Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="gamerprinter" data-source="post: 5692409" data-attributes="member: 50895">Looking through a real world lens, feudal Japan had a Ministry of Onmyodo, as a branch of the imperial government, essentially a Department of Magic. Onmyoji wizards were taoist based arcane practitioners whose 'schools of magic' were primarily astrological predictions, determining the cycle of lucky and unlucky days in the coming year and arranging important events to coincide with the lucky days, also exorcisms/blessings of the imperial court to protect it from evil spirits during the New Years fest. They were the crafters for each year's calendar. Not saying magic was real, but ancient Japanese believed it was real, and they maintained magic through imperial control. They did this to control who could become a wizard, who could study and/or advance their studies, where each wizard was assigned, etc. The Japanese government wanted to utilize the power of magic, but also very much wanted to control it and minimize its availability to the greater public as well as external powers - China, Korea, etc. If somebody practiced magic and were not associated with the Ministry of Onmyodo, such as a commoner sorcerer or witch, they could expect the same treatment that accused witches in Salem were getting - swinging from a tree. So here's a situation where perceived magical power existed (not really, perceived only) and rather than proliferate into society to create some new age of arcane technological advancement, they chose the opposite and kept it close to imperial control. They wanted to access arcane powers, but they didn't want everyone to access it. I'm of the opinion, that in a D&D world, the authorities in charge of most nations would want to control magic for themselves, and not allow its use by everyone, thereby preventing the possibility of an industrial revolution due to arcane-technological advancement. I don't see it happening.</blockquote>

Verification