Alicornutopia

Here be dragons. Lots of them.

Kelovea is a fairly high-magic fantasy world which has approximately 1 dragon for every 200 thousand people. To put this into context, medieval France, with a population of 17 million, would have around 85 dragons. Medieval Britain, 25 dragons. Medieval London has a dragon all to itself. Modern-day New York City would have 40.

Adult dragons range in size from "large dog" to "large elephant". They have four legs, two wings, and come in a whole rainbow of colours. Baby dragons hatch from eggs that range from 6 inches to three or four feet long. A single egg is laid at any one time, or very rarely two. Dragons reach full adulthood at the age of 100, and do not die of old age. They keep growing, but much slower than they did as infants, for the rest of their lives. The oldest and largest dragon on record was almost two thousand years old and the size of a brontosaurus when he died of starvation.

Dragons are sapient, have roughly human-like intelligence with slightly higher variance, and are capable of speech. They do not have opposable thumbs, but make up for this with minor telekinetic abilities which function exclusively on items which are part of their hoard. Although dragons cannot shapeshift, and neither can most other sapient species in Kelovea, interspecies relationships still occur, and occasionally result in half-dragon children. Half-dragons are exactly like dragons, but skewed towards the smaller end of the size range - although this may be selection bias - and with slightly more prosocial tendencies.

Hoards
Dragons have one main psychological difference from humans: the primary lens through which they view the world is one of possession and competition, not of cooperation. A dragon divides the world into MINE, unimportant, and THREAT, with other dragons typically falling into the THREAT category. Humans, for most dragons, are classified as "unimportant" unless they do something to earn consideration for one of the other categories.

Dragons are compulsive hoarders. Most dragons hoard one particular thing, or category of thing, but what they fixate on varies wildly from one to the next. The methods, however, are mostly consistent. The typical dragon keeps their hoard in a lair, somewhere they can guard and defend, and nests in the centre of it. This lair might be a remote cave in the mountains, a washed-up shipwreck on a beach, or a basement in a city. Some dragons stay in or near this lair the majority of the time, but some roam widely. As well as being able to telekinetically manipulate any item in their hoard within line of site, they can also summon any item from their hoard at any distance, making theft almost impossible.

Adding an item to one's hoard is a magical action, and belonging to a dragon's hoard is a magical property. A single object cannot be hoarded by more than one dragon unless both agree to share it, and are genuinely happy to do so. Hoards can include animals, people, and even other dragons. The typical case of this is a baby dragon counting as part of its mother's hoard.

Unless anyone has questions, the next segment will be on the magic system.

What happens if two dragons share a thing, and then one of them is no longer genuinely happy with the arrangement?

I take it from the part where theft is impossible that a dragon can’t magically claim something that is already part of another dragon’s hoard? Can a dragon or human stop being part of a hoard except by killing the dragon who has them?

DanielH wrote:What happens if two dragons share a thing, and then one of them is no longer genuinely happy with the arrangement?

...good question. I think they would both be aware of this happening, and the item would flicker between their hoards until one of them won the contest of wills. It would be down to individual dragon psychology whether they preferred to let it go or fight for it.

I take it from the part where theft is impossible that a dragon can’t magically claim something that is already part of another dragon’s hoard? Can a dragon or human stop being part of a hoard except by killing the dragon who has them?

If an item is already part of a dragon's hoard, no other dragon can claim it without the first dragon's consent. A sapient creature can stop being part of a dragon's hoard if they really want to, and they can also resist attempts to summon them, but both of those things involve, essentially, a contest of wills with the dragon, for reasons that will be explained when I get to the magic system.

This will probably be covered in the magic system discussion, but:

- what are the constraints on things-dragons-can-claim?
-- presumably the first dragon to exist can't just wake up one morning and look out on the planet and say "ah, yes, this is Part Of My Hoard."
-- can they claim things from a distance?
-- can they claim things which are in the possession of someone else?
-- can they claim a part of an object?
-- can they claim part of a person?
-- can they get around the contest of wills with a sapient by, say, claiming the sapient's clothing, and summoning that over, dragging the sapient along?
-- can they go around claiming every random rock and chunk of dirt and plant in the vicinity of their lair, so that they have telekinetic control over their entire surroundings?
-- can they use the claiming to deduce information ("I claim the one of these teapots that belongs to Fred, whichever that is")?
-- can they claim something they can't see?
-- can they claim something if they're not sure whether it exists or not ("I claim the rabbit in that hat, if there is a rabbit in that hat")?
-- can they claim something if they're mistaken about some of its properties? ("I claim that ferret." "actually, that's a weasel."/"I claim that horse." "actually, that's two guys in a horse costume")

- does a claimed object remain claimed if it's destroyed beyond any resemblance to the original object?
-- if a dragon claims a loaf of bread, and someone eats the loaf of bread, does the dragon then have a claim to some parts of that person?
-- what if a dragon claims a liquid or a gas, which then mixes/dissipates?

