D&D General Homebrew World Brainstorm: Evolution-Driven Magic

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I have this idea that's been bouncing around my head for the past few weeks, and I'm trying to find a way to make it work. Since I haven't completely found a way to make it work yet, I thought I would post the ideas I've had so far here and see if anyone has anything to add/change about it. I currently have no idea if this is even possible to make work for D&D or turn it into a playable setting. So, please, if you find the idea at all intriguing or worth developing, give feedback. Anything constructive helps. This thread is mostly a way for me to start getting some of my ideas down and to get feedback to see if I can find a way to make it work. And if this doesn't work out, it's still a fun thought experiment. Now that I've rambled on for long enough, let's get to what the idea is.

The idea is a world where magic has been around forever, and life on the planet evolved to use it. Life didn't just evolve to use it, but it drove the evolution of life on the planet and shaped it to be very different from any other D&D setting. Basically, all life in this world would have access to some kind of magic, almost all non-magical organisms were quickly out-competed by those with access to magic. Here are some of the assumptions of the setting that could help "make this work".

Assumption #1: Gods didn't create life - If you read my other thread on this subject, you'll know what I'm talking about. In this setting, I want the gods (if they exist) to not be the source of life. Life would originally evolve much like scientists believe it did in the real world, starting as single-celled prokaryotes (bacteria and the like), but eventually mutating into eukaryotic organisms like plants, fungi, and animals. Gods would not exist in the world until sentient life evolves millions/billions of years later. This sentient life would then use the power of faith/belief to cause the gods to form. I don't want gods or other powerful entities to shape life in this world. I want it to evolve "naturally", with typical environmental drives shaping life, not an in-world supreme being. So, either the gods came into existence through the worship of sentient creatures, or they never existed in the first place.

Assumption #2: The World is Earth-like - The world is not exactly like Earth, the continents, climate, and other aspects of the world would be different, but the world should be similar to Earth because our knowledge of evolution is based on how it happened on Earth. The oceans are made of water, life is based on carbon, plate tectonics exist, the atmosphere is mostly oxygen and nitrogen, and there's something like an ozone layer/magnetic field protecting life from harmful radiation, most of the minerals/elements in the planet are similar to Earth's, etc. Also, magic evolved after the main kingdoms of life did, because this would be basically impossible otherwise. This explains why the atmosphere is similar to Earth's, and helps us determine which types of magic would be most helpful to the different kingdoms of life.

Assumption #3: Cellular Magic - Magic is accessed through organelles similar to mitochondria/chloroplasts that create minor magical effects. These "magic organelles" will have been a type of single-cellular life that was absorbed by another single-celled organism, like how eukaryotes first evolved. My current idea is that there are 8 types of these magic organelles, one for every school of magic, and they somehow channel minor effects that help these magic eukaryotes survive/thrive. Here are my current ideas for how these schools of magic could be used for single-celled organisms:

1. Abjuration - Organisms that create temporary forcefields around their cells to protect them from extreme environmental effects or attacks from other life. These organisms are prey, and the race to develop better magical protections is driven by the predator organisms (primarily evocation, but also necromancy and divination) getting more effective at hunting them.
2. Conjuration - Organisms that teleport short distances in response to hazards or attacks. Or they could teleport an attacking organism short distances away.
3. Divination - Organisms that have magical sensors that allow them to avoid hazards and find prey more easily. Some types of single-celled organisms have primitive light sensors. These organelles would allow for a magical, more efficient equivalent, possibly allowing primitive darkvision, blindsight, or even truesight.
4. Enchantment - Organisms that can temporarily influence the behavior of other organisms. In a more powerful form, maybe they could even form colonies of "mind-controlled" organisms controlled by an enchantment-based hivemind, similar to siphonophores, an "animal" that is actually formed from a colony of different organisms.
5. Evocation - Organisms that can to shoot a small burst of energy (maybe high-energy photons or electric shocks) that can rupture other cells and allow them to consume their prey. Creatures that evolved to use abjuration magic can use their magic to survive these attacks, but evolution makes evocation gradually more effective at hunting these creatures. Because these are primarily predators, predatory animals will often specialize in this magic.
6. Illusion - Organisms that can make themselves invisible and/or create illusory copies of themselves to avoid being consumed. Their main predators are divination-based organisms, which causes them to evolve better illusion magic that competes with the divination abilities of their predators.
7. Necromancy - I'm unsure of what these will do. Maybe organisms that can temporarily reanimate dead organisms to protect them from attackers/hunting prey? Or multicellular versions can use their magic to keep their dead cells operating temporarily? Or they're undead predators/diseases that can kill and absorb the cells of their prey into their cellular hordes, like a bacterial/fungal infection? Or something related to souls (maybe being stored in the magic organelles, allowing necromancy organisms to manipulate/absorb their powers)? Taking inspiration from how necromancy works in the Locked Tomb series might work.
8. Transmutation - This I'm also unsure of. Transmutation is so diverse that it could do a lot of things. This would include shape-shifting. Maybe some kind of slime-mold-like creature that can use transmutation magic to change its normally squishy outside into a hard substance to protect it? Or allow it to adapt to a variety of environments? I'm currently thinking that plant-like or fungoid organisms might fit best under this category, transforming one resource into something they can get energy from.

