Fantasy Magic: superstitions, uses, and sources of power

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Since fantasy worlds are much like the real world, perhaps magic should follow real-world principles, and perhaps people would be the same as us despite living in a fantasy world.
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[@TheModernMartialArtist]

I mean if you're going by the real world, a LOT of money would go into researching war magic, which would end up creating a number of magic innovations useful for every day life by accident.

[@MaverickCulp]

Great to see you here my man

[@mucked11]

Last place I thought I'd find this guy lol love your channel too tho

[@themule8625]

there was a lot of money put into war magic by both America and the USSR.

[@kaimagnus5760]

Someone accidentally inventing the Tea Pot by trying to make a Fireball Proof Armor makes too much sense.

[@TheModernMartialArtist]

@@MaverickCulp Lloyd has been one of my favorite KZbinrs for years, always ecstatic when he puts out a video haha

[@bavettesAstartes]

40:07 A power station that harvest the energy of falling things is called a hydroeletric power plant, Lindy. A river is, after all, just a very horizontal waterfall.

[@pxlcowpxl6166]

Another example of using energy from "falling objects" in a practical way is clocks.

[@bavettesAstartes]

@@pxlcowpxl6166 YEAH! Old clocks, primarily. New ones use crystals, as new-age bullshit magic that sounds. And then there are atomic clocks.

[@pxlcowpxl6166]

@@bavettesAstartes Yes! Old, stationary clocks, in particular on church towers. Perhaps, in a fantasy world there could be precision magic, like healing e.g. that needs to be released in a small but precise dose at a constant rate. Also, trebuchets use a falling object for power, just a lot of it at once.

[@DavidSmith-vr1nb]

@@bavettesAstartes They use the crystals to keep time, but the power source is usually a small battery (or cell).

[@bavettesAstartes]

@@DavidSmith-vr1nb Correct. Same for atomic clocks. It uses decaying isotops to keep time, but work with eletricity, obviously.

[@Azelketh]

The full list of LOTR wizards is actually Saruman the White, Gandalf the Grey, Radagast the Brown, the Blue wizards, and the Wizard of Beige, Lloyd.

[@CannaCJ]

Aren't they technically all just thoughts of Eru Iluvatar born of certain aspects of his mind (Valar if named originally, Maiar if named later)? So then there are loads of them, some of which choose to enter Arda, then choose to take physical form, of which only some then decide to wield magic, but all of whom are capable of doing so. If only that played more into the LOTR series, instead of being hidden a thousand layers back behind the story proper. Maybe then we could have had a Maiar that liked a certain shade of tan and came from the thought of dancing a specific way.

[@Jallorn]

@@CannaCJ No, the wizards, aka the Istari, are specifically the five who entered Middle Earth. It's more a job description than a nature in Tolkien.

[@stamasd8500]

Lindy the Beige.

[@billysgeo]

What about plaid ?

[@steb2534]

The two blueses.

[@scoutobrien3406]

"Aunt Wu predicted I would have a safe journey" "But she was wrong! you were attacked by a giant platypus bear! If we hadn't been here you'd be toast!" "But you were, so I wasn't. Aunt Wu was right"

[@scoutobrien3406]

"You think you know so much, but can your so called Science explain why rain falls?" "YES. YES IT CAN"

[@jessicascoullar3737]

I never knew a giant platypus bear was something the world was missing, but now I mourn the lack.

[@franklombardo8246]

@@scoutobrien3406 Isn’t something to do with the plains in Spain….

[@tysonq7131]

So realistically magic would be used for common interests like making people more attractive and entertainment. I knew Shrek 2 was accurate.

[@glenngriffon8032]

That's one I like about this webcomic I read DMFA. There's a race of "cubi" (species name of succubi and incubi) and each clan has an affinity for certain emotions. So the clan whose affinity is fear often have jobs in the horror movie industry. The clan with an affinity for pride are often musicians or great painters. You can guess the occupations of those whose affinity is lust.

[@benjaminwatson7868]

@@glenngriffon8032 children’s parties?

[@glenngriffon8032]

@@benjaminwatson7868 We were _all_ having a fun time and then you say that...

[@Face2theScr33n]

Moe Factz talks about how there is magic in advertising and messaging in the USA and elsewhere. He goes into topics quite deeply, so plan to listen awhile. The visual and audio effects in cinema and advertising are called "effects", as a spell has an "effect". Thoughts?

[@peterjf7723]

The author Larry Niven wrote some stories set in a world where magic was a limited and declining resource that could not be renewed. There were some witches and wizards with limited power still existing but all the great magical creatures like dragons had gone mythical as the magic ran out, their bones fusing into rocks. One of the hardest hit magical species were the werewolves, who in this world were not men who could become wolves, but wolves that could become men. As the magic went away they lost their humanity and became wolves.

[@fredblonder7850]

You overlooked what the most prolific use of magic would be: SPAM. You would walk past a shop and an imp would come out to follow you shouting “We have been trying to contact you regarding the extended warranty on your wheelbarrow chair.”

[@oz_jones]

SPAM

[@ckowkay]

I thought you were talking about Homeless Emperor from One Punch Man type of spam at first

[@JMD501]

Close but SPAM would be #2 behind porn and ahead of "something with cats" at 3

[@atinofspam3433]

@@oz_jones who summons me?

[@daviga1]

Not if it's reasonably possible to lay a magical curse on the spammer

[@metagreen1931]

On of the things many of these RPG books say is "these spells are the ones most useful to adventurers" inferring there are other spells that exist, but they are much more niche and mostly unused by wizards who go out on adventures

[@willowtdog6449]

Excellent point.

[@AtmoStk]

*implying

[@EricToTheScionti]

@@AtmoStk green text lol

[@varietywiarrior]

There's also usually room for creating your own spells, not to mention some systems, such as Pathfinder, have cantrips/orisons that can be cast without limit and are capable of sundry tasks, like prestidigitation.

[@lerquian1970]

Assuming that only adventurers can benefit from magic

[@UkDave3856]

This is why I like Terry Prattchet's version of magic. Say if you wanted to use a spell that teleported you 20 miles away to your Mum's house, it is much MUCH easier and far less complicated just to get on a horse and ride there

[@SusCalvin]

D&D players could try to hire a mid-level mage to continuously do nothing but cast and renew Floating Disc, a spell that creates a porter-disc following behind the guy. Or spend the same amount of cash on a bunch of mules, a wagon and porters.

[@lukestringer6973]

And the Unseen University spends it's time working out and writing down what works, like how the Rite of Ashkente can be performed with three small bits of wood and 4ccs of mouse blood, but Wizards prefer to this great big ceremony for cultural reasons

[@saucercrabzero]

@@lukestringer6973 This is something I think is underserved in fantasy, which is the obfuscation and control of magic, i.e. three small bits of wood and 4ccs of mouse blood work just fine, but you need to have the great big ceremony, or fancy ingredient that is controlled by the magical interests, so that it doesn't fall into the hands of rivals, or peasants just start casting Disintegrate on the nobility

[@lerquian1970]

You could also allow that an create a completely different world instead of a standard medieval society with some elements of magic

[@amlz8852]

Please inform yourself about Islam and the Quran In Shaa Allah.

[@adampay8906]

As an actual alchemist, (someone with a degree in chemistry), I assure you everything about chemistry is actual magic.

[@donutlovingwerewolf8837]

What are the ingredients to a potion of transmogrification?

[@Leo-ok3uj]

@@donutlovingwerewolf8837 As someone who studied chemistry for a few years What are you planning to do with such knowledge? I doubt to be a good idea to tell you

[@donutlovingwerewolf8837]

@@Leo-ok3uj nah its just a question as to how knowledgable they are in alch- I mean chemistry

[@razordrive3238]

@@donutlovingwerewolf8837 I mean in all honesty that sort of thing ain't that far off. We already have potions of change gender, after all. We also *do* know how to do stuff like lead to gold, at least in theory. It just requires such vast amounts of energy that its not exactly worth doing, so we stick to the far more reasonable hydrogen to helium spell, which involves lasers

[@TheBoyFromNorfolk]

@@donutlovingwerewolf8837 As another fully qualified research alchemist, what end results of transmogrification do you seek? The potion is very specific.