- is it typical for adult dragons to maintain a claim on themselves?
-- I'm imagining some kind of coming-of-age ceremony in which the mother relinquishes her claim and the newly adult dragon claims himself.
-- in what non-parental situations might a dragon have a claim on another dragon?
--- a pair of mated (/married?) dragons with claims on each other?
---- as a Romantic Thing?
---- as an "I don't trust you as far as I could throw you but I want babies so let's have mutual claims while we're arranging for that to happen as some kind of safeguard against THREAT" thing?

Moriwen wrote:This will probably be covered in the magic system discussion, but:

- what are the constraints on things-dragons-can-claim?

It will indeed be covered, because the reason dragons can claim things, and the entire mechanism of hoarding and claims, is a specialized usage of the magic system. Which I might as well attempt to explain at this point.

The mechanism of claiming a thing magically is a lot less hackable than you're imagining. It isn't really a decision a dragon makes, or a mental action in itself, so much as a result of, or an outgrowth of, the thing being part of their hoard. It's a consequence of emotional investment in the thing and a genuine conviction that the thing belongs to them. I'll deal with the examples you gave in a separate post, but for now I'll try to explain why and how this works.

Basically, the way one does magic in Kelovea is by convincing the universe that things should happen. You form a detailed, accurate mental image of how the world should look, and hold in your mind the utter conviction that it will be so. Dragons can summon and perform telekinesis on things that are THEIRS because it becomes absolutely unthinkable that THEIR things would be anything other than absolutely obedient to their will. The state of mind which enables a dragon to summon something is approximately "this thing is Mine, it is right for it to be in my hand and wrong for it to be anywhere else", felt with sufficient conviction that you convince the universe. So, in essence, possessing the magical property of claimed-by-a-dragon is a consequence, not a cause, of actually belonging to said dragon.

It is easier to convince the universe of things which other people have successfully convinced it of in the past with the same results. It is harder to convince the universe that something which has previously worked one way should work a different way. Human - and dragon - psychology also benefits from this, because it's easier to convince yourself that a spell you're casting will work if you just saw your teacher do it right in front of you. Because of this, several magical traditions have grown up and become codified on top of the basic framework. Every sapient species, due to quirks in their underlying psychology, has stumbled on different applications of magic, which are now believed to be inborn racial traits. For dragons, this is the set of abilities surrounding their hoards.

(The thing that allows dragons to fly and breathe fire may or may not be magic as well, but, of course, most people just think it's The Way Dragons Are - so if it is magic, it's not likely to stop working any time soon.)

I haven't figured out what the other racial magic traditions are yet, or even what races there are other than humans and dragons, but I do know that there's a wizarding tradition of ritual magic which is considered - and therefore is - usable by anyone of any race. Rather than relying on "I am a dragon and dragons can do this, therefore I can do this", it makes use of reproducible rituals to get the mindset of "if I perform this set of actions, I can get this result".

I am sure this is an extremely hackable magic system, so here is your challenge. From a starting knowledge base of "here is what dragon magic can do, here is what other species can do, here are three very different varieties of wizard magic that can all do mostly-but-not-quite the same set of things...": how might a glowfic character plausibly figure out the underlying basis of the magic, and then hack it to gain godlike power? (I'll give you a hint: the first part is the hard one.) Please ask me questions if you need or would like more detail, it'll help me worldbuild.

This magic system made this setting go from "oh nifty" to "ooooh yes do want do want!!!!" in my head.

How does the universe handle conflicting intuitions? Like, for something where there isn't a status quo - I guess the most obvious example is the dragon contest of wills, is it always like this? What does it look like from the outside if people from different magical traditions are trying to do different things to the same target, like that?

Do humans have any species magic or are they The Magicless Species as usual?

Can people with sufficient conviction of something make it become true - like, say, could someone with vivid hallucinations cause them to exist, could a transgender person transition (and as an extension of that, could Sadde gendershift)...

Has there ever been an example of someone from a species learning the magic from another species?

How would you characterise the difference between this and Momentum magic, beyond the whole "spend too long without doing shit and you're fucked" thing?

How could a glowfic character learn how the system works?

My first thought is “be Glass or somebody else with magic-sensing abilities”. Failing that, it’s a lot harder, but I can see a path to the knowledge if different magic traditions would expect different results from the same ritual.

pedromvilar wrote:This magic system made this setting go from "oh nifty" to "ooooh yes do want do want!!!!" in my head.

