Well for one thing, if you're familiar with the ancient "palace economy" societies, your system with mana sounds rather like it. If not, definitely look some of that up.
WRT magical tools, can a formula be written as a linear array, rather than a ring? Could the characters of the array be themselves on rings orthagonal to the path of the array, so you can change what a certain tool will do given time to twiddle the rings around? Probably not as convenient as the multi-setting wand in Terry Pratchett's Discworld Witches books, but from the sound of things also less likely to get stuck on pumpkins. Can physically small inscriptions handle as much power as the same thing written larger, and does it affect the mana cost? What about special inks or materials of one sort or another other than your glowing magic rocks versus carving out empty spaces in a substrate with carved characters? Does the type or grain of wood matter, or conditions the tree grew in? Different types of stone and environmental conditions, aside form the caster being able to maintain concentration during them? Relative positions of celestial bodies? The caster's moral, physical, or marital status? Will it blend, and can it run Crysis?
I'm not so sure about the monoculture thing - this ties back to the palace economy bit, but the way you have mana a physical thing critical to the functioning of society and extracted at lots of small, relatively long term locations that nonetheless still get depleted after a while and are distributed by the local lord really works against the idea of large nations, or entities larger than one lord's soldiers and charisma can convince to work for her. Larger alliances would of course form, but when the mana begins to run low whoever is relying on it has the options of moving their operation, conquering one of those neighbors, or having their population absorbed by them wherever they can fit and falling out of the ruling class with no tributary income to distribute. Male or female, those who go through the concerted effort to gain power seldom willingly give it up, and those raised in power are if anything going to be even more appalled at the idea.
That might count as a "monoculture" itself I guess, but with myriad small
fief-doms dominating their particular fief and uncertain relations with the neighbors it seems more like they'd tend to become a bit insular and each develop their own customs and so on.
WRT magical tools, can a formula be written as a linear array, rather than a ring? Could the characters of the array be themselves on rings orthagonal to the path of the array, so you can change what a certain tool will do given time to twiddle the rings around? Probably not as convenient as the multi-setting wand in Terry Pratchett's Discworld Witches books, but from the sound of things also less likely to get stuck on pumpkins. Can physically small inscriptions handle as much power as the same thing written larger, and does it affect the mana cost? What about special inks or materials of one sort or another other than your glowing magic rocks versus carving out empty spaces in a substrate with carved characters? Does the type or grain of wood matter, or conditions the tree grew in? Different types of stone and environmental conditions, aside form the caster being able to maintain concentration during them? Relative positions of celestial bodies? The caster's moral, physical, or marital status? Will it blend, and can it run Crysis?
I'm not so sure about the monoculture thing - this ties back to the palace economy bit, but the way you have mana a physical thing critical to the functioning of society and extracted at lots of small, relatively long term locations that nonetheless still get depleted after a while and are distributed by the local lord really works against the idea of large nations, or entities larger than one lord's soldiers and charisma can convince to work for her. Larger alliances would of course form, but when the mana begins to run low whoever is relying on it has the options of moving their operation, conquering one of those neighbors, or having their population absorbed by them wherever they can fit and falling out of the ruling class with no tributary income to distribute. Male or female, those who go through the concerted effort to gain power seldom willingly give it up, and those raised in power are if anything going to be even more appalled at the idea.
That might count as a "monoculture" itself I guess, but with myriad small
fief-doms dominating their particular fief and uncertain relations with the neighbors it seems more like they'd tend to become a bit insular and each develop their own customs and so on.
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‎noli esse culus
‎noli esse culus