[@iapetusmccool]

If the sun is the source of magic, the "cost" most likely wouldn't be the sun running out of energy, but the environmental damage caused by too many wizards releasing all that energy into the world.

[@chadmagnus5850]

Or when it's night you can't use magic.

[@I_Don_t_want_a_handle]

@@chadmagnus5850 ... unless you store some of it up in a vessel of some sort. Small portable ones for small spells and bigger non-portable ones for the real stuff. They could be called batteries ...

[@ScienceDiscoverer]

​@@I_Don_t_want_a_handle What about mana? It's strange that Lindie didn't mention this. In almost all wolds I know magical energy comes from this "mana", some kind of mystical spiritual energy of sort that works like "battery" for using magic.

[@TestTestGo]

@@ScienceDiscoverer in my experience mana is more common in computer game worlds, as it's a useful intuitive mechanic to limit a players use of magic. In table top games its rarer as it needs too much bookkeeping, in novels and films you can't see the mana bar so it is no longer so intuitive or useful to the writer. More often there the limit is what spells the mage knows, if the limits of magic are even addressed directly. A novelist doesn't always need to explain why a mage didn't use magic to solve a particular problem.

[@cyryl3827]

@@TestTestGo How magic functions in terms of the energy source, large depends of how much of a power trip the story is supposed to be. Settings that aim towards breaking of mountains and laying dragons, tend to treat mana as something that generates itself from nowhere within an individual (with the option to steal it from the surroundings as well). Functioning like physical stamina, but one that doesn't require food to recover. (often replacing the need for physical functions like eating, sleeping, etc.) In more grounded settings, its usually something more ritualistic, whimsical, coming from making deals with something in the world around you.

[@dfgdfg_]

"I like short books, they're so much quicker to read" - Lindybeige, 2021

[@aycoded7840]

Yeah, that was a fun part of the video.

[@donutlovingwerewolf8837]

Famous books that were long: *bruh*

[@ianhelyar6383]

"I'm something of a bullshitter myself, but occasionally I like to sit and listen to a real expert" Lindybeige, I dips me lid. You keep me entertained for an hour at a time.

[@hatchmaster_5745]

Why he dresses like an Egyptian ambassador from the 1800s when he's doing magicky things I will never know, but It seems to work for him.

[@maddockemerson4603]

He harnesses coolness to cast spells. Fezzes are cool.

[@sorrowdusk5068]

@@maddockemerson4603 There's a famous Danish comedy quartet called "The Sons of the Desert"(translated from Danish) and wear fezzes so now I just find them hilarious.

[@stmordi]

Well. Very easy to see that you want to dress like an Egyptian from the 1800's

[@davidgaskin5417]

Tommy Cooper - greatest magician of all times

[@steinstemmer8963]

+2 on charisma and +3 on speech

[@jimmyrome908]

The heat-syphoning thing has some cool implications. For one thing, it would make it incredibly easy to kill someone just by touching them and sucking all of the heat out of them. Maybe you have wizard duels, where the two wizards clasp hands as though they're going to arm wrestle, but then just sit there huffing and sweating until one of them instantly freezes solid and the other one has to immediately spew out the heat in a great ball of fire or something similar.

[@andrewmartin3671]

Best short story I've read in a long time. The premise is so clearly setup and the visuals are at an excellent balance of relatable and fantastic.

[@lindybeige]

A rock cannot resist being cooled, but a person's will must be overcome to chill him?

[@Fallenangel_85]

Master Wizards absorbing all heat/light around them to put it into their crystal for storage. Would also result in invisibility, kind of.

[@roflchopter11]

I feel I remember thats partially how magic works in The Kingkiller Chronicles, except the heat comes from you, rather than something else

[@mapesdhs597]

@@thepiperandthedrummer7826 We'll just ignore the fact that heat (energy) passing through an organic substance typically cooks it. :D Arm, hands and chips anyone?...

[@Doktor_Jones]

The whole "energy conversion thing" reminds me of a fluff-page of "delicious in dungeon" (manga) where it says healing magic converts the energy from the fat and muscles of the one that gets healed. And for REALLY big injuries, you need external calories, like a cart with goat meat.

[@eonnephilim852]

reminds me of that guy from mha who needs to eat sugar to extract energy and generate power using his quirk

[@ArgentavisMagnificens]

@@eonnephilim852 yeah, but then there's deku who doesn't obey thermodynamics, nor newton's laws of motion

[@gunnarwallgren8572]

“Astrology does unfortunately exist in the real world” I lost it 😂

[@Hurb2]

I love how you can never expect when Lloyd will upload, but whenever he does, it's magnificent!

[@glitchyghosting5798]

Especially at midnight Friday night 😂

[@thegeneral6610]

Yeah Lloyd uploads when good and high.

[@pelfdog8525]

Great video

[@archieewing4973]

I agree, two vids in two days after a period of two vids in two months is a very nice surprise!

[@greggougeon4422]

Except those videos about the mg34/42. Those were cringy and hilarious he got so defensive

[@bilindalaw-morley161]

Just realised that these sort of Lloyd’s vids are really an extremely erudite, complex, and learned, form of ‘shower thoughts’.

[@paulmurgatroyd6372]

Thankfully without the showering...

[@tedferkin]

To be honest it really just came down to "the wizard did it".... more worryingly this is how I go through most of life. My better half hates how I pick things apart in any form of fantasy setting, or film where the power of movies seem to make anything possible with no thought to how or the consequences.

[@TeodorAngelov]

yep, he conjures content out of thin air :D

[@GusCraft460]

More like bath philosophy than shower thought.

[@benjaminolanderrasmussen3049]

@@tedferkin Props to you for being tolerant about the situation then. Cheers

[@walttholomew]

"Do we in this real-world utilize the power of things falling?" I mean, yes! We do! Not as much as we used to because we normally use other methods for power generation for electricity, but we have used gravity-powered machines in the past and I believe we still do. Tom Scott recently did a video on the last aerial ropeway in the UK, a gravity-powered transportation system for industrial product, if I recall correctly. There have, of course, been other times we've used gravity to power things as well, but the thing is that we usually expect to reuse these things. So a gravity-powered elevator has the drawback that whenever you want to use it, you have to power it going back the other way. But if you're using magic, you're likely looking for a one-time use of energy to cast your spell. So that potential energy could quite possibly be used.

[@Tennouseijin]

Hydroelectricity, especially pumped-storage hydro, is a major example of modern use of gravity-power. Also, water towers rely on gravity to provide us with pressurized water.

[@wojtekcierpisz9945]

There is also rail energy storage which does the same kinda thing very directly.

[@NargaDestroyer]

Clocks with weights on them immediately came to my mind.

[@torysaccount5753]

water dam powerplants

[@Vinemaple]

Canal locks are usually powered by the water flowing through them. And there are dams, too.

[@whoaitstiger]

I love how when people talk about "real" magic, they mean the kind of magic that isn't actually real. _True_ real magic is actually fake, and always has a trick behind it. Language is fun.

[@trielt1]

Sometimes there isn't even a trick behind it, it just doesn't work. Like spells (which do still exist, we just call it "manifesting" these days)

[@tyruskarmesin5418]

@@trielt1 Lol

[@rifwann]

Doesnt he mean that we call a magic trick a real(istic) magic which isnt real magic and only a trick.. But yeah, language is fun..

[@cuchulain55]

what colour is the shirt youre wearing? if you notice and relize the colour of your shirt. i just cast a powerful white magic spell on you.

[@whoaitstiger]

@@cuchulain55 Grey. I can draw colourless mana from it to summon Eldrazi.

[@davidsalazar13]

All these young people with their faces glued to their smart codex. In my youth, I had to share with my five siblings and WE WERE HAPPY with our stone tablet!

[@clxwncrxwn]

Well I brought you 65 tons of HE spewing DIVINE INTERVENTION, If God is love then you can call me Cupid!

