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Fera

Manatech Civilization

Fera
Jan 30th, 2013
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  1. (Jan 30-23:48) Nothin: OKAY SO
  2. (Jan 30-23:48) Nothin: I had an idea for a setting
  3. (Jan 30-23:48) Fera: Hm?
  4. (Jan 30-23:49) Nothin: Imagine a megacity with this kind of steampunk air to it
  5. (Jan 30-23:49) Nothin: But instead of steam, they use mana power
  6. (Jan 30-23:49) Nothin: And it's like this big, dual-layered city with these crazy bits of architecture that use things like floating platforms, etc
  7. (Jan 30-23:50) Nothin: But the top layer is above ground, and the bottom layer is underground
  8. (Jan 30-23:50) Nothin: And it's in the middle of a desert
  9. (Jan 30-23:50) Nothin: So the only sources of water
  10. (Jan 30-23:50) Nothin: Are water that is magically created
  11. (Jan 30-23:51) Nothin: As traditional 'magic' spells are still an actual thing
  12. (Jan 30-23:51) Nothin: TWIST is
  13. (Jan 30-23:51) Nothin: Mana is this highly corrosive, toxic thing
  14. (Jan 30-23:51) Nothin: at least the kind that pretty much everything uses
  15. (Jan 30-23:52) Nothin: Living creatures by default have this kind of living mana to them
  16. (Jan 30-23:52) Nothin: But the only way to make use of it is basically blood magic
  17. (Jan 30-23:52) Nothin: Which is deadly to, well, whoever you're actually using as the source of the mana
  18. (Jan 30-23:53) Nothin: So all spellcasters gather ambient mana from the air near special 'high background count' zones
  19. (Jan 30-23:53) Nothin: That are basically like magical gray goo killboxes
  20. (Jan 30-23:53) Nothin: As anything that enters those areas is quickly broken down and annihilated
  21. (Jan 30-23:54) Fera: high background count
  22. (Jan 30-23:54) Fera: like uh
  23. (Jan 30-23:54) Fera: radiation zones?
  24. (Jan 30-23:54) Nothin: mana ppm, basically
  25. (Jan 30-23:55) Nothin: Part of the reason using a person's mana would be deadly I guess would be because there's 'livable' and 'unlivable' amounts of mana ppm
  26. (Jan 30-23:55) Nothin: Just the same as there is with radiation
  27. (Jan 30-23:55) Nothin: And so when you take their mana
  28. (Jan 30-23:55) Nothin: They lose all resistance to it
  29. (Jan 30-23:55) Nothin: And even the wimpy background-count mana is able to chew through them
  30. (Jan 30-23:56) Nothin: It would also be interesting because spellcasters would basically keep gaseous mana in these mana 'lanterns' or tanks that they would carry around
  31. (Jan 30-23:57) Nothin: So there could be some interesting variations on those
  32. (Jan 30-23:57) Nothin: Like mana grenades
  33. (Jan 30-23:57) Nothin: Where you hit a button or pull the pin or something
  34. (Jan 30-23:57) Nothin: Toss the grenade
  35. (Jan 30-23:57) Nothin: And it releases it all at once
  36. (Jan 30-23:57) Fera: Hmm
  37. (Jan 30-23:58) Fera: So they'd gather mana from deadzones into mana reservoirs
  38. (Jan 30-23:58) Nothin: Yep
  39. (Jan 30-23:58) Nothin: And use it for spellcasting and power
  40. (Jan 30-23:58) Nothin: Mana-farming would be an actual way to make a normal income if you're magically-talented
  41. (Jan 30-23:59) Nothin: Because you basically work for the company that gathers mana for the city's power
  42. (Jan 30-23:59) Nothin: And go near the deadzones and help the process along
  43. (Jan 30-23:59) Fera: Some additional things
  44. (Jan 30-23:59) Nothin: (Also, because of the toxicity of mana, healing spells do not exist)
  45. (Jan 30-23:59) Fera: Since only living things can process mana
  46. (Jan 31-00:00) Fera: It'd be one of the greatest endeavors for something to be able to do the mana harvesting automatically
  47. (Jan 31-00:00) Nothin: (Magical spells by default apply mana TO something in some form, so a healing spell might stitch up your arm, sure, but then the residual mana either poisons you or literally eats your arm)
  48. (Jan 31-00:01) Nothin: And yes, that would be true
  49. (Jan 31-00:01) Fera: like
  50. (Jan 31-00:01) Nothin: Also: You know what Gray Goo is, right?
