Well Dreamwidth doesn't wanna play with me today, so I'll post this here for now. This is my world-building document for Alibi.
MAGIC
Lets talk about magic. What is the difference between magic and technology? Most fiction nowadays uses ‘magic’ simply as an explanation for differences between the fictional world and the real world. Within that fictional world, magic is a fact of life and it operates in a relatively consistent and logical fashion. In a lot of cases, this magic doesn’t seem all that, well, magical. It doesn’t work in our world, sure, but in the fictional one, there’s nothing supernatural about the powers in question. They could be studied scientifically and technology could be built to harness the magic.
I’m not saying that this is a problem; indeed, this sort of thing can make for a very interesting sci-fi/fantasy setting. But, this is the sort of thing I had in mind as what I didn’t want to make when thinking of how magic should work in Alibi. My magic is not predicatible, consistent, safe, or even helpful in a lot of cases. It creates the setting that the characters must move in, and it gives them certain tools, but with rare exceptions they cannot actively wield it to any great effect.
For example, I have already written a scene in which Mel casts a scrying spell, designed to find lost keys. This spell must be cast using a Looking Glass, a magical item with certain properties, and furthermore must be cast from within an operating Lost and Found ‘shop’ on Alibi ground (that is, in the otherworld.) Actually casting the spell is quite simple and can be done with a little training, and this is the same with all the other Looking Glass spell. The difficulty is knowing where, when, how and what for the spells can be used.
Scrying is a fairly simple spell. There are, naturally, much more complicated spells, and these tend to carry a much greater risk. War magic, for example, fell out of use with the advent of the longbow and its equivilents around the world, since most attacking spells require the caster to stand in plain view of the victim for long enough for even a lousy archer with a big bow to put three or four arrows in his chest. With the exception of a few, battle spells also require that the victim actually realize that they are under attack, and since nobody knows these spells anymore they have become almost completely useless. Unfortunately other nasty magic is still in wide use. More subtle curses, for example, can cause long term bad luck that leads to slow ruin, and charm spells can subtly manipulate people.
GLAMOUR
There are no spells specifically designed to create glamour, although there are a few long, fairly useless ones that people only use to call it up. Glamour is produced as a by-product of magic, and a spark of it is also required to cast most spells. Glamour is a sort of manipulation of perception, that causes things to seem... bigger, or darker, or deeper, or more portentious. A plain young woman in a grey cloak becomes a mysterious young maiden, grey clad, with clear grey eyes that belie her plain complexion. An old oak tree becomes a towering giant of the ancient forest, casting eerie shadows in the pale moonlight. To cast a spell in the first place, you must create a spark of glamour with your own mind, by silencing doubt and believing, firmly, that the world around you really is magic. A lot of the incanations used to ‘cast spells’ are actually just poems written to put the caster in the right state of mind.
Glamour is dangerous. Prolonged exposure to it can do odd things to the human mind, depending on the person. It’s also rather addictive, and a glamour-addicted magician can be an extremely dangerous thing, because they are likely to stay magical almost all the time.
I perhaps should have mentioned this in the magic section, but it fits in nicely here too. Once you've ‘ignited’ a spell, you yourself will become magical. This is both a very dangerous, and a very powerful state. Before you spark the spell, you can’t do much about the rules, but once you're magical you’ll find you can bend it, and you know instinctively how far it's safe to bend before something unpleasant will happen.
The trouble with sparking magic is that it requires a specific spell, and they all require very specific circumstances and that all makes casting magic on the fly virtually impossible. The only workaround to this is to remain magical, by not completing a spell. For most spells, this period must be very short, because most spells 'stretch' if the caster doesn't complete them and will soon 'snap back' to disasterous affect (a misfired spell is not a pretty thing.) A few spells, however, naturally take a very long time to cast. (These tend to be dangerous to cast normally, because of extended exposure to glamour.) An unwise magician can cast one of these spells and then simply ignore the ending condition, and while the spell will stretch it will do so so slowly that something else is certain to go wrong before it snaps back.
And there are a very large number of things that can go wrong when you're attempting to be magical all the time. In fact, it's much quicker to just list all the things that CAN'T go wrong. One: you can't accidentally travel backwards through time (speeding it up or slowing it down is very possible, as is skipping forward.) Two: you can't accidentally perform a true shapeshifting spell, those are serious business (but it's possible to make yourself look like a monkey.) Three: whatever spell you originally sparked, you can't do that one again. Pretty much everything else can and is likely to go wrong.
CHANGELINGS
I mentioned true shape-shifting before. True shape-shifting, or Changing, is a very difficult and very dangerous process. Well sort of. For some people it can be a very easy and dangerous process, if you have the knack of it. The iron-clad first rule of Changing is, never Change to a form you wouldn't be satisfied spending the rest of your life in, particularly for your first Change because about 30% of Changelings never regain their original form. The trouble is that to assume a form you have to 'form' it, which sometimes involves a lot of research and soul-searching and meditation and sometimes pops into the changeling's head fully formed. This cannot be done properly for the form you are currently in. Changelings who get good training go through a rigorous process of self-examination that pushes the return rate way up into the high ninties, but others try it with no preparation at all and are surprised that they can't find the way back.
I suppose I've gotten ahead of myself. A 'changeling' is technically just a human (or whatever it feels like at the moment) that can change forms. Since they cross species, though, and since there's always the chance of becoming stuck in a form for a while, or for forever if the magic gives up on you, they think of themselves as a species unto themselves.