[@clearlypellucid]

With regards to "where did the energy of the lightning bolt come from," the best setting ever, DarkSun, has the energy come from the plants and animals in your vicinity. "Preservers" learn to take tiny amounts from living things in a huge area and leave little to no impact on the land. "Defilers" literally turn the land to ash around them whenever they cast a spell. I think normal D&D explains it as things being conjured from the various elemental and lower planes of existence.

[@MrEightythix]

Thats quite similar to the system of magic in the Inheritance cycle. Spells require the energy of living beings to cast, and if you exert too much energy trying to cast a spell it can kill you. There was even a case of one magic user converting his entire body into pure energy, basically becoming a living nuke.

[@PuffyCloud_aka_puffeclaude]

Yes, in most D&D worlds, arcane energy comes from the weave. Dr. Strange gets arcane energy from other dimensions. Usually the energy does come from somewhere, just not "here".

[@juhonieminen4219]

Energy for spells comes from blue mana potions, dah!

[@jirivorobel942]

Yeah, that's a very popular magic system. The Witcher (by A. Sapkowski) comes to mind as another example. The wizard-as-heat-pump system sounds more fun, though.

[@r.awilliams9815]

You're correct about D&D, which borrowed heavily from the magic system described by Jack Vance in The Eyes of the Underworld and Cugel's Saga. I highly recommend reading the books if you're interested in where the system came from...but be warned, the anti-hero Cugel The Clever is not a nice man.

[@malibuhiegts]

I've always thought as electricity as magic, often in fantasy wizards have "mana" which is so to speak energy which they draw upon to cast spells and enchantments, electricity can be manipulated similar to magic, infact we can do some pretty awesome things with electricity akin to magic

[@michelaushamburg6766]

I allways put my finger into the nearest nuclear power plant, when I want to switch on my lights.

[@malibuhiegts]

@@michelaushamburg6766 I..

[@matieking]

40:17 there's plenty of powerstations like that. They use water instead of boulders and are called hydroelectric dams

[@richardpatterson4312]

Apparently electricity is magic to any non electrician. That's how it seems to me. I'm an electrician

[@v.sandrone4268]

Faraday cages around routers to protect users from the evil 5g emissions means most technology is considered magic by some

[@garrysekelli6776]

I'm not an electrician and I concur.

[@grimd8788]

Even with a slightly dangerous understanding of how it works, it still seems almost magic.

[@andrewsalhany5665]

I think I get electricity but modern electronics are straight up magic lol.

[@andrewsalhany5665]

@@v.sandrone4268 wait what....people who believe in 5g stuff still get routers? Sounds like heresy.😆

[@brandonogden3498]

Swordsman: *smacks the wizard skull with his blade* Wizard: "Thanks for the boost chum!" *Blade stops before piercing the skin, wizard blasts swordsman with the energy from his own swing*

[@raininginside]

If he can cast the spell fast enough :)

[@ScienceDiscoverer]

@@raininginside Wizard must be pro gamer to time spell right!

[@Nintendonicke]

Well, according to the law of equal exchange, all the energy the wizard gained from the swing would be used up in stopping the swing.

[@jammydodger222Xxd]

@@Nintendonicke it would be if the wizard was exerting energy on the sword to stop it swinging but in this case the energy is simply being magically transferred from the sword swing into his spell. There is no energy being used to stop the sword

[@Dan_Kanerva]

@@jammydodger222Xxd so basically is Melioda's "full counter" check that out by the way , that magic is awesome

[@Caffeine_And_Seawater]

A bit late to the video, but Brandon Sanderson is a great writer of “magic” while used in war, it is often integrated onto the day to day lives of his characters too

[@1KosovoJeSrbija1]

Honestly Eragon did this extremely well, magic was rare enough for people to be superstitious about it, it was common enough for it to be used in an organized fashion in times of war, and it was well balanced to the point that I don't even think that there was a way to break the laws of physics with it.

[@henrikoldcorn]

I was about to write the same. Energy has to come from (or through) the magician, drawing too much is fatal.

[@brycebernard6899]

It couldn't break the laws of physics, but there was an exploit they didn't use that was ridiculously powerful. Since the magic in Eragon used energy based on how much energy it takes to do something, then because making something colder is effectively finding a way to remove heat (a form of energy), then you actually gain energy by casting a spell to make something colder... and if you cooled the air fast enough, then you could literally drop gallons and gallons of liquid nitrogen on your enemies, allowing you to gain enough energy to cast massive spells while simultaneously attacking your enemies. Obviously, it still doesn't work well when fighting other magic users, but it nonetheless is a powerful move, especially when you have a magic user on a dragon that can fly up high enough to do it over the enemy army but out of range of land-trapped magicians.

[@1KosovoJeSrbija1]

@@brycebernard6899 They actually mentioned this. Oromis said once that you can use your body's energy to do stuff, but you can't use naturally occurring energy to power yourself. Although there is another very powerful thing you can do, a guy literally figured out nuclear fusion and did it to himself as a last ditch attack lol.

[@alexv3357]

@@brycebernard6899 Actually, refrigeration is a means using energy to move heat against a gradient from point A (inside a fridge) to B (outside). The overall temperature of the system - or rather, the entropy - always increases

[@CharlesFreck]

@@alexv3357 Entropy ruins literally everything and it sucks.

[@Obscurae]

I suspect if we had magic we wouldn’t even notice it, because we would eventually rationalize most of it into a form of technology. We’d have people specialized in weather magic for disaster mitigation and food security, fire & earth magic specialists for construction.

[@Destroyer_V0]

Maybe not technology, but definitely a practical science.

[@yarpenzigrin1893]

@@Destroyer_V0 Definitely technology. Inventing new spells for new applications would be like writing computer programs.

[@xariasfury5782]

Along with all the mishaps and caution we have with our own science and tech, definitely. “Nonono, take energy from the heat not the elasticity, you dolt! You can’t even channel right!!”

[@Dialethian]

@@yarpenzigrin1893 Certainly has implications depending on how recent magic is, and whether algae could evolve to grow into runes, and songbirds learn incantations.

[@ionlycomment5187]

It has been said that any sufficiently advanced technology can only be described to primitive cultures as "magic," and the converse might also be true: that what is magic to us is merely a phenomenon beyond our current scientific understanding, but might eventually be understood and potentially reverse-engineered.

[@fionaellem4379]

Terry Pratchett often used similar mechanics for his magic system. There was always a cost, and the energy had to come from somewhere. It made for much more interesting stories.

[@ihaveachihuahau]

Brandon Sanderson does that too. He thinks limits are more interesting than powers themselves.

[@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t]

IIRC one of Terry's 'rules' about magic was that getting magic to do something was easy; surviving it was the tricky part. Like, lifting something with magic was easy, but since the magic acted as a lever with the object at one end and your brain at the other, the difficult bit is lifting an item without catapulting your brain out through your ears.

[@fionaellem4379]

@@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t the one I was thinking of was where Granny Weatherwax grabbed a sword with her bare hand without getting cut. Later, she actually had to have the wound this caused, since you can’t grab a sword blade without getting cut. The magic was in delaying the effect.

[@Taladar2003]

Patrick Rothfuss had a very elaborate system like that too.

[@anthonyyates9003]

@@fionaellem4379 that wasn't for the magic that was for her granny weatherwax she was the most powerful witch alive and she was always scared of going cackling so she cut herself to reminder that steal cuts skin and the dangers of it not

[@Verrisin]

I like when magic is shown used for normal things (usually through some tools that make it easier), like heating, lighting, improving agriculture yield... - and then there just happen to be some people who are especially talented, or spent their life learning to be capable wizards - It would probably not be seen as vastly different from athletes

[@mohandasjung]

Or cientists lile Tesla or Newton

[@virtualcolditz]

For the Egyptian Giant Flywheel project, the simple way to get the horses off the treadmill is to have two treadmills running in parallel. When you need to change your horse team, decouple the treadmill with the tired horses and change the animals, then run it back to speed and re-engage using a clutch lined with a leather friction lining.

[@michelaushamburg6766]

Add a clutch and a gearbox.

