(I wasn't sure which forum to put this post in. Because it's about lore/worldbuilding, I chose this one instead of Homebrew. If this forum is the wrong one, please move it to the appropriate forum.)
I have this idea that's been bouncing around my head for the past few weeks, and I'm trying to find a way to make it work. Since I haven't completely found a way to make it work yet, I thought I would post the ideas I've had so far here and see if anyone has anything to add/change about it. I currently have no idea if this is even possible to make work for D&D or turn it into a playable setting. So, please, if you find the idea at all intriguing or worth developing, give feedback. Anything constructive helps. This thread is mostly a way for me to start getting some of my ideas down and to get feedback to see if I can find a way to make it work. And if this doesn't work out, it's still a fun thought experiment. Now that I've rambled on for long enough, let's get to what the idea is.
The idea is a world where magic has been around forever, and life on the planet evolved to use it. Life didn't just evolve to use it, but it drove the evolution of life on the planet and shaped it to be very different from any other D&D setting. Basically, all life in this world would have access to some kind of magic, almost all non-magical organisms were quickly out-competed by those with access to magic. Here are some of the assumptions of the setting that could help "make this work".
Assumption #1: Gods didn't create life - In this setting, I want the gods (if they exist) to not be the source of life. Life would originally evolve much like scientists believe it did in the real world, starting as single-celled prokaryotes (bacteria and the like), but eventually mutating into eukaryotic organisms like plants, fungi, and animals. Gods would not exist in the world until sentient life evolves millions/billions of years later. This sentient life would then use the power of faith/belief to cause the gods to form. I don't want gods or other powerful entities to shape life in this world. I want it to evolve "naturally", with typical environmental drives shaping life, not an in-world supreme being. So, either the gods came into existence through the worship of sentient creatures, or they never existed in the first place.
Assumption #2: The World is Earth-like - The world is not exactly like Earth, the continents, climate, and other aspects of the world would be different, but the world should be similar to Earth because our knowledge of evolution is based on how it happened on Earth. The oceans are made of water, life is based on carbon, plate tectonics exist, the atmosphere is mostly oxygen and nitrogen, and there's something like an ozone layer/magnetic field protecting life from harmful radiation, most of the minerals/elements in the planet are similar to Earth's, etc. Also, magic evolved after the main kingdoms of life did, because this would be basically impossible otherwise. This explains why the atmosphere is similar to Earth's, and helps us determine which types of magic would be most helpful to the different kingdoms of life.
Assumption #3: Cellular Magic - Magic is accessed through organelles similar to mitochondria/chloroplasts that create minor magical effects. These "magic organelles" will have been a type of single-cellular life that was absorbed by another single-celled organism, like how eukaryotes first evolved. My current idea is that there are 8 types of these magic organelles, one for every school of magic, and they somehow channel minor effects that help these magic eukaryotes survive/thrive. Here are my current ideas for how these schools of magic could be used for single-celled organisms:
Abjuration - Organisms that create temporary forcefields around their cells to protect them from extreme environmental effects or attacks from other life. These organisms are prey, and the race to develop better magical protections is driven by the predator organisms (primarily evocation, but also necromancy and divination) getting more effective at hunting them.
Conjuration- Organisms that teleport short distances in response to hazards or attacks. Or they could teleport an attacking organism short distances away.
Divination - Organisms that have magical sensors that allow them to avoid hazards and find prey more easily. Some types of single-celled organisms have primitive light sensors. These organelles would allow for a magical, more efficient equivalent, possibly allowing primitive darkvision, blindsight, or even truesight.
Enchantment - Organisms that can temporarily influence the behavior of other organisms. In a more powerful form, maybe they could even form colonies of "mind-controlled" organisms controlled by an enchantment-based hivemind, similar to siphonophores, an "animal" that is actually formed from a colony of different organisms.
Evocation - Organisms that can to shoot a small burst of energy (maybe high-energy photons or electric shocks) that can rupture other cells and allow them to consume their prey. Creatures that evolved to use abjuration magic can use their magic to survive these attacks, but evolution makes evocation gradually more effective at hunting these creatures. Because these are primarily predators, predatory animals will often specialize in this magic.
Illusion - Organisms that can make themselves invisible and/or create illusory copies of themselves to avoid being consumed. Their main predators are divination-based organisms, which causes them to evolve better illusion magic that competes with the divination abilities of their predators.
Necromancy - I'm unsure of what these will do. Maybe organisms that can temporarily reanimate dead organisms to protect them from attackers/hunting prey? Or multicellular versions can use their magic to keep their dead cells operating temporarily? Or they're undead predators/diseases that can kill and absorb the cells of their prey into their cellular hordes, like a bacterial/fungal infection? Or something related to souls (maybe being stored in the magic organelles, allowing necromancy organisms to manipulate/absorb their powers)? Taking inspiration from how necromancy works in the Locked Tomb series might work.
Transmutation - This I'm also unsure of. Transmutation is so diverse that it could do a lot of things. This would include shape-shifting. Maybe some kind of slime-mold-like creature that can use transmutation magic to change its normally squishy outside into a hard substance to protect it? Or allow it to adapt to a variety of environments? I'm currently thinking that plant-like or fungoid organisms might fit best under this category, transforming one resource into something they can get energy from.
I want to restrict organisms mostly to one school of magic because that helps with the classification and conceptualizing of the powers and ways they could evolve. And having organisms originally with access to multiple/all schools of magic would probably be too complicated and powerful to think of the consequences of them. Unless all types of organisms have at least some power over every school of magic and just focus on one.
