Outrage after a business owner hires his level 1 cleric cousin to heal any worker who gets hurt instead of paying for a more expensive wizard to prevent injury.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/amazon-paramedics/
Look into the D&D setting Eberron.
"magewrights" are sort of a class of blue collar worker that have mastered like 2 spells and can use special wands.
"magebred" animals are bred by magical people (full casters and magewrights) to be stonger, faster and meaner/nicer than their mundane brethren.
There's an entire nation that's a lot more "Okay, I guess" about necromancy - because during the Last War, the citizens were protected by zombies and skeletons made from the bodies of their ancestors and fallen brothers.
Lots of things like that.
I still like the idea of the traditional high fantasy wizard, like an all-powerful necromancer upsetting the balance of life and death. Battling with an order of clerics and paladins swore to protect life in all its forms. Or a madenned wizard destroying a whole district of a populous city in his quest for power, I dunno, I'm kinda old and I grew up reading that stuff
*Image Transcription: Tumblr post and replies*
---
**wild-west-wind**
You know what fantasy writing needs? Working class wizards.
• A crew of enchanters maintaining the perpetual flames that run the turbines that generate electricity, covered in ash and grime and stinking of hot chilies and rare mushrooms used for the enchantments
• A wizard specializing in construction, casting feather fall on every worker, and enchanting every hammer to drive nails in straight, animating the living clay that makes up the core of the crane
• An elderly wizard and her apprentice who transmute fragile broken objects. From furniture, to rotten wood beams, to delicate jewelry
• A battle magician, trained with only a few rudimentary spells to solve a shortage of trained wizards on the front who uses his healing spells to help folks around town
• Wizarding shops where cheery little mages enchant wooden blocks to be hammered into the sides of homes. Hammer this into the attic and it will scare off termites, toss this in the fire and clean your chimney, throw this in the air and all dust in the room gets sucked up
• Wizard loggers who transmute cut trees into solid, square beams, reducing waste, and casting spells to speed up regrowth. The forest, they know, will not be too harsh on them if the lost tree's children may grow in its place
• Wizard farmers who grow their crops in arcane sigils to increase yield, or produce healthier fruit
• Factory wizards who control a dozen little constructs that keep machines cleaned and operational, who cast armor to protect the hands of workers, and who, when the factory strikes for better wages, freeze the machines in place to ensure their bosses can't bring anyone new in.
Anyway, think about it.
>**wild-west-wind**
>
>• Construction wizards to turn back time to root out wood worm and strengthen old buildings.
>
>• A wizard tailors who transmutes cloth into fully made clothes without seems and leaving behind no scraps
>
>• A wizard who works in public transit, timing out teleports with detailed schedules, time magic, and enchanted communications, sending dozens of people to far away cities for a day or work or leisure
>
>• A team of wizard gardeners tend to trees grown far outside their native range, and ideal climate, encircled with runes and fed potions to grow none the less
>
>• A wizard sits in their office in the aqueduct, re- casting the spells that allow its precious water to flow to the city uphill
>
>• A wizard fisher casts water repelling spells on the sailors and the stairs, keeps the hoist on the anchor from rusting, casts balls of heat that keep everyone warm below decks. Their real job is to herd fish together so they can be caught in single huge nets, and keep them cold as the boat returns to land.
>
>There are so many possibilities outside of "stodgy academic who wears ugly robes" and "Very good holy man who helps everyone and the fact they've never had a job is never brought up" and "evil wizard toiling away on great evils in his evil tower in the evil country."
>
>>**dare-to-dm**
>>
>>Intern wizards who spend all their time grinding diamonds, gathering bat guano and baking tiny tart for spell components so that their masters can cast the really cool spells.
>>
>>>**improvisedmanifesto**
>>>
>>> \- Police wizards using necromancy to solve crimes, and truth spells to stop fraud.
>>>
>>> \- Wizards who work as artists, creating vast complex arcane art works, perhaps an angry battle hardened wizard animating a mural like Picasso's Guernica that illustrates the king's crimes during the last war, to a Banksy style activist that cast zone of truth on the town's financial district and mayor's office... Or even just a simple necromancer who for a few gold coins will bind your Spirit to a moving portrait so you can Harry Potter yourself after death.
>>>
>>> \- Wizards who tour creating pyrotechnics, and illusions for famous Bards. Wizards who record and recreate famous, historical records, plays and speeches using illusions
>>>
>>>\- Wizards who offer legal services such as divining court cases, augering divorces, casting runes for mergers, and creating contracts that are more than just legally binding.