[@Syleria]

Related to the idea of magic having a cost/limited supply, a couple of good books on the subject are "The Magic Goes Away" and "The Magic May Return." The first is a short novel by Larry Niven, set in a sort of Hyperborean past that is Earth but beyond the ages of history as we know them. Magic existed, and was powered by an invisible source called "mana" that was once thought to be limitless. Basically, like air. However, it was actually more like oil or timber, and it was possible to use it up. The result was that where magic used to be a common thing, it was steadily dying out, and the story takes place in this latter period when magic is becoming more and more a distant memory, and the means to perform wondrous acts is becoming harder and harder. The idea that magic could run out was actually discovered by one of the characters in the story, a wizard of great age and power. In centuries past he'd postulated magic was finite, but at the time no one believed him because it was so plentiful. In order to test his theory, he went somewhere remote, and took with him a copper disk. On the disk he put two spells: one to make it impossibly hard, and a second to make it spin infinitely fast. He found that in order to sustain these spells, the disk depleted all mana in the vicinity in a matter of seconds - something that until his discovery no one knew was possible. Cut to a few centuries later, and wizards are fewer in number. far less powerful, and scrabbling over the bits of mana they can locate - either naturally or concentrated in creatures/objects that have it. There is the obvious allegory to oil, but it did a very good job of showing the idea of magic as a finite resource. == The second book, the "The Magic May Return" is an anthology of short stories that play on similar themes, where this finite nature of magic is present - but when it can manifest can be very potent. It touches on the idea of the modern world or times between the "Magic Goes Away" time and now knew of magic, and could be affected by it, but it became more and more folk tale and legend - until the magic gave those tales some life for a time.

[@bobross4886]

I really need to read more Larry Niven.

[@doctorlolchicken7478]

With oil and other fossil fuels there is also the concept of how easy it is to extract them. So if magic starts to run out it might require more drastic measures to get magic, like digging big holes in the ground. More sinister, maybe magic can be obtained from living creatures, leaving to some Matrix-like setup, or necromancy, or blood magic, etc.

[@I_Don_t_want_a_handle]

David Eddings did something similar with magic stuck in green stones, IIRC. Slowly but surely the stones get used up until magic is a legend to all but a very few.

[@andrewmcgraw4811]

Lloyd being an eccentric wizard this whole time makes far too much sense. That's right, you heard me, too *much* sense. I demand you start making less sense, at once!

[@wesleyharrison9014]

I found him not that long ago after doing a big mess of ketadilameen and a quad of jellcaps I'm watching these on baseline and my time was not wasted.Guys an absolute 😑 jem .. Loving the Fez and the teapot 🫖 😍 👌.

[@MURDOCK1500]

Lloyd makes more sense talking bollocks than what a lot of people do when they try to talk sense.

[@Scyzzles]

Wizards would be useful for transforming waste energy. For example: give a wizard a gun, get rid of the recoil and he's now shooting both more accurate bullets and magic.

[@braydoxastora5584]

he will need that energy to go somewhere so a shield/armour spell perhaps

[@kinsmart7294]

Matrix and The bulletproof monk in an nutshell.

[@ampeyro]

In a magic system that required kinetic energy, I can imagine wizards spinning about a sling-like weight at the end of a string to power low-level spells.

[@Nero-ho6gt]

The Great Courses Plus sounds like I'm entering the hall to be educated by bright aristocrats. Wondrium sounds like I'm going to a preschool with a gift shop.

[@scarface5856]

I think they’re trying to appeal to a wider demographic

[@Nero-ho6gt]

@@scarface5856 Well, yeah. Literally a plebian impulse lol.

[@user-xo9ig8kc3u]

Yeah it's a terrible rebranding.

[@ScienceDiscoverer]

@@user-xo9ig8kc3u That want tik-tok audience ._.

[@sephirothbahamut245]

I love how at 1:28 you can hear the pencil fall on the floor xD

[@alberto5770]

Nope, he casted that sound spell to protect your sanity, so magnanimous he is.

[@MichaelWarman]

40:00 One of the ways we store electricity is by pumping vast masses of water up mountains, and then dropping them back down through turbines when we want the electricity back. There's obviously lost energy in friction of the turbines and so forth, but it's the best thing we've come up with so far.

[@sculean]

"Maybe women are just more sensible than men and wont risk their whole life on something that will probably fail" ahh Lindy doesn't listen to a ton of classic violin music I see

[@calc2323]

Just pretty typical sexism tbh. Who wrote the code for the moonlanding mission? The exploding of sexist expectations on girls is seeing generations of women growing up increasingly empowered to pursue wild dreams rather than be “far too sensible”. Passions and motivation are a human trait, not specific to only men.

[@sculean]

@@calc2323 It's been awhile since I've seen the video. I don't think Lindy is a hateful type of person he was just lying out a hypothetical scenario. I disagree with his logic behind it nevertheless

[@maldito_sudaka]

Finally someone agrees he's sexist. I used to be a long time subscriber to his channel. Then I watched some video in which he says some backwards things, so I unsubscribed. It's been months and I came back to see how he's doing and there it is again. I'm disappointed.

[@trouty7947]

Also Olympic athletes

[@zorastin]

@@maldito_sudaka You know everyone is a mixture of all kinds of views and ideas that sometimes are contradictory even yourself unless you are some kinda ascended saint. I didnt hear anything that was sexist in this presentation. I was trying to put my finger on why youtube had unsubscribed me from lindybeige. i subscribed a long time ago but never did watch many videos. ive got a feeling youtube is trying to do some social engineering as the algorithm has been way off lately. i think lindy is clearly on the spectrum and his whole style is coming up with stuff on the spot so he sometimes clumsily explains things amongst the brilliance. i could even see it on his face as he started this little spiel that he didnt mean to be but was in dangerous waters. Maldito people are valuable and varied. dont be so judgemental. i could also be wrong and he could sprout super sexist stuff but i doubt it.

[@jammerjansen]

In Loyd's world, Necromancy would be totally overpowered..."I'll just take your life energy and superpower myself or my trusty warrior!"

[@leddielive]

Stargate Atlantis Wraith springs to mind.

[@AtheistIII]

Sounds like a Lindybeige/SpiffingBrit collab... Which would turn all water on earth into Tea and make the Queen shed a single tear from its sheer magnificient Britishness.

[@appa609]

I mean not really. That's like saying I'll take your body fat and superpower my flamethrower. I guess you could do it but humans don't have that much energy and you can't extract it efficiently.

[@EwanMarshall]

Christopher G. Nutall covers a load of these topics in his Schooled in Magic series. Including necromancy being overpowered.

[@davidbrennan660]

The Spiffing Brit has proved this point.

[@Brave_Sir_Robin]

Magic is real. Lindybeige uploaded two videos in a week!

[@grimd8788]

Like, just because of your handle.

[@elijahthompson7049]

Lmao

[@elijahthompson7049]

@@grimd8788 truuuuueeeee

[@VidkunQL]

This is an _unusually_ wonderful video. If I can comment on only one thing... I would point out that magic systems -- whether in fiction or honestly believed -- must be intuitive. (And what we find intuitive says a lot about our species, but that's another conversation.) The laws of nature are not intuitive to the human mind. When we build technology on them, we try to make it intuitive so that we can use it without killing ourselves, but we can do only so much. We, living today, find many things obvious because we grew up with them, things which people from a low-technology culture would find not just magical, but _counterintuitively_ magical. We are so accustomed to these things that we build them into our thoughts without noticing them. "Where does the energy come from?" The idea that energy has to come from somewhere, and has to go somewhere, that energy is _conserved,_ and that heat and motion are both forms of it, are recent discoveries. And maybe in another century, when _more_ recent discoveries have really sunk in, someone will ask "hang on, when the wizard cools the rock down to make the lightning bolt, where does the entropy go?"

[@Moraren]

- My bow has gone all limp again! Its the second one to do it this week. - Yeah its that dang Lloyd meddling with his spells again..

[@Agimam]

Lindybeige: Science isn't magic Arthur C clarke: Now hold on just a moment..

