| RustedKitsune |
What is a Tippyverse?
For those who don't know, I shall summarize the concept:
Back in 3.5, a person called Emperor Tippy took a look at RAW, and approached worldbuilding with metaknowledge and optimization, with a heavy dash of "everybody will do the rational thing suggested by the rules".
The result? Megacities ruled by spellcasters, connected by teleport circles, with all basic needs fulfilled by magical traps that focused on Create Food and Water and Fabricate, surrounded by monster-heavy wilderness and supported by truly massive armies of constructs. (original thread here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-t o-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy )
Of course, the Tippyverse isn't actually all that interesting to play in, there being almost no reason to actually go outside the cities (as Raw allowed the use of fabricate to make all your material components required for magic item creation).
So let's look at what story restrictions we can put in place to make such a setup interesting, with a focus on what I did in my setting, where the ancient empire was a Tippyverse-style setup.
Reasons for using the Magic Trap creation rules:
In PF RAW, a magic trap is a wondrous item that has a cost of 50gp*spell level*caster level for a single use, or 500gp*spell level*caster level for a resetting one, and a total caster level equal to the highest level spell used. This is, according to WBL and plausible player advantage (and economic effects), broken. But I'll allow it. Why? Because a magic trap is a stationary magic item that cannot be moved without destroying it. They have to be built into a structure (bigger than a wagon is my ruling), and that reduces their utility to players (who typically wander around with no home base) and increases the power of villains (who typically have bases that get raided by PCs on a regular basis).
Limits on Fabricate: One limitation is common to both 3.5 and PF - you can't create magic items with the spell. It follows that you can't create inherently magical materials either.
So that's our first chance to make it logistically interesting: if you can't make those materials, and you require them in some amount to create any magic item (typically 20-90% of cost to create, depending on how good you are), a society dependent on magic items is dependent on these materials. This gives a reason to hold and work territory, in addition to giving something to base an economy on.
Limits on Spellcasters: This actually really doesn't work in PF, especially for magical traps. Just simply take Master Craftsman (Trapmaking) as the fifth level feat, then retrain the third level feat to Craft Wondrous Item (or simply take it as your third level feat, if the game allows you to take, but not use, feats you do not yet qualify for), and simply accept a +5DC for each spell you cast (remove the alarm spell and you're good). But this brings up a note in regards to other magic item: how frequent are spellcasters?
I run as follows, per 100 people:
84 commoners, 13 experts, 1 aristocrat, 1 Adept, 1 member of a PC class
Among the PC classes, 15% are dedicated casters (0.15% of the total population are PC casters). In a theoretical metropolis of 50,000, you will have 75 casters (and 500 adepts). This places a hard labor limit on how many magic items can be produced at one time.
NPC Level Limits: Paizo said that there are three tiers of NPC; 1-5, 6-10, and 11-15, with anything over level 15 being extremely rare (and existing via DM descision). I agree with this. In the ancient empire, there were 4 casters who 17th level (and could cast 9th level spells). But how common are the higher levels? 5% hit the third tier, 15% hit the second, and 80% never advance beyond the first. SO this means that our magical trapmaker will typically only be able to make items with a CL no higher than 5th (or 3rd level spells).
Those are the primary limits on any reasonable Tippyverse. SO what does this mean?
1: Only core or primary cities are connected by [/i]Teleport Circle[/i].
2: The Magical Empire must hold and work land that produces magical materials, and hold the land required to connect those industries to their cities (or have airships so they only have to hold just those areas).
Let's put one additional limit on Fabrication Traps: They not only need 100x the raw materials, they also need a template item, which is consumed during the crafting of the trap.
Economic Considerations:
In a situation where almost anything can be made in infinite amounts, provided that you have the trap, what becomes valuable?
1: The magical materials. Be unable to be made via Fabricate, and required to make magic items, these are the only items with an actual, non-perceived, worth (and could be the reason why so many material components have a value in GP - it was how much of the currency it took to withdraw X amount from the government stores; the same base situation that created the first currency in ancient Sumeria where the coins were tokens used to withdraw from the city granaries).
2: Intellectual labor: If constructs are common, this also reduces physical labor requirements. This leaves Craft, Performance and Profession skills that cannot be replaced with a properly statted construct as having value. (and Artistry if you are using the background skills variant from Unchained). Unless you give the empire the printing press, books will still be rare unless potential volume of sales is high enough to justify the creation of a dedicated trap.
3: Magical Creation Labor: Constructs cannot obviously create magic items, unless they are intelligent. This places the creation and maintenance of the logistical basis for the empire squarely in the hands of the citizenry
4: Magic Items. The combination of cannot fabricate, requires materials that cannot be fabricated, and non-automated labor makes magic items have value (and thus be an economic force)
5: Handcrafted items. In a situation where everything is mass-produced at a rate of 1 or more per minute, items produced in small or singular amounts will be valuable. While every Imperial Soldier has a standard kit of an Adamantine Longsword and Mithril Chainmail, an Officer that rides with a custom forged sword, engraved with his name and encrusted with gems (even if all the materials came from fabrication centers), is wealthy. Anybody can order a set of standard diamond earrings, but a woman who makes her own jewelry from naturally found gems can command any price in the open market. Anybody can eat from the stores created by long lines of fabrication traps, but to have enough money to hire people to grow actual wheat and then make bread from it - when most people are adding mass-produced spices to the gruel they get from living in the city? That's being rich.
