"Mommy, where do magic babies come from?" [Archive] - Wizards Community

"Mommy, where do magic babies come from?" [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Pitiless_Interfector
05-27-07, 05:41 PM I've always been intrigued by the biological basis of magic. I was wondering if anyone knew whether someone has done work on anything like this (you know, a post in Regdar's Repository, or on an independent site like Dicefreaks, etc.). If not, the following are some observations and ramblings I dredged up and decided to toss out there to get discussion going:

First of all, the only base classes I know of that might've inherited their powers from an ancestor are the sorcerer, the warlock, and the favored soul.
The warlock is usually described as someone who made an unholy pact with a demon, devil, slaadi, or verdant prince. Sometimes the character himself made the pact, other times his ancestors did, and he inherited his gift from them. But a few warlocks are said to have inherited their powers from a demon, devil, or fey ancestor.
Favored souls are said to either be blessed with their power by direct investment of their deity's time and effort, or to have received their gift from unions with outsiders long ago, either angels or demons.
However, it is impossible to not worship a deity and still be a favored soul, meaning that either they need a god's permission to access their heritage's inherent powers, or ALL spontaneous divine-caster demonlings happen to worship a deity religiously [there's redundancy for you]. This seems unlikely.
So, perhaps, a great-great-great-grandchild of Prince Meteneg the Misunderstood who undertakes clerical training at a convent of Nerull becomes a favored soul, while his brother, who lacks such guidance, becomes a warlock. Sensible, isn't it? But wait! What determines whether little Larry Layabout, with no outside interference, becomes a warlock or a sorcerer? Because a fiendspawn can become sorcerers-there's even a feat for it in PHB 2!
What seems to set sorcerers apart as a class is the presence of dragons. While that seed you planted in that succubus 'planar ally' could become any number of things, if you get knocked up by Valzashaelixymniniox the Blue Wyrm, its magic missiles for junior, and no ifs, ands, or buts!
But [:D Hee, I lied], what about planar dragons? Is a Styx wyrm going to produce a favored soul, a warlock, or a sorcerer? What about a hellfire wyrm (which isn't a planar dragon, since its in MM2)?
I don't think we're going the solve the problem of "what's my class, goddamit?!" anytime soon, so lets move on to another unsolvable dilemma:

Is sorcerous aptitude a dominant or a recessive trait? Let's think through this.
If it were a dominant trait, it would be very likely to crop up in a sorcerous family, but since the traits were inherited through interspecies mating (not a very common occurence), it wouldn't necessarily come to dominate the population, especially if the sorcerous family kept all their members inside the house. But in most hereditary magocracies I've seen, all blood members of the family have some aptitude for magic. If this were a dominant trait, this couldn't be 100%, because the magic gene would have to join with an allele from the mundane parent, making the first generation heterozygous for the trait. So, if the dragon had two copies of the magic version of the gene (MM) and the human had two copies of the muggle version (mm), the kids would have (Mm). If M is dominant then they would have magic. But their kids (assuming they don't inbreed) would be the result of a join between a (Mm) and a (mm). Barring inbreeding, it is a forgone conclusion then that the chance of a given house member possessing magic powers is an even 50/50. Since all the 'Squib' house members I've encountered in my games have been relatively rare plot devices, it seems the ratio in practice is much less than that.
So, we have to assume inbreeding (or, at least, cousin marriages) occurs a little, to bring two (Mm) persons together. Here, there is an even 50/50 chance to produce another (Mm). But if they don't, then the child has an equal chance of being an (mm), or Squib, and being an (MM). Now, we need to take something into account. What about spellscales? Races of the Dragon says two sorcerers of another race may have a spellscale child, and that spellscales breed true. So, what we can assume is that (MM) represents the spellscale. Therefore, this means that the magic trait is codominant; i.e., the heterozygous form is a distinct phenotype, meaning that rather than either having magic (MM, Mm) and not having magic (mm), you can either be a spellscale (MM), have magic but not be a spellscale (Mm), or neither have magic nor be a spellscale (mm). Of course, this is just for dragons. What about fiendish sorcerer houses, like the fiend-blooded from Heroes of Horror? Being a tiefling doesn't automatically make you a sorcerer (though it does provide you with more racial magical abilities than spellscales have). So the generalization doesn't hold. Therefore, sorcery must be a polygenic trait, or one where multiple allele pairs control the trait. (Most human traits in the real world are polygenic; it's the half-dozen physically obvious ones that aren't that you fuzzily remember from Biology I).

Of course, we're talking about magic, here, so the whole thing is really just an exercise in futility designed to prove I paid attention in school. Hell, according to RAW, even Bob the Fighter could transfer from infantry training to warmage instruction for a level, then start growing wings and scales and breathing fire with the Dragon Disciple PrC (I think Draconic Heritage should be a prerequisite, instead of the spontaneous 1st-level arcane spells deal).