[@FunkyFyreMunky]

Frank Poole agog at seeing a woman wearing nothing but aviator's goggles while she's riding a dragon in 3001 springs to mind.

[@davidbrennan660]

Clarke Tech.

[@I_Don_t_want_a_handle]

@@davidbrennan660 Didn't that involve rubbing small boys together? Or was it Boy Scouts?

[@ScienceDiscoverer]

Science is magic for most of the people. Because if you don't know how thing actually works and you can only use it practically - it's magic for you.

[@jacobedward2401]

Ah the old chair-in-a-wheelbarrow trick, gets em every time

[@isaacburrows8405]

Yeah wtf did he say

[@nedisahonkey]

I don't think I'll ever grow tired of the analysis of scholar's cradles 🤣

[@MrGREY-bs9lu]

Magic was originally an old Greek word relating to the art of a magus. A magus was a Persian priest, and the Greeks were amazed by the astronomy practiced by the magi. Astrology is a form of divination. Diviners were known as sorcerers in Latin. Another Latin based word, is enchanter (or enchantress). The British equivqlent would be a wiccian, or a witch, coming from the British word bewitch.

[@AndyIli]

Yes but enchanting in Greek is γοητευω which was used as a word to describe a magic technique

[@ursinecanine9657]

First use of the word wiccan is 1950s, you are talking rubbish.

[@georgethompson1460]

@@ursinecanine9657 Wicca was repurposing the old english word wicce.

[@ursinecanine9657]

@@georgethompson1460 so I see it was part of Saxon dialect, Ty for the correction.

[@kinsmart7294]

@@ursinecanine9657 The whole wicca thing was an invention from the 19th century. Its autheticity is as credible as Frank Dux's claims of training with the last master of an forgotten martial art and fighting in the Kumite. Perhaps something similar existed but certaigly nothing organized and most certaingly not what we call "Wicca" today.

[@TheodoreMinick]

In the Forgotten Realms setting of D&D, the energy for spells comes from the Weave, a web of magic that is established by the goddess of magic. Other settings used Ley Lines, or directly drawing on the life force of the living things around you. The Dark Sun setting, especially, went into detail on where the energy came from, with spellcasters that did it carefully, and didn't harm anything, and other spellcasters that would leave great circles of ash everywhere they cast a spell as they sucked all the life energy out of everything around them.

[@zebedeetotty]

I love the dark sun setting for many reasons but having magic be a taboo is one of the best but, i also love the common folk are dissuaded from using magic due to the propaganda of the sorceress kings who see any up comer as a threat to their power, the the whole idea of the templar class was just awesome, dark sun has no gods to worship for power so literally make one of the sorceress kings your god

[@ScienceDiscoverer]

Also in Warhammer magic comes from realm of Chaos. I guess it contains infinite energy.

[@JCSalomon]

Christopher Nuttall’s books (particularly the Zero Enigma and the Schooled in Magic series) do a pretty good job of working through the economics of worlds with common and reliable magic.

[@TheZigzagman]

Ursula K. Le Guin's _Earthsea_ trilogy does a good job of it as well.

[@I-am-Hrut]

The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfus handles rennisance-y scientific magic incredibly well too. Economics included.

[@manofcultura]

Or you can read the light novel “ascendance of a bookworm” where the nobles and priests of the world keep magic for themselves only and aggressively stamp it out when someone who isn’t in their clique try to practice it. Magic then only becomes a means of controlling the general populace through fear or giving magical favors in exchange for demeaning supplication.

[@EwanMarshall]

Reading through Schooled in Magic series right now, and I quite agree.

[@Adam-ut1dh]

Fantasy magic-- Most people: Gandalf's pretty cool Lindybeige: HORSE TREADMILL

[@imperialus1]

I've always liked the way that Dungeon Crawl Classics explains the rarity of magic. In that it is super, super dangerous and likely to mutate and or drive insane the practitioner.

[@jonathanh761]

@Jotaro97 pretty sure that is from HoMM

[@ravenwarjoy]

I think I fundamentally disagree with your assumption that combat magic is "too specialist" to be significantly developed. I like the comparison of magic to technology, but going by this, the military industrial complex is a *huge* part of the world economy, especially in a place like america, and wartime technology has been the main driving force of all sorts of developments in Europe. Kings and dukes would pay fortunes for a wizard to enchant their army's armors to be impervious to arrows, and then their rivals would pay equal fortunes for their own wizards to enchant their arrows to penetrate any armor and bypass any spell. Criminal organizations might pay for spells that make their thieves invisible, or their thugs super powerful. There is absolutely a ton of money in warfare, and thus, if magic were to exist in the real world, some of the most innovative spells would be found there, much like with technology and the military in our world. I mean, robots are being developed to carry equipment for soldiers, and we've had bomb disposal bots for a long time now.

[@mjmulenga3]

Humans always use technology for warfare.

[@rileyernst9086]

Well if we're talking about a medieval and feudal society the guys doing all the magical stuff are going to be the warlords(barons lords and knights held their power at the point of a lance, if people could hurl lightning bolts, they'd be the barons lords and knights(the warlords and their retinue)). They will be using magic to further themselves on the battlefield and development will follow that. Also war was more of a hobby than the modern idea of it. Especially in places like medieval Germany or Northern Italy. So yeah I totally agree.

[@QualityPen]

@@rileyernst9086 I disagree with that. If battlefield capability is what made someone a ruler, then the strongest warriors would have been kings. That wasn’t the case though, in fact quite often kings and various lords were physically incapable of fighting. Magicians would probably naturally congregate at the knight/man-at-arms social strata. Some would surely become kings or other high ranking noblemen, but I don’t see magic as being especially likely to propel someone to that rank just like swordsmanship and horsemanship didn’t determine who became king in our world. Edit: Granted, there is also the question of where religion and magic intersect. If magic is associated with divinity, then this fundamentally changes how magic users are positioned in society… Not that this would make them kings either, just like the “holy men” such as the Pope were revered but not made kings in Christian Europe. Whether they end up as clergy or rulers will depend on how the culture perceives the role of holy people in its society. On the other hand, if religion condemns magic, then magic users would explicitly be disqualified from holding positions of power.

[@rileyernst9086]

@@QualityPen why would the king be the guy with the most prowess when he has the biggest army? Also even if he did not a system where its pretty certain who can and cannot be the next king is a very important way of reducing instability and chaos, no-one wants your kingdom falling apart when the king dies. But in medieval society the even the king is a knight and if you can come up with a handful of kings that never fought a battle i can come up with ten handful of kings that did. And because the upper levels of society was so militrised the kings that fought more were generally more popular.

[@shurdi3]

Why bother developing magic to improve agriculture, when you can develop magic that can make it so an army of 20 people can fight like an army of 20 000 people? Get to steal just as much food and supplies in the form of taxation with 0.1% of the people.

[@Thurman321]

"Sex and agriculture." Ah, so you're making the whole world easier to plough!

