What if magic was real in prehistory?
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- Опубликовано: 19 май 2024
- Let's explore world building by taking magic all the way back to the beginning, the hunter-gatherers and the first farmers and see what changes real magic would make to the historical pathways. 🌍✨In this episode, we take an alternative history approach and truly embed magic into a civilization.
My books: www.mariemullany.com/work
Join the Channel: / @justintimeworlds
Chapters
0:00 Intro
01:26 What Magic?
3:47 Magical Hunter-Gathers
20:10 Magical Farmers
#justintimeworlds #mariemullany #worldbuilding #fantasyhistory #stoneage #paleolithic #magicsystem #fantasyworldbuilding #fantasy
What do you think? Would the agricultural revolution happen if people have magic?
Perhaps on a smaller scale?
Answering before watch the video: that depends on the magical system. For most systems I think the answer is yes. If you get some Universal divination power, that gives you answer about all objective matters then all Technological Revolutions are likely to happen a lot faster, Agricultural included.
Usually Agricultural Revolutions happen because of magic, in our (arguably) real world. Is the sort of knowledge attributed to divine intervention, so "Divine Magic" so to speak.
Would be interesting to go in the opposite direction and ask "which Magic System would likely prevent Agricultural Revolution?". Anything that allows you to create food and objects of use from magical energy, if common enough, should do the trick. People will not invest the effort needed to pass the difficulties of start an Agricultural System if they can get what agriculture gives you easier, and faster.
Maybe something that depends on people being strict carnivores. Your mage can heal the entire tribe, and turn them into super-strong werelion, but only those who have not eaten any crops, roots or vegetables, for the last 5 years. Magic don't help those who eat plants.
Or magic depends on spirits that consider any sort of "violence against the earth" insulting. So, you lose all magic if you start hurting the ground to plant your food. And magic gives you more advantage than planting things.
Why wouldn't it happen? Unless everyone has magic and can just conjure up a meal, that is. Any fantasy works I've read that include magic, magic always seems to belong to a very small portion of the population. So if only a few people have access to that power, then the majority who don't still must rely on their own skills to survive. So any technology that makes their lives easier, more comfortable or more convenient will probably eventually come to light, including agriculture and domestication of animals.
I like these ideas, they're well thought. My spelling was off, my apologies. It's a good argument for two distinct forms of magic, one reminds me of summoning from JRPGs, the other is mage-drug which is pretty uncommon but not unheard of, but you went further than that and extended outward to justify why certain things might be smaller, might be larger, might be faster or slower in development and might be missed entirely; which I quite enjoy. Thanks for your thoughts, longform.
Glad you enjoyed them! I haven't used either of those systems in fiction, but they are quite fun. I might find a purpose for them yet.
In the Elemental scenario they would cultivate the resources they need to consume for magic. Farming would just be different.
You would cultivate the four elements to your greatest extent.
Really glad I found this channel, this info/ideas you present here are all things I had banging around in my head that I wanted to solve for my prehistoric setting. Video is very info/idea dense but still very easy to parse.
Welcome to my tiny corner of RUclips. Glad your enjoying the content.
I keep the development of people a lot more consistent with how it is in our world by having my magic progress slowly. All early humans know is that certain materials can do weird things, but stone age humans did not figure out how to replicate these processes. This wouldn't happen until earlier civilizations formed and certain members of these societies took on roles similar to ancient Greek alchemists; they ran experiments, invented spells, etc which all lead to the development of refined magic systems. Since magic isn't used by everyone, there is also some need still for scientific innovations.
That's also a good way to make it feel real.
Regarding agricultural revolution and population explosion. What if balance was a central tenet of belief? The spirits made it clear that the world (or the spirit world) enforces a balance, providing for need but not greed? What if the mesolithic peoples know from experience that if they let their numbers get too high, death will take the surplus and possibly more besides -- either from disease and starvation, or perhaps just bad luck, animal attacks, etc?). The people would discover some kind of birth control right quick. Perhaps divination will show an auspicious time to have a child, and children not born under spiritual blessings are considered unlucky?
