Continuity error? Vakho says, "In the twenty years since the SDC was formed..." 1960 to 72 is 12. Unless a year on Palinor is vastly shorter and he's calculating local time? Yet the bonus on portal physics doesn't seem to support that.
I know you spent much time working out your laws of magic before writing, and here we get the four different schools. Let me see if I parse correctly.
Visualisation, elemental, micrology, physology.
Visualization (huh... Is that a word with a spelling difference between UK and US? With the "s" in "visualisation," I've copy/pasted you. With a "z" is what my autocorrect kicks out... *Google* Ok, both are acceptable in UK, only with a "z" in US. Of course, you read "z" as "zed," while I read it as "zee.") this implies illusion.
Micrology is the very small. Possibly quantum effects? Quantum physics, under the term "non-local information transfer" allows for things like telepathy. Quantum and other subatomic manipulation might get into gravity (hence, flight), vibration of matter (heat or audio waves). Maybe even telekinesis?
Elemental and physology throw me a bit... Let's assume elemental deals with non living matter. Lead into gold, weather control, offensive fire/lightning, water bending, etc. Another way to fly if the caster has fine control over wind.
This leaves physology as manipulation of living matter. Transformation, enhancement of senses. Healing. Making plants grow...
I'm not seeing where mentalist magic and psionics quite fit? Maybe Micrology if you're building off spooky quantum physics, maybe physology if that involves the brain. You might also want to avoid mind reading, empathy, etc... In a crime story mind reading can ruin the puzzle.
For the moment I'll assume you don't have much mindfuck magic, which means Daryla didn't "charm," or "love spell" Lola... So... Since Lola can't remember the shape or color of Daryla's gown, she's actually walking around naked, or in sensible clothing with comfy shoes.
Less a traditional continuity error and more a maths error on my part. ;) Will fix!
You're pretty much there with your magic analysis. There's more detail coming up on that soon, though, so you'll have your details. :)
Interesting point about telepathy/mind reading in a crime story. I don't think I'd consciously considered that, but you're correct in that it would make certain storylines trickier. Micrology does have potential for telepathy of a sort, but not in an especially useful way.
Think some of the thoughts on telepathy come from a game designer buddy who specifically wrote into a rules set no telepathy or mind control since that can both ruin a puzzle and make conflict too easy.
In my own RPG rules I wanted something similar, so I gave almost everyone a magic resistance. To keep it short-ish game abilities scale 1-10. Human average is 3, and max is 5. Getting to 6 is really hard. There are 6 "Degrees of Difficulty" for skill resolution: Automatic, easy, difficult, hard, nearly impossible, impossible (not the terms used in-game). To determine difficulty, the challenge level of the task is matriced against the ability of the character. "like vs like" is "hard." Everything else scales from there.
So, using combat as the example, beating the guy as good as you is hard. Beating the guy one level above you is nearly impossible. Two levels, or more above is impossible. One level below you is difficult, two levels below you easy, more than that is automatic. So a "Legendary" fighter (5) finds it easy to defeat an "Average" (3) - which is trained and competent to a "professional" level - is easy.
So... Magic resistance is 10 minus one's magic ability. For one with an average (3) ability to cast their magic resistance is 7. Even a Legendary caster finds it impossible to directly affect an average person via magic - without consent. Note the "consent." Any creature with an id/self awareness unconsciously uses their own magic to keep themselves how they see themselves - hence the magic resistance. I can't use magic to set you on fire... I CAN use magic to turn the air around you to fire. In game terms this requires players to "backdoor" certain spell effects. How the player describes how they visualize the spell will have impact on the in-game effect (Turning air to fire is harder than turning dirt to fire. The easiest fireball spell is to throw a rock at the target, turn the rock to fire, and intensify the fire. Turning air to fire, then creating a motive force to hurl the fire, then intensify the fire requires more skill and power.) Yet consent allows for telepathy and empathy and transformation of others - but not as an attack. It allows for magical healing, with the interesting wrinkle that the one being healed has to be conscious (can't give consent otherwise). This ALSO means it's easier to affect magic users, magic creatures, demons and Gods with magic. Those beings that have more connection to magic are more affected by it. This also allows for the trope of some piddly human actually being able to summon and control things (Gods, btw, are shaped by their worshippers, ala Terry Pratchett's Discworld). A fun exercise is going back and forth developing a cogent theory of magic around the game limitations I wanted.
This is my v3 system, BTW. I think I might have sent you an older game draft years ago before I came up with the magic resistance/consent concepts.
In this system your visualization magic wouldn't work well. The glamor directly affects the observer's mind, so the magic resistance cancels it out. Except, say, a magic welding prostitute (as one example), where I might rule that the client is seeking something they find attractive, which is implied consent for a glamor to work. In my system a glamour would be self-transformation (you consent to alter yourself) or a manipulation of light around oneself to wear a "hologram." Depends on which of the ten schools you're using - although only three allow for glamours, and one of those is directly affecting the observer's brain, so...consent issue.
Anyways, that's still simplified.
The Princess - it's Styles not being able to remember the form of the dress that led me to think illusion clothes, but illusion Snapchat Filter works. Plus, I just wanted to type "illusion Snapchat Filter."
