In my homebrew campaign setting, I'm making some changes to how arcane and divine magic has historically interacted.
First off, the casting times listed for arcane magic in the rulebooks are due to recent innovations in the study of magic. Through most of history, the casting times for arcane spells were far longer. Divine spells, however, have always used the listed casting times.
Secondly, the deities cannot take away divine powers once they have been granted, even if they want to. Divine law forbids it, among other things such as divine intervention and speaking directly to a mortal. Divine powers can, however, be warped by the emotions present in one's soul. This means that, while a Paladin can never lose her powers no matter how evil she becomes, her powers can change to reflect her evilness, slowly turning her into an Anti-Paladin. The same applies to other divine casters. This does not mean that there are no penalties for violating the tenants of one's faith, it just means that they are not mechanical penalties. For example, though a fallen Paladin cannot lose her powers no matter what she does, other Paladins will most likely hear of her deeds at some point, and they will probably attempt to deal with her.
Third, arcane casters have historically not been very well favored at all. Arcane magic has been distrusted, and it's practitioners usually punished, often with execution. Only recently has it been acceptable to practice the arcane arts.
Fourth, the deities used to hand out divine powers to pretty much anyone who could promise to behave without crossing their fingers. This was do to major theological wars raging across the world. People were needed to fight them. With so many divine casters and so few arcane casters, this put the churches at the head of almost all governments and gave religion lot of power. Unfortunately, handing out divine power to so many people meant giving it to many individuals who wished to abuse it. There were far more fallen Paladins and corrupt Clerics than there were good intentioned ones. These powers couldn't be taken away, so the churches quickly became less than admirable institutions. Eventually the deities realized that handing out so much irrevocable power was a bad idea, and started being a lot more careful about who they gave such power to. As a result of this, the churches' power and influence plummeted once all the divine casters started dying from violence and natural causes. The ramifications of this massive drop in church power (as well as an arcane and technological renaissance/industrial revolution) are a big theme of the campaign setting.
Fifth, the increased casting time for arcane magic has never applied to elves. They've always used the times listed in the rulebooks. Only recently have other races caught up. Elves realized how much of a boon this was, and disguised arcane magic as divine magic, claimed it was from the deities, and used this "divine blessing" as an excuse to become the most powerful race in the world, ruling over all others except the dwarves (who were geographically isolated, skilled at defensive warfare, and suicidally stubborn to the point where it was more beneficial to let them rule themselves and establish trade partnerships with them than it was to conquer them). They also intentionally demonized and persecuted any arcane casters who were revealed in order to discourage others from studying arcane magic and becoming as good as elves, which would threaten their power, which is precisely what ended up happening after the church fell, so the elves had reason to be worried. The elves have now lost much of the power and influence they once had.
The fall of the churches happened about 150 years past, with the fall of the elves a couple decades after. Elves are about as long lived as any other race. There was originally a lot of hatred of the elves after their fall, but they are sort of like Germany after WW2. Yea, they did a lot of horrid things and people hated them for it, but it's been long enough since that most don't blame the elves or actively hate them (though there are still some residual feelings floating around that could flame up), especially since, aside from a few racist organizations, the elves have been actively trying to distance themselves from what they did.
I think these ideas for the campaign setting make sense, and I have some basic ideas for how they effect the world's culture, but I'd like to see it through other eyes. Do these points make sense? What questions do they bring up?
Why is arcane magic frowned upon? That's definitely the shortest paragraph in your description and it looks like you were going to detail it but forgot to get back to it. The other ideas all make sense and seem cohesive as you've described them. But the explanation of arcane magic's perception is missing, and thus it seems random.
The overall feeling of this setting reminds me strongly of Dark Sun. Were you specifically trying to create something like it, or is that purely coincidental?
Why is arcane magic frowned upon? That's definitely the shortest paragraph in your description and it looks like you were going to detail it but forgot to get back to it. The other ideas all make sense and seem cohesive as you've described them. But the explanation of arcane magic's perception is missing, and thus it seems random.
