OF MAGIC AND TECHNOLOGY

Welcome to Actavia. Little is known about the age of the World except that it is very, very old. The ancient histories have been largely lost to mankind, the latest generation of which seems to care little for the past. There are exceptions, of course – pockets of people who have thus far managed to avoid "civilizing," who have tasked themselves with remembering our origins and keeping the old ways – but I am getting ahead of myself.

For as long as anyone can remember, the World has been split into two groups of people – those who have magic, and those who have not. Magic is a peculiar mistress – it has long seemed as though those who are chosen to possess this most extraordinary power are drawn completely at random from the pool of Men. Sometimes it follows logic – if two who have it bear a child, that child seems more likely to possess this special quality. However, this is far from a rule – Magic, as I said, is quite particular, and nothing in this World, least of all regarding the forces we can not understand, can be predicted with any amount of certainty.

In those who have the Gift, the magic can run strong or weak. Certain individuals seem better preinclined to master certain elements – healing, for instance, or conjuring. This, obviously, put those who have not at quite a disadvantage – they could not snap a finger and start a fire, nor could they go about their daily chores with a minimal effort and expect to get anywhere. Instead, those who have not devised other ways to do things – and they called this new, man-made magic "technology."

Technology, it was said, could do anything. Healing spells could be matched by advancements in a field that came to be known as "medicine;" likewise, magical means of transport could be replaced by wagons, horse-drawn carriages, and eventually, cars and trains and ships. Even flight did not seem impossible. These people did not stop inventing, and their world grew tall and dark and loud and they invented new words – "industry" and "civilization" – to describe the way they lived now. While the magic-users had been devising newer and bigger ways to contort their powers, those who had none had been inventing steamliners and electricity. The World had become divided.

Many years passed. Today many believe we are at the peak of civilization – we have cured almost every disease, discovered a solution to almost every problem of nature and the elements. This advancement has not been without its costs – our environment has suffered greatly, and countless species have disappeared right in front of us. There are still, of course, places which have resisted this change – places too wild, too untamed, to be worth the effort of cultivating. It is to many of these places that the magic-users have retreated, seeking solace away from the loud, busy stress of our "modern" living. Not all magic-users feel this way; many have built cities of their own, less harsh and mechanized, but still recognizable as a bustling metropolis. Many of these cities have little to no technology, and harken back to an older time, when kings still ruled and the word of a knight was unshakable. Still other magic users have turned their backs on the past, chosing to adapt to this New World and finding positions within this fast-paced, industrial society that suit their particular, ahem, "talents."

 MORE ON MAGIC

To start with, magic can be drawn from any of three sources: The "astral plane" (or spirit-world), yourself, or your environment (including channeling/siphoning it from those around you.) It's possible to draw from more than one at once. Magic itself has no inherent goodness or evilness - it is neutral. It is men which make such distinctions.

Magic is divisible into loose categories, both with exceptions (and there may be many other possibilities). In general, its users can be described as falling under one of the following labels: sorceror (or sorceress), mage, or witch (male or female). The actual term applied to an individual depends entirely upon his culture and tradition; one can be called a druid, a shaman, etc., but will still fall into one of these very general categories. All three can have any combination of the power sources listed above, depending on the style.

Those who practice sorcery tend to view magic more as an art, something which can be manipulated and embellished. Sorcerors are the inventors of the magic world - their craft is loosely structured, generally with no formal apprentice/teacher arrangements, and the ways in which it is practiced vary. There is no standard "book of spells" for sorcery. It is a fluid, liberal application of magic, with no concepts of "dark" or "white" magic; the use depends solely on the caster.

Mages, on the other hand, practice a very disciplined craft and use a formal, standardized system. White mages practice healing; green mages tend to nature, etc. Mages generally study from books and teachers, and generally have disdain for the idea of "inventing" new spells. Mages tend to prize wisdom and knowledge above power and strongly disapprove of "misusing" magic (particularly the way the sorceror's toss it about).

The third subdivision, witchcraft, is a very ancient craft which is practiced even less often than the other two. It is a branch of magic based around ritual and spell-casting. Witchcraft demands the presence of certain ingredients and the brewing of potions - a witch can not cast a spell herself on the spur of the moment. As such, it's a rather inconvenient branch of magic which generally was only used by the "medicine man" type of the village to create healing salves and the like. It is a difficult craft to master, and there are few capable of producing the appropriate results, even when following the recipes in a spellbook perfectly.

 MORE ON TECHNOLOGY

Advancements in technology vary vastly across the continent. In places where technology has blossomed, magic is unlikely to be found. (Though it is feasible there may be one or two places that have successfully combined the two.) What do these areas look like? Picture something like the cities in Final Fantasy games, or (and I shudder to suggest this) the whacky kind of technology in movies like "Wild Wild West." They're basically about as advanced as we are, but may have developed things in different ways - for instance, something like a dishwasher may actually be a mechanical contraption in the sink that washes each dish for you, instead of what we have.

Things that do exist in HIGHLY ADVANCED cities: Cell phones (though they do not use satellites and lose their signal as soon as you step outside the city walls), personal computers and other small electronics (PDAs, MP3 players, etc, under different names), very limited 'cyborg' or cybernetic technologies (it's feasible you could have bits replaced, or some electronic device physically implanted, but PLEASE use common sense and apply this in moderation), tattoos, drugs, and all that bad stuff (though slightly different from our own), cars, motorcycles, telephones, televisions, etc. (Think about the levels of fantasy-technology in cartoons like Batman Beyond and Teen Titans and the like.)

Things you can find even in relatively backwater areas: Railway/trains (steam engines), guns, technologies that rely on sources of energy other than electricity.

Things that do NOT exist, ANYWHERE: Anything dependent upon satellites (though alternate methods may have been developed; Actavia has NOT achieved space travel of any kind), airplanes, robots, etc.

Basically, technology has become HIGHLY CONCENTRATED, so that in most places (at least within Actavia) it's concentrated to one locality, with no emphasis on connecting different areas. (This means no world-wide internet, no hopping a plane from here to there, etc.)