Re: The contrivance of worlds

James A. Donald <jamesd@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sat, 07 Jun 2008 12:30:03 -0700, David Friedman
What I feel one ought to do, however, in either case
is try to make the picture consistent. That's why my
one serious reservation about _Salamander_ is my
failure to work out, in a fashion I myself find
convincing, just what the effect on social and
political structures of the sort of magery I describe
would be.

Seems to me that in a society with magic, where some
people are for whatever reason a lot more capable of
mighty spells than others, one is apt to wind up with
sorcerer king regimes being fairly common - not the only
possible form of social order, but common enough. Also

I have something like that almost by accident. Low-level magic is very
common. The land is mostly inhabited, and is notionally one kingdom, but
transport and travel is difficult enough that it consists mostly of very
small towns and villages (population a few hundred to, in the largest, a
few thousand) which are largely autononmous.

One whole region consists of "The Wizard Lands" which is a region of
villages each ruled by a single wizard.

Anyone powerful enough to rule a village (against opposition from less
powerful wizards) is encouraged to emigrate to the wizard lands, and
either oust an existing wizard, or start a new village. (Which means
being "nice" enough to poach villagers to come and settle from
surrounding villages.)

Anyone powerful enough, and with ambition enough, to try and rule more
than a village, or to do so outside "The Wizard Lands" tends to find a
coalition quickly forming to render him harmless (by removing his head,
if he doesn't get the hint sooner).

But mostly, anyone more powerful than the wizards of the wizard lands
tends to lose interest in ruling human kingdoms. Chances are that they
won't even have any human servants. (They'll have plenty of non-human
servants, if they want them.)

"All power corrupts; absolute power makes you very strange" in this
world. I'm trying to think whether they'd recognise somebody as being
insane: probably, after a lot of time ruling out more obvious problems
like demonic[*] possession, but insanity wouldn't be the first thing
they'd think of to explain insane behaviour.

I don't think Graham's question has occurred to me: the world has to be
consistent, and part of that is making the world fit the existence of
magic. Is it the most probable kind of world, given that kind of magic?

I dunno. How can you tell? Is *our* world at all probable?

Jonathan
[*] I use the term "demon" loosely - it's not a dualistic universe with
Good and Evil. There are many Powers, some benign, some less so, and a
foolish wizard may become controlled by a Lesser Power if he/she is
careless or unlucky.
.

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