking fingerprints. Write up a precise description. If you have a camera, take a picture, or mark the area with chalk so that it's clear for a forensic team, but one of the most valuable forensic tools we have is the magical signature of things and that can fade with every time you touch something. So just bear that in mind.

"I have run into quite a few officers, and they're an asset to the force, who have the knack to see and talk to spirits. If you have the talent, great, but I want to add a warning: take a spirit's report, by all means, but you have to understand that while it's useful to you and me to piece things together, it's not admissable in court, and for some very good reasons. Sometimes anybody can talk to a spirit, but often times not everyone can, and top of the list of concerns is that spirits lie, a lot, and we have no real way of holding them to anything.

"On the other hand, just because they tell lies is no reason not to listen to them, so if a spirit does talk to you, the best thing you can do is ask the spirit to point you at some evidence. If you think a thief hid some jewels, maybe the spirit can show you where. A lot of bad boys who thought they got away with it are breaking rocks now because a spirit told the tale.

"Turning to magic for a moment, the fact is, you won't see much of it. Pretty crazy, but it's true. Think about it; the world has guns and a lot of people have them but outside of hunting season how often do you run into gunfire? Not a lot, huh? Well, way fewer people can use magic than have a gun, and most of them obey the law. I know I do.

"Another big factor is that magic is expensive. So let's say we have a crook, who wants to sneak into a warehouse unseen. Magic can help him do that, sure. Then he comes to a magician like me, and asks for the spell. Your typical magician will throw him out, but maybe the magician is less thoughtful, or less scrupulous, and quotes him a price. For five hundred dollars, he could be invisible all day? Your crook is going to go straight home and kick the dog, not pay five hundred dollars.

"So who uses magic? In a word, organised crime. The mafia have the will, the deep pockets and the long reach to turn magic to evil uses. Another thing you sometimes see is a backwoods kid who has talent, but no common sense but usually it's only a matter of time before the mafia reel them in. Otherwise, chances are some crooks begged or threatened or hoodwinked a magician into doing something for them, and the magician will, when approached, tell you exactly who bought what when. So don't jump to conclusions until and unless you find yourself being stonewalled.

"So let's say you have a case where you're sure magic is involved. Eyewitness reports tell you the same crazy story, maybe something is weird about the crime scene, it all just points in one direction. What do you do?

"The first thing is, you do your job. Just like I said before, it's down to basic police work. The next thing is, you let the sheriff know. I believe the sheriff is on the lookout for a detective who knows the score, but until then, the sheriff has my number. I will send help, or even come down myself. We have a whole team just waiting to bring miscreants to justice."

Behold the power of thread necro!

I've been working on this madness, and I'm starting to pull together a basic ruleset.

Anyone interested in playtesting?

I've also shamefully abused wikipedia to build a timeline and plausible outcomes, so editorial comment and frightful wrangling welcome.

Anyone?