  51. (Jan 31-00:01) Fera: I guess some sort of perpetual magitek
  52. (Jan 31-00:01) Fera: yeah
  53. (Jan 31-00:01) Fera: nanites and whatnot
  54. (Jan 31-00:01) Nothin: More specifically
  55. (Jan 31-00:01) Fera: self-reproducing
  56. (Jan 31-00:01) Fera: etc
  57. (Jan 31-00:02) Nothin: Gray goo are clouds of self-replicating nanites
  58. (Jan 31-00:02) Nothin: Whose express purpose is to break things down
  59. (Jan 31-00:03) Nothin: Anyway
  60. (Jan 31-00:03) Nothin: Basically, mana will ANNIHILATE:
  61. (Jan 31-00:03) Nothin: Processed metals
  62. (Jan 31-00:03) Nothin: Plants
  63. (Jan 31-00:03) Nothin: Living things
  64. (Jan 31-00:03) Nothin: Water (it also consumes the mana in the process, though)
  65. (Jan 31-00:04) Nothin: Pretty much the only things it won't eat through
  66. (Jan 31-00:04) Nothin: Are rock and dirt
  67. (Jan 31-00:04) Nothin: (And, of course, magically-shielded containers)
  68. (Jan 31-00:05) Nothin: Glass counts as rock/dirt
  69. (Jan 31-00:05) Fera: Hmm
  70. (Jan 31-00:05) Nothin: Because it's basically superheated sand crystals that are pressed into a new form
  71. (Jan 31-00:05) Fera: Might have the reasoning for that being that mana originally comes from the earth itself, so mana naturally behaves best with untampered earth
  72. (Jan 31-00:06) Nothin: So I imagine they could make mana-grenades and the like for non-magicians
  73. (Jan 31-00:06) Nothin: That are made entirely out of precisely-chiseled stone and clay
  74. (Jan 31-00:06) Nothin: And glass
  75. (Jan 31-00:06) Nothin: Because think about it, you don't need to make it super sturdy
  76. (Jan 31-00:07) Nothin: You just need to make it airtight
  77. (Jan 31-00:07) Nothin: And possessing a release mechanism
  78. (Jan 31-00:07) Nothin: Also: That gives me an idea, Fera
  79. (Jan 31-00:08) Nothin: The power company could operate in the lower levels
  80. (Jan 31-00:08) Nothin: Like, the city could basically be sitting on one ppm zone
  81. (Jan 31-00:08) Nothin: That they're basically mining down to get to
  82. (Jan 31-00:08) Nothin: *One giant
  83. (Jan 31-00:09) Nothin: It makes a good 'excuse' for a lot of things
  84. (Jan 31-00:09) Nothin: Like the lower-level typically being more slummy
  85. (Jan 31-00:10) Nothin: As nobody wants to live close to shit that could potentially burst out and instantly destroy them
  86. (Jan 31-00:10) Fera: Can't live the high life in a coal mine
  87. (Jan 31-00:10) Fera: Of course, some nutcase might do that just to be cool but isolated cases
  88. (Jan 31-00:10) Fera: Oooh wait
  89. (Jan 31-00:10) Fera: Slums in the lower areas center around baron families that have mana-handling in their blood
  90. (Jan 31-00:11) Nothin: Hmm, mite b cool
  91. (Jan 31-00:11) Nothin: There's also interesting possibilities for things like long-lost cave systems
  92. (Jan 31-00:11) Nothin: Or remnants of old civilizations
  93. (Jan 31-00:11) Nothin: etc
  94. (Jan 31-00:11) Nothin: That could be dug up just in time for the players to be called upon to explore them
  95. (Jan 31-00:12) Nothin: You want to know the BEST thing about this little setting though, Fera
  96. (Jan 31-00:12) Fera: ?
  97. (Jan 31-00:12) Nothin: You already want to play with it
  98. (Jan 31-00:12) Nothin: :[)
  99. (Jan 31-00:12) Fera: lol
  100. (Jan 31-00:13) Fera: I did write a little bit about this very concept several years ago
  101. (Jan 31-00:13) Fera: except the mana civilization wasn't the current one, it was a lost civilization type of thing
  102. (Jan 31-00:13) Fera: etc
  103. (Jan 31-00:13) Fera: so yeah, I'm quite interested :V
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