The overall feeling of this setting reminds me strongly of Dark Sun. Were you specifically trying to create something like it, or is that purely coincidental?
It's coincidental. I've heard of Dark Sun, but I've never read a Dark Sun book. My perception was that Dark Sun was post apocalyptic, which this setting isn't. There is a lot of social upheaval what with the fall of the elves, the end of feudalism, the weakening of the churches, magical and technological innovation, and the rise of megacorporations, but no apocalypse.
Arcane magic was frowned upon because the elves wanted it to be. They were better at it than anyone else and therefore able to conquer using it, and were afraid others would become good at it and be able to defeat the elves, so the elves made up evidence to show that arcane magic was evil and dangerous, and used this as an excuse to prevent the non-elves they were oppressing from studying it (elves, of course, studied it all the time, but they covered this hypocrisy up by pretending that their arcane magic was actually divine magic and saying that the gods favored them more than any other race).
This elaborate charade eventually collapsed and was discovered during the fall of the churches, and other races managed to learn elven arcane casting techniques, removing the elven magical advantage and leading to their downfall as the masters of the world.
Yes, Dark Sun is post-apocalyptic, an apocalypse (IIRC) caused by an abuse of arcane magic.
Megacorporations? In a non-Shadowrun setting? Fascinating. I will be interested to see how you manage that with what seems to be a pre-Internet level of technology without (much) magic.
So far things seem cohesive and interesting. Are you going to run this as a PbP? Can I join? :)
Yes, Dark Sun is post-apocalyptic, an apocalypse (IIRC) caused by an abuse of arcane magic.
Ah. This setting is more modernistic.
Megacorporations? In a non-Shadowrun setting? Fascinating. I will be interested to see how you manage that with what seems to be a pre-Internet level of technology without (much) magic.
The prosecution of arcane magic is mostly historical. It waned with the waning of church and elven power over a century ago, and, without elves convincing people not to use arcane magic, it's study has taken off massively, especially with divine casters being less common than they once were. As a result, the arcane magic level is actually rather high. It was very low through most of history, but has jumped massively in recent times. That's a major theme of the setting: an arcane industrial revolution. I'd compare the arcane magic level to Eberron, or maybe a little higher, now that everyone has figured out that the stuff isn't evil (that was just elven propaganda, and the elven order fell hard over a century ago).
That's actually a major reason why there are megacorporations. A technological revolution (steam tech) is occurring alongside the arcane revolution, and magic and technology are being blended together heavily (alchemical fueled steam engines can do things non-magical steam engines couldn't come close to accomplishing), creating a mixture of steampunk and magitech. However, at the same time there is the decline of the church and fall of elven dominance, with the longstanding feudal system about to collapse in many places and already collapsed in others. Something has to replace the dying order, and, with most nations small sized fiefdoms that don't have the resources to take advantage of the situation, the people made rich by the growth of magic and technology have realized that they could be the new big dogs do to their massive wealth. Who's going to stop them from economically dominating the continent?
So far things seem cohesive and interesting. Are you going to run this as a PbP? Can I join? :)
I don't know that I'll have time to run a PBP. I likely won't. It could be a couple months or longer before I have time to GM, so I'm working on building up my campaign setting.
Technology level is a mix of magitech and steampunk, with standard Pathfinder weapons (No firearms. They are known to exist, but they were quickly abandoned in favor of enchanted crossbows due to the limits of early firearms. There isn't much potential seen in them when crossbows can have some cool magic.).
Feudalism is just ending, so ideas like the knight are still around, though knights don't have anywhere near the power and influence they used to have. The countries are mostly small fiefdoms, and not closely unified. There was once a unified elven empire, but it collapsed around the time everything went bad for the elves, leaving small countries who are often at war with each other in it's place.
The continent this campaign setting revolves around is a fantasy analogue of North America.
