Creative Exercise: The Sovereign Dominion of Eyros

[Rystil Arden]

OK, here's what I changed my old contribution to (up above). This is not my contribution for today. It is basically a rewrite of Sarellion's post that takes into account what everyone has said, and eliminates the gaping problems. Now everything should work out fine, I would imagine:

Revised Arcaneum:

The Arcaneum is the imperial office regulating spellcasting affairs. Originally it was a small bureau that was tasked to regulate the standardisation process and compile the lexicon, but the Praes Thanatos eventually shifted some of its more mundane duties over to the Arcaneum, to allow the gnomes more time to spend on things that they considered more important.

The arcaneum as it is now is responsible for:
The registration and classificaton of new spells
Testing new wizards who want to teach for their competence
Training Eyrian wizards in the basics of magic. They cannot teach the Masks because the Masks use a different spellcasting technique, but Masks are still sometimes sent there to learn the required discipline (at the Pillar's option).
Granting permissions for enchanting magic items to freelancer spellcasters
Commission and acquistion of magical items for use by the imperial adminstration.
Detection of malign magical influences in the courts. They ensure that criminal spellcasters don´t fool around with the clerk behind the desk or the higher ups.
Education of the adminisration about magic and its uses.
Surveillance for mystical phenomena

The Arcaneum is more of an andministrative office than a wizard´s guild. There are wizards within the arcaneum but most members are clerks with knowledge about magical theory. They are the experts when the civil offices have to deal with magic or need to use magic. The Arcaneum has 25 active wizard members, 50 Magewrights, and almost 500 clerks and experts on duty. They often hire out freelancer spellcasters to aid in lessons, and so at any given time, they may have up to 29 wizards and 58 Magewrights on staff.

The arcaneum also works together with the Masks and the Praes Thanatos in classifying spells deemed dangerous. Spells with area effect are deemed dangerous and only upright magicians of the common classes and nobles are allowed to learn this spells. The Knock spell is only allowed to the Praes Thanatos and has been dubbed gnome´s magic key by the common people. The use of the magic door opener also explains the term skeleton key.

The arcaneum has a militant branch, who are all hexblades, the Praetorii Arcanae. These are responsible for providing magical security for the senate and the highest offices, like the Imperial Treasury. They are not the only guards for this installations but part of the senate´s security forces. Embassies in foreign countries have one Praetorii as the other branches, Masks and Praes Thanatos are unsuitable.

The Arcaneum is led by a council of Six Magistrates, 2 Wizards, 2 Magewrights, and 2 Bureaucrats. The Six Magistrates often meet with members of the Patriae Sicarii to discuss policy and these two arcane-minded groups see eye-to-eye on most issues.

The Praetorii are normally not deployed away from this posts unless the Praes Thanatos and the Six Magistrates in council decide that there is a need for them.

If the local arcaneum official perceive a magical problem in their area they are expected to assess the problem and call on the Praes Thanatos or the nearest Mask to deal with the problem.

 

[Arkhandus]

Ironregime:

Firstly, nice job on incorporating the more recent stuff into the map.

Secondly, I think the Blue Mountains should be a bit larger and taller, being mentioned as a treacherous wall to traveling out of Eyros.

Thirdly, the three foreign lands I named earlier aren't supposed to appear on the map necessarily, just like the fog-shrouded mysterious island someone mentioned before in the western sea, and the distant island in the southern sea inhabited by thri-kreen. The Dead Waters Isthmus is supposed to be in the northeast corner of the map, that small chunk of land that would stretch off a ways from the map onto an eastern continent, much like the tip of Alaska has been to Asia. An isthmus is a thin stretch of land surrounded by water on two sides, connecting areas of land, so.... Mo'ahhim, Nientei, and O'hoa'ti'neumas are all in the distant east, on an eastern continent away from the map. Meant to be mysterious, more-or-less unvisited lands that Eyros might have traded with on rare occasions. So the map may include the names Mo'ahhim, Nientei, and O'hoa'ti'neumas placed right under the Dead Waters Isthmus perhaps to signify that they're somewhere past there, but I dunno....

 

[Rystil Arden]

My current contribution:

The Zarthalts are dangerous predators which, despite Eyros's usual reverence for reptiles, are hunted ruthlessly.

This is because of their tendency to make the Eyrian wilderness dangerous for passers-by. Although it begins its life as an unintelligent quadrapedal saurial creature which looks like a Velociraptor on Earth, the Zarthlat has a powerful gaze that hypnotises onlookers into staring into its eyes slack-jawed. As they do so, it slowly drains their intellect and mind, distorting until it stands bipedally as a wicked monstrous humanoid with vague fragments of the memories of the victim. Meanwhile, the victim's hands become feet, and they hunch forward onto four legs, distorting and becoming an animal in mind and body.

The transformed Zarthalt enjoys eating human flesh, and perhaps the only small comfort is that the creature is sometimes unable to effectively make attacks against the loved ones of the mind that it has drained, standing dazed.

 

[Sarellion]

I never suggested that human spellcasters might be put to death, I assumed that they might need a license. And that every Elven spellcaster would be found as a child and Masked immediately. The Arcanaem might even be in charge of teaching the young Masks- I can well imagine the host of semi-effective children's games a bunch of theoreticians with minimal practice have devised over the years.

With the put to death I meant the idea of the Praes jealously eliminating every free moderately powerful spellcaster.

So the 402 elven masks are every surviving potential spellcaster that was born to the elves in the last 3000 years in the dominion of Eyros, an area of ~1000miles long and 1500 miles wide (my estimate).