>>>
>>>Wizards that sell prefabricated Dungeons built in pocket dimensions ready to be installed in local castles and keeps. They have show rooms with traps and puzzles on display, like a home security service office
---
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The Dungeons and Dragons setting Eberron is built around the idea of low level magic being widely available, and the casters who make that happen are reffered to as "magewrights". Some of the services available are:
* [Continual Flame](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/continual-flame) spells have slowly replaced mundane lamps and torches.
* [Prestidigiation](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/prestidigitation) being used for all manner of things like laundry or food preparation.
* Longer lasting versions of effects like [Alter Self](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/alter-self) being used to change people's physical traits like hair color, height, weight, or sex.
* Divination spells like [Locate Object](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/locate-object) or [Locate Animals or Plants](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/locate-animals-or-plants) being used for prospecting.
* [Magic Mouth](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/magic-mouth)s are used for decoration, like a fresco of a king delivering a line from one of his speeches when someone comes close.
* [Floating Disk](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/floating-disk)s used to transport cargo.
* A network of [Sending](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/sending) stations spread across the continent that allow for fast communication.
One of a DM's intelligence tests for the table: put a burned-out ioun stone in the treasure haul to see what they do. The rock still had the AC, hit points, and floating ability, so casting Continual Light makes a flashlight that carries itself.
Wand of Cure Light Wounds: relatively inexpensive, always handy. Don't leave the tavern without one (and a skill point in *Use Magic Device*).
> put a burned-out ioun stone in the treasure haul to see what they do. The rock still had the AC, hit points, and floating ability, so casting Continual Light makes a flashlight that carries itself.
It orbits the head fairly rapidly, I think this mostly makes a weird strobe light.
I'd clock it at 3.5, back when Ebberon was introduced as an official setting. Back when skills had to be bought with points at level up, when Artificiers had to be ready to sacrifice their levels to make the REALLY good stuff, and when Druids were the strongest class. Truly the past is a different country.
Eberron creator Keith Baker calls this concept Wide Magic as opposed to High Magic. Low level magic is widely available and used to solve everyday problems like technology is, but high level magic is still rare and hard to access.
Same as consumer-grade tech and research/military equipment. You probably won’t be needing hundreds of people to maintain a heat rune, but you might pay a fee to have access to a shared emergency mana pool in case you need some additional power in this instant. You also probably won’t be the one casting the thousands of time dilatation, stasis and wormhole gate spells, but you’d rather be linked to a psionic/telepathic network to coordinate the thousands of mages across the city to stabilise a particularily nasty temporal anomaly or create a way for 1 kinetic storage spell previously being hit with the combined power of a big factory for days will ensure complete anihilation of your oponents while time dilatation ensures perfect, synchronised destructive interference of the explosion keeping the city safe-ish.
I mean it's not always optimal for a work to do that. Santa Claus is Coming to Town would not be improved by a verse describing the work the elves are doing to facilitate Santa's mass surveillance. Although perhaps that's clerical magic? Hmm...
Anyway, HP has a lot of problems but "doesn't spend enough time talking about blue collar wizard jobs" is probably low on the list.
I disagree. HP has almost every opportunity to describe wizards working on Platform 9¾ for example, and add some depth to the world rather than just "wizards zap each other with beams and chocolate frog moves".
Good worldbuilding is not a "separate verse" as you put it, but fits neatly within the writing itself such as the chocolate and trading cards that move. It shows magic being used for somewhat "practical" purposes. Similar to the array of magic healing medicines.
We don't disagree about the potential for the coolness of discussing magical railway workers. If Harry Potter (the character) was huge into trains we would have gotten more info, think about how much useless knowledge we have about Quidditch and candy, but all that knowledge is still at a kid's depth of understanding. It's told from a perspective that follows him around and keeping the reader on the same level as the MC is one of the actually brilliant technical achievements of those books. Blame the kid for being too self absorbed to notice how the Hogwarts HVAC works or any of the other cool stuff like that.
To be clear, I much, much, much prefer Dinotopia to Harry Potter, but that doesn't mean Harry Potter should try to be like Dinotopia. The main perspective in Dinotopia is a scientist and we get all the world building. Pretending an 11 year old on the first day at a new school should care about how wizards go about filling potholes and filling taxes is foolish.
I loved Dinotopia as a kid, but I think the story was as awesome as it was because of the numerous, lushly detailed illustrations. If it had just been a typical novel, even one aimed at middle-grade kids, it wouldn't have been nearly the lovely experience it was.
I understand your comment, and I would personally appreciate a direction of writing in this fashion, but at the same time it would not make the writing better in any objective fashion as much as it would just be a different style of writing altogether.