And into the unknown for me!
Continuity error? Vakho says, "In the twenty years since the SDC was formed..." 1960 to 72 is 12. Unless a year on Palinor is vastly shorter and he's calculating local time? Yet the bonus on portal physics doesn't seem to support that.
I know you spent much time working out your laws of magic before writing, and here we get the four different schools. Let me see if I parse correctly.
Visualisation, elemental, micrology, physology.
Visualization (huh... Is that a word with a spelling difference between UK and US? With the "s" in "visualisation," I've copy/pasted you. With a "z" is what my autocorrect kicks out... *Google* Ok, both are acceptable in UK, only with a "z" in US. Of course, you read "z" as "zed," while I read it as "zee.") this implies illusion.
Micrology is the very small. Possibly quantum effects? Quantum physics, under the term "non-local information transfer" allows for things like telepathy. Quantum and other subatomic manipulation might get into gravity (hence, flight), vibration of matter (heat or audio waves). Maybe even telekinesis?
Elemental and physology throw me a bit... Let's assume elemental deals with non living matter. Lead into gold, weather control, offensive fire/lightning, water bending, etc. Another way to fly if the caster has fine control over wind.
This leaves physology as manipulation of living matter. Transformation, enhancement of senses. Healing. Making plants grow...
I'm not seeing where mentalist magic and psionics quite fit? Maybe Micrology if you're building off spooky quantum physics, maybe physology if that involves the brain. You might also want to avoid mind reading, empathy, etc... In a crime story mind reading can ruin the puzzle.
For the moment I'll assume you don't have much mindfuck magic, which means Daryla didn't "charm," or "love spell" Lola... So... Since Lola can't remember the shape or color of Daryla's gown, she's actually walking around naked, or in sensible clothing with comfy shoes.
Less a traditional continuity error and more a maths error on my part. ;) Will fix!
You're pretty much there with your magic analysis. There's more detail coming up on that soon, though, so you'll have your details. :)
Interesting point about telepathy/mind reading in a crime story. I don't think I'd consciously considered that, but you're correct in that it would make certain storylines trickier. Micrology does have potential for telepathy of a sort, but not in an especially useful way.
Think some of the thoughts on telepathy come from a game designer buddy who specifically wrote into a rules set no telepathy or mind control since that can both ruin a puzzle and make conflict too easy.
In my own RPG rules I wanted something similar, so I gave almost everyone a magic resistance. To keep it short-ish game abilities scale 1-10. Human average is 3, and max is 5. Getting to 6 is really hard. There are 6 "Degrees of Difficulty" for skill resolution: Automatic, easy, difficult, hard, nearly impossible, impossible (not the terms used in-game). To determine difficulty, the challenge level of the task is matriced against the ability of the character. "like vs like" is "hard." Everything else scales from there.
So, using combat as the example, beating the guy as good as you is hard. Beating the guy one level above you is nearly impossible. Two levels, or more above is impossible. One level below you is difficult, two levels below you easy, more than that is automatic. So a "Legendary" fighter (5) finds it easy to defeat an "Average" (3) - which is trained and competent to a "professional" level - is easy.
So... Magic resistance is 10 minus one's magic ability. For one with an average (3) ability to cast their magic resistance is 7. Even a Legendary caster finds it impossible to directly affect an average person via magic - without consent. Note the "consent." Any creature with an id/self awareness unconsciously uses their own magic to keep themselves how they see themselves - hence the magic resistance. I can't use magic to set you on fire... I CAN use magic to turn the air around you to fire. In game terms this requires players to "backdoor" certain spell effects. How the player describes how they visualize the spell will have impact on the in-game effect (Turning air to fire is harder than turning dirt to fire. The easiest fireball spell is to throw a rock at the target, turn the rock to fire, and intensify the fire. Turning air to fire, then creating a motive force to hurl the fire, then intensify the fire requires more skill and power.) Yet consent allows for telepathy and empathy and transformation of others - but not as an attack. It allows for magical healing, with the interesting wrinkle that the one being healed has to be conscious (can't give consent otherwise). This ALSO means it's easier to affect magic users, magic creatures, demons and Gods with magic. Those beings that have more connection to magic are more affected by it. This also allows for the trope of some piddly human actually being able to summon and control things (Gods, btw, are shaped by their worshippers, ala Terry Pratchett's Discworld). A fun exercise is going back and forth developing a cogent theory of magic around the game limitations I wanted.
This is my v3 system, BTW. I think I might have sent you an older game draft years ago before I came up with the magic resistance/consent concepts.
In this system your visualization magic wouldn't work well. The glamor directly affects the observer's mind, so the magic resistance cancels it out. Except, say, a magic welding prostitute (as one example), where I might rule that the client is seeking something they find attractive, which is implied consent for a glamor to work. In my system a glamour would be self-transformation (you consent to alter yourself) or a manipulation of light around oneself to wear a "hologram." Depends on which of the ten schools you're using - although only three allow for glamours, and one of those is directly affecting the observer's brain, so...consent issue.
Anyways, that's still simplified.
The Princess - it's Styles not being able to remember the form of the dress that led me to think illusion clothes, but illusion Snapchat Filter works. Plus, I just wanted to type "illusion Snapchat Filter."