[@karatos]

In my game world I basically added a realistic structure to the architecture of D&D. When people die their life force/essence/soul goes into the beyond away from the material and if they had devoted themselves to a particular god then they will be welcomed (even escorted) to the domain of that god, essentially a private universe made and maintained by that god, a literal heaven if you will. A good god may allow such a soul to exist for a century or two so that they could see their loved ones again, tell their parents all about the life they lived after them, listen to their children tell the story of their own lives, etc, and after some time they give themselves over and 'become one' with the deity.... or in other words, let themselves get eaten by the god. A neutral god may simply consume the soul immediately, after all it is not like they have to worry about yelp reviews or anything. The gods have spare energy from these souls and they give some to especially devout servants that become angels and assist in the work of the respective god, and from there they share this power with priests, paladins, and saints to perform miracles typically in the name of the god, which in turn gets more people to become devoted to the god which eventually means more souls to consume. Large networks of gods may agree to a soul sharing plan if they have a mutual interest, after all if two cities go to war over which is the correct god then perhaps one god will be much better off eventually but it is safer to form a pantheon that benefits both gods than risk it. There are some gods that will welcome any free soul which proved itself worthy in combat, or perhaps a god or even a group of gods will offer their power to someone working to better a particular region their followers are in even if that adventurer is not actually doing these acts in the name of the god, like some kind of divine kickstarter, because ultimately safer towns means longer lives and more babies, which means more for the gods. Then, since most gods (but not all) prefer only to keep the souls that are of benefit to their flock, the bad folk are rejected when they die. They go to essentially hell which is more or less a soul grinder that encourages (and even requires) strong beings to consume the weak to become more powerful to engage in unending warfare against forces of chaos from beyond all known reality. That is the price of their continued existence. And, of course, there are plenty of undevoted folk, good and bad, and they go to the infinite space between realities where most are immediately preyed upon by other ancient entities but some continue and survive in this sort of after life existence. Then there is the weave, the structure which allows magic. Imagine augmented reality that, instead of making something appear on the screen, it makes it appear in reality. If reality is only what someone defines reality as, then if you had ways to redefine it then you could seemingly do things which are unnatural. If we defined gravity for a room to be in reverse in a game then it might be as simple as changing a single figure from positive or negative, very simple, then someone could easily walk on the ceiling. So the weave creates a network throughout a world that has its own symbols and syntax (runes and words of power) then casting some spells through the weave may be no more difficult than changing a definition of reality as above or saying "Alexa, turn on lights." Power is still a factor for some spells of course, and there needs to be a limit on power (as much as any other resource) because scarcity is what adds stakes to the game. In a game we can just hand wave the source as something like the sun or the core of a planet, something massive, but the makers of the weave don't want to cause damage to the source and risk destruction so the weave has built in limits to ration how many spells someone can cast in a particular time period, and as one proves they are worthy and have cause for more magic then they are granted a larger ration, which explains power scaling. Narratively it is still possible to cut off the source, to break the construction of the weave, or to fling the adventurers into a pocket reality without such a system or with a different system to create the occasional unusual challenge. Not saying it is the best system, but it works with the game rules as written and is reasonably plausible within its world, which allows predictability for the players (and for me) based on the structure. I definitely agree that other "Name of the Wind" style magic systems make for more compelling story, the physical risk of death from casting too much, having to quickly find sources for magic in emergencies, it makes for a more interesting story but it does not translate well to gameplay as it is only a matter of time before they abuse the system. For instance, if touching something and casting a spell drains the heat from said thing then a wizard need only touch a single enemy and use a spell to catch every other enemy they can on fire. They have now killed one via cold and at least one via fire, and then they just go from steaming corpse to steaming corpse to spam cast. Countering this would snowball into essentially the wizard either being unable to cast spells in combat or it being not worth it to cast spells in combat or the system just being silly like a situation where you can drain heat from rocks, fire, tea, yourself, your friends, and a corpse but not the unnamed guard because he has an anti-heat draining good luck charm his pregnant wife gave him at his retirement party this morning that only prevents heat draining when he is alive but does not prevent any other kind of magic. But anyway.. good video.

[@SquaresToOvals]

I feel that war magic would almost certainly be a thing by the time agricultural or medical/aesthetic spells are developed. The simplicity of "make rock fly at person" or "make enemy's arrow slow down" is probably more manageable than physically transforming someone's face to be more symmetrical or slowing down the aging process-that is, if the magic in your world is a sort of technical arcana sort of thing.

[@loke6664]

But healing spells shouldn't really be more advanced then slowing down the aging process. Would really making someone a year younger be harder then closing up a severe stab would or regrowing a body part? And cosmetic spell casting would be healing as well, I mean compared to Resurrection it should be an easy spell. I mean, damage spells like fireballs ( or rock throwing) can't really be compared to anything that alter the human body but that is exactly what healing spells do and I can't think of a magic system that doesn't have healing spells in it. One would think a spell to get younger would be the main focus to invent for any older arch mage. The only alternative is either dying or becoming a lich and neither of those sounds very nice. And you could make it a ritual spell that takes time unlike a combat spell that you better get away in a single combat round.

[@donnietreece5257]

I enjoy conversations about magic. That being said, I would listen to Lindy ramble about refrigerator magnets.

[@krinkrin5982]

I would like to point to the old Warhammer rulebooks. While on the tabletop most spells are set to make you fight better or the enemy fight worse, in the actual RPG there are such wonderful spells like 'protection from rain', 'ferment', and 'fertility'. In fact, the really powerful combat magic is quite rare.

[@flibbernodgets7018]

I like Terry Pratchett's system in Discworld where, once you know how, NOT doing magic is harder than doing it. Thus, wizards and witches obfuscate magic and trick people and bury aspiring magic users in chores and academia so they don't upset the universe.

[@DevinDTV]

The giant flywheel would also explain why you need a bunch of wizards working together to cast supermagic; gotta split all that energy through multiple conduits

[@SuperLlamalover]

It is funny to think about the wizards touching in a long, energy-absorbing chain. How would they determine how many wizards are needed to manage the energy, though? It might take some trial and error, or maybe they would develop a formula for it. Imagine frying eighty wizards because you did not realize that you needed one hundred to absorb the flywheel's energy.

[@michelaushamburg6766]

@@SuperLlamalover Just start out with 100 wizards or with a smaller flywheel. Then cautionaly change parameters.

[@stryre8789]

Those Hannibal and Rome books are just staring us in the face…

[@MatheusProfBarbado]

Every time I watch Lindy he looks more and more like Doctor Who!

[@elijahthompson7049]

The crossover I didn't know I needed

[@alberto5770]

BBC should definitively contact him. You have a great point at it.

[@franciszaldivar337]

I'd say more like a cross between Dr. Who and Michael Sheen

[@derekmills5394]

@@alberto5770 writers would become unemployed (or on short hours) as every episode would be 10 minutes of script and 20 minutes of 'aside'

[@MURDOCK1500]

I agree. When Dr Who looked like an eccentric Grandad

[@tedferkin]

I'm just imagining a wizard and his retainer wandering round a dungeon with a huge flywheel to power a fireball spell. I'm thinking there is a huge flywheel that Nikolas is not thinking about. You know the one with a 15 degree per hour rotation. Would explain why days are slowly getting longer over the years.

[@WizardJim]

The Second Apocalypse series has an interesting take on this, at one point it's questioned why Sorcerers don't use their powers to perform civic projects and other mundane purposes where it would be really useful. Essentially, like Knights, Sorcerers are a kind of warrior caste and the culture of the world doesn't allow them to do "slave work" without it being a shameful thing.

[@mark_williamh1340]

And once again, Lloyd brings joy to a sleepless chap👌

[@jmvt3]

The fantasy you seem to be talking about, with superstition and energy magic, is “The Name of the Wind”.

[@beenright5115]

"I will use all the energy of the Nile to ah-Nile-ate the enemy!" .... You're on a roll there, Mr. Lindy!

[@launch4]

I always liked the idea of energy for massive spells like EXAPALOSION being drawn from some other dimension, with the strength and skill of the caster determining how much energy they could draw upon and how effectively they could channel it without overloading them and causing them to become a mass of flesh and tentacles.

[@nathanhook8351]

re: air in dungeons Also an issue with the fireball spell, if you factor in oxygen consumption of the fire...

[@danielsantaisabel3907]

Not necessarily, if the combustion used other kind of combustion that didn't rely on oxygen, or was just a plasma sphere, like a small sun, it wouldn't need any oxygen

[@che595]

Just use a spell to make more oxygen

[@g10118]

@@che595 like magic

[@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger]

I love the idea of magic that unfortunately relies on real world physics; Fireball in a cramped corridor sucks away the oxygen then immediately fizzles out. Reanimate dead works, but because the brain, nervous system, ligaments, etc of that skeleton are long gone it's just a conscious pile of bones incapable of doing anything. Doesn't move, can't talk, just lies there not doing anything noteworthy.

[@Lttlemoi]

The fireball also needs some kind of fuel, which I assume is part of the spell, so I see no reason why the spell also can't provide the oxygen.

[@horrorclose9462]

😲 after ten years of fandom, I believe that was the first swear I've heard from Lindy...