For being born at auspicous times, the primary species in my world is nocturnal. All childbirth takes place under open sky and any child born in the light of the sun is deemed "sun-cursed" and traditionally killed right after birth. Some tribes have taken to using drugs and/or magic to accelerate or delay childbirth to ensure nobody is born in daylight, but for the rest, this is the primary form of population control (even if not done for population control purposes).
Great points on restraining the population explosion.
What aspects were magic could definitely affect history one man can change the course of the war
Thinking about it this way opens up some truly unsettling and frightening implications... what if early cultures started out with all the same magical practices, but they actually *worked*...
Right? Divination, spiritual guidance, shape shifting...
Ok, unos cuántos pensamientos:
I. Sé que oyes mis pensamientos: Miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau.
II. Creo que con un sistema mágico de sacrificios podría dar cómo resultado, en un futuro, que se creen bebes en úteros artificiales para tener sacrificios infinitos o, también, podría hacerse un único sacrificio para exigir que ya no sean necesarios los sacrificios.
III. Creo que el hecho de tener agua y comida gratis en cantidades industriales podría favorecer a todos, digo, solo tendríamos que cubrir cada centímetro de suelo tierra adentro con árboles frutales y hacer rituales para que llueva.
IV. Coincido en que habría avances que llegarían antes en un mundo mágico, pero creo que los avances sociales llegarían a la misma velocidad, es decir, que, si bien, tendríamos bronce (cómo los helenos) todavía seríamos una sociedad que solo realiza actividades que necesita y poco más, en vez de sentarse a crear historias y experimentar.
V. Veo difícil que lleguemos a un siglo XXI D.C cómo lo conocemos (lo digo por experiencia propia, demasiados papeles llenos de líneas de tiempo alternativas), por lo que sugiero que la historia, y sus secuelas, deben centrarse en cómo es el mundo y cómo este va cambiando, mas nunca avanza en la misma dirección que el nuestro.
VI. Creo que la magia en una historia no solo debe estar integrada en el mundo, sino que también debe ser algo a lo cuál se le pueda contrarrestar con las armas de la época (algo así cómo para "Avatar: La leyenda de Aang" el sistema de verdaderas artes marciales para controlar los elementos calza bien en un mundo medieval, pero no necesariamente europeo), de esa forma nadie está over powered y todos tienen oportunidad de brillar (en lugar de que solo brille uno y que el resto sean unos inútiles que solo repiten "estoy ayudando" cómo si fuesen loros) creo que algo cómo la fuerza de un gorila o ser tan rápido cómo un guepardo podría ser útil, aunque un sistema de magia que te permita controlar animales también serviría (algo así cómo pokémon, pero sin que estos besen el suelo que pisas y pudiendo hacer cosas por su cuenta, además de solo valerse de su fuerza o su velocidad, en vez de poderes sobrenaturales).
Great suggestions
@@JustInTimeWorlds Gracias.
How does your elemental consumption system lead to earlier fire control though? You need to inhale smoke from a specific type of wood, for which you need fire to begin with. Then you have to to discover that when you build your campfire with a certain kind of wood it has that effect, which I imagine would take a while (and only happens at all if you live in an area where that tree grows at all).
Overall a very interesting video, this is a topic I have thought a lot about, I'm building a fantasy world from the stone age while taking my own magic systems into account.
A bushfire could teach the mage what they need to know and once they've mastered the technique, they don't need to protect their fire anymore, making a fire becomes easy.
Oh yes! Even as a child I was quite sure that Spirits inhabited everything, everywhere. Not sure why, just always have! You are quite an interesting person! I really enjoy your talks!!
Thanks :)
Even with magic, guns would be usable. They are the Great Equalizer. In the real world, they allowed peasants to become soldiers with just a few weeks training, while the sword or bow required several months or even years of training. Magic would either need a lot of experience to efficiently wield as a weapon or be a tightly guarded secret onyl the powerful and holy have access to. Guns would re-balance the battlefield.
My culture has achieved the digital age a lot faster thanks to magic, without ever going through the steam, diesel and atomic age. Virtual Reality is only possible because the spirit/astral realm is real, with deep dive VR technology being just technologically enhanced meditation.