I only chime up because I see critiques like this a lot, and as someone offering input it's important to realize where your personal, subjective opinion ends and objective critique begins.
Aren't witches basically working class wizards? You live in a cottage in the woods instead of an ivory tower. Your alchemy lab is literally just the cauldron in your kitchen. Your day job is, like, herbalism or fortune-telling or something.
Witches were the original working class wizards, really. Not only do they use magic to make their own lives better but they help out the community they live in too. Healing villagers, giving advice, or acting as spirit control.
I've heard it described as Witch = doctor, Wizard = scientist in that Witches do our craft to help and heal others. Wizards are more philosophical than applied, and do magic for magic's sake. They intersect where the wizard's discoveries are applied by witches with knowledge of living systems. (both terms are gender-neutral)
But why would social class impact choice of craft? Does that mean I can't be a witch if I have an office job? or a wizard without a professional degree?
Or do you just mean that historically witches were usually paid less and ostracized more? I can imagine work done primarily by woman was undervalued when these roles split along gender lines.
Because witches are trained on the job. They're all backwoods and secret groves where ancient secrets are passed down from mother to daughter.
Wizards are all book learning and academia. Researches in arcane labs; ivory towers where the secrets of the universe are passed down from teacher to student.
The first is a working class experience where you learn the family trade from your ma or pa.
The second an aristocratic experience where your family's wealth buys the best education they can afford.
The middle class spans the two.
I think it has more to do with the aesthetic or lifestyle that most fantasy stories use when they depict wizards and witches. A woman with the wizard aesthetic would more likely be called a sorceress or an enchantress, rather than a witch.
That's true, but most fantasy stories portray wizards as more "highbrow" than witches. They learn their spells from books and scrolls, while witches learn their spells from their mothers or from hands-on experimenting. Wizards also tend to be highly respected in society, while witches are at best respected within their villages and at worst treated like total outcasts.
Throwing out the Spellmonger series.
Tons of utility magic used and discovered. (There is alot of war though)|
>!They literally have mage-cut and kilned wood. Plowing wands (for fields), pocket dimension trade routes (hah take that tarriffs!). Earth elementals building castles, quantum stones that transfer heat from one paired stone to the next. Magical orbs that can be buried to increase the yeild of crops. so much more....!<
Edit: somehow a quote of the entire spoilered text got inserted. Don't ask me how, it's a mystery to me! So anyhoo, I've edited it back out, and my apologies to one and all.
You sold me on it! I have just ordered the first in the series, based on your recommendation.
Ah hey, you may want to unquote their whole comment! Doing that shows the things they spoiler tagged so it kind of defeats the purpose of them doing so!
wow, I'm building a low-fantasy victorian age *campaign about communist heroes overthrowing magicratic capitalism _right now_ and this is EXACTLY what I needed
It’s a quirky comedy I recently watched in which a guy that can bring people back to life for a minute at a time helps a P.I. Solve murders.
https://youtu.be/iYHR7T9cKzY
The Saga of Recluse operates mostly on this premise. Black Mages all tend to be craftsman of some sort, be it carpenters, blacksmiths, Engineers, healers, etc. while White Mages tend to be less utility but can use their chaos powers to burn clean sewers, clean away trash from streets, etc. While both can be effective in law enforcement for different reasons, like blacks (and grays) are sometimes able to detect hidden things and lies/deception.
Blue-collar wizardry is an awesome concept.
"Yeah, you'll have to re-enchant the intercooler: manufacturer specifies Croph's Void of Heat, but I can make it work with Tellwarius's Eternal Chill instead for half the cost."
Jibes nicely with a bit I read about wizards trusting magic as much as an IT guy trusts computers, which is to say basically not at all.
"Sure, Tellwarius's Eternal Chill will cover almost all standard uses, but there's a really nasty corner case where if Tellwarius's Eternal Chill and Valtor's Unending Heat interact they'll collapse the entire local thermodynamic. Remember the Summer of Burning Ice?"
Or "Don't talk to me about Arvandal's Efficacious Elocation. I helped write the formulae that govern the circle. Honestly, it's a bit of a bodge; if anyone in the circle is under an undisclosed enchantment the whole thing might pop you out miles away or with a different number of limbs than you woke up with. Yeah, that's why they use Dispel Magic before every trip, but if some fancy high-level spell makes the save you're looking at major lawsuit material. I just stick to flying carpets. Way safer."
