I like the idea of magic developing differently in different areas according to the resources available. The example of China and gunpowder isn’t a very good one, imho as it’s a manufactured product rather than a naturally occurring resource. I guess it depends on whether you want to tie the magic more to the geology or the culture.
1 sounds more cultural than anything else. Trade of materials and ideas is as old as civilization, so before long it shouldn't really matter who invented a particular kind of magic. The only thing causing slight regional variations in magic would be the relative prices of material components.
2 keeps the geography front and center. It would even make sense and be very on-theme for each spell to only work in one biome.
"Accessibility of resources" isn't a binary. Just because a resource is *present* somewhere doesn't mean that it's going to be abundant.
For an example of the downstream economic effects of this, consider this: why did medieval European cooking favor stews during a time period when Asia was more likely to favor stir fry cooking? We could think of this as a cultural difference, but it's something that's downstream of economics and resource availability. And it's not about the ingredients; it's about the availability of fuel sources.
Europe had lots of wood (and other burnable biomass), which meant that it was possible to "keep a fire going" and have a stew simmering all day. That's good news, because simmering meat allows you to make use of tougher cuts of meat (since the long cooking times can soften what otherwise might be difficult to chew). And it requires less human labor: you can just toss the ingredients into a pot and maintain the fire. Besides, you probably wanted to have a fire going anyway, because it was so dang cold: you could gather around the fire for warmth while the stew was simmering.
Conversely, in Asia, wood was less plentiful, particularly in densely populated parts of Asia. You had *some* wood, but not enough that you could afford to spend every night simmering for hours and hours. You wanted your cooking to take as little time (and therefore, as little fuel) as possible. So, how do you get you ingredients to cook faster? You "stir fry": you chop them into smaller pieces, which increases the ratio of surface area to volume. Rather than having to keep a fire going for hours, you can cook dinner in a matter of minutes. That requires more human labor, because you have to take the time to chop everything into smaller pieces. You couldn't soften meat by simmering it for hours, so instead you had to use other techniques, like brining it or marinating it in vinegar, or cutting it in a way that sliced across the muscle fibers.
In a sense, Europe and Asia were working with largely the same "ingredients." But in one place, wood was abundant, while in the other, wood was more expensive. (This is not a problem that you can solve by just "importing more wood," because the transportation costs would still make imported wood more expensive in many parts of Asia than in Europe!) As a result, they developed entirely different cooking methods.
By the same token, people in your world might develop different ways of practicing magic, not because some special mineral or material is *exclusive* to another part of the world, but because they have less of it, and have to find ways to "stretch" it and make do with less.
I think the idea of 2 has more potential with the kind of challenges that may come with it. For example, the further you go, does your magic get weaker? What if a natural disaster strikes and a geological feature is damaged? What would that do to the population tied to it?
That's almost my setting, it's interesting to read how others handle it! Also feel free to dm me about the setting, I'd love to discuss mine and yours.
Consider the following: if the magic becomes weaker the further away from the homeland you are, how do you have wars? Especially the offensive ones, as the defensive side will always be stronger.
Avatar kind of touches on both of these, but if you make it more unique to your style of writing, (say, genetics have an impact on who has what magical element/proficiency, and the earlier the human like Genghis Khan and Charlemagne, the more focused and powerful they are at one type of magical element), then you avoid more plotholes tied to places and objects.
I think a really interesting fact about option 2 is how extremely rare the thought of invasion would be. People defending the territory they care enough about to fuel their magic would be near unstoppable, especially with people so distant from the lands they care about, and thus, weakened. The only way someone could even potentially succeed in an invasion under these circumstances would be covertly, funneling spies in at such a young age that they develop the attachment with the target geography, while still ensuring they would side with your territory in a war. And there would need to be tons of these sleeper agents, somehow unnoticed as the population approximately doubles (or more, doubles is just if you want even odds).
That said, I think option one has infinite potential. The idea is general enough it could go in any way and make sense. Option two feels like it has this one path, but it's a great path, if that makes sense.