Its also possible, although extremely difficult and nasty, to force a change on another person. This process actually has a higher return rate, but also a significant death rate from complications (the Change rarely goes well.) On the nicer side, its possible to push a fellow changeling from one form to another if they lack the strength to do it themselves, although this only works if they have the form already.
Changing into an animal is the easiest. Changing into a human other than your original self is much trickier. Changing into something that doesn't exist in reality (a mythical animal, or a anthro or a cross of several animals) is either easy or hard depending on how you do it. The easy way leaves you as a magical animal, which is somewhat safer than being normally magical because no stretched spell is involved, but still very hazardous. Fortunately, changing back from a magical form is easier than normal because you don't need to spark it. Changing into a mythical beast or a hybrid without the end result relying on magic to exist is very difficult, and such a form is the sign of a master changeling.
SPIDERS
On a competely different note, I should mention that the forest around Mel's Lost and Found is home to a very interesting creature called the boss. She is a spider, specifically a golden orb weaver. Once, she was (probably) an ordinary spider, until she wove a web so great and so beautiful it sparked a spell. Since, she has become something much more, although there is some debate about how intelligent she can really be. (Some maintain it's the web that does the talking on its own.)
The forest is now covered by one, enormous spider web, woven by thousands of spiders, all connected together. They call her the boss, because she owns the only web. It's work for her or go hungry.
The boss knows most things that go on in and around the forest, because her webs are everwhere and she can evesdrop through them. She can see through them as well, though few know that. The only reason she doesn't know EVERYTHING that goes on is that, well, she can only watch so much at a time.
Humans never see the boss 'face to face.' They are taken by her relatives (a thriving and unnaturally social bunch of spiders) to her web, which has grown so dense and golden at the center they cannot see through the strands. The boss speaks by plucking her web, creating tones that sound enough like human speech for us to understand (or maybe, as the sceptics say, the web speaks for the mindless spider that tends it. Makes little difference, in the end. The humans and others who frequent the forest know of the boss and give proper respect to her servants, while at the same time keeping their homes and workplaces well clear of cobwebs.
MAGICAL BEINGS
Although exceptional, the boss remains a non-magical spider (although unless the web theory holds she must have gained some exceptional intelligence for a spider.) The majority of unusual creatures are similar; magic is involved, but the living thing itself is not magical. This is because magic, which you could say is alive and possibly sentient all on its own, is much safer when combined with something essentially inanimate, and even then, items that are inherently magical all the time with no spark needed are very very rare (by constrast, items that have 'hidden magic' requiring only a spark are relatively common, and can be dangerous for real magical creatures or spellcasters because some of them are sensitive to even the tiniest bit of glamour and will activate without warning.) Living beings which are inherently magical are beyond rare, to the point where all the truely magical beings on the planet at any given time can usually be counted on your fingers with fingers to spare (there are no real 'hidden power' living things, or, looking at it another way, ALL living things are able to become magical with only a fairly simple spark.)
Note that while 'living beings' here technically includes non-sentients such as plants and little tiny squirmy things, there is only one such magical being at the moment (although it is one of the oldest.) It's a tree.
The other, sentient and sapient magical beings are set apart from humans and others in that, for them, being magical is natural. They can use magic in ways only distantly connected to the world of spells, and tend to be very free-spirited and unpredictable (which, when combound with their vast power, makes them very dangerous to deal with even when they're trying to be friendly.) Their glamour is so strong it tends to rub off on the people they know well and the places they frequent, turning their homes into magical wonderlands and their friends and servants into fairly strong magical forces in their own right.
However, despite their free-spirit and great power, or perhaps in compensation for it, magical beings are bound by an extremely rigid set of rules, which vary from being to being. They cannot, for example, enter a human dwelling without permission. Some of them are barred from holy ground, some cannot lie directly or conceal their true nature. Some are subject to summoning and banishing by certain spells which they may not touch themselves. One, a very long time ago, granted wishes, but there hasn't been one like that since (probably just as well, since after the one set of wishes it killed everyone else it came across.)
ALIBI (THE OTHERWORLD)
Alibi is the most common name for the otherworld. It means, simply, 'elsewhere.'
It is a matter of popular debate whether Alibi is truely another world, or simply a part of our own world where magic has grown stronger than gravity, electromagnetism and the other more sensible forces. Alibi can be reached from our world by an enormous array of gates scattered throughout the world. Unlike the normal world, Alibi is affected by magic at a very basic level; in practice this means that the impossible can be achieved without the use of magic. Paths, for example, which are not truely magical do not feel the need to abide by the common laws of geography and can take you halfway around the world with a few steps (maps of alibi are extremely messy things. Directions tend to work better)
Alibi is a very large place containing many different settings, some which seem to be drawn from human mythology or lore, others which seem normal, and still others that are truely alien. The section of Alibi Mel knows is the Dark Woods, a place of dark, narrow pathways, cobwebs, and mysterious shops (the Lost and Found and the Odds and Ends shop, to name a few. By the way, speaking of the Odds and Ends shop: don't try to buy an end unless you really know what you're doing.) The land of the Dark Woods is actually owned by a mysterious landlord who never seems to come by in person; it's rumoured that he's a magical being of some sort. The shops in the area pay rent to him, because you absolutely have to properly own a patch of land in Alibi to use the kinds of spells they do in those shops.
Not too many people actually live in Alibi, since at the best of times it's a dangerous place for the unalert. For the most part those who run in esoteric circles live outside and commute to the otherworld. This has led to little communities of... unusual people clustering around the easier to access gates. Mel has a small apartment in one of these areas.