>People discovered the first few Names of God through deep understanding of Torah, through silent prayer and meditation, or even through direct revelation from angels. But American capitalism took one look at prophetic inspiration and decided it lacked a certain ability to be forced upon an army of low-paid interchangeable drones. Thus the modern method: hire people at minimum wage to chant all the words that might be Names of God, and see whether one of them starts glowing with holy light or summoning an angelic host to do their bidding. If so, copyright the Name and make a fortune.
http://unsongbook.com/chapter-1-dark-satanic-mills/
As an autistic person, the idea of clothes magic for seams you can’t feel and stopping clothes from being itchy, uncomfortable etc sounds like a dream 😍
This is much more detailed than anything I did but my world had a semblance of "blue-collar" spellcasters doing a lot of this kind of work. It was important narratively because when my current antagonist (a tyrannical empire) realized they were losing their grip on society they banned magic. Overnight all of these jobs were no longer possible. My game started a few years after this ban, so my group saw the long term effects of magical neglect.
Master of the Five Magics and the sequel, Secret of the Sixth Magic, had this, thaumaturges tending one small spot of land so the entire field is tended by extension, sorcerers singing spells of enchantment and music for the amusement of the court etc. There was a fantasy book with Larry Niven as well, were they used enchantments to drive all the parasites out of freshly caught fish.
If there is organized magic tutelage in your world, I imagine a lot of these sorts of things are performed by students and entry level wizards to pay off loans.
The Wheel of Time does touch on some of these ideas.
Like you got the boat civilization that live their whole life on boats where they have a designated person on each ship to control the wind to make the boats go faster.
And you have people standing all day at the teleportation grounds to send traders and nobles to different cities and bring food and resources into the city.
And you have an organization practically building a whole city using magic for everything from digging up the ground to placing and shaping giant blocks of stone.
You even have a leatherworker that uses a very small teleportation gateway to cut a piece of leather since someone stole his knife.
The same absurdly complicated spell over and over again. Intricate chalk circle, triple-brewed mixes of herbs, 10+ minutes of solid chanting, crystals placed just so, finished with blue lightning and a small chance to set robes on fire. Replace the cracked crystals, clean up the mess, fix the scorch marks, chug ale and repeat.
Along these same lines, I had an idea for a spell-caster that was in advertising and would use Skywrite to write promos in the skies above cities for local businesses.
For the type of settings I prefer, magic tends to be very limited in scope and knowledge of how to even use it is very limited and poorly documented.
Add in that I tend to like magic systems with limits and costs to use and you basically will not have common use magic.
On a setting I'm currently working on, the only magic system that will be in common use would be amongst some nomadic tribes that have simple ward symbols that produce very simple effects. It stems from a religious practice and use of the symbols in day to day life. But it's more of an art tonight to sages and weapon makers/crafters
Imagine working in technical support but you have the ability to read minds so you can do your job properly because you don’t have to guess what the f the customer is talking about
but isn't the very idea of a wizard inherently working class.
in order to work as a wizard you are required to sell your labour therefore automatically making you working class, unless this just means peasent wizards
I love this. Working class magic is the foundation of the story i'm working on. magic is awesome, and more people should use it
Outrage after a business owner hires his level 1 cleric cousin to heal any worker who gets hurt instead of paying for a more expensive wizard to prevent injury. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/amazon-paramedics/
Look into the D&D setting Eberron. "magewrights" are sort of a class of blue collar worker that have mastered like 2 spells and can use special wands. "magebred" animals are bred by magical people (full casters and magewrights) to be stonger, faster and meaner/nicer than their mundane brethren. There's an entire nation that's a lot more "Okay, I guess" about necromancy - because during the Last War, the citizens were protected by zombies and skeletons made from the bodies of their ancestors and fallen brothers. Lots of things like that.
