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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8781019" data-attributes="member: 6801228">I agree with the vast majority of your post, in particular, I think your questions are spot on. However, I see a few points that make me scratch my head. For example, you keep referencing the "upper echelons of magical power". But very few people have even addressed that as a point. For myself, I've never made any claims about anything greater than 3rd level spells. I don't think spellcasters need to reach 8th or 9th level spells. They may not even have any desire to reach those levels of power. After all, we don't assume nobles who are fighters have reached much beyond 5th level either. You seem to think the inequality will inevitably lead to collapse. The mages can't be in charge, because they will need support from non-mages, and non-mages won't stand for it. Additionally, you seem to claim that Good-Aligned gods won't allow inequality to exist in the government. But this is.... fundamentally wrong. Society exists in a stratified manner. There is always inequality between the social levels. The gods not standing magic-users in charge because that's inequality can be equally applied to the gods not standing the wealthy being in charge, because that's inequality. But the Gods themselves enforce inequality, because the gods reward those that serve them well and do not reward those who do not serve them. Since that reward takes the form of power, it is an inequality. Additionally, while there are many violent revolutions that came from the lower classes rising up, the single depredations of a single noble were never the cause. The inequality itself wasn't the cause. The causes can often be traced back to extreme and systematic abuses, or breakdowns in the social order caused by disease or famine. Which, again, magic-using societies can actually do something about that non-magic using societies can't. And I think this is the source of the "inevitability" that you keep claiming we can't prove. Magic = options. Options that cannot be accomplished by other means. Even if it is true that non-magical people can create magical items... doesn't that just lead to artificers? The power then becomes less having personal power and more having access to the magical items. But magic is so useful, solves so many problems, that those societies which utilize it heavily will succeed more than those that don't. It is similar to saying that inevitably medical technology will spread, because those societies which figure out how to safely and consistently treat illnesses will be more successful than those which don't.</blockquote>

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