Okay, those are the assumptions I want the world to work under. I have a few other ideas, but I haven't decided on anything yet and they aren't essential to this world. Here are some of them:
Magic Fossil Fuels- The magical "fuel" found in their magical organelles fades after death (which is why other creatures eat it, unless it's somehow trapped (fossilization as the main example). This will probably be called "mana" or "aether", because everyone knows the terms. If creatures of the same school of magic die in huge amounts and their power isn't consumed by other organisms, it can become trapped underground and become magical fossil fuels. This fossil fuel can later be "burned" or harnessed in some way, probably causing an effect dependent on the school of magic it's associated with. If sentient life and civilization evolve enough, this can cause a magical industrial revolution. Maybe "souls" in this world are made of Aether/Mana, so there's a debate on the ethics of using this substance, even if the fossil fuel is made from non-sentient life. Or there could be harmful magical consequences of using too much of this fuel source or being too dependent on it.
No Other Planes of Existence - Either the other planes of existence don't exist at all, or they don't exist while life starts evolving. If they do exist, I probably want them connected to the existence of the gods. Maybe the worship of sentient creatures creates "tulpa/egregore" gods, who then create the planes of existence as their homes? Or they don't exist at all, and the magic system is more simple than other worlds? Or they're just speculative in-world, like how the gods of Eberron aren't confirmed to exist? And I definitely wouldn't want to use the Great Wheel if there are planes of existence.
Almost No Earth Animals - Most animals from Earth do not exist. This will make the setting really hard to develop and play in, but I want it to be unique and follow the logic of D&D's magic system. There aren't any of the PHB races. Almost all animals from the real world never evolved, as magic fueled evolution. There might be some animals that share similarities with real animals, especially in the oceans, but I want to try my hardest to keep things unique. I don't know if this is possible or feasible. But I'd like to try. If I do include real-world animals, it will be the more "alien" and old ones, like sea jellies, sponges/corals, and primordial fish, cephalopods, and arthropods. At the latest, I want magic to become a major part of the world around its equivalent of the Cambrian Explosion.
These ideas are more negotiable, especially the last one. Please let me know how what you think about them, and what changes should be made.
This is just the start. As I come up with more ideas and get feedback, I'll add to this. Hopefully, the world will start to come together later and I'll get enough to solidify it into a working concept. If not, at least I tried. Again, if anyone else is at least intrigued by the idea or has a better understanding of evolution than I do, please let me know.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
May I suggest you deep dive "Shadowrun". Some points intersect with yours for larger explanations to the world and cycles. The basic world concept is based on cycles of magic progressing and waning, and depending on the story teller, they like to science it a lot as well. The main game starts about 100 years into the future after the magic cycle started over and people started evolving at the cellular level based on their deep physiological links. Some stayed human, others turned into dwarves, trolls, orcs, elves. It is just an interesting concept is my main point.
The other point I would make is to make that pen and paper game playable, my table heavily adopted AD&D 2E rules for much of the game dynamics. We never were able to properly figure out how to do combat on the internet fully, but everything else was very transferable. In other words, it shouldn't be hard to adapt most things as long as your table feels that everything is working and they agree.
The fossil fuel magic is interesting. Might I suggest elemental attraction as the basis of harnessing it? If a group of water based organisms die and their Aether gets trapped in their fossils, then using that type of magic that is akin to their life essence in the area could draw it, or at least be felt by the mage harnessing that form of magic. It would be interesting to come up with a formula of how different organisms regenerate their Aether, and how it flows within a system.
How do you plan on the generation of magic? I see the schools, and you talk about using the energy cells of animals to explain the phenomena but how do they interact with the schools. You are suggesting schools that dictate the purpose of the magic, but how do cells determine a creatures motive? Do certain organisms produce different kinds of Mitochondrion that have certain properties due to their environment, or due to their physiological makeup? Feel free to fill in for me, I feel like you were pretty clear, but sometimes I don't do the best job of explaining myself.
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I am not sure what my Spirit Animal is. But whatever that thing is, I am pretty sure it has rabies!
Amazing idea, I like it a lot. A long reply, but I hope it helps.
Here are some ideas for reflection:
Assumption #1: Gods didn't create life
I like this. I strongly recommend that despite of all the lore differences, you still make room for all DnD classes and abilities for balance reasons. If you need to, you can reskin them. But make room for clerics, warlocks etc.
I recommend having living gods in a DnD setting just to give the players more options.
The gods could be alien lifeforms from a distant world where magic or tech evolved to godlike proportions and some of the fittest survived to become intergalactic beings.
Gods could be born as a result of random cosmic events like when a giant star bumps into a magical force etc.
Mortals may have accidentally or purposefully created gods with ancient magic/tech. Then the gods have procreated and evolved too.
Magical monsters and evil elder creatures/gods/warlock patrons could be born from wicked deeds. The more evil the deed is, the more wicked the spawn is. So a genocide could result in the birth of a foul god-like monster. You could link this to evolution too, like normal beasts become awfully magically mutated as a result of bad deeds.
And since evolution is so random, these could all be simultaneously true in the same setting.
Assumption #2: The World is Earth-like
I recommend that you still leave yourself some room for "magic did it" or "a powerful being did it". The scientific approach is great and I've used it too. Just build in some fantasy leeway for yourself so that you don't end up trapped in your own creation and losing your inspiration under too much workload. I've made this mistake.
