Pre-Archipelagan Dynasty

[Crimson Phoenix]

I've been thinking about an idea about the ancient history of the archipelago that is potentially controversial to this concept and everyone's ideas, but hell here it is:

Thousands (or millions?) of years before the stories of the mythic archipelago are set magic did actually exist in rather a raw and powerful form, and the islands of the archipelago were actually one island: now you can probably guess where this is going.

The island itself was ruled by one emperor who had conquered the land with magic and this began a rebellion, which initiated a civil war. The magics used in this battle literally tore the island to pieces (thus creating the modern day archipelago).

Upon seeing the devastation that they had caused, a lone man discovers a way to severely dampen the magic source by taking it into his own body and sealing himself away to contain it for 'all of eternity'. There could even be a tiny island smack bang in the centre of the archipelago with a tower built on it where this man has imprisoned himself.

This could be a phenomenon of the world, no one can get near it or access it or anything like that. But I was just thinking if this plot line were to get taken on, then it would give an extra dimension to the project, firstly because if people want to write some magically orientated stories then they can set it in the 'Pre-Archipelagan Dynasty' and also it opens up the potential for a future plot line of a cataclysm.

When the project takes off and it's well on it's way then it could call for a massive collaboration between all the islands to work on one story where the cataclysm of the mage with the power source locked inside himself breaks free or turns evil or something, and the islands of the archipelago have to unite to defeat him etc.

Just an idea, and I know it breaks the 'subtle magic' idea, but the idea came to me and I felt like I should see what everyone thought.

 

[Ravana]

The main thing I think is "done before." A lot.

It also begs several questions regarding the nature of magic itself… along with no few plausibility ones: What happened in the rest of the world? Does their magic still work? If not, why not? What's the difference between "raw" magic and (to coin a term) "refined" magic? How did this one emperor come to control it to the (near-)exclusion of anyone else? How was he then defeated? How does one "dampen" magic at its source? How does one "take it into" one's body? How does one seal oneself away from the world—"for eternity" or otherwise? If successful, why does it later fall apart? Et many cetera.

The biggest problem I have, though, is that this is a device transparently intended to turn a low-magic setting into a high-magic one. If the power remains sealed away, it's irrelevant; if it does not, it changes the entire way the world functions. If we'd wanted that, we would have agreed to a high-magic setting in the first place… and I can't recall anybody here pushing for that.

Writing magic in a high-end setting is easy—so easy it's cliché. Writing magic in such a way that your readers aren't sure if it is magic, or if it's something that's just in the mind of those witnessing (and perhaps performing) it: that's far more challenging. And, to me at least, far more interesting.

As for cataclysms, we already had one; I don't see the need for a second one in the past, along with scheduling a third in the future. And there are plenty of other ways to "threaten" the entire archipelago without bringing something like this in.

So, no, I don't think so. This is a story for for some other setting. Maybe some day we'll start one where it's appropriate. Let's leave this one the way it was set up.

 

[Crimson Phoenix]

Valid points all round, like i said it was just an idea, but I think your right: better off for a different setting. Thanks for the input Ravana

 

[Ravana]

Quite welcome. It isn't a bad idea—or else it wouldn't have seen print before, probably—but, yes, it's more suited to a different world. Perhaps we'll start that one some other time.