[@theaterboythefirst]

In Eragon magic takes a toll on the caster, like doing sports would and you need to train up your stamina to become a better caster. I really liked that. There was also this idea of storing energy on special jewels lile batteries, to be drawn from later.

[@michelaushamburg6766]

I recommend a magical ring or a staff to store the energy for later use.

[@marceloantunes998]

40:00 I really would like to know how Lindy thinks hydroelectric dams, pumped storage and even water wheels work. These are all just "something very heavy falling really fast"

[@thalmoragent9344]

*"It certainly depends on the Magic type. For example, we Altmer of the Summerset Isles, or Alinor as it were, have natural stores of energy which we call 'Magika', and this energy is utilized to help produce magics of all kinds."* *"When casting these spells, we require no wand or other external forces, we simply need but concentration. Of course, we of Aldmeri blood are superior to that of humans, such as yourselves, so I wouldn't expect any of you here to understand, save for a few. We Elves pride ourselves with our Shock, Frost, and Fire spells, and our intellect allows the reading of Spell Tomes to be effortlessly accomplished by the likes of us and our cousins, such as the Direnni, Aylieds, or Ancient Falmer."* _-Information pertaining to the Aldmeri of the Elder Scrolls Universe, brought to you by the Thalmor Embassy, for the sake of spreading knowledge, as well as paying homage to our now tragically fallen Elven races._ *"Of course, your Star provides only heat and light, whereas ours provides us with unlimited possibilities for the utilization of Magic, praise be unto Magnus, Elven God of Light and Magic!"*

[@gabriellebloomfield3568]

Epic Comment

[@Rohtix]

I feel like Avatar did this a bit, using the different elements in their everyday life. Though, it wasn't ever really refered to as magic. I suppose magic itself is the notion of the inexplicable. Once it can be explained, it's not really magic anymore.

[@frostboomba1462]

But broke many of it's rules and the world building in my opinion was trash. Only 4 nations? All divided strictly along the lines of elements. With each nation having very specific mannerisms and characters. The fact that all the Airbenders were monks and pacifists, was the stupidest thing I've ever heard, even stupid that they all got wiped out in a night and that few couldn't escape to other nations is so dumb. A world that had over 1000 avatars, would have more than 10000 years of history. 10000 years of trade and interractions, 10000 years where war would occur between people's. How would any logical world with more than 10,000 years of history, war, trade, migration and conflict have only 4 bloody fucking nations, wow. The fucking earth nation king, silly. The stupid 2 water tribes. One water tribe being nothing but a little snow walled village. It makes no sense for the tribes to even be at the poles. How do you maintain a civilization without agriculture, how do you have agriculture in a bloody frozen tundra. Avatars world building is donkey balls. But semi interesting power system, but super inconsistent and stupid at times.

[@frostboomba1462]

Pardon my BS. Just cringe when I hear folks say avatar has great worldbuilding. I know you didn't.

[@Rohtix]

@@frostboomba1462 lol relax homie, I'm just talking about the use of magic, not the overarching story

[@meganparrish807]

@@frostboomba1462 Is the Avatar born every 100 years? Because you can have three to four generations in just 100 years, especially if you factor in baby booms after wars. Add: So it could easily be less than 1000 years.

[@frostboomba1462]

@@meganparrish807 way more than 1000 avatar. Was a whole gigantic room of avatar statues in the air temple. So impossible for it to be way less than 1000 years. Especially when avatars don't die easy. No one wants avatar smoke. At least 5000 years.

[@The-Black-Death]

Within my own medieval fantasy story/world that of course has magic, it has at least 4 forms of magical energy from different planes of dimensions connected to the Overworld that allows people to both summon and create things from said energy but they must be attuned to said energies and the planes or dimensions where that energy comes from, in addition to concentrating on a certain word or symbol of power within their mind, to which they can cast through their hands or sometimes even through their minds or words. For Holy/Divine energy it's very much based on faith and conviction and isn't completely tied to "being good" necessarily, with this energy also being connected to the Sun as well. Nature/Fey energy is based on being connected or attuned with nature and other natural elements or even other living beings like animals, as this energy is connected to animal or elemental spirits. Eldritch/Astral energy is based on being connected to spiritual energy and willpower as this energy often allows one to use telekinetic-based abilities but can be very corrupting and harmful to one's mind or soul if they aren't mentally stable or attuned properly, with this energy being connected to the Moon. Unholy/Dark energy is solely based on negativity and malice as well as spiritual degradation as many spells requiring dark energy often relies on using one's soul or spirit if not their own or someone else's blood, due to this energy being connected to negative energy-based spirits or matter as well as shadows. One may find themselves naturally connected to one of these dimensional planes and be gifted with talent in regards to magic of this certain type, or one may be able to draw in enough energy from a certain place within the Overworld that is rich with a certain type of energy. However, this last method is the most dangerous as it can often lead to serious injuries or one's death either from accidentally drawing the attention of a hostile spirit or entity, or may potentially have some negative side effect with their body, soul, or mind not properly aligning or connecting with the energy in question.

[@1KosovoJeSrbija1]

The superstition bit depends on how difficult it is to understand, in warhammer 40k tech priests are famously superstitious even though they know the most about technology. The level of superstition probably depends on how difficult the world is to understand, I would say education would play a much larger influence on the level of superstition.

[@zednott]

Arthur C. Clarke's 3ed law "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

[@steemlenn8797]

And any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology. Which basically is what he said aboutt he difference of magic and prayers. magic works if you follow those steps. The same is true for an atomic power plant. Really powerful magic would need a day-long ritual by several people.

[@andrewlustfield6079]

It's an interesting thought experiment. When your explanation of magic becomes too granular it ceases to be magic and becomes just another form of tech. In games, this is a necessary function of game mechanics, but it loses the wonder and terror of magic in narrative.

[@inthefade]

Good point.

[@Lttlemoi]

I think that's a positive thing. It's why I prefer the magic systems from the Inheritance Cycle and the Wheel of Time over, say, the Lord of the Rings or a Song of Ice and Fire. It turns the magic from a deus ex machina storytelling solution that's only present at key moments into an integrated part of the created world. Rather than wondering what random thing will happen next, I can think and reason along with the characters and make educated guesses at what could work and what wouldn't.

[@AlexiusRedwood]

@@Lttlemoi if magic is magicical or fantastic why have magic in the first place?just writes sci-fi novel

[@Lttlemoi]

​@@AlexiusRedwood Sci-fi and fantasy magic are different things. Science fiction is an extrapolation of technology that is still plausible in our reality, but doesn't alter how humans interact with the world around them. It is not the humans who perform fantastical feats, but the machines and technology they created. Fantasy magic on the other hand hinges entirely on some fundamentally different way in which humans can interact with the world. The magic is channeled or created or drawn or magicked by some function of the human body/mind itself. There may be tools to assist, like wands, angreal, runes, crystals, talismans or the flywheel Lindybeige mentioned, but the human itself is still required as an active component. It's also possible to blend both together into what is sometimes called "science fantasy". The Shadowrun world comes to mind as a perfect example of this. Another would be Star Wars, where the interaction with the force is a magical fantasy element, but the droids, spaceships and alien races are a sci-fi element.

[@andrewlustfield6079]

@@Lttlemoi I much prefer Tolkien and Martin's magic than I do Wheel of Time. I like the dread I feel when the Red Witch shows up and thinking, oh hell, what's going to happen now? It's like explaining the force through midi-chlorians---it was a huge story telling mistake and drained all the wonder and mystery of the force out of the Star Wars universe. There's myriad reasons the original three movies worked very well, and those that came after, excepting Rogue One, didn't work nearly as well--explaining the force was one of them. The spiritual and supernatural need to remain spiritual and supernatural for them to remain magical--otherwise you might as well be talking about an engineering problem. That's not all that magical, when you get down to it. I'd much rather have a soft magic system that is squarely rooted in the world's unique mythology or a hard magic system that isn't explained, but that we see how the magic consistently follows it's own rules only through the action in the story. I'm all for magic having limits and a price, great or small. There are things that are important for an author to know that the reader has no business clued into. I'll risk a little deus ex machina, (especially if the gods are real and have a penchant for exerting their divine will in the created world) if it means keeping the mystery and the wonder alive.