Assumption #3: Cellular Magic
Sounds good. I recommend keeping in mind that even if you have detailed knowledge about this, the players don't usually need to or want to know it all. Once again I see a potential trap to end up in and possibly make it rough to DM in. Mostly because in such a detailed system for magic, you have to be super mindful about consistency. So the more mysteries and uncertainties you leave, the less you have to worry about players spotting inconsistensies or flaws in your logic. This can become a major source of stress. Been there too. 😅
Also this idea of yours is great for making this work in DnD. Cause even if practically all beings are magical, they don't need to be capable of spellcasting. So you don't need to change class mechanics etc. Fighters and barbarians are tough and strong because passive Abjuration and Transmutation magic is coursing through their veins.
Magic Fossil Fuels
Sounds goods! Nothing to add.
No Other Planes of Existence
I recommend having more planes of existence. You could reskin them. But I recommend having the core planes like Hell and Astral Plane and Fey Wilds and Etherial Plane etc. because they play such a big role in the game system. You'd have to reskin or remove so many spells and abilities that you're probably going to find it more satisfying to reskin these into the game somehow.
Also aside from these, you could just have planets instead of planes.
One explanation for these core planes is some kind of a wormhole / universe leakage thing. So for example Fey Wilds could be another planet, but it's such a powerfully evolved magical place that its magical shadow covers much of the universe and its creatures and power kind of leak into other planets too. And the Astral Plane and Etherial plane could be some kind of a weird warp space / dark matter things that are everywhere and can be accessed with magic.
Almost No Earth Animals
I advice against this. You already have such a unique and beautiful concept. This will make things very difficult without adding much value. I recommend having all the core species and more. Also normal'ish animals.
This can quickly turn against you. Maximum uniqueness is usually more valuable to the DM than players. Players often want to relate and relax too. They want to understand how things work without having a constant puzzle. If the world is too unique, you risk disorienting the players. If that happens, they end up spending so much energy in keeping up with the differences and understanding their surroundings that the story/campaign becomes secondary.
The whole magical evolution concept is a lot to digest already. I strongly recommend having the classic races etc. as a sort of familiar tether/umbilical cord to hold on to while they explore your amazing setting. 😄
Yeah, if the gods do exist, it will be because of sentient organisms that created the gods through worship. And if they don't exist, Clerics still will because faith = power in D&D.
Assumption #2
I'll give myself some leeway with this, but I mostly want it to adhere to the rules of evolution and how early-Earth worked. Evolution might happen faster in this setting because of magic, most of everything else should be similar. As I said in my post, it would be like the Cambrian Explosion + magic originally.
Assumption #3
Oh, this will just be the backstory of the setting. The players definitely wouldn't need to know all of this (even though some of this was created with the help of one of my players).
The reason I don't want other planes of existence early in the setting is because I don't want to further complicate the process of magical evolution, and the planes of existence are often connected with deities/god-like entities in D&D that would influence how this world evolves. If those planes of existence ever do end up existing, they will be the result of magical evolution, and wouldn't really influence how the world develops.
And I don't want to include typical real world monsters because that would feel cheap and definitely wouldn't be logical. I want this world to be unique, I don't want to use the typical animals and magical monsters. I know this will make my job harder as a DM and worldbuilder, but it wouldn't feel authentic if I just said "yes, humans, wolves, rats, dolphins, and eagles all evolved in the world where magic was being harnessed at a cellular level hundreds of millions of years ago". I want the world to feel cohesive and sensical to how magic works in D&D and evolution works in the real world. Including the "normal" fantasy races and real-world animals would feel like cheating.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
(I wasn't sure which forum to put this post in. Because it's about lore/worldbuilding, I chose this one instead of Homebrew. If this forum is the wrong one, please move it to the appropriate forum.)
I have this idea that's been bouncing around my head for the past few weeks, and I'm trying to find a way to make it work. Since I haven't completely found a way to make it work yet, I thought I would post the ideas I've had so far here and see if anyone has anything to add/change about it. I currently have no idea if this is even possible to make work for D&D or turn it into a playable setting. So, please, if you find the idea at all intriguing or worth developing, give feedback. Anything constructive helps. This thread is mostly a way for me to start getting some of my ideas down and to get feedback to see if I can find a way to make it work. And if this doesn't work out, it's still a fun thought experiment. Now that I've rambled on for long enough, let's get to what the idea is.
The idea is a world where magic has been around forever, and life on the planet evolved to use it. Life didn't just evolve to use it, but it drove the evolution of life on the planet and shaped it to be very different from any other D&D setting. Basically, all life in this world would have access to some kind of magic, almost all non-magical organisms were quickly out-competed by those with access to magic. Here are some of the assumptions of the setting that could help "make this work".
Assumption #1: Gods didn't create life - In this setting, I want the gods (if they exist) to not be the source of life. Life would originally evolve much like scientists believe it did in the real world, starting as single-celled prokaryotes (bacteria and the like), but eventually mutating into eukaryotic organisms like plants, fungi, and animals. Gods would not exist in the world until sentient life evolves millions/billions of years later. This sentient life would then use the power of faith/belief to cause the gods to form. I don't want gods or other powerful entities to shape life in this world. I want it to evolve "naturally", with typical environmental drives shaping life, not an in-world supreme being. So, either the gods came into existence through the worship of sentient creatures, or they never existed in the first place.
Assumption #2: The World is Earth-like - The world is not exactly like Earth, the continents, climate, and other aspects of the world would be different, but the world should be similar to Earth because our knowledge of evolution is based on how it happened on Earth. The oceans are made of water, life is based on carbon, plate tectonics exist, the atmosphere is mostly oxygen and nitrogen, and there's something like an ozone layer/magnetic field protecting life from harmful radiation, most of the minerals/elements in the planet are similar to Earth's, etc. Also, magic evolved after the main kingdoms of life did, because this would be basically impossible otherwise. This explains why the atmosphere is similar to Earth's, and helps us determine which types of magic would be most helpful to the different kingdoms of life.
