For the next few weeks, I’m going to be talking about how magic changes things in your setting. This week, I’m going to start with communications.
One of the most iconic scenes in literature is the owl post in the Harry Potter series. The hundreds of owls dropping Harry’s invitation to Hogwarts has been branded onto the psyche’s of young adults for over 20 years. It’s a great set of scenes and really sets up the world. The wizard world is clearly more interested in the use of magic for its own sake than efficiency. But, it’s a functional system.
Contrast this with the Stormlight archive by Brandon Sanderson. In this world, magic is created by using gems to capture a specific type of lightning from massive storms that periodically rage across the world. This stormlight can then be used to power spells and magical items. They place two gems into pens, joining them magically. Once done, when one person moves one pen, the other moves in exactly the same way. You can then write or draw and therefore communicate over hundreds of miles.
Several roleplaying games have also come up with magic systems that allowed communication from miles to hundreds of miles away. However, even though some of these spells are low level, the only people who seem to use them are adventurers. Remember, we connected our world with telegraphs, telephones, and the internet almost as quickly as we could produce the materials to do so. If you could do the same thing with magic, why wouldn’t you?
Once you have the magic figured out, take some time to determine how it can be used and by whom. If Whispering Wind is a spell cast by novice mages that can send a single message one way to a specific area, why aren’t the magic schools trying to turn out their lowest talent people to become operators? If you make it a higher level spell, why aren’t there networks of more powerful mages charging premiums to their wealthy patrons to use the service, like Western Union did for decades prior to the invention of the telephone?
Remember, communication is one of the most valuable services in existence. Armies have been lost from a loss of communication. Businesses rise and fall based on how fast they can get information from one area to another. If magic can’t help that along, someone must be working on a spell or item to do just that.
Don’t limit yourself to the spoken word. Remember, telegrams were basically letters converted to a code that could be relayed from station to station. If you can use a crystal ball to see into someone’s house, why can’t they be used to send messages back and forth by simply scanning a desk?
Next week, I’ll be talking about how magic affects transportation. Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next Sunday!
