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There's times you really want to justify your magic system

  After X thousand years, the ancient engineers, who operate on a rather slower rate with respect to time, find their way into the meditations, ritual psychodelia, dreams, olfactory halucinations, and other unconventional cognitions of some set of the the Sorqite Quick: mammalian humans and beaked reptiloid shén, hexapodal ssû and decapodal hlÿs, wingèd hlaaka... The communications are not in the form of language or intelligible visions; the engineers did not make the effort to learn Quick semantic patterns; they did not want relations, or to be regarded as superior beings, or infernal ones, far less to be understood as yet another intelligent species sharing one small world. Concepts such as telepathy, revelation, mental domination, and demonic possession were now widespread among surface cultures, but few contactees interpreted their experiences as contact with other minds, as many of the new religions and wonder workers claimed.   [i guess i don’t need to explain what it wa...
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Alien dimensions as source of fantasy magic? it's an old idea but it checks out

Sorq was originally a metal rich, dense moon. Planetary engineering transformed it into a world-vehicle for the evacuation of a civilization from a doomed star. That star is now a white dwarf; Sorq moved to its primary’s companion, a star now in itself evolving, red and swollen. The world can move about, create vast force fields, manipulate spacetime and other fundamental forces in its vicinity. The original inhabitants and world-shapers changed out of their old forms over the course of more than a billion years. Interstellar species have come and gone, some taking an interest in the curious world, between the size of Mercury and Mars but with surface gravity close to old Earth. At some point new arrivals crafted a lithosphere around the old surface, fitting planetoids and cometary mass together in imitation of a planetary surface with water and atmosphere. So it was when humans and allied sophonts came across Sorq, studied it, settled it, brought along many pets and treasures. [I do k...
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Liches & Mummies: 1e, 2e, 3.5, 4, 5, and 13th Age

  lich & mummy I thought I'd gather a few notes on the development of two major undead across the editions, ended up with more than a few. I started with the 1e Monster Manual because I have it, and I don't know offhand where the lich began its textual unlife before that, but there is some ooky undercarriage to paw at, what with the phylactery being so prominent: that's the greek term for a major piece of Jewish ritual gear, the tefillin worn on head and arm in the daily prayers. So uh look forward to that.  Lich 1e  'A lich exists because of its own desires and the use of powerful and arcane magic. The lich passes from a state of humanity to a non-human, non-living existence through force of will.' [Nice and generic] 'It retains this status by certain conjurations, enchantments, and a phylactery.' 'most often encountered within its hidden chambers, in vast wilderness or vast underground labyrinth... solidly constructed, stone, very dark.' 't...
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