In Another World with Truck-kun (Yet Another Damn Isekai Story)

[Black Aeronaut]

Wooo-weee.  So much at once.  Let's see about breaking it down...

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.

I'll get right on that.  Thanks!

WRT magical tools, can a formula be written as a linear array, rather than a ring?

I would sayyyyy....  yes.  I would like to run with the idea that the magic system works similarly to the system in we see in Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, only not as flexible.

For example, in her books you can pretty much get air to become solid by reminding it that it can be solid, and basically go, "Pretty please will you do it for me?"  In this system, in order to get air to become a solid, you have to actually move the energy around to make it change states from gas, to liquid, and then solid.

I'm still fuzzy on this, though.  I'd like for there to be a very strong correlation to physics and chemistry, but no one's really happened upon why these things happen because the magical arrays just makes these things happen.

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.

This will actually be pretty much how wands and staffs function, except in a linear fashion (arrays carved along the long axis).  A wand or a staff will have parts of an array on each section, strategically placed to handle different parts of a spell.  As I mentioned earlier with a basic fire spell, the first segment will have the fire spell itself, the next one can dictate how much energy you want to put into it, and another will dictate what shape it will take, and so on, and so forth.  Rotating the segments of the staff or wand will give you the combination you want, and then it's pretty much just point-and-shoot.

Can physically small inscriptions handle as much power as the same thing written larger, and does it affect the mana cost?

Yes, this will have an effect on both counts.  Larger arrays can carry more mana, and therefore will have great capacitance for executing a spell.  Which will be why wands are only really good for small, utilitarian tasks, but staffs are the more preferred go-to choice for moderate-sized effects.  This will be why wands are not often seen - given how Mana is precious, you'll only see the more well-to-do bothering with them because wands can only really do things that anyone can do on their own - it just makes it more convenient and easy.

Public works and the like, as mentioned before, will be specially maintained magic arrays that are kept charged for as long as possible.

Here's an idea.  Waste of mana can be greatly mitigated by ensuring you're only using exactly as much as you need.  There will be a minimum needed charge before the array can work, and in general this will be lost once the array is discharged, but carefully planning the array out to be as "small" as possible and still perform the work will be both a matter of artisanal skill as well as...  Well, I guess you could call it "tight and clean coding".  So more often than not, two people will be involved in making an array - the person that engineers the code, and the person that actually writes it out.  Though there will be those that can do both, but they'll be considered extremely skilled high level mages.

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?

I actually hadn't thought about that, but now that you bring it up, it makes a lot of sense.  Some materials will handle properties of magic better than others.  (I plan on this having a lot of analogues to how electricity and water are measured - pressure, rate of flow, volts, amperes... you get the idea.)

So certain woods farmed in certain conditions will be more efficient with manna than others, as well as different types of stone, and other construction materials - all with a grading system that rates how well each property is handled.

Relative positions of celestial bodies? The caster's moral, physical, or marital status? Will it blend, and can it run Crysis?

Hah!  These things not quite so much.  Celestial bodies will depend on the spell - most don't rely on it, but spells that play into astronomy and timekeeping would.

The caster's emotional state will play in to how well they can cast a spell - being able to focus on what they're doing and all.  Possibly physical attributes, too, since that can play a role in how well a person can focus.  But the other stuff would be more in the domain of how well they get along with their Gods and who happens to be their patron deity.

As for the role the Gods will play, mostly they simply impart wisdom and, now and then, empower their more devout clerics and paladins.  They won't simply give away the Secrets of the Universe simply because it's a bad idea to twink the noobs in this case.  Unfortunately, things have progressed with such glacial slowness that they're actually wishing they could interfere directly.  But one of them figured out a clever workaround - he just had to convince someone to move into the neighborhood so he can inspire others.

It will eventually blend things quite nicely, but it will be a while until it can 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.

I've been giving a bit of thought on this.  The idea so far is to have something like House Harkonnen from Dune come into being, only it would be it's own little empire, carved out of Mesoamerica and filled with blood and vitriol.

Once the plagues had done their damage, a young upstart decides enough is enough, they're gonna go a-conquering.  Trouble is, their young mind got warped by the things they saw, and a self-styled God of Cruelty took notice and liked what she saw.

Only thing was?  This was a male.

But that didn't matter.  She empowered him because she got a kick out of seeing him literally rape and pillage his way across the land, and a line of adherents quickly formed up behind him, becoming his Priests who were every bit as vile as he was.  He quickly instated each of them as the head of their own fiefs.

But here's the scary part: He's Evil Overlord List Compliant, and while they perform acts of cruelty on each other in the name of their god, all of his people are well fed, well educated, and thoroughly brainwashed.  (Imagine what North Korea could be if it only could.  Yeah, that.)

The mana mines are carefully tended and rotated.  All of his priests have all that they could desire (and any traitors are quickly and publicly dealt with).  Nothing is left to chance.  And while life is dog-eat-dog, it is only in accordance with their god's wishes, and not because of starvation or destitution.

A perfect dystopia that harkens to the Fall of the Eldar in Warhammer 40K.  Or, if it helps, like Reavers from Firefly, except with a thin veneer of civilization.

The other Gods would dearly like to do something about them, but they've been just so plain nasty and tenacious that it's all their children could do to just stem the tide.

Thoughts?