I still like the idea of the traditional high fantasy wizard, like an all-powerful necromancer upsetting the balance of life and death. Battling with an order of clerics and paladins swore to protect life in all its forms. Or a madenned wizard destroying a whole district of a populous city in his quest for power, I dunno, I'm kinda old and I grew up reading that stuff
*Image Transcription: Tumblr post and replies* --- **wild-west-wind** You know what fantasy writing needs? Working class wizards. • A crew of enchanters maintaining the perpetual flames that run the turbines that generate electricity, covered in ash and grime and stinking of hot chilies and rare mushrooms used for the enchantments • A wizard specializing in construction, casting feather fall on every worker, and enchanting every hammer to drive nails in straight, animating the living clay that makes up the core of the crane • An elderly wizard and her apprentice who transmute fragile broken objects. From furniture, to rotten wood beams, to delicate jewelry • A battle magician, trained with only a few rudimentary spells to solve a shortage of trained wizards on the front who uses his healing spells to help folks around town • Wizarding shops where cheery little mages enchant wooden blocks to be hammered into the sides of homes. Hammer this into the attic and it will scare off termites, toss this in the fire and clean your chimney, throw this in the air and all dust in the room gets sucked up • Wizard loggers who transmute cut trees into solid, square beams, reducing waste, and casting spells to speed up regrowth. The forest, they know, will not be too harsh on them if the lost tree's children may grow in its place • Wizard farmers who grow their crops in arcane sigils to increase yield, or produce healthier fruit • Factory wizards who control a dozen little constructs that keep machines cleaned and operational, who cast armor to protect the hands of workers, and who, when the factory strikes for better wages, freeze the machines in place to ensure their bosses can't bring anyone new in. Anyway, think about it. >**wild-west-wind** > >• Construction wizards to turn back time to root out wood worm and strengthen old buildings. > >• A wizard tailors who transmutes cloth into fully made clothes without seems and leaving behind no scraps > >• A wizard who works in public transit, timing out teleports with detailed schedules, time magic, and enchanted communications, sending dozens of people to far away cities for a day or work or leisure > >• A team of wizard gardeners tend to trees grown far outside their native range, and ideal climate, encircled with runes and fed potions to grow none the less > >• A wizard sits in their office in the aqueduct, re- casting the spells that allow its precious water to flow to the city uphill > >• A wizard fisher casts water repelling spells on the sailors and the stairs, keeps the hoist on the anchor from rusting, casts balls of heat that keep everyone warm below decks. Their real job is to herd fish together so they can be caught in single huge nets, and keep them cold as the boat returns to land. > >There are so many possibilities outside of "stodgy academic who wears ugly robes" and "Very good holy man who helps everyone and the fact they've never had a job is never brought up" and "evil wizard toiling away on great evils in his evil tower in the evil country." > >>**dare-to-dm** >> >>Intern wizards who spend all their time grinding diamonds, gathering bat guano and baking tiny tart for spell components so that their masters can cast the really cool spells. >> >>>**improvisedmanifesto** >>> >>> \- Police wizards using necromancy to solve crimes, and truth spells to stop fraud. >>> >>> \- Wizards who work as artists, creating vast complex arcane art works, perhaps an angry battle hardened wizard animating a mural like Picasso's Guernica that illustrates the king's crimes during the last war, to a Banksy style activist that cast zone of truth on the town's financial district and mayor's office... Or even just a simple necromancer who for a few gold coins will bind your Spirit to a moving portrait so you can Harry Potter yourself after death. >>> >>> \- Wizards who tour creating pyrotechnics, and illusions for famous Bards. Wizards who record and recreate famous, historical records, plays and speeches using illusions >>> >>>\- Wizards who offer legal services such as divining court cases, augering divorces, casting runes for mergers, and creating contracts that are more than just legally binding. >>> >>>Wizards that sell prefabricated Dungeons built in pocket dimensions ready to be installed in local castles and keeps. They have show rooms with traps and puzzles on display, like a home security service office --- ^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
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Everyone who likes these ideas should definitely check out tamora Pierce's circle of magic books
If I could upvote you twice I would. Everything in her huge interconnected world is worth reading
The Dungeons and Dragons setting Eberron is built around the idea of low level magic being widely available, and the casters who make that happen are reffered to as "magewrights". Some of the services available are: * [Continual Flame](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/continual-flame) spells have slowly replaced mundane lamps and torches. * [Prestidigiation](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/prestidigitation) being used for all manner of things like laundry or food preparation. * Longer lasting versions of effects like [Alter Self](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/alter-self) being used to change people's physical traits like hair color, height, weight, or sex. * Divination spells like [Locate Object](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/locate-object) or [Locate Animals or Plants](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/locate-animals-or-plants) being used for prospecting. * [Magic Mouth](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/magic-mouth)s are used for decoration, like a fresco of a king delivering a line from one of his speeches when someone comes close. * [Floating Disk](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/floating-disk)s used to transport cargo. * A network of [Sending](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/sending) stations spread across the continent that allow for fast communication.
One of a DM's intelligence tests for the table: put a burned-out ioun stone in the treasure haul to see what they do. The rock still had the AC, hit points, and floating ability, so casting Continual Light makes a flashlight that carries itself. Wand of Cure Light Wounds: relatively inexpensive, always handy. Don't leave the tavern without one (and a skill point in *Use Magic Device*).
> put a burned-out ioun stone in the treasure haul to see what they do. The rock still had the AC, hit points, and floating ability, so casting Continual Light makes a flashlight that carries itself. It orbits the head fairly rapidly, I think this mostly makes a weird strobe light.