Assumption #3: Cellular Magic - Magic is accessed through organelles similar to mitochondria/chloroplasts that create minor magical effects. These "magic organelles" will have been a type of single-cellular life that was absorbed by another single-celled organism, like how eukaryotes first evolved. My current idea is that there are 8 types of these magic organelles, one for every school of magic, and they somehow channel minor effects that help these magic eukaryotes survive/thrive. Here are my current ideas for how these schools of magic could be used for single-celled organisms:
Abjuration - Organisms that create temporary forcefields around their cells to protect them from extreme environmental effects or attacks from other life. These organisms are prey, and the race to develop better magical protections is driven by the predator organisms (primarily evocation, but also necromancy and divination) getting more effective at hunting them.
Conjuration- Organisms that teleport short distances in response to hazards or attacks. Or they could teleport an attacking organism short distances away.
Divination - Organisms that have magical sensors that allow them to avoid hazards and find prey more easily. Some types of single-celled organisms have primitive light sensors. These organelles would allow for a magical, more efficient equivalent, possibly allowing primitive darkvision, blindsight, or even truesight.
Enchantment - Organisms that can temporarily influence the behavior of other organisms. In a more powerful form, maybe they could even form colonies of "mind-controlled" organisms controlled by an enchantment-based hivemind, similar to siphonophores, an "animal" that is actually formed from a colony of different organisms.
Evocation - Organisms that can to shoot a small burst of energy (maybe high-energy photons or electric shocks) that can rupture other cells and allow them to consume their prey. Creatures that evolved to use abjuration magic can use their magic to survive these attacks, but evolution makes evocation gradually more effective at hunting these creatures. Because these are primarily predators, predatory animals will often specialize in this magic.
Illusion - Organisms that can make themselves invisible and/or create illusory copies of themselves to avoid being consumed. Their main predators are divination-based organisms, which causes them to evolve better illusion magic that competes with the divination abilities of their predators.
Necromancy - I'm unsure of what these will do. Maybe organisms that can temporarily reanimate dead organisms to protect them from attackers/hunting prey? Or multicellular versions can use their magic to keep their dead cells operating temporarily? Or they're undead predators/diseases that can kill and absorb the cells of their prey into their cellular hordes, like a bacterial/fungal infection? Or something related to souls (maybe being stored in the magic organelles, allowing necromancy organisms to manipulate/absorb their powers)? Taking inspiration from how necromancy works in the Locked Tomb series might work.
Transmutation - This I'm also unsure of. Transmutation is so diverse that it could do a lot of things. This would include shape-shifting. Maybe some kind of slime-mold-like creature that can use transmutation magic to change its normally squishy outside into a hard substance to protect it? Or allow it to adapt to a variety of environments? I'm currently thinking that plant-like or fungoid organisms might fit best under this category, transforming one resource into something they can get energy from.
I want to restrict organisms mostly to one school of magic because that helps with the classification and conceptualizing of the powers and ways they could evolve. And having organisms originally with access to multiple/all schools of magic would probably be too complicated and powerful to think of the consequences of them. Unless all types of organisms have at least some power over every school of magic and just focus on one.
Okay, those are the assumptions I want the world to work under. I have a few other ideas, but I haven't decided on anything yet and they aren't essential to this world. Here are some of them:
Magic Fossil Fuels- The magical "fuel" found in their magical organelles fades after death (which is why other creatures eat it, unless it's somehow trapped (fossilization as the main example). This will probably be called "mana" or "aether", because everyone knows the terms. If creatures of the same school of magic die in huge amounts and their power isn't consumed by other organisms, it can become trapped underground and become magical fossil fuels. This fossil fuel can later be "burned" or harnessed in some way, probably causing an effect dependent on the school of magic it's associated with. If sentient life and civilization evolve enough, this can cause a magical industrial revolution. Maybe "souls" in this world are made of Aether/Mana, so there's a debate on the ethics of using this substance, even if the fossil fuel is made from non-sentient life. Or there could be harmful magical consequences of using too much of this fuel source or being too dependent on it.
No Other Planes of Existence - Either the other planes of existence don't exist at all, or they don't exist while life starts evolving. If they do exist, I probably want them connected to the existence of the gods. Maybe the worship of sentient creatures creates "tulpa/egregore" gods, who then create the planes of existence as their homes? Or they don't exist at all, and the magic system is more simple than other worlds? Or they're just speculative in-world, like how the gods of Eberron aren't confirmed to exist? And I definitely wouldn't want to use the Great Wheel if there are planes of existence.
Almost No Earth Animals - Most animals from Earth do not exist. This will make the setting really hard to develop and play in, but I want it to be unique and follow the logic of D&D's magic system. There aren't any of the PHB races. Almost all animals from the real world never evolved, as magic fueled evolution. There might be some animals that share similarities with real animals, especially in the oceans, but I want to try my hardest to keep things unique. I don't know if this is possible or feasible. But I'd like to try. If I do include real-world animals, it will be the more "alien" and old ones, like sea jellies, sponges/corals, and primordial fish, cephalopods, and arthropods. At the latest, I want magic to become a major part of the world around its equivalent of the Cambrian Explosion.
These ideas are more negotiable, especially the last one. Please let me know how what you think about them, and what changes should be made.
