#i haven't even gotten to talk about the evil unicorn incident yet

[iturbide]

What are your favourite and least favourite parts about world building?

OH I LOVE WORLDBUILDING WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE ABOUT WORLDBUILDING

Probably my favorite part is hitting on a logic cascade that rapidly builds on a certain aspect of the world, how it works, or its history. Using Summer Storm and my ridiculous backlog of secret knowledge:

One of the core conceits of the story is that most humans are capable of magic. Not being able to use it is actually the outlier condition.

Using magic, though, requires power. While raw magical energy is present in most places, the density of it varies; in some places, mages can use spells just off the ambient energy, while in others they have to draw on their internal reserves.

Reserves vary on an individual basis. Some mages have huge reserves and can power multiple spells in magic-poor areas, while others have very small ones that may only support one minor spell.

Like a muscle, reserves can be trained up to increase their overall capacity; however, there is still a maximum beyond which they can't reach.

Mages can also use external reserves in the form of stones (mostly quartz) saturated with magic energy. Magical energy will saturate the crystal structure over time, and contact will allow a mage to draw off that reserve regardless of the state of their own reserves.

With these external reserves, it doesn't matter if someone has a natural talent or impressive internal reserve: they can still practice magecraft if that's what they want.

Stones used for external reserves are often judged on size and overall quality. Larger stones can obviously hold a larger amount of energy, but clear stones have more room in their crystal structure to store energy compared to cloudy ones where the matrix can get tangled up with other minerals that don't have a suitable structure.

Stones therefore have different purposes: a giant hunk of quartz would make for a good workshop piece, while multiple small, clear stones can be disguised as jewelry, keeping ample reserves close at hand while traveling.

Knowing that, there's an opportunity to create an industry, primarily in mage-friendly areas, geared toward mining, cutting, and charging stones for mages: not just any stone will work, after all, so someone with the training could provide a valuable service to a mage community.

An experienced mage can visually judge a good quality stone from a poor quality one, and how much charge it has by touch. An inexperienced mage, however, may not know enough to tell the difference.

There is therefore an opportunity for con artists to sell insufficiently charged and/or inadequate quality stones for outrageous prices, ripping off less experienced mages who don't know any better.

I DON'T KNOW I JUST FIND THAT FUN. It's minutiae that will probably never be a focal point in the story, but just knowing that this is out there makes the world feel richer.

I guess if there's anything I don't like, it's the rote names. I hate devoting any more time than necessary to naming individual people who don't have any relevance to the story as it unfolds, regardless of how important they are to history. This is why I never refer to the First Exalt as anything other than "The First Exalt." I don't want to give them a name, I have enough of those to remember, and the title is enough.