An example follows, from my setting (warning, elves are currently the most advanced race, and nobody has contacted other core species. AKA, don't expect humans):
The Tenadaerin Empire arose on an isthmus rich with raw materials. Already in a perfect place to dominate the trade routes, the elves of the Keva region arose to become an empire several thousand years ago. Sometime in their second millennium, a young genius had an idea: were there cheaper ways to make magic items? While unable to actually do anything magic himself (including make magic items), he could talk to them. Discovering that stationary magic items (commonly called traps, as they were meant for defense) were massively cheaper to make, he tried to convince the local tower to try his theory. A few apprentices took up the challenge and replaced the master mage's stairs with a controllable Levitate Trap. The idea quickly spread, resulting in the current Emperor deciding to focus all research into this area. With the rise in magic item crafting, the need to expand to discover new sources of magical materials rose in lockstep. The invention of the Fabricate spell in 1467, and the corresponding trap in 1491, reduced the needs of the imperial population just to the necessary materials. Most of the population began moving to the cities where the traps were being installed, creating a vicious cycle of only a few other places getting them, depending on strained trade lines from fabrication centers for whatever they couldn't make themselves. Imperial traders visited areas just to discover new magical materials and luxury items to fabricate (the legend of 1 out every 100 clover being magical led to entire noble estates being carpeted with them). The rise of Archmage Tendilus in 1543 created the next major shift. It took him a while to create an entire array of never before seen spells of unparalleled power (9th level spells), but when he created the Teleport Circle (and the methods to make it permanent), the Empress rejoiced and ordered him to connect the major cities of the Empire. Assassins cut him down after the 25th circle, and his genius was not seen again until 2442, when Menilda Astania proved her claim to the title of Archmage with the first casting of Meteor Storm seen. After a brief moment of familiarization, she set about connecting the rest of the cities using the recovered material stockpile used by Tendilus, who got them from an unknown area. The materials ran out after the 113th circle.
This cycle continued onwards, with small settlements being created just to harvest magical materials, imperial forces holding just enough land necessary to create a safe trade route, unsatisfied citizens creating more settlements with nobles backing them just to gain bragging points, their descendants trying to go back to over crowded cities, and their children trying to create a new settlement. A few developments to note were the creation of Magic Farmers: citizens trained in the deliberate creation of magical materials; the enslavement of goblins (in 1129); the dropping of magic item creation costs to 10% of previous generations of the market; and the slide of the Royal Family into incest and the veneration of unknown (presumably evil) gods sometime around 3510.
The empire fell from a combination of the following factors:
1: A civil war started in 4312 by two royal brothers over their only sister.
2: A civil war started in 4313 by a group of nobles who felt the need to get the empire back on track
3: A peasant revolt begun in 4310 over the lack of magical amenities outside of the cities
4: A goblin slave "revolt" that started around 4313 and continued until 4315, when a noble named Amilius Denetri beat their leader in a grand ping-pong tournament by the cunning method of flipping the table onto his opponent (no one knows how goblins got the idea for this sport, but it's the only one they can all agree on the rules for. And properly treated goblin snot makes for a great rubber substitute).
5: A "Back to nature" terrorist group (The Kanlinda) that began war operations in 4314, taking advantage of the civil wars, focusing on the destruction of arcane knowledge.
6: A magical resonance cascade in 4316 that destroyed on the order of 99% of the magical items in the empire (often very explosively. Most of the core cites are cratered ruins now). Nobody knows who released it, but it was the ending of the empire.
In the end, about 80% of the population was dead, and all spellcasters over 4th level were dead as well before the destruction caught up with the Kalinda and made them collapse.
Aftermath: SO obviously I don't run a Tippyverse (as noted by the fact that it was the ancient empire that had all the tippyverse shenanigans). But what's to prevent someone from trying again?
Fabricate Traps changed: Obviously any old Imperials ones still work as they did. But now Fabricate traps work differently: When given a template item and enough raw materials for X copies, they will produce X copies. Still economically powerful (in that you skip the crafting stage), but not world breaking (you still need the raw materials). Attempts to craft Imperial style ones have not worked yet, but will simply produce the raw material input over a limited time.
Social Changes: With the huge amount of deaths from the cascade, the prevailing opinion is that magic items are fine in small amounts (the fact that it was mostly the traps that exploded gives handheld magical items a free pass), but the people need a logistical solution that almost everybody can learn the basics of. Enter the growth of Science and Alchemy. The people turn to magic after science can't help.
Lack of Knowledge: Currently, nobody can make a magic item with a CL higher than 6 without spending 2-5 times as much in workarounds and dead-end research. Most powerful items are from the Imperial Period (with the fact that they spent 10% of the listed creation cost to make anything... Magic items were everywhere)
Various Traps that might be found:
Summon Cow: A variant Summon Nature's Ally that uses the fact that a summoned creature can be made permanent by giving up all control over it (that's my houserule, but it does require the permanency spell). The reason for the cow is simple: this trap is cheaper than Fabricate (Dead Cow) and the meat is fresher!
Imperial Armory: This huge installation (20'x30'x15') is activated by a person stepping into a glass-doored 5x5 room. Upon activation, they are given a full set of Imperial Legionary's Equipment, perfectly sized to them (includes weapons and armor determined by the position of various levers next to the door.
Rejuvenation Room: Utilizing a corrupted form of Reincarnate (to ensure you remain an elf), this coffin-like bed on top of a 5x5x5 block of magical mechanisms also uses Restoration to remove your negative levels
Teleport Pad: Restricted to the Imperial Special Legion, this small room has two sections - an area with 12 pads on it, and a table with a crystal ball between multiple sets of switches on it. Upon viewing the area to teleport to through the ball, the pads are activated, teleporting the people on them to the area.