And don't even get me started about the other stuff. Out for debate: How is duskling affinity for incarnum inherited? And how the hell can you have an Illithid in your family tree when illithids reproduce by drilling holes in people's heads with enzymes and stuffing them full of brain-eating larvae? (at least they don't have to take anyone out to dinner and a movie). So how could the blue goblin in Complete Psionic believe his powers come from an illithid heritage? (All that book seemed to do was blur the line between magic and psionics, something that would be even worse than reverting to 3.0 ed and hiring professional designers to publicly gather on busy street corners and decry psionics as broken!).

This'll probably turn into another one of those flame wars where people like supernerd222 and ripvanwormer take turns misquoting each other until a Wiz_O takes enough personal offense to lock it down. So, what did I accomplish here besides placing myself on the list as a possible troll? Well, I guess this might be a good time to mention my work on Epic Warlocks, which you can find in the link in my sig, below. How's that for wasting a weekend? (Note: author does not expect a serious response to how it might be a waste of a weekend; comment was intended to preempt accusations of self-promotion and prickheadedness).
zzo38
05-27-07, 10:12 PM Of course, we're talking about magic, here, so the whole thing is really just an exercise in futility designed to prove I paid attention in school. Hell, according to RAW, even Bob the Fighter could transfer from infantry training to warmage instruction for a level, then start growing wings and scales and breathing fire with the Dragon Disciple PrC (I think Draconic Heritage should be a prerequisite, instead of the spontaneous 1st-level arcane spells deal).

And don't even get me started about the other stuff. Out for debate: How is duskling affinity for incarnum inherited? And how the hell can you have an Illithid in your family tree when illithids reproduce by drilling holes in people's heads with enzymes and stuffing them full of brain-eating larvae? (at least they don't have to take anyone out to dinner and a movie). So how could the blue goblin in Complete Psionic believe his powers come from an illithid heritage? (All that book seemed to do was blur the line between magic and psionics, something that would be even worse than reverting to 3.0 ed and hiring professional designers to publicly gather on busy street corners and decry psionics as broken!).

All this stuff is definitely mixed up, but it is probably OK mixed up, it is magic, we don't know how magic works, so it must work by some strange magic the things described here.

If you want to change the prerequisites for Dragon Disciple PrC, you can do that it does make a bit more sense that way.

Another thing, is I think the part of the Player's Handbook describing half-elfs eye-colors is more scientifically correct than all of the other stuff you listed, it seems to me (according to my calculation, 75% of second generation half-elves have green eyes).
guru7892
05-27-07, 11:06 PM I tend to like to think of magic as something that everyone posesses but few develop and use. look at some of the more mystical things that some classes can do. like barbarain damge reduction or monks (well anything really) even some feats or some such, they are all magic, just not in the 'tradional' form of wizard spells and such.

magic simply permeates everything in the world but all classes and all things use it diffrently. magical beasts certainly don't have to read books or spend time studying, neither do certain magical creatures not have the 'magic gene'.

Magic and mythical effects can be used by everything, it is not exclusivly in the form of spells and spell-like-abilities.
Pitiless_Interfector
05-29-07, 05:00 PM All this stuff is definitely mixed up, but it is probably OK mixed up, it is magic, we don't know how magic works, so it must work by some strange magic the things described here.

If you want to change the prerequisites for Dragon Disciple PrC, you can do that it does make a bit more sense that way.

Another thing, is I think the part of the Player's Handbook describing half-elfs eye-colors is more scientifically correct than all of the other stuff you listed, it seems to me (according to my calculation, 75% of second generation half-elves have green eyes).

Yeah, that seems about right. And I think the feat prereq should become an official revision

I tend to like to think of magic as something that everyone possesses but few develop and use. look at some of the more mystical things that some classes can do, like barbarian damage reduction or monks (well, anything really) even some feats and such, they're all magic, just not in the 'traditional' form of wizard spells and such.

Magic simply permeates everything in the world, but all classes and all things use it differently. Magical beasts certainly don't have to read books or spend time studying, nor do certain magical creatures not have the 'magic gene'.

Magic and mythical effects can be used by everything, it is not exclusively in the form of spells and spell-like abilities.