[@roytyndall6446]

This one's great. IDEA: If the wizard does not know what oxygen is, he cannot create a spell to oxygenate blood or create an area of breathable gas. Certain levels of science would determine magical ability.

[@tokeeptrackofrandomsubs5899]

That wizard would just have to create some dephlogisticated* air! No need to understand this fancy modern oxygen thing. * weird word referring to an old theory that was used up to the 18th century, things that burn contain phlogiston that when burned goes into the air (which can only hold up to a certain amount of that phlogiston)

[@ntp5257]

Yea but what's the oxygen made of? What are the molecules made of? etc etc.

[@roytyndall6446]

@@ntp5257 With contemporary levels of science one can identify oxygen from other molecules. One does not need to know what's IN the 12 gauge shell to load and use it. At some point we are all igernant, yet functional. The point is there are points where ignorance makes certain types of magic unreasonable.

[@Detson404]

I recommend you check out Diane Duane’s “Young Wizards” books. She has a very well thought out magic system that interfaces perfectly with scientific reality.

[@AntediluvianDoomer]

1:26 Nice job conjuring the sound of an Ikea pencil hitting the floor even after having disintegrated the pencil in your magical hand

[@Rastek19]

Can't believe he posted 2 videos in thw same week it's amazing I love it

[@dariustiapula]

Create an anti-magic taskforce for those that will inevitably drunk high on magic power.

[@majesticgothitelle1802]

So knights in armor. Magic is weak to certain metal

[@chengkuoklee5734]

Like Dragon Age Templar

[@jacobedward2401]

@@majesticgothitelle1802 not in Runescape

[@majesticgothitelle1802]

@@jacobedward2401 KZbin deleted my post. I said in mythology and historical believe that certain metal are resistance or immune to magic. Certain metal that immune to magic and can't be replicated those would be use as currency. Certain metal that is durable and resistant to magic like bronze, iron, steel orichalcums and adamantite would be use too. Magic metal that can be imbue with magic like hihi'irokane and thokcha would be use to make magical items. Not magic user would lean towards alchemist and alchemy like job artificer, chemist, tinkerer, operator, plague doctor and. Would created automaton, anthroparion, juggernaut, chemicals, elixirs, machinery and so on.

[@Bluecho4]

@@majesticgothitelle1802 Metal shields, too. I imagine if war magic became too common, companies of soldiers would be instructed in shield formations that could defend against battlefield spellcraft. If someone tries to drop a fireball on them, the leader of the company would give the order to raise shields. It's like defending against arrows, except it's fire.

[@jermainerace4156]

"Harness the power of falling objects.." ..that would be the mill you already talked about, and also hydroelectric dams, water towers, there was even an air compressor at a mine that relied on falling water pulling bubbles with it to fill a massive underground reservoir of air to ~500psi.

[@christophershrimplin1849]

I have never seen any of this KZbin's videos before, but I gotta say this is an amazingly well thought out breakdown of magic as well as its components.

[@RisikoAO]

"If we had magic we would use it to be more attractive" ... well, this is part of The Witcher lore, the very reason why every sorceress is a bombshell

[@joiscode3832]

A book that i think had cool magic and interesting ideas was "The darker shade of magic" Also: love what you do man, your channel fills a varry specific groups of concepts thats quite uncommon but amazing

[@rewrose2838]

the name of the wind

[@j0nayblade]

It strikes me how well educated/literate/skilled you are in science, statistics, psychology, fantasy and stage performance (just mentioning a brief list) whilst maintaining a mostly history-themed channel. Keep this going sir! You are an excellent orator!

[@Gingerninja800]

I think the major difference between technology and magic is that once a piece of superior technology is invented/discovered it can be reproduced easily, the hard part is the inventing. With magic there is a high skill ceiling on both learning 'spells' and also inventing new ones. Ie, a boffin invents the gun and you can pay a bunch of workers to build your designs and then give them to a bunch of peasants and tell them the trigger make boom. With a spell, you'd need both a great wizard to 'design' the spell but also a great wizard to cast it. In that sense, magic is more like a skill. The best chess player may come up with some new theoreums on how to play chess very well, but you'd still need to be extremely good at chess to understand it. Technology is sort of like a skill of society whereas magic is an individual skill.

[@raingram]

With technology in our world, we live in a unique time where the younger people grew up with it, but the older people didn't. (imagine going from the 1930's to today, it's insane how far we've come) So even technology seems to be a skill we've learned individually. And to others it's arcane wizardry. And even among the younger generations, there are those that clearly understand technology, and the majority that clearly just got used to it and are going to end up similar to old people today.

[@persona2bestpersona891]

30:15 and thats why FMA has one of the best magic systems

[@maxkronader5225]

I love that this entire extended presentation is performed in a fez.

[@theaussiecockie4881]

Yes, the mistaken British belief that Fez's are cool

[@karimmoop9560]

I think he was really going for the masonic shriners who wear fezzes

[@afterthought3341]

Lindy has spectacular talent in talking in long bouts in one take .

[@brodieknight772]

That wheel concept is a pretty good idea, actually. I can imagine the end scene, when they finally disconnect the axel right as they final world shattering spell is about to be cast, and this monumental stone wheel rolls over the City of the Gods, flattening their towers and pyramids at 600 miles per hour

[@michelaushamburg6766]

In between, apprentice mages harvest the heat caused by the friction and turn it into rain showers or cooling winds or jewelry.

[@kokofan50]

I think you’re discounting how much money a king will spend to make his army proof against various forms of attack or make his men’s attacks more effective. The US spends more money on our military than most countries’s GPDs.

[@Kar4ever3]

And that kings are as prone to vanity as a French Emperor in the early 1800's. So having the most fancy magic and razzle-dazzle to show others leaders.

[@kokofan50]

@@Kar4ever3 I’m not saying there wouldn’t be a market for other stuff, just that Loyd is discounting military motived spending.

[@jonanderson5137]

To be fair... our GDP is massive. You should look at the proportions and take into account that the USA is essentially paying for not only our share of the UN, but most of many other countries. All while other countries profit by not having to invest in their military might. I'm not saying this is ideal, nor to I dismiss the existence of the military industrial complex. I do dispute the purported differences in spending that ignore peace dividends and basic ratios.

[@jamesharding3459]

Well, yes, but it’s still a very small portion of the national budget, on par with most of the other NATO countries.

[@kokofan50]

@@jonanderson5137 the US actually spends less as a percentage of GDP than most countries/empires have traditionally spent.

[@AverageAlien]

If magic were real, it wouldn't be called magic, it would just be called physics

[@martinda7446]

Maybe it is? (Whatever IT is)

[@garrysekelli6776]

Most of physics is fake and made up lies though. That's what Lloyd is getting at. At least in my universe.

[@monopoly1027]

Hmm, magic is like a miracle - the suspension of the natural order, s- *falls into pit of eternal semantics*

[@martinda7446]

And what Arthur C Clarke said about sufficiently advanced societies..blah blah...Indistinguishable from magic...

[@polartechie]

@AvgAlien What are "dieties" from that perspective?

[@bradyvelvet9432]

Thumbnail reminds me of “Lolric, Prince of Elves - demon begone!” 😂😂😂

[@hqlife5128]

Its a bit of a cheat but I think one of the first things I would research as a Wizard would be to create or imbue crystals about the size of a pebble with the property to store the energy of an entire river sort of like a battery. Or alternatively lighting enormous fires and tossing the crystals in the fire so they absorb the immense heat energy of the fire.

[@sashaokoh2344]

Its so awesome how diverse these uploads are, keep em coming man!

[@PaletoB]

This is a pretty good representation of my thought process at night...

[@bassmechanic237]

We love you Lindy! You are one of thee most unique gems on KZbin. Still underrated.

[@charlesq7866]

Yay! Another Lindy video to watch amd rewatch some months down the line!