:D

How does the universe handle conflicting intuitions? Like, for something where there isn't a status quo - I guess the most obvious example is the dragon contest of wills, is it always like this? What does it look like from the outside if people from different magical traditions are trying to do different things to the same target, like that?

One of the major limiting factors on this magic system is the need for precedent. If there's a case with no precedent, or where there are two competing precedents, it gets much harder to convince the universe even when you factor out the lack of a confidence boost that you'd get from knowing it can be done. If it's a situation where two minds are competing, the one with greater willpower wins.

If it's just one person trying to do a new thing, their likelihood of success depends on (a) their confidence, and their best guess of how justified their confidence is (which will, naturally, scale with experience and general magical ability), (b) their willpower and the strength and clarity of their imagination, (c) the expectations of any witnesses (yes, this means one could do Glam-style tricks where the important thing is to convince your audience that it will work), and (d) a vague intuitive "difficulty" of the magic thing based on how likely a random person off the street would be to agree that it was possible.

Do humans have any species magic or are they The Magicless Species as usual?

I don't want them to be The Magicless Species, and I don't want to cop out by giving them unusual aptitude for wizardry or something either. I'm still thinking about what to give them, though, and it'll depend a lot on what other species I end up adding because that'll determine humanity's comparative advantage.

Can people with sufficient conviction of something make it become true - like, say, could someone with vivid hallucinations cause them to exist, could a transgender person transition (and as an extension of that, could Sadde gendershift)...

The first person who was sufficiently strong-willed to do this would make it easier for others to do so in future. In general, people can't do magic just by spontaneously wanting something real hard, because the universe has thousands of years of precedent for that not happening, from all the millions of people who wanted something real bad but didn't think they were doing magic and didn't expect anything to change. What you can do is invent a ritual, because rituals are something people only do if they're trying to do magic, so the precedent there is "people who want something real bad, and do the correct ritual to get it, can usually do the thing".

Has there ever been an example of someone from a species learning the magic from another species?

Possibly, but it's not widely known or the status quo would have collapsed. They would have to have extraordinarily strong willpower and conviction, not only to defy their own expectation that it was impossible, but also to convince the universe to break precedent for them. Of course, if someone theorized that species magic was a social construct, and believed that they could do it on those grounds, it would be easier to convince themself and therefore the universe.

How would you characterise the difference between this and Momentum magic, beyond the whole "spend too long without doing shit and you're fucked" thing?

I don't know much about Momentum magic other than the stated aspect.

And now it is time for Examples!

Moriwen wrote:what are the constraints on things-dragons-can-claim?
-- presumably the first dragon to exist can't just wake up one morning and look out on the planet and say "ah, yes, this is Part Of My Hoard."

Nope, mostly because (a) they can't actually hold a mental image of the whole world in their head in sufficient detail for it to count, and (b) there are plenty of other people out there who have opinions on who the world belongs to and it is Not Random Dragon #1

-- can they claim things from a distance?

Yes, but only if they've interacted with the thing before. A thing is claimed at the point where a dragon goes from thinking about it as "thing I want" to "thing that is MINE".

-- can they claim things which are in the possession of someone else?

Only if the dragon believes that their claim on the thing is stronger than the other person's claim despite the other person physically having it, which is usually only possible if the dragon actually had it first and the other person has taken it from them.

-- can they claim a part of an object?

I don't want to give this one a hard no because there are probably situations in which the boundaries between objects are unclear and it is the case that one part belongs to a dragon but another part does not.

-- can they claim part of a person?

Not without seriously weird circumstances, see above. An example I can think of for this one is that they could probably claim someone's prosthetic leg without claiming the person as a whole. This would, of course, be contested.

-- can they get around the contest of wills with a sapient by, say, claiming the sapient's clothing, and summoning that over, dragging the sapient along?

(a) they'd have to genuinely believe their claim on the person's clothing was stronger than that of the person currently wearing it for this to even work, and (b) I was imagining the summoning as "thing teleports to your location" rather than an Accio.

-- can they go around claiming every random rock and chunk of dirt and plant in the vicinity of their lair, so that they have telekinetic control over their entire surroundings?

Only with sufficient emotional investment in the random rocks and dirt. Some dragons probably do this, most don't bother. Most dragons will have a claim on their lair itself.

-- can they use the claiming to deduce information ("I claim the one of these teapots that belongs to Fred, whichever that is")?

The answer to this is probably obvious given magic system information. Just for the sake of clarity, no. It acts on your information about the world.