This is just the start. As I come up with more ideas and get feedback, I'll add to this. Hopefully, the world will start to come together later and I'll get enough to solidify it into a working concept. If not, at least I tried. Again, if anyone else is at least intrigued by the idea or has a better understanding of evolution than I do, please let me know.
Ok, first- I hope you have a ton of free time to work out the details of this but good luck with it. Now, for the comments from part of the science section on here. Assumption 1 - this fine with one caveat - the various sentient created “deities/religions are quite likely to have generated their own conflicting creation myths - these conflicts con both be an endless source of adventures and a major clue to the reality of assumption 1 this can potentially wreak havoc on clerics at higher levels as they come to understand the reality (Druids shouldn’t really have a problem with this though).
Assumption2 - this works fine up to the point of magic. We have enough evidence to show that these are the basic requirements for life and evolution as we know it. You might want to include a large satellite like our moon as well as there is significant evidence that it is part of our reason for existence here. Then magic, your probably best with magic being an energy field enveloping the world - perhaps a side effect of the process driving the world’s star so that the magic field envelops the entire star system just as the light energy or solar wind from the star envelopes the entire system. Then it’s there as a source for even the simplest organisms to detect and manipulate in various ways. Assumption 3. - this means you need 8 different types of prokaryotic magic using organisms that can be absorbed into your early eukaryotes. While that works fairly well your next step doesn’t- the more different types you incorporate the better your chances of survival so nearly all eukaryotes should have all 8 organelles - or should have had all 8 at some point n their evolutionary history before specializing in a smaller number. This could be better rigged as all cells have at least 1-2 of each organelle but some species have many more of some than others or have more of some n specific organs (say more divination organelles activated/developed in the eyes of a creature with darkvision than in the eyes of a creature without. Creature armour might represent more expressed abjuration organelles in the skin than in unarmored creatures, etc. sentient creatures have learned/developed various ways to harness these organelles throughout the body by conscious or subconscious alignment much like a ferromagnetic domains in the presence of an electric field creates a magnet far stronger than either the ferromagnetic material or the electric field thus allowing for the creation and casting of effects called spells. Then the individual psychology along with the individual/species abundance of organelles can explain the differences in both species specific traits and professional preferences. As to the various categories of magic:
Abjuration - why does it have to be forcefields - especially temporary ones. Perhaps the organelles improve the concentration of selected materials to provide greater bone/chitin/etc density, or if fields perhaps the more organelles the stronger the permanent field holding the cells of the skin (etc) together.
Conjuration - instead of focusing on teleports think about the broader meaning - bringing things into existence that weren’t there before so most of the create and wall spells become conjugations ( yes your going to have to rethink the class of many spells - so what your redoing nearly everything anyway).
Divination - I think your on target here.
Evocation - this probably gets reduced to directed energy/force weapons/attacks everything else like that should probably be conjurations.
Enchantment - I would group this with Illusions as directed mind magic - it affects sentient or semi sentient organisms not non sentient. A blowing tree limb is still going to hit you if you stand in the wrong spot whether you are invisible or not. This has the added benefit of reducing the number of different organelles needed from 8 to 7.
Necromancy - remember this could include most healing spells as well as things like poisons and death effects - any fairly direct attack or support to the basic life force of the organism. Healing for recovery, poison, disease, drugs, death effects as defenses when attacked.
Transmutation. - any spells that change what something is or where it is ( I would argue that teleportation effects properly belong in transmutation not conjuration)
I wouldn’t restrict organisms to a single type of magic, far more variety and interesting adaptations if they all have some access to all types but focus on selected ones in different places or ways based on environment and behavior (think of something like chromatic spray as being an extension of a peacock tail like sexual attraction display turned into a defense and then strengthened.
Fossil Fuels. - think of the witch’s chant from Macbeth - all the ingredients could well represent selected magic fuels to help power the spell they are casting. This gets into the material components of magic. This kind of thing can also apply to creating magical items with the mana of fossilized organisms being infused into the items. Of course this can also cause screwups with things like tyrannosaur bones being used as fossil dragon bones so the wrong mana gets infused.
Other planes - Just as the sentiments created the gods (out of poor understanding of natural cycles and processes) they could easily have generated all the other planes as various misunderstood alternates.
Earth animals. - Do you really want to recreate thousands of critters from scratch? Simply modifying Earth’s critters is going to be a ton of work. The problems with the Cambrian through Devonian periods is that there is little or no life on land. If you go to the Carboniferous through Permian you have wild enough critters as well as the potential to have some sentient species. You are probably best off using the Eocene to Miocene epochs with hold overs from the Mesozoic and Paleozoic then adding various magical touches (for instance - mind f layers could become the remains of an ancient sentient cephalopod race that is still around and dragons could be a remnant of a sentient Mesozoic race etc.) all you really need to do is explain the naturally evolved magical talents/effects of any given species. And then your players don’t have to learn an entirely new ecology as well making their jobs much easier and probably making their enjoyment greater because of that. I know that while the world and effort sounds fascinating I wouldn’t really want to adventure in it as I have no point of reference commonality with it. As an intellectual activity creating it is potentially fascinating, but actually trying to adventure and play in a world I have nothing in common with and don’t understand how it works would drive me crazy.
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(I wasn't sure which forum to put this post in. Because it's about lore/worldbuilding, I chose this one instead of Homebrew. If this forum is the wrong one, please move it to the appropriate forum.)