Well, the thing is, you're taking it out a bit too far. Yeah, everyone's entitled to your opinion, but if it weren't for Occam's Razor we'd be literally buried under convoluted crackpot theories with so many conditional and clarifying clauses that they're as impossible to disprove as they are to validate. And Occam's Razor has just critted your argument (which is based on arguing definition of terms, rather than the interactions between terms that make up a proper heuristic proof) for 8d6+39 damage.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Pitiless_Interfector 05-27-07, 05:41 PM	I've always been intrigued by the biological basis of magic. I was wondering if anyone knew whether someone has done work on anything like this (you know, a post in Regdar's Repository, or on an independent site like Dicefreaks, etc.). If not, the following are some observations and ramblings I dredged up and decided to toss out there to get discussion going: First of all, the only base classes I know of that might've inherited their powers from an ancestor are the sorcerer, the warlock, and the favored soul. The warlock is usually described as someone who made an unholy pact with a demon, devil, slaadi, or verdant prince. Sometimes the character himself made the pact, other times his ancestors did, and he inherited his gift from them. But a few warlocks are said to have inherited their powers from a demon, devil, or fey ancestor. Favored souls are said to either be blessed with their power by direct investment of their deity's time and effort, or to have received their gift from unions with outsiders long ago, either angels or demons. However, it is impossible to not worship a deity and still be a favored soul, meaning that either they need a god's permission to access their heritage's inherent powers, or ALL spontaneous divine-caster demonlings happen to worship a deity religiously [there's redundancy for you]. This seems unlikely. So, perhaps, a great-great-great-grandchild of Prince Meteneg the Misunderstood who undertakes clerical training at a convent of Nerull becomes a favored soul, while his brother, who lacks such guidance, becomes a warlock. Sensible, isn't it? But wait! What determines whether little Larry Layabout, with no outside interference, becomes a warlock or a sorcerer? Because a fiendspawn can become sorcerers-there's even a feat for it in PHB 2! What seems to set sorcerers apart as a class is the presence of dragons. While that seed you planted in that succubus 'planar ally' could become any number of things, if you get knocked up by Valzashaelixymniniox the Blue Wyrm, its magic missiles for junior, and no ifs, ands, or buts! But [:D Hee, I lied], what about planar dragons? Is a Styx wyrm going to produce a favored soul, a warlock, or a sorcerer? What about a hellfire wyrm (which isn't a planar dragon, since its in MM2)? I don't think we're going the solve the problem of "what's my class, goddamit?!" anytime soon, so lets move on to another unsolvable dilemma: Is sorcerous aptitude a dominant or a recessive trait? Let's think through this. If it were a dominant trait, it would be very likely to crop up in a sorcerous family, but since the traits were inherited through interspecies mating (not a very common occurence), it wouldn't necessarily come to dominate the population, especially if the sorcerous family kept all their members inside the house. But in most hereditary magocracies I've seen, all blood members of the family have some aptitude for magic. If this were a dominant trait, this couldn't be 100%, because the magic gene would have to join with an allele from the mundane parent, making the first generation heterozygous for the trait. So, if the dragon had two copies of the magic version of the gene (MM) and the human had two copies of the muggle version (mm), the kids would have (Mm). If M is dominant then they would have magic. But their kids (assuming they don't inbreed) would be the result of a join between a (Mm) and a (mm). Barring inbreeding, it is a forgone conclusion then that the chance of a given house member possessing magic powers is an even 50/50. Since all the 'Squib' house members I've encountered in my games have been relatively rare plot devices, it seems the ratio in practice is much less than that. So, we have to assume inbreeding (or, at least, cousin marriages) occurs a little, to bring two (Mm) persons together. Here, there is an even 50/50 chance to produce another (Mm). But if they don't, then the child has an equal chance of being an (mm), or Squib, and being an (MM). Now, we need to take something into account. What about spellscales? Races of the Dragon says two sorcerers of another race may have a spellscale child, and that spellscales breed true. So, what we can assume is that (MM) represents the spellscale. Therefore, this means that the magic trait is codominant; i.e., the heterozygous form is a distinct phenotype, meaning that rather than either having magic (MM, Mm) and not having magic (mm), you can either be a spellscale (MM), have magic but not be a spellscale (Mm), or neither have magic nor be a spellscale (mm). Of course, this is just for dragons. What about fiendish sorcerer houses, like the fiend-blooded from Heroes of Horror? Being a tiefling doesn't automatically make you a sorcerer (though it does provide you with more racial magical abilities than spellscales have). So the generalization doesn't hold. Therefore, sorcery must be a polygenic trait, or one where multiple allele pairs control the trait. (Most human traits in the real world are polygenic; it's the half-dozen physically obvious ones that aren't that you fuzzily remember from Biology I). Of course, we're talking about magic, here, so the whole thing is really just an exercise in futility designed to prove I paid attention in school. Hell, according to RAW, even Bob the Fighter could transfer from infantry training