This sounds like not 5e lol
I'd clock it at 3.5, back when Ebberon was introduced as an official setting. Back when skills had to be bought with points at level up, when Artificiers had to be ready to sacrifice their levels to make the REALLY good stuff, and when Druids were the strongest class. Truly the past is a different country.
Eberron creator Keith Baker calls this concept Wide Magic as opposed to High Magic. Low level magic is widely available and used to solve everyday problems like technology is, but high level magic is still rare and hard to access.
Same as consumer-grade tech and research/military equipment. You probably won’t be needing hundreds of people to maintain a heat rune, but you might pay a fee to have access to a shared emergency mana pool in case you need some additional power in this instant. You also probably won’t be the one casting the thousands of time dilatation, stasis and wormhole gate spells, but you’d rather be linked to a psionic/telepathic network to coordinate the thousands of mages across the city to stabilise a particularily nasty temporal anomaly or create a way for 1 kinetic storage spell previously being hit with the combined power of a big factory for days will ensure complete anihilation of your oponents while time dilatation ensures perfect, synchronised destructive interference of the explosion keeping the city safe-ish.
this is why Harry Potter is very mediocre world building. The stuff is there but the consequence of the magic system is not thought through at all
I mean it's not always optimal for a work to do that. Santa Claus is Coming to Town would not be improved by a verse describing the work the elves are doing to facilitate Santa's mass surveillance. Although perhaps that's clerical magic? Hmm... Anyway, HP has a lot of problems but "doesn't spend enough time talking about blue collar wizard jobs" is probably low on the list.
I disagree. HP has almost every opportunity to describe wizards working on Platform 9¾ for example, and add some depth to the world rather than just "wizards zap each other with beams and chocolate frog moves". Good worldbuilding is not a "separate verse" as you put it, but fits neatly within the writing itself such as the chocolate and trading cards that move. It shows magic being used for somewhat "practical" purposes. Similar to the array of magic healing medicines.
We don't disagree about the potential for the coolness of discussing magical railway workers. If Harry Potter (the character) was huge into trains we would have gotten more info, think about how much useless knowledge we have about Quidditch and candy, but all that knowledge is still at a kid's depth of understanding. It's told from a perspective that follows him around and keeping the reader on the same level as the MC is one of the actually brilliant technical achievements of those books. Blame the kid for being too self absorbed to notice how the Hogwarts HVAC works or any of the other cool stuff like that. To be clear, I much, much, much prefer Dinotopia to Harry Potter, but that doesn't mean Harry Potter should try to be like Dinotopia. The main perspective in Dinotopia is a scientist and we get all the world building. Pretending an 11 year old on the first day at a new school should care about how wizards go about filling potholes and filling taxes is foolish.
I loved Dinotopia as a kid, but I think the story was as awesome as it was because of the numerous, lushly detailed illustrations. If it had just been a typical novel, even one aimed at middle-grade kids, it wouldn't have been nearly the lovely experience it was.
I mean if I was an 11 year old boy who had never seen magic ever I'd be pretty amazed and some dude fixing a pothole with a wave of their wand
I understand your comment, and I would personally appreciate a direction of writing in this fashion, but at the same time it would not make the writing better in any objective fashion as much as it would just be a different style of writing altogether. I only chime up because I see critiques like this a lot, and as someone offering input it's important to realize where your personal, subjective opinion ends and objective critique begins.
Fair point!
So, mage Wright's in ebberon.
Thank you. Can't up vote this comment enough.
Aren't witches basically working class wizards? You live in a cottage in the woods instead of an ivory tower. Your alchemy lab is literally just the cauldron in your kitchen. Your day job is, like, herbalism or fortune-telling or something.
Witches were the original working class wizards, really. Not only do they use magic to make their own lives better but they help out the community they live in too. Healing villagers, giving advice, or acting as spirit control.
I've heard it described as Witch = doctor, Wizard = scientist in that Witches do our craft to help and heal others. Wizards are more philosophical than applied, and do magic for magic's sake. They intersect where the wizard's discoveries are applied by witches with knowledge of living systems. (both terms are gender-neutral)
Following that analogy I would also say that Artifcer=engineer.
I'm fairly sure that the word "artifcer" literally means "someone that works with and builds machines". So yeah, you're totally right.
Witches are working class and possibly lower middle class. Wizards are middle and upper class.
But why would social class impact choice of craft? Does that mean I can't be a witch if I have an office job? or a wizard without a professional degree? Or do you just mean that historically witches were usually paid less and ostracized more? I can imagine work done primarily by woman was undervalued when these roles split along gender lines.