I use this hose rule. Crossbows need an feat to be viable as an archer's main weapon that bows don't need, but crossbows can have technological attachments that bows can't have. Bows are still easily found in this setting, but crossbows are the more popular weapon.
You might want to consider is if the arcane casters can evoke energy from the positive energy plane or not - as well as whether new innovations will shorten casting times even more.
I don't have positive or negative energy in this setting, I have healing and harming energy. The difference is that being undead doesn't "reverse the polarity". A healing spell puts body parts back together. Whether the body parts are alive or dead is irrelevant. To compensate for this, characters with the channel energy ability are allowed to choose what they want to channel whenever they channel energy (including UC alternate channels). This means that a cleric or paladin can still channel energy against undead, just with a different energy type.
New innovations will likely not shorten casting times even more. I've been doing some tweaking, and I decided that the original innovations were revealed to the elves only at first by the deities because they were supposed to rule over all the other races. Then, after the whole debacle with the churches losing their massive access to divine magic, the deities decided the elves couldn't be trusted with sole access to quick arcane magic because they kept abusing this power and gave all the other human races the same innovations. Essentially, the deities basically taught humans all the techniques already. They may invent new ways to use them, and in fact do so frequently, but not likely faster ways.
I don't have positive or negative energy in this setting, I have healing and harming energy. The difference is that being undead doesn't "reverse the polarity". A healing spell puts body parts back together. Whether the body parts are alive or dead is irrelevant. To compensate for this, characters with the channel energy ability are allowed to choose what they want to channel whenever they channel energy (including UC alternate channels). This means that a cleric or paladin can still channel energy against undead, just with a different energy type.
New innovations will likely not shorten casting times even more. I've been doing some tweaking, and I decided that the original innovations were revealed to the elves only at first by the deities because they were supposed to rule over all the other races. Then, after the whole debacle with the churches losing their massive access to divine magic, the deities decided the elves couldn't be trusted with sole access to quick arcane magic because they kept abusing this power and gave all the other human races the same innovations. Essentially, the deities basically taught humans all the techniques already. They may invent new ways to use them, and in fact do so frequently, but not likely faster ways.
Ah, okay. Will your undead have level-draining abilities or will the drain be more Constitution-based? If healing spells put body parts back together what reanimates them?
That makes sense, though given this, I could imagine the mages here finding some non-divine ways of healing. Mixed-racial Frankenstein monsters could come about from mages stitching body parts together. Of course, mage doctors would also probably be common...
I don't have positive or negative energy in this setting, I have healing and harming energy. The difference is that being undead doesn't "reverse the polarity". A healing spell puts body parts back together. Whether the body parts are alive or dead is irrelevant. To compensate for this, characters with the channel energy ability are allowed to choose what they want to channel whenever they channel energy (including UC alternate channels). This means that a cleric or paladin can still channel energy against undead, just with a different energy type.
New innovations will likely not shorten casting times even more. I've been doing some tweaking, and I decided that the original innovations were revealed to the elves only at first by the deities because they were supposed to rule over all the other races. Then, after the whole debacle with the churches losing their massive access to divine magic, the deities decided the elves couldn't be trusted with sole access to quick arcane magic because they kept abusing this power and gave all the other human races the same innovations. Essentially, the deities basically taught humans all the techniques already. They may invent new ways to use them, and in fact do so frequently, but not likely faster ways.
Ah, okay. Will your undead have level-draining abilities or will the drain be more Constitution-based? If healing spells put body parts back together what reanimates them?
That makes sense, though given this, I could imagine the mages here finding some non-divine ways of healing. Mixed-racial Frankenstein monsters could come about from mages stitching body parts together. Of course, mage doctors would also probably be common...
Undead are animated by necromantic energy, which is the school of magic used for healing, harming, and other life-based tasks. They retain level draining abilities, which work via necromantic energy. There are arcane casters who can heal: Witches and Alchemists. There are a fair number of both.