I have this idea that's been bouncing around my head for the past few weeks, and I'm trying to find a way to make it work. Since I haven't completely found a way to make it work yet, I thought I would post the ideas I've had so far here and see if anyone has anything to add/change about it. I currently have no idea if this is even possible to make work for D&D or turn it into a playable setting. So, please, if you find the idea at all intriguing or worth developing, give feedback. Anything constructive helps. This thread is mostly a way for me to start getting some of my ideas down and to get feedback to see if I can find a way to make it work. And if this doesn't work out, it's still a fun thought experiment. Now that I've rambled on for long enough, let's get to what the idea is.
The idea is a world where magic has been around forever, and life on the planet evolved to use it. Life didn't just evolve to use it, but it drove the evolution of life on the planet and shaped it to be very different from any other D&D setting. Basically, all life in this world would have access to some kind of magic, almost all non-magical organisms were quickly out-competed by those with access to magic. Here are some of the assumptions of the setting that could help "make this work".
Assumption #1: Gods didn't create life - In this setting, I want the gods (if they exist) to not be the source of life. Life would originally evolve much like scientists believe it did in the real world, starting as single-celled prokaryotes (bacteria and the like), but eventually mutating into eukaryotic organisms like plants, fungi, and animals. Gods would not exist in the world until sentient life evolves millions/billions of years later. This sentient life would then use the power of faith/belief to cause the gods to form. I don't want gods or other powerful entities to shape life in this world. I want it to evolve "naturally", with typical environmental drives shaping life, not an in-world supreme being. So, either the gods came into existence through the worship of sentient creatures, or they never existed in the first place.
Assumption #2: The World is Earth-like - The world is not exactly like Earth, the continents, climate, and other aspects of the world would be different, but the world should be similar to Earth because our knowledge of evolution is based on how it happened on Earth. The oceans are made of water, life is based on carbon, plate tectonics exist, the atmosphere is mostly oxygen and nitrogen, and there's something like an ozone layer/magnetic field protecting life from harmful radiation, most of the minerals/elements in the planet are similar to Earth's, etc. Also, magic evolved after the main kingdoms of life did, because this would be basically impossible otherwise. This explains why the atmosphere is similar to Earth's, and helps us determine which types of magic would be most helpful to the different kingdoms of life.
Assumption #3: Cellular Magic - Magic is accessed through organelles similar to mitochondria/chloroplasts that create minor magical effects. These "magic organelles" will have been a type of single-cellular life that was absorbed by another single-celled organism, like how eukaryotes first evolved. My current idea is that there are 8 types of these magic organelles, one for every school of magic, and they somehow channel minor effects that help these magic eukaryotes survive/thrive. Here are my current ideas for how these schools of magic could be used for single-celled organisms:
I want to restrict organisms mostly to one school of magic because that helps with the classification and conceptualizing of the powers and ways they could evolve. And having organisms originally with access to multiple/all schools of magic would probably be too complicated and powerful to think of the consequences of them. Unless all types of organisms have at least some power over every school of magic and just focus on one.
Okay, those are the assumptions I want the world to work under. I have a few other ideas, but I haven't decided on anything yet and they aren't essential to this world. Here are some of them:
Magic Fossil Fuels - The magical "fuel" found in their magical organelles fades after death (which is why other creatures eat it, unless it's somehow trapped (fossilization as the main example). This will probably be called "mana" or "aether", because everyone knows the terms. If creatures of the same school of magic die in huge amounts and their power isn't consumed by other organisms, it can become trapped underground and become magical fossil fuels. This fossil fuel can later be "burned" or harnessed in some way, probably causing an effect dependent on the school of magic it's associated with. If sentient life and civilization evolve enough, this can cause a magical industrial revolution. Maybe "souls" in this world are made of Aether/Mana, so there's a debate on the ethics of using this substance, even if the fossil fuel is made from non-sentient life. Or there could be harmful magical consequences of using too much of this fuel source or being too dependent on it.
No Other Planes of Existence - Either the other planes of existence don't exist at all, or they don't exist while life starts evolving. If they do exist, I probably want them connected to the existence of the gods. Maybe the worship of sentient creatures creates "tulpa/egregore" gods, who then create the planes of existence as their homes? Or they don't exist at all, and the magic system is more simple than other worlds? Or they're just speculative in-world, like how the gods of Eberron aren't confirmed to exist? And I definitely wouldn't want to use the Great Wheel if there are planes of existence.
Almost No Earth Animals - Most animals from Earth do not exist. This will make the setting really hard to develop and play in, but I want it to be unique and follow the logic of D&D's magic system. There aren't any of the PHB races. Almost all animals from the real world never evolved, as magic fueled evolution. There might be some animals that share similarities with real animals, especially in the oceans, but I want to try my hardest to keep things unique. I don't know if this is possible or feasible. But I'd like to try. If I do include real-world animals, it will be the more "alien" and old ones, like sea jellies, sponges/corals, and primordial fish, cephalopods, and arthropods. At the latest, I want magic to become a major part of the world around its equivalent of the Cambrian Explosion.
These ideas are more negotiable, especially the last one. Please let me know how what you think about them, and what changes should be made.
This is just the start. As I come up with more ideas and get feedback, I'll add to this. Hopefully, the world will start to come together later and I'll get enough to solidify it into a working concept. If not, at least I tried. Again, if anyone else is at least intrigued by the idea or has a better understanding of evolution than I do, please let me know.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
May I suggest you deep dive "Shadowrun". Some points intersect with yours for larger explanations to the world and cycles. The basic world concept is based on cycles of magic progressing and waning, and depending on the story teller, they like to science it a lot as well. The main game starts about 100 years into the future after the magic cycle started over and people started evolving at the cellular level based on their deep physiological links. Some stayed human, others turned into dwarves, trolls, orcs, elves. It is just an interesting concept is my main point.