to warmage instruction for a level, then start growing wings and scales and breathing fire with the Dragon Disciple PrC (I think Draconic Heritage should be a prerequisite, instead of the spontaneous 1st-level arcane spells deal). And don't even get me started about the other stuff. Out for debate: How is duskling affinity for incarnum inherited? And how the hell can you have an Illithid in your family tree when illithids reproduce by drilling holes in people's heads with enzymes and stuffing them full of brain-eating larvae? (at least they don't have to take anyone out to dinner and a movie). So how could the blue goblin in Complete Psionic believe his powers come from an illithid heritage? (All that book seemed to do was blur the line between magic and psionics, something that would be even worse than reverting to 3.0 ed and hiring professional designers to publicly gather on busy street corners and decry psionics as broken!). This'll probably turn into another one of those flame wars where people like supernerd222 and ripvanwormer take turns misquoting each other until a Wiz_O takes enough personal offense to lock it down. So, what did I accomplish here besides placing myself on the list as a possible troll? Well, I guess this might be a good time to mention my work on Epic Warlocks, which you can find in the link in my sig, below. How's that for wasting a weekend? (Note: author does not expect a serious response to how it might be a waste of a weekend; comment was intended to preempt accusations of self-promotion and prickheadedness).
zzo38 05-27-07, 10:12 PM	Of course, we're talking about magic, here, so the whole thing is really just an exercise in futility designed to prove I paid attention in school. Hell, according to RAW, even Bob the Fighter could transfer from infantry training to warmage instruction for a level, then start growing wings and scales and breathing fire with the Dragon Disciple PrC (I think Draconic Heritage should be a prerequisite, instead of the spontaneous 1st-level arcane spells deal). And don't even get me started about the other stuff. Out for debate: How is duskling affinity for incarnum inherited? And how the hell can you have an Illithid in your family tree when illithids reproduce by drilling holes in people's heads with enzymes and stuffing them full of brain-eating larvae? (at least they don't have to take anyone out to dinner and a movie). So how could the blue goblin in Complete Psionic believe his powers come from an illithid heritage? (All that book seemed to do was blur the line between magic and psionics, something that would be even worse than reverting to 3.0 ed and hiring professional designers to publicly gather on busy street corners and decry psionics as broken!). All this stuff is definitely mixed up, but it is probably OK mixed up, it is magic, we don't know how magic works, so it must work by some strange magic the things described here. If you want to change the prerequisites for Dragon Disciple PrC, you can do that it does make a bit more sense that way. Another thing, is I think the part of the Player's Handbook describing half-elfs eye-colors is more scientifically correct than all of the other stuff you listed, it seems to me (according to my calculation, 75% of second generation half-elves have green eyes).
guru7892 05-27-07, 11:06 PM	I tend to like to think of magic as something that everyone posesses but few develop and use. look at some of the more mystical things that some classes can do. like barbarain damge reduction or monks (well anything really) even some feats or some such, they are all magic, just not in the 'tradional' form of wizard spells and such. magic simply permeates everything in the world but all classes and all things use it diffrently. magical beasts certainly don't have to read books or spend time studying, neither do certain magical creatures not have the 'magic gene'. Magic and mythical effects can be used by everything, it is not exclusivly in the form of spells and spell-like-abilities.
Pitiless_Interfector 05-29-07, 05:00 PM	All this stuff is definitely mixed up, but it is probably OK mixed up, it is magic, we don't know how magic works, so it must work by some strange magic the things described here. If you want to change the prerequisites for Dragon Disciple PrC, you can do that it does make a bit more sense that way. Another thing, is I think the part of the Player's Handbook describing half-elfs eye-colors is more scientifically correct than all of the other stuff you listed, it seems to me (according to my calculation, 75% of second generation half-elves have green eyes). Yeah, that seems about right. And I think the feat prereq should become an official revision I tend to like to think of magic as something that everyone possesses but few develop and use. look at some of the more mystical things that some classes can do, like barbarian damage reduction or monks (well, anything really) even some feats and such, they're all magic, just not in the 'traditional' form of wizard spells and such. Magic simply permeates everything in the world, but all classes and all things use it differently. Magical beasts certainly don't have to read books or spend time studying, nor do certain magical creatures not have the 'magic gene'. Magic and mythical effects can be used by everything, it is not exclusively in the form of spells and spell-like abilities. Well, the thing is, you're taking it out a bit too far. Yeah, everyone's entitled to your opinion, but if it weren't for Occam's Razor we'd be literally buried under convoluted crackpot theories with so many conditional and clarifying clauses that they're as impossible to disprove as they are to validate. And Occam's Razor has just critted your argument (which is based on arguing definition of terms, rather than the interactions between terms that make up a proper heuristic proof) for 8d6+39 damage.