The question now is: Is the elven population so small, the birth rates so low, spellcasting ability so rare or the numbers of deaths in the line of duty so high?

Considering the fact that the numbers are very even would point to artificial limits rather than natural ones. 400 active masks, 1 unknown and 1 in coma. the maximum number of masks allowed would be 440 if the ranks of the guardian masks were filled.


Some guesswork based on the numbers of masks we have:
How many wizards are there? As far as I got it the spellcasting potential in the elven population is higher than average. The number of masks are an indicator for the maximum numbers of other races, depending on the ratio of elves to other races. If the maximum number of wizards in the whole dominion is low, a player wizard is really really rare and artificers and magical items nearly nonexistant. Clerical magic could pick up for this but at least certain items, based on wizardly magic are very rare.
This would affect play balance if wizards and their abilities are hardly known and the number of magic items very low.
I assume that we want to keep the number of total wizards somewhere near the numbers we have for the masks who represent the total number of elven spellcasters
As I know the gnomes are as magically gifted as the elves. They probably have a higher rate of birth but duties that are as hazardous or probably even more hazardous than the Masks. The gnomes are currently fighting with the Jagged Eye and probably defend against magical threats. The masks are mostly in the cities or noble estates. So the total number of Praes Thanatos could be around 600 to 2000 responsible to enforce government hegemony for an area of 1 500 000 square miles. They probably need much support from regular forces and have to rely on the surveilance date from the arcaneum to concentrate their forces if there are problems. The other solution would be to neglect rural and wild areas and only go there if the problems cannot be solved by local governors and mundane forces. I smell adventurers business
The number of orc and half-orc casters would be lower than the number of Praes Thanatos as these races rarely pick up the wizards/sorcerers trade. There are perhaps a hundred or even less wizard/sorcerers and a number of bards.
The number of human arcane spellcasters could be around the same number as the Praes. They have a much higher population but are not encouraged to pick up the trade. The Praes probably drafts most of the potential candidates into their order and most if not all potential gnome spellcasters would in the Praes Thanatos.

So if I get it together the population of arcane spellcaster could be around:
Elven masks: 400
Praes Thanatos: 600 to 2000
Humans : 600 to 2000
Orcbloods: 100

So we have a number of 1700 to 4500 arcane spellcasters in Eyros. Thats a arcane caster density of 0,001 to 0,003 per square mile. Its not as bad as it seems as a lot of Eyros is a wild area and only sparsely inhabitated.

I didn´t include bards and lumped sorcerors and wizards in a big pool.

Thats my wild estimate. The question is if we like this numbers or not and why is the number of elven caster potential around 400. Is it a high number, is it a low number? If the number of spellcasters in other races differ wildly from the mask numbers, what´s the reason?

Potential answers could be that the elven population is very small, or they don´t bear many children, that the last wars took out most of the masks and the normal numbers have not been recovered or that there are more potential elven spellcasters who are not allowed to develop their magical abilities.

 

[Sarellion]

@Rystil Arden
It´s ok so far for me, but the number of clerks and experts should be higher. Its a big country and bureaucracies tend to bloat with time.

 

[Rystil Arden]

@Rystil Arden
It´s ok so far for me, but the number of clerks and experts should be higher. Its a big country and bureaucracies tend to bloat with time.

Sure, I'll put in more clerks. Frankly, I apologise for not just doing this earlier, as it seems to work better for everyone that my original solution. The problem was that my post sort of directly breaks the rules. But its all cool.

I like your numbers on casters, except that I think you may have overestimated the prevelance of humans in Eyros (well the lower 600 number is OK, but there shouldn't be too many more humans than elf casters, if at all. I'd go for maybe 300 humans, many of which are weaker than the Masks).

 

[Sarellion]

I use your post and edit mine with it. You can delete yours then.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I use your post and edit mine with it. You can delete yours then.

Sure, and while we're at it, take out the call for Mouse to arbitrate in the later post, since we fixed it together, so he doesn't have to worry about this. I'll also delete my entries to the discussion on the last page to make it less cluttered. You can too if you'd like.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Oh, and here's another interesting thing to add to your spellcaster survey Sar: The Masks don't die of old age, so the fact that there are 400 of them really says a lot about how few arcane casters there are in all of Eyros. I would definitely lower my amount from my previous post based on this. Or perhaps there are other Masks that don't fall into any of the established categories and thus are added on to the 400?

Based on the Mask numbers (if we don't do anything about it, of course), I would now guesstimate maybe 800 PT, 400 Masks, 30-odd orc-bloods (high mortality rate and low life expectancy), 125 Humans. That makes unrestricted arcane magic pretty uncommon in Eyros, which is a fine choice to make as long as we realise we are making it and agree with it.

 

[Sarellion]

I stated in the survey that these are all the elven magicians of the last 3000 years. Perhaps I should emphasise the point a little bit?

I edited the Arcaneum, with following changes:
The senate transferred all duties to the arcaneum.
There is a friendly rivalry between the two orders but nothing big.
Added a Praetorii to the magistrates, upping the number to seven.
Removed the exact number of clerks and experts. Better to leave it vague.
The Arcaneum advises the senate about arcane matters. I think the gnome senators will advice on matters in their field of specialty.
Freelance experts of magical knowledge have to be examined by the arcaneum to ensure they know what they are talking about.

You can remove your post about the arcaneum now, would only confuse the readers.

I think about filling all the gaps with something useful like a compressed summary of posts who deal with one house and an evaluation of the data. I am not sure if an evaluation would be contributon, so I would like to hear what other people think. I don´t intend this as a final summary but a reference document what has already been said about the house.