-- can they claim something they can't see?

Yes, if they can picture it with sufficient detail and accuracy. Surroundings aren't important. Think of it like the amount of information an angel would need to know about a thing to change it, or a fairy would need to move it.

-- can they claim something if they're not sure whether it exists or not ("I claim the rabbit in that hat, if there is a rabbit in that hat")?

...if I say "no" a Miles will come along and prove me wrong, so I will instead say "not unless you are exceptionally good at managing your expectations about the world such that you can convince yourself not only that a rabbit exists but that it is YOUR rabbit, on the basis of little to no evidence of either".

-- can they claim something if they're mistaken about some of its properties? ("I claim that ferret." "actually, that's a weasel."/"I claim that horse." "actually, that's two guys in a horse costume")

The typical dragon's response to "actually, that's a weasel" would be "eh, same difference". The difference between a ferret and a weasel is not big enough to shake the dragon's conviction that they understand the thing they are claiming. The second example would probably fail for several reasons: (a) if you haven't noticed the "horse" is actually a costume, you haven't studied it in enough detail, and (b) the people inside the costume presumably do not wish to belong to a dragon.

- does a claimed object remain claimed if it's destroyed beyond any resemblance to the original object?
-- if a dragon claims a loaf of bread, and someone eats the loaf of bread, does the dragon then have a claim to some parts of that person?

No. They will, however, be pissed off at the person.

-- what if a dragon claims a liquid or a gas, which then mixes/dissipates?

Case-by-case. It probably depends a lot on the dragon's level of scientific knowledge.

- is it typical for adult dragons to maintain a claim on themselves?
-- I'm imagining some kind of coming-of-age ceremony in which the mother relinquishes her claim and the newly adult dragon claims himself.

Every sapient has a "claim" on themself by default, in addition to any claim which might be made on them by a dragon. This is why claiming a sapient bears more resemblance to sharing with another dragon than to claiming an inanimate object. The coming-of-age thing would just be the newly adult dragon asserting that they no longer wish to belong to their mother. The difference between this and a standard contest of wills is that your own claim on yourself trumps everyone else's by default. Free will has precedent.

-- in what non-parental situations might a dragon have a claim on another dragon?
--- a pair of mated (/married?) dragons with claims on each other?
---- as a Romantic Thing?

This is the use case I was imagining, yes. I have no idea if/how dragons do marriage, but I can see at least some of them drawing a line between the two states at the point where you have claimed each other.

---- as an "I don't trust you as far as I could throw you but I want babies so let's have mutual claims while we're arranging for that to happen as some kind of safeguard against THREAT" thing?

Probably not, for hard-to-articulate reasons which mostly revolve around how difficult it is to simultaneously hold the beliefs that someone is a threat to you and that they nevertheless belong to you. Also the fact that if you don't trust someone you probably don't conceive of yourself as belonging to them, and, as mentioned above, the home team always wins.

Ooooh. Like Pedro I am suddenly even further intrigued by this.

Can bystanders' expectations trump one's own expectations? Like, if someone really sucked at magic, and so was expecting their ritual to fail, but was doing a really great job of passing themself off as great at magic, such that a whole crowd watching totally expected the ritual to succeed, could the ritual succeed?

Actually, is magic even known to involve mental states, or are people under the impression that anyone who correctly completes a purely mechanical ritual will succeed at performing wizarding magic? (Like, does someone trying to do a wizarding ritual incant something and burn herbs and focus really hard on the desired result, and people figure if your concentration is broken or you don't concentrate hard enough the ritual fails -- or does someone doing a wizarding ritual just chant the words and burn the herbs, and as long as they pronounce everything correctly and use the right herbs, people would expect them to succeed?)

Along the lines of Pedro's question -- might there be, for instance, an established phenomenon of schizophrenic people actually causing disembodied voices which other people can hear too (because there have over time been a lot of schizophrenic people believing really hard in voices to set the precedent that they can actually cause those voices, and at this point "surrounded by mysterious disembodied voices" is a recognized symptom of schizophrenia)?

I'd vaguely expect the magical mechanism here to mean that lots of little superstitions are in fact at least mildly effective -- breaking a mirror really does bring bad luck, knocking on wood really does avert it, burying a statue upside-down really does help you sell your house -- in a way that doesn't necessarily associate with any particular magical tradition, because people will come up with this stuff spontaneously and convince themselves of it and spread it and then it will perpetuate itself because it really does work.

Does mind-affecting magic exist? Could you use that to hack the system, once you're aware of how it works, by doing mind-affecting magic on a consenting assistant to get them into a state of strongly-expecting-things-to-work?