The other point I would make is to make that pen and paper game playable, my table heavily adopted AD&D 2E rules for much of the game dynamics. We never were able to properly figure out how to do combat on the internet fully, but everything else was very transferable. In other words, it shouldn't be hard to adapt most things as long as your table feels that everything is working and they agree.
The fossil fuel magic is interesting. Might I suggest elemental attraction as the basis of harnessing it? If a group of water based organisms die and their Aether gets trapped in their fossils, then using that type of magic that is akin to their life essence in the area could draw it, or at least be felt by the mage harnessing that form of magic. It would be interesting to come up with a formula of how different organisms regenerate their Aether, and how it flows within a system.
How do you plan on the generation of magic? I see the schools, and you talk about using the energy cells of animals to explain the phenomena but how do they interact with the schools. You are suggesting schools that dictate the purpose of the magic, but how do cells determine a creatures motive? Do certain organisms produce different kinds of Mitochondrion that have certain properties due to their environment, or due to their physiological makeup? Feel free to fill in for me, I feel like you were pretty clear, but sometimes I don't do the best job of explaining myself.
I am not sure what my Spirit Animal is. But whatever that thing is, I am pretty sure it has rabies!
Amazing idea, I like it a lot. A long reply, but I hope it helps.
Here are some ideas for reflection:
Assumption #1: Gods didn't create life
I like this. I strongly recommend that despite of all the lore differences, you still make room for all DnD classes and abilities for balance reasons. If you need to, you can reskin them. But make room for clerics, warlocks etc.
I recommend having living gods in a DnD setting just to give the players more options.
The gods could be alien lifeforms from a distant world where magic or tech evolved to godlike proportions and some of the fittest survived to become intergalactic beings.
Gods could be born as a result of random cosmic events like when a giant star bumps into a magical force etc.
Mortals may have accidentally or purposefully created gods with ancient magic/tech. Then the gods have procreated and evolved too.
Magical monsters and evil elder creatures/gods/warlock patrons could be born from wicked deeds. The more evil the deed is, the more wicked the spawn is. So a genocide could result in the birth of a foul god-like monster. You could link this to evolution too, like normal beasts become awfully magically mutated as a result of bad deeds.
And since evolution is so random, these could all be simultaneously true in the same setting.
Assumption #2: The World is Earth-like
I recommend that you still leave yourself some room for "magic did it" or "a powerful being did it". The scientific approach is great and I've used it too. Just build in some fantasy leeway for yourself so that you don't end up trapped in your own creation and losing your inspiration under too much workload. I've made this mistake.
Assumption #3: Cellular Magic
Sounds good. I recommend keeping in mind that even if you have detailed knowledge about this, the players don't usually need to or want to know it all. Once again I see a potential trap to end up in and possibly make it rough to DM in. Mostly because in such a detailed system for magic, you have to be super mindful about consistency. So the more mysteries and uncertainties you leave, the less you have to worry about players spotting inconsistensies or flaws in your logic. This can become a major source of stress. Been there too. 😅
Also this idea of yours is great for making this work in DnD. Cause even if practically all beings are magical, they don't need to be capable of spellcasting. So you don't need to change class mechanics etc. Fighters and barbarians are tough and strong because passive Abjuration and Transmutation magic is coursing through their veins.
Magic Fossil Fuels
Sounds goods! Nothing to add.
No Other Planes of Existence
I recommend having more planes of existence. You could reskin them. But I recommend having the core planes like Hell and Astral Plane and Fey Wilds and Etherial Plane etc. because they play such a big role in the game system. You'd have to reskin or remove so many spells and abilities that you're probably going to find it more satisfying to reskin these into the game somehow.
Also aside from these, you could just have planets instead of planes.
One explanation for these core planes is some kind of a wormhole / universe leakage thing. So for example Fey Wilds could be another planet, but it's such a powerfully evolved magical place that its magical shadow covers much of the universe and its creatures and power kind of leak into other planets too. And the Astral Plane and Etherial plane could be some kind of a weird warp space / dark matter things that are everywhere and can be accessed with magic.
Almost No Earth Animals
I advice against this. You already have such a unique and beautiful concept. This will make things very difficult without adding much value. I recommend having all the core species and more. Also normal'ish animals.
This can quickly turn against you. Maximum uniqueness is usually more valuable to the DM than players. Players often want to relate and relax too. They want to understand how things work without having a constant puzzle. If the world is too unique, you risk disorienting the players. If that happens, they end up spending so much energy in keeping up with the differences and understanding their surroundings that the story/campaign becomes secondary.
The whole magical evolution concept is a lot to digest already. I strongly recommend having the classic races etc. as a sort of familiar tether/umbilical cord to hold on to while they explore your amazing setting. 😄
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Assumption #1:
Yeah, if the gods do exist, it will be because of sentient organisms that created the gods through worship. And if they don't exist, Clerics still will because faith = power in D&D.
Assumption #2
I'll give myself some leeway with this, but I mostly want it to adhere to the rules of evolution and how early-Earth worked. Evolution might happen faster in this setting because of magic, most of everything else should be similar. As I said in my post, it would be like the Cambrian Explosion + magic originally.
Assumption #3
Oh, this will just be the backstory of the setting. The players definitely wouldn't need to know all of this (even though some of this was created with the help of one of my players).
The reason I don't want other planes of existence early in the setting is because I don't want to further complicate the process of magical evolution, and the planes of existence are often connected with deities/god-like entities in D&D that would influence how this world evolves. If those planes of existence ever do end up existing, they will be the result of magical evolution, and wouldn't really influence how the world develops.