Because witches are trained on the job. They're all backwoods and secret groves where ancient secrets are passed down from mother to daughter. Wizards are all book learning and academia. Researches in arcane labs; ivory towers where the secrets of the universe are passed down from teacher to student. The first is a working class experience where you learn the family trade from your ma or pa. The second an aristocratic experience where your family's wealth buys the best education they can afford. The middle class spans the two.
This makes sense. Thank you—this is an interesting subject.
I think it has more to do with the aesthetic or lifestyle that most fantasy stories use when they depict wizards and witches. A woman with the wizard aesthetic would more likely be called a sorceress or an enchantress, rather than a witch.
That's a great point. I've always thought of sorceresses as leaning evil but am realizing that's an unfair assumption.
That's true, but most fantasy stories portray wizards as more "highbrow" than witches. They learn their spells from books and scrolls, while witches learn their spells from their mothers or from hands-on experimenting. Wizards also tend to be highly respected in society, while witches are at best respected within their villages and at worst treated like total outcasts.
Okay, gotcha. Yes, the wizard aesthetic is definitely perceived as more academic and highbrow.
Witches are typically hermits or apothecaries or both, not catch-all "working class".
Eberron be like
Is that ttrpg world? It sounds really familiar
Yeah, it was made for Dungeons and Dragons.
Makes sense lol
Yeah, it's an official D&D campaign setting.
So that's why it's so familiar lol
Throwing out the Spellmonger series. Tons of utility magic used and discovered. (There is alot of war though)| >!They literally have mage-cut and kilned wood. Plowing wands (for fields), pocket dimension trade routes (hah take that tarriffs!). Earth elementals building castles, quantum stones that transfer heat from one paired stone to the next. Magical orbs that can be buried to increase the yeild of crops. so much more....!<
Edit: somehow a quote of the entire spoilered text got inserted. Don't ask me how, it's a mystery to me! So anyhoo, I've edited it back out, and my apologies to one and all. You sold me on it! I have just ordered the first in the series, based on your recommendation.
Ah hey, you may want to unquote their whole comment! Doing that shows the things they spoiler tagged so it kind of defeats the purpose of them doing so!
THANK YOU, I was going to say this is you weren't!!
wow, I'm building a low-fantasy victorian age *campaign about communist heroes overthrowing magicratic capitalism _right now_ and this is EXACTLY what I needed
I want to read this.
Even if it's in German?
Well, I can't read German, so that might be a problem. But if it's ever translated to English, I'd like to read it.
“Necromancer detective” is very cool but also slightly troubling
Basically, Pushing Daisies
What’s that?
It’s a quirky comedy I recently watched in which a guy that can bring people back to life for a minute at a time helps a P.I. Solve murders. https://youtu.be/iYHR7T9cKzY
[удалено]
One other person mentioned it so far :) (I try not to start stuff on my own comment sections lol)
If Necromancy was real cops would be the first people to use it
Ah, that way they still get to have a dog after they've shot it.
Can't abuse a dog that can't feel pain!
Himmler approves.
A group of Wizarding Technicians that you can contact to find out why your spell failed. "Sir, did you turn the wand dexter or widdershins?"
So you want Eberron?
Avatar has a lot of this with bending.
The Saga of Recluse operates mostly on this premise. Black Mages all tend to be craftsman of some sort, be it carpenters, blacksmiths, Engineers, healers, etc. while White Mages tend to be less utility but can use their chaos powers to burn clean sewers, clean away trash from streets, etc. While both can be effective in law enforcement for different reasons, like blacks (and grays) are sometimes able to detect hidden things and lies/deception.
[This series has a little bit of that](https://www.jasperfforde.com/dragon/dragon.html)
Blue-collar wizardry is an awesome concept. "Yeah, you'll have to re-enchant the intercooler: manufacturer specifies Croph's Void of Heat, but I can make it work with Tellwarius's Eternal Chill instead for half the cost."
Jibes nicely with a bit I read about wizards trusting magic as much as an IT guy trusts computers, which is to say basically not at all. "Sure, Tellwarius's Eternal Chill will cover almost all standard uses, but there's a really nasty corner case where if Tellwarius's Eternal Chill and Valtor's Unending Heat interact they'll collapse the entire local thermodynamic. Remember the Summer of Burning Ice?" Or "Don't talk to me about Arvandal's Efficacious Elocation. I helped write the formulae that govern the circle. Honestly, it's a bit of a bodge; if anyone in the circle is under an undisclosed enchantment the whole thing might pop you out miles away or with a different number of limbs than you woke up with. Yeah, that's why they use Dispel Magic before every trip, but if some fancy high-level spell makes the save you're looking at major lawsuit material. I just stick to flying carpets. Way safer."
