Scope:

I wanted the ability to fit into one world Magic of every type, combat, intrigue, plots and politics complex enough to be real. I wanted to have the scope to play campaigns where magic was an escalator of power leading to heights that meant the characters growth would not be limited in by any lack of power, knowledge or complexity. I also wanted the freedom to play a campaign where magic might be scarce, valuable and treasured. The real difference, or so I reasoned, between these two extremes was... social status. Among the wealthy and nobility, training could be paid for, “every name in the Kingdom of any note has as wizard or two in the family don’t you know”. On the other hand for the poor and the rural the options are more limited, and magic would seem costly out of reach and “for the fancy city folk, not us common folk”.

To give magic and politics the scope I wanted I created a system of magic colleges that train most of the wizards in the game. They are the mega-corporations of Argand, bigger than any one nation, economic powerhouses that kings and emperors want to keep on side. They would be corporate enterprises that are household names, ubiquitous at the same time as being scary because of their wealth and power. I imagined wizards trained in by a specific college may hate and/or distrust wizards from other colleges on sight. To support “mega-corporate” magic I designed a world with high population densities, cities in the millions are common. Cities which can only be supported by proper sanitation, magi-tech assisted farming techniques, trade colleges and education that is available to all but the very poorest citizens.

To stitch all of this together I invented “Industrial Magic”. Why not have skyscrapers built by magic with engineering and architectural knowledge. Imagine roads constructed in bulk by large scale use of mud to stone, bridges, city walls and stone/concrete walls, pavements, towers, domes and fanciful buildings. Throw in permanent walls of force for perfect unbreakable windows, magical reinforcing of materials to allow construction of things not possible in the real world. Levitation, floating castles, libraries, tele-portals, magical message services, illusory theatre shows, magical medical clinics and so on. A million uses for magic that a college could charge for, make a profit and improve the quality of life of the citizens. So magic would be ubiquitous, business oriented and it could provide the necessary conditions to support mega-cities, high population density and the modern urban specialisation of job functions. In short, imagine modern society but where everything technical is supplied by magic not technology.

I imagine that technology and magic are not perfect substitutes however. Some things that technology is good at magic cannot provide, while some things that are difficult with technology could be commonplace with magic. In the former category I imagined digital electronics and computing. All the modern wonders that have been designed by or realised with computers would be missing from a magi-tech world. However, panacea healing, levitation and teleportation might be things that magic can provide relatively easily that technology does not.

So if you can imagine a world where mega-corporations sell everything, where corporate greed and money corrupts good intentions. Where nobles strive to be wizards and wizards become a mix of technocrats, businessmen and politicians. Where for a fee you can go along to your local magi-medical centre and be healed of cancer. Then take a teleport from the local magi-port to a far off kingdom. But where trains, trams and cars don’t exist and where computers and all modern electronics is missing, then you can imagine Argand.