World Changers
May. 12th, 2018 08:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThere's a lot of spells that could change the world
but since most of the spellbook is different kinds of damage they need some digging and thought applied.
The biggest world changers in GURPS magic aren't even in GURPS Magic, or Thaumatology. They're in BioTech. The whole set of obstetric spells.
Modern medicine is doing pretty good, though its benefits are unevenly distributed.
And there's almost nothing in the spells that biotech isn't working hard on already.
But magic doesn't depend on figuring out the genetics or working out the technological requirements of a uterine replicator. It doesn't require a fully staffed hospital and surgery to get things done. So you can drop it in to any civilisation, any time.
Meaning you can play with the wildest possibilities of gengineering, but with the philosophy and ethics of any era.
Spells in Biotech:
Accelerate Pregnancy
Analyze Heredity
Create Chimera*
Ease Labour
Hellspawn
Manipulate DNA*
Remove Fetus
Sequence DNA*
Spellgraft*
Transfer Pregnancy
Warp Fetus
Between that little lot you can do whatever next level biotech's sci fi dreams can do, but by thinking about it real hard, and with Spellgraft you can build that ability in to the next generation and make it heritable.
... you also maybe might screw up and replace their potential soul with a demon, but the layers of theological wtf in that one are... not okay.
Spells in the main book control fertility in a turn it off and on again way, and potions turn fertility into a sure thing, but these control it in a fine detail sense. Creation to order.
And Transfer Pregnancy explicitly makes mpreg possible, though it costs more energy, due to having to build structures. Body Control spells could already alter someone to have the appropriate anatomy, but Transfer Pregnancy does it after the fact. Arguments on the my body my choice rule would have another option. And an assortment of spells, if successful, ensure a safe and successful pregnancy and delivery. Accelerate Pregnancy even makes it super swift, though I'm sure that would feel weird, the only stories I can think of that accelerate pregnancy are always about demons and go for the body horror angle because it's pretty weird to suddenly be big. But, in theory, Accelerate makes it safe and swift.
None of these precisely make it so you can use magic to use DNA from any two people to make a baby in minimum time, but combined creatively that's a possible result.
And that's without getting into all the potential for alteration.
Once biotech is possible you've got The Girl Thing Who Went Out For Sushi, and any number of personal alterations ala Body Control, but you've also got the possibility of creating new species or races. Mostly in fantasy only the bad guys do that, they make super soldier orcs or whatever, but why? If it becomes possible to make elves, somebody is going to want their kids to be elves, that's just facts. Heck, a whole lot of somebodies are going to want their kids to be super goth, go with the pale skin black hair combination, maybe upgrade their seeing in the dark and put in some sunblock, possibly make it sparkle... All these things that humans have dreamt of, biotech is going to try and do. And if magical biotech was around, they'd do them faster, and with wildly less control. Hmm, well, sort of less, I guess once biotech hits a certain level you actually can have individuals doing the alterations in their kitchen, and all they'll need is knowledge. But magic definitely does that.
So the GURPS Biotech spells make as much world changing difference as the tech people are working on, but it starts as the same kind of stuff fantasy powers have been able to do since ever, remaking species in a desired image. Only then it gets more personal.
... I just like mpreg wizards at the moment. I'm getting so frustrated with pureblood marriage obsession as the impediment to true love, just give them magic mpreg, it's not less plausible than polyjuice potions.
The whole transformative power of the Body Control spells is in the rules like it'll be primarily for adventuring, for using deceptively, or for pumping up for a fight or something.
Apply science fiction thinking to fantasy rule sets and you'll get far, far stranger societies.
Cabinets of Alter or Transform Body that let people redesign themselves to order, or possibly at random if things go wrong. Change Gender spells, whatever the weird in the spell description says, mean gender confirmation changes that only take being tapped with a stick, if there's enough power in the powerstone. But they also open up the possibility of a genderfluid society, if you only have to wait until recharge to change again.
If only adventurers know spells then they'll use them for adventure, sure. But if these spells are just around then you have a high biotech society, subject to rapid change on a cellular level, capable of adding magic to their very genome.
That takes very few generations to get very, very, wild.
And you could start it in any kind of Merlin semi medieval setting, or earlier, if you pleased.