The primary magic form in my world is Qi/Internal Energy based, with some minor assist from spirits. Spirits don't really have much power in the physical realm. The people were hunter/gatherers for an extended time since their Qi magic made them better hunters through physical enhancement (more stamina, more strength, more speed). Agricultural and pastural settlements really only became a thing due to direct divine meddling (The gods didn't intend for agriculture or pasturals, they just messed up and couldn't be bothered to undo their mistakes).
That's a fascinating approach to the astral plane.
There is a ttRPG called "Paleomythic" that explores that very idea. You play a homosapien in a small tribe. Your tech is limited to wood, bone and stone. Magic does exist. The system is a bit wonky, but the overall game is interesting.
These are some cool ideas. Thanks for sharing them.
You are welcome!
In 11:45. The first case, where you have spirits helping, will lead to growing population (you have all food you need, no cultural reason_ like contemporary feminist ideology and urban lifestyle contingencies_ to not have children: so, baby boom). Eventually spirits will not find you preys, because there is just no more animals to hunt. Unless the spirits can produce an infinite supply of animals, perhaps open the doors to infinite parallel Universes. Or unless the spirits keep human population from growing, somehow.
In the second case, the dietetic one, my impression is that you just have magical agriculture. Is not that you didn't had Agricultural Revolution. You made your Agricultural Revolution faster, and better, using magic. For all practical purposes that is a Agricultural Society.
I don’t know that you’d have a population explosion. If the spirits gave humans reproductive control, you might not. But very interesting thoughts all round :)
So an interesting effect of your elemental magic consumption (or really any elemental magic system) is that it would radically change the progression of your technological path. For instance why would you develop pottery as a technology when you can simply shape stone in all of the same forms, even assuming you can't turn iron ore into iron and steel via earth magic fire magic would let you make a simple campfire hot enough to smelt the far more abundant and more readily available sources of iron without mucking about will all of the trouble of mining and engaging in trade routes for tin and skip that whole bronze step in metallurgy entirely. But more importantly you wouldn't need anywhere near the infrastructure to preform industrial processes, so a group of hunter-gatherers could produce goods in a temporary camp that should require a permanent settlement to mine ore make charcoal smelt iron and produce all of the tools necessary to do all of these tools to do so before finally making finished iron or steel goods. So instead of a huge amount of industry and the attached merchant class to make all of this happen you need one earth mage and one fire mage or one earth/fire mage to simply extract and purify the ore and then to smelt that ore and then to finally shape that ore (which presumably that first earth mage could do).
Yeah, you could have hunter-gatherers who have our level of technology, but driven by magic :D
@@JustInTimeWorlds That being said you would still be limited technologically by the lack of a sedentary place to store written records. That being said all of this is starting to sound like a precursor to how elves are often depicted.
@@TheMichaellathrop You can solve the records problem by having an extra dimensional space to park records. Or by having a sedentary settlement supported by hunter-gatherers where scholars work, but don't farm.
Magic, used like that, makes people lazy and incapable of living without it. Just as smart phones and AIs are making humans today more ignorant and incapable of dealing with the real world. The next Carrington even will wipe out a huge percent of the human species because of it.
An important consideration I think you might’ve missed is… what if the animals have magic too? Think that could be a good followup.
I’d say the animals/environment having magic as well would be a partial answer to the earlier development. The agricultural revolution will take longer if an entire town can be wiped out by a particularly big and possibly bad wolf.
I care about more about the first cavemen that killed a fire-breathing dragon with only wooden sticks and rocks. There is no way a caveman could live in anime fantasy filled with monsters. Unless monsters came after the first human army was built. Of course, humans are stronger in anime. Fast healing, strength of a hundred earthling, high IQ, and so on. Just imagine the first holy weapon was a sliver rock on a stick and a caveman clubbing the Demonlord to death with it.
And this is why I always laugh when people bring up historical accuracy. Look skew at any fantasy world and it comes apart right there. How the heck did humans survive long enough to get social enough to work together and kill the monsters? :D
@@JustInTimeWorlds Well, unless you're Tolkien, of course. He explained all that.
Whatever the what if scenario, there will never be Humanity without war, and all it’s evil’s, because it’s inherent to our nature.
I would love to play rpg with you
Heh, I wish I had more time to run games. I miss student days. All night RPGs were the best.