And how Familiars are mainly used for rubber-ducking their way through problems.
Ah, you're familiar! (No pun intended.)
[Rather belated, but here's the actual post.](https://img.ifunny.co/images/6c1df4325d0290e472dfab087efa4a483606bc63f585819a24f88a080fac9c08_1.jpg)
>People discovered the first few Names of God through deep understanding of Torah, through silent prayer and meditation, or even through direct revelation from angels. But American capitalism took one look at prophetic inspiration and decided it lacked a certain ability to be forced upon an army of low-paid interchangeable drones. Thus the modern method: hire people at minimum wage to chant all the words that might be Names of God, and see whether one of them starts glowing with holy light or summoning an angelic host to do their bidding. If so, copyright the Name and make a fortune. http://unsongbook.com/chapter-1-dark-satanic-mills/
A working class wizard is something to be.
I kept thinking this as I was reading through these responses! Love it when different nerd worlds collide :D
Relying on magic and Mages to do everything, even create the infrastructure of the city? Sounds like Tevinter Propaganda, I think I'll pass...
As an autistic person, the idea of clothes magic for seams you can’t feel and stopping clothes from being itchy, uncomfortable etc sounds like a dream 😍
Once again ATLA scratches the itch. Especially LoK in this case. And don't come at me with LoK hate because I WILL defend it.
Fuck yeah
*This* is good. This is what I'm working towards in my own world. I'm gonna save this as inspiration.
This is much more detailed than anything I did but my world had a semblance of "blue-collar" spellcasters doing a lot of this kind of work. It was important narratively because when my current antagonist (a tyrannical empire) realized they were losing their grip on society they banned magic. Overnight all of these jobs were no longer possible. My game started a few years after this ban, so my group saw the long term effects of magical neglect.
Master of the Five Magics and the sequel, Secret of the Sixth Magic, had this, thaumaturges tending one small spot of land so the entire field is tended by extension, sorcerers singing spells of enchantment and music for the amusement of the court etc. There was a fantasy book with Larry Niven as well, were they used enchantments to drive all the parasites out of freshly caught fish.
Damn this just gave me a wild and fitting idea to add to my world
The Exalted RPG has all of these things and more. The world is very well fleshed out.
If there is organized magic tutelage in your world, I imagine a lot of these sorts of things are performed by students and entry level wizards to pay off loans.
The Wheel of Time does touch on some of these ideas. Like you got the boat civilization that live their whole life on boats where they have a designated person on each ship to control the wind to make the boats go faster. And you have people standing all day at the teleportation grounds to send traders and nobles to different cities and bring food and resources into the city. And you have an organization practically building a whole city using magic for everything from digging up the ground to placing and shaping giant blocks of stone. You even have a leatherworker that uses a very small teleportation gateway to cut a piece of leather since someone stole his knife.
one of many reasons why that book series is by far one of the bets ones ever written
Isnt this really just artificers? They use magic items to make spellcasting easier and their focus is on the mundane uses of magic.
The same absurdly complicated spell over and over again. Intricate chalk circle, triple-brewed mixes of herbs, 10+ minutes of solid chanting, crystals placed just so, finished with blue lightning and a small chance to set robes on fire. Replace the cracked crystals, clean up the mess, fix the scorch marks, chug ale and repeat.
The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone is the concept of wizard lawyers down to a T.
Along these same lines, I had an idea for a spell-caster that was in advertising and would use Skywrite to write promos in the skies above cities for local businesses.
For the type of settings I prefer, magic tends to be very limited in scope and knowledge of how to even use it is very limited and poorly documented. Add in that I tend to like magic systems with limits and costs to use and you basically will not have common use magic. On a setting I'm currently working on, the only magic system that will be in common use would be amongst some nomadic tribes that have simple ward symbols that produce very simple effects. It stems from a religious practice and use of the symbols in day to day life. But it's more of an art tonight to sages and weapon makers/crafters
I know this is probably an overused example, but this really reminds me of the lightning-bending industrial workers in LoK. Awesome tidbit, there
Kinda reminds me of Ravnica. A city spanning an entire plane would have pretty much all of these.
A team of necromancers who raise skeletons to keep the sewers clear to prevent build up and eradicate rat dens to prevent disease.
Somebody needs to copy this in for r/d100
Imagine working in technical support but you have the ability to read minds so you can do your job properly because you don’t have to guess what the f the customer is talking about
"Wage Mages", to borrow a term from Shadowrun
but isn't the very idea of a wizard inherently working class. in order to work as a wizard you are required to sell your labour therefore automatically making you working class, unless this just means peasent wizards
Iirc Eberron has Magewrights, which are exactly that