I want to restrict organisms mostly to one school of magic because that helps with the classification and conceptualizing of the powers and ways they could evolve. And having organisms originally with access to multiple/all schools of magic would probably be too complicated and powerful to think of the consequences of them. Unless all types of organisms have at least some power over every school of magic and just focus on one.

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Okay, those are the assumptions I want the world to work under. I have a few other ideas, but I haven't decided on anything yet and they aren't essential to this world. Here are some of them:

Magic Fossil Fuels - The magical "fuel" found in their magical organelles fades after death (which is why other creatures eat it, unless it's somehow trapped (fossilization as the main example). This will probably be called "mana" or "aether", because everyone knows the terms. If creatures of the same school of magic die in huge amounts and their power isn't consumed by other organisms, it can become trapped underground and become magical fossil fuels. This fossil fuel can later be "burned" or harnessed in some way, probably causing an effect dependent on the school of magic it's associated with. If sentient life and civilization evolve enough, this can cause a magical industrial revolution. Maybe "souls" in this world are made of Aether/Mana, so there's a debate on the ethics of using this substance, even if the fossil fuel is made from non-sentient life. Or there could be harmful magical consequences of using too much of this fuel source or being too dependent on it.

No Other Planes of Existence - Either the other planes of existence don't exist at all, or they don't exist while life starts evolving. If they do exist, I probably want them connected to the existence of the gods. Maybe the worship of sentient creatures creates "tulpa/egregore" gods, who then create the planes of existence as their homes? Or they don't exist at all, and the magic system is more simple than other worlds? Or they're just speculative in-world, like how the gods of Eberron aren't confirmed to exist? And I definitely wouldn't want to use the Great Wheel if there are planes of existence.

Almost No Earth Animals - Most animals from Earth do not exist. This will make the setting really hard to develop and play in, but I want it to be unique and follow the logic of D&D's magic system. There aren't any of the PHB races. Almost all animals from the real world never evolved, as magic fueled evolution. There might be some animals that share similarities with real animals, especially in the oceans, but I want to try my hardest to keep things unique. I don't know if this is possible or feasible. But I'd like to try. If I do include real-world animals, it will be the more "alien" and old ones, like sea jellies, sponges/corals, and primordial fish, cephalopods, and arthropods. At the latest, I want magic to become a major part of the world around its equivalent of the Cambrian Explosion.

These ideas are more negotiable, especially the last one. Please let me know how what you think about them, and what changes should be made.

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This is just the start. As I come up with more ideas and get feedback, I'll add to this. Hopefully, the world will start to come together later and I'll get enough to solidify it into a working concept. If not, at least I tried. Again, if anyone else is at least intrigued by the idea or has a better understanding of evolution than I do, please let me know.

 

[Tonguez]

Looks like its going to be a world of Slimes and Ooze-like abberations. IMC I rationalised Oozes as being giant protozoan colonies, and that makes even more sense in your set up where such creatures have access to magic.

Infact your idea of enchantment focussed siphonophore would go a long way to explain Abberations in general. For instance in my sci-fi game I imagined Cnidaria as asteroid sized coral colonies that evolved in the gas clouds of Jupiter and eventually used psionics and electromagnetism to launch themselves in to space. Cnidaria send exploration pods down to planets which hatch open as Flumphs. (Cnidaria also employ gastrozoid tentacles that can dissolve metal (ships) and rock (asteroids) which the Cnidaria then processes to build its exoskeletons.)