Or right here and now, if someone looked at muggle developments and had a brainwave on how to do it better.
but since most of the spellbook is different kinds of damage they need some digging and thought applied.
The biggest world changers in GURPS magic aren't even in GURPS Magic, or Thaumatology. They're in BioTech. The whole set of obstetric spells.
Modern medicine is doing pretty good, though its benefits are unevenly distributed.
And there's almost nothing in the spells that biotech isn't working hard on already.
But magic doesn't depend on figuring out the genetics or working out the technological requirements of a uterine replicator. It doesn't require a fully staffed hospital and surgery to get things done. So you can drop it in to any civilisation, any time.
Meaning you can play with the wildest possibilities of gengineering, but with the philosophy and ethics of any era.
Spells in Biotech:
Accelerate Pregnancy
Analyze Heredity
Create Chimera*
Ease Labour
Hellspawn
Manipulate DNA*
Remove Fetus
Sequence DNA*
Spellgraft*
Transfer Pregnancy
Warp Fetus
Between that little lot you can do whatever next level biotech's sci fi dreams can do, but by thinking about it real hard, and with Spellgraft you can build that ability in to the next generation and make it heritable.
... you also maybe might screw up and replace their potential soul with a demon, but the layers of theological wtf in that one are... not okay.
Spells in the main book control fertility in a turn it off and on again way, and potions turn fertility into a sure thing, but these control it in a fine detail sense. Creation to order.
And Transfer Pregnancy explicitly makes mpreg possible, though it costs more energy, due to having to build structures. Body Control spells could already alter someone to have the appropriate anatomy, but Transfer Pregnancy does it after the fact. Arguments on the my body my choice rule would have another option. And an assortment of spells, if successful, ensure a safe and successful pregnancy and delivery. Accelerate Pregnancy even makes it super swift, though I'm sure that would feel weird, the only stories I can think of that accelerate pregnancy are always about demons and go for the body horror angle because it's pretty weird to suddenly be big. But, in theory, Accelerate makes it safe and swift.
None of these precisely make it so you can use magic to use DNA from any two people to make a baby in minimum time, but combined creatively that's a possible result.
And that's without getting into all the potential for alteration.
Once biotech is possible you've got The Girl Thing Who Went Out For Sushi, and any number of personal alterations ala Body Control, but you've also got the possibility of creating new species or races. Mostly in fantasy only the bad guys do that, they make super soldier orcs or whatever, but why? If it becomes possible to make elves, somebody is going to want their kids to be elves, that's just facts. Heck, a whole lot of somebodies are going to want their kids to be super goth, go with the pale skin black hair combination, maybe upgrade their seeing in the dark and put in some sunblock, possibly make it sparkle... All these things that humans have dreamt of, biotech is going to try and do. And if magical biotech was around, they'd do them faster, and with wildly less control. Hmm, well, sort of less, I guess once biotech hits a certain level you actually can have individuals doing the alterations in their kitchen, and all they'll need is knowledge. But magic definitely does that.
So the GURPS Biotech spells make as much world changing difference as the tech people are working on, but it starts as the same kind of stuff fantasy powers have been able to do since ever, remaking species in a desired image. Only then it gets more personal.
... I just like mpreg wizards at the moment. I'm getting so frustrated with pureblood marriage obsession as the impediment to true love, just give them magic mpreg, it's not less plausible than polyjuice potions.
The whole transformative power of the Body Control spells is in the rules like it'll be primarily for adventuring, for using deceptively, or for pumping up for a fight or something.
Apply science fiction thinking to fantasy rule sets and you'll get far, far stranger societies.
Cabinets of Alter or Transform Body that let people redesign themselves to order, or possibly at random if things go wrong. Change Gender spells, whatever the weird in the spell description says, mean gender confirmation changes that only take being tapped with a stick, if there's enough power in the powerstone. But they also open up the possibility of a genderfluid society, if you only have to wait until recharge to change again.
If only adventurers know spells then they'll use them for adventure, sure. But if these spells are just around then you have a high biotech society, subject to rapid change on a cellular level, capable of adding magic to their very genome.
That takes very few generations to get very, very, wild.
And you could start it in any kind of Merlin semi medieval setting, or earlier, if you pleased.
Or right here and now, if someone looked at muggle developments and had a brainwave on how to do it better.