And I don't want to include typical real world monsters because that would feel cheap and definitely wouldn't be logical. I want this world to be unique, I don't want to use the typical animals and magical monsters. I know this will make my job harder as a DM and worldbuilder, but it wouldn't feel authentic if I just said "yes, humans, wolves, rats, dolphins, and eagles all evolved in the world where magic was being harnessed at a cellular level hundreds of millions of years ago". I want the world to feel cohesive and sensical to how magic works in D&D and evolution works in the real world. Including the "normal" fantasy races and real-world animals would feel like cheating.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Ok, first- I hope you have a ton of free time to work out the details of this but good luck with it. Now, for the comments from part of the science section on here.
Assumption 1 - this fine with one caveat - the various sentient created “deities/religions are quite likely to have generated their own conflicting creation myths - these conflicts con both be an endless source of adventures and a major clue to the reality of assumption 1 this can potentially wreak havoc on clerics at higher levels as they come to understand the reality (Druids shouldn’t really have a problem with this though).
Assumption2 - this works fine up to the point of magic. We have enough evidence to show that these are the basic requirements for life and evolution as we know it. You might want to include a large satellite like our moon as well as there is significant evidence that it is part of our reason for existence here. Then magic, your probably best with magic being an energy field enveloping the world - perhaps a side effect of the process driving the world’s star so that the magic field envelops the entire star system just as the light energy or solar wind from the star envelopes the entire system. Then it’s there as a source for even the simplest organisms to detect and manipulate in various ways.
Assumption 3. - this means you need 8 different types of prokaryotic magic using organisms that can be absorbed into your early eukaryotes. While that works fairly well your next step doesn’t- the more different types you incorporate the better your chances of survival so nearly all eukaryotes should have all 8 organelles - or should have had all 8 at some point n their evolutionary history before specializing in a smaller number. This could be better rigged as all cells have at least 1-2 of each organelle but some species have many more of some than others or have more of some n specific organs (say more divination organelles activated/developed in the eyes of a creature with darkvision than in the eyes of a creature without. Creature armour might represent more expressed abjuration organelles in the skin than in unarmored creatures, etc. sentient creatures have learned/developed various ways to harness these organelles throughout the body by conscious or subconscious alignment much like a ferromagnetic domains in the presence of an electric field creates a magnet far stronger than either the ferromagnetic material or the electric field thus allowing for the creation and casting of effects called spells. Then the individual psychology along with the individual/species abundance of organelles can explain the differences in both species specific traits and professional preferences. As to the various categories of magic:
Abjuration - why does it have to be forcefields - especially temporary ones. Perhaps the organelles improve the concentration of selected materials to provide greater bone/chitin/etc density, or if fields perhaps the more organelles the stronger the permanent field holding the cells of the skin (etc) together.
Conjuration - instead of focusing on teleports think about the broader meaning - bringing things into existence that weren’t there before so most of the create and wall spells become conjugations ( yes your going to have to rethink the class of many spells - so what your redoing nearly everything anyway).
Divination - I think your on target here.
Evocation - this probably gets reduced to directed energy/force weapons/attacks everything else like that should probably be conjurations.
Enchantment - I would group this with Illusions as directed mind magic - it affects sentient or semi sentient organisms not non sentient. A blowing tree limb is still going to hit you if you stand in the wrong spot whether you are invisible or not. This has the added benefit of reducing the number of different organelles needed from 8 to 7.
Necromancy - remember this could include most healing spells as well as things like poisons and death effects - any fairly direct attack or support to the basic life force of the organism. Healing for recovery, poison, disease, drugs, death effects as defenses when attacked.
Transmutation. - any spells that change what something is or where it is ( I would argue that teleportation effects properly belong in transmutation not conjuration)
I wouldn’t restrict organisms to a single type of magic, far more variety and interesting adaptations if they all have some access to all types but focus on selected ones in different places or ways based on environment and behavior (think of something like chromatic spray as being an extension of a peacock tail like sexual attraction display turned into a defense and then strengthened.
Fossil Fuels. - think of the witch’s chant from Macbeth - all the ingredients could well represent selected magic fuels to help power the spell they are casting. This gets into the material components of magic. This kind of thing can also apply to creating magical items with the mana of fossilized organisms being infused into the items. Of course this can also cause screwups with things like tyrannosaur bones being used as fossil dragon bones so the wrong mana gets infused.
Other planes - Just as the sentiments created the gods (out of poor understanding of natural cycles and processes) they could easily have generated all the other planes as various misunderstood alternates.
Earth animals. - Do you really want to recreate thousands of critters from scratch? Simply modifying Earth’s critters is going to be a ton of work. The problems with the Cambrian through Devonian periods is that there is little or no life on land. If you go to the Carboniferous through Permian you have wild enough critters as well as the potential to have some sentient species. You are probably best off using the Eocene to Miocene epochs with hold overs from the Mesozoic and Paleozoic then adding various magical touches (for instance - mind f layers could become the remains of an ancient sentient cephalopod race that is still around and dragons could be a remnant of a sentient Mesozoic race etc.) all you really need to do is explain the naturally evolved magical talents/effects of any given species. And then your players don’t have to learn an entirely new ecology as well making their jobs much easier and probably making their enjoyment greater because of that. I know that while the world and effort sounds fascinating I wouldn’t really want to adventure in it as I have no point of reference commonality with it. As an intellectual activity creating it is potentially fascinating, but actually trying to adventure and play in a world I have nothing in common with and don’t understand how it works would drive me crazy.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.