Anyway we know that Single celled organisms have the ability to sense temperature changes, chemical gradients, and some can sense light and dark. So detection spells Detect Magic (other cells) and Detect Poison are fundamental to life

Heres an idea - what if people contribute to the thread a spell and how it might affect evolution of a single celled organism. Start with cantrips then build up to see what kind of monster evolves from the combinations of parts

 

[Redwizard007]

So, um... George Lucas might have beat you to this.

In all seriousness, there is actually some solid ideas that you can pull from Starwars lore. Specifically, there is a lizard on a planet where carnivores use the force to hunt. This lizard projects a bubble around itself where the force is just gone. In larger numbers, this bubble grows exponentially. I'm blanking on the name atm, but the idea is pretty sound. In a world of magical predators, something evolves an anti-magic field as a defense.

There is also the Vong. A race of humanoids that are, somehow, seperate from the force. Picture them with magic immunity, and also being incapable of wielding magic of any sort.

Obviously, not every creature needs to manifest something flashy. A magical boost to initiative, perception, or stealth can be just as effective as the ability to teleport or spit magic missles.

I hope you also consider using immunity and/or resistance to non-magical attacks. This might even be a good place to reintroduce monsters that need a +X or better weapon to bypass damage reductions, but it would necessitate noting what creatures have +Y magic natural weapons. Even a simple raccoon can be dangerous if it can only be killed with a +5 weapon.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Looks like its going to be a world of Slimes and Ooze-like abberations.

Yeah, they're probably very common. Some arthropod/crustacean-like creatures too. I think Chuul and probably Aboleths would fit into the world well.

IMC I rationalised Oozes as being giant protozoan colonies, and that makes even more sense in your set up where such creatures have access to magic.

Huh. I would have thought of them more like slime molds. But a Plasmoid-like race would definitely be playable. Maybe something like an Oblex?

Infact your idea of enchantment focussed siphonophore would go a long way to explain Abberations in general.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Flumphs and maybe Ixitxachitl fit in. Some Spelljammer monsters fit (Esthetic in the skies, Gaj, maybe proto-Reigar, even Goon Balloons). Some Netherdeep creatures could work, too.

Anyway we know that Single celled organisms have the ability to sense temperature changes, chemical gradients, and some can sense light and dark. So detection spells Detect Magic (other cells) and Detect Poison are fundamental to life

Divination-focused life would definitely have access to similar abilities.

Heres an idea - what if people contribute to the thread a spell and how it might affect evolution of a single celled organism. Start with cantrips then build up to see what kind of monster evolves from the combinations of parts

That could work, but I'm not really thinking of these as "spells". More similar to how Displacer Beasts (Illusion) and Phase Spiders (Conjuration) work, where they're innate abilities not actual spellcasting. Effects would mimic spells, but it wouldn't exactly be spellcasting.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

So, um... George Lucas might have beat you to this.

Yeah, the "mitochondria/chloroplast-like organelles that channel magic" was definitely at least subconsciously inspired by Midichlorians. However, I want to make a world that has a version of that based on D&D's magic system where all life has access to it. That's not exactly how it works in Star Wars, because life clearly didn't evolve in the Star Wars universe under the assumption that single-celled organisms can use the Force. If it had, I'm not sure Humans would exist in the Star Wars universe.

In all seriousness, there is actually some solid ideas that you can pull from Starwars lore. Specifically, there is a lizard on a planet where carnivores use the force to hunt. This lizard projects a bubble around itself where the force is just gone. In larger numbers, this bubble grows exponentially. I'm blanking on the name atm, but the idea is pretty sound. In a world of magical predators, something evolves an anti-magic field as a defense.

There is also the Vong. A race of humanoids that are, somehow, seperate from the force. Picture them with magic immunity, and also being incapable of wielding magic of any sort.

Obviously, not every creature needs to manifest something flashy. A magical boost to initiative, perception, or stealth can be just as effective as the ability to teleport or spit magic missles.

I hope you also consider using immunity and/or resistance to non-magical attacks. This might even be a good place to reintroduce monsters that need a +X or better weapon to bypass damage reductions, but it would necessitate noting what creatures have +Y magic natural weapons. Even a simple raccoon can be dangerous if it can only be killed with a +5 weapon.

Some of these ideas are interesting. Creatures that use anti-magic or psionics instead of the 8 schools of magic could be an interesting addition to it.