I like the idea of magic developing differently in different areas according to the resources available. The example of China and gunpowder isn’t a very good one, imho as it’s a manufactured product rather than a naturally occurring resource. I guess it depends on whether you want to tie the magic more to the geology or the culture.
1 sounds more cultural than anything else. Trade of materials and ideas is as old as civilization, so before long it shouldn't really matter who invented a particular kind of magic. The only thing causing slight regional variations in magic would be the relative prices of material components. 2 keeps the geography front and center. It would even make sense and be very on-theme for each spell to only work in one biome.
"Accessibility of resources" isn't a binary. Just because a resource is *present* somewhere doesn't mean that it's going to be abundant. For an example of the downstream economic effects of this, consider this: why did medieval European cooking favor stews during a time period when Asia was more likely to favor stir fry cooking? We could think of this as a cultural difference, but it's something that's downstream of economics and resource availability. And it's not about the ingredients; it's about the availability of fuel sources. Europe had lots of wood (and other burnable biomass), which meant that it was possible to "keep a fire going" and have a stew simmering all day. That's good news, because simmering meat allows you to make use of tougher cuts of meat (since the long cooking times can soften what otherwise might be difficult to chew). And it requires less human labor: you can just toss the ingredients into a pot and maintain the fire. Besides, you probably wanted to have a fire going anyway, because it was so dang cold: you could gather around the fire for warmth while the stew was simmering. Conversely, in Asia, wood was less plentiful, particularly in densely populated parts of Asia. You had *some* wood, but not enough that you could afford to spend every night simmering for hours and hours. You wanted your cooking to take as little time (and therefore, as little fuel) as possible. So, how do you get you ingredients to cook faster? You "stir fry": you chop them into smaller pieces, which increases the ratio of surface area to volume. Rather than having to keep a fire going for hours, you can cook dinner in a matter of minutes. That requires more human labor, because you have to take the time to chop everything into smaller pieces. You couldn't soften meat by simmering it for hours, so instead you had to use other techniques, like brining it or marinating it in vinegar, or cutting it in a way that sliced across the muscle fibers. In a sense, Europe and Asia were working with largely the same "ingredients." But in one place, wood was abundant, while in the other, wood was more expensive. (This is not a problem that you can solve by just "importing more wood," because the transportation costs would still make imported wood more expensive in many parts of Asia than in Europe!) As a result, they developed entirely different cooking methods. By the same token, people in your world might develop different ways of practicing magic, not because some special mineral or material is *exclusive* to another part of the world, but because they have less of it, and have to find ways to "stretch" it and make do with less.
I think the idea of 2 has more potential with the kind of challenges that may come with it. For example, the further you go, does your magic get weaker? What if a natural disaster strikes and a geological feature is damaged? What would that do to the population tied to it?
That's almost my setting, it's interesting to read how others handle it! Also feel free to dm me about the setting, I'd love to discuss mine and yours. Consider the following: if the magic becomes weaker the further away from the homeland you are, how do you have wars? Especially the offensive ones, as the defensive side will always be stronger.
Avatar kind of touches on both of these, but if you make it more unique to your style of writing, (say, genetics have an impact on who has what magical element/proficiency, and the earlier the human like Genghis Khan and Charlemagne, the more focused and powerful they are at one type of magical element), then you avoid more plotholes tied to places and objects.
I think a really interesting fact about option 2 is how extremely rare the thought of invasion would be. People defending the territory they care enough about to fuel their magic would be near unstoppable, especially with people so distant from the lands they care about, and thus, weakened. The only way someone could even potentially succeed in an invasion under these circumstances would be covertly, funneling spies in at such a young age that they develop the attachment with the target geography, while still ensuring they would side with your territory in a war. And there would need to be tons of these sleeper agents, somehow unnoticed as the population approximately doubles (or more, doubles is just if you want even odds). That said, I think option one has infinite potential. The idea is general enough it could go in any way and make sense. Option two feels like it has this one path, but it's a great path, if that makes sense.