Industrialized Magic

This thought hit me while I was looking up Mirage: Arcane Warfare. In the game The Emirates uses magic for Power and Industry and such became a powerful nation.

In settings where the use of magic is widespread or not uncommon. Why hasn't nations used magic for industry and commerce. One of the main thing that makes human society function is money. Surely the Monarchs, Nobles, Merchants, and Court Wizards would see the benefits of using magic to increase food production and goods.

Simple spells to increase the amount of crops grown, or increase the size of animals for consumption would increase the wealth for the nation and make sure its citizens would not starve. Heck even spells to make vehicles travel faster would decrease the time needed to deliver the goods from one place to another. Or using spells to dig greater mines increasing the amount of ores and minerals mined.

Yet despite magic being quite common no one had the idea of using magic for these purposes and there are still poor villages that can't even get enough food. (Some examples as The Empire in Elder Scrolls and Eragon).

Usually it means the author wants to preserve the medieval feel of the society but also wants lots of magic.

The D&D setting Eberron is based on this idea. but a lot of people dislike it precisely because the feel of the setting is closer to Final Fantasy than LotR.

Well the author could pick a middle ground. Nations doesn't have to be absolute shithole and could be a lot more advance but not too advance to Final Fantasy level.

He could make cities a bit more fantastical versions of its medieval kind but still have that huge magical world feel to it. Since historically not all countries was in the dark during that time period.

If there's widespread magic, and your typical shmuck can go learn the levetate spell, then there really shouldn't be ladders or wagons or a bunch of mundane stuff.

If there IS, then the DM/author didn't think very far ahead and they're badly meshing two mutually exclusive world-views.

The simple solution is to make magic rare. Sure, every university student might pick up a couple levels of wizard for shits'n'giggles, but the poor-ass peasants out in the boonies who want to eat still need to thresh their wheat by hand. Oh and since there's a known better alternative, There's really no one to give a damn about creating a threshing machine to help out the peasants. "You want to thresh the wheat? SURE, I made wheatThresh v1.0, just summon 0.7 thurms of mana and pump it through this magical circle". . . .Oh your a poor-ass mundane peasant? Good luck with that.

I had a campaign idea where a radical rogue wizard professor decided to bring guild magic to the masses. Tons of peasants have an INT score of 12 or 13. But of course there was the need to go underground to avoid the guilders protecting their secrets. So of course he hooked up with some bandits. It was essentially a fight against a bunch of low-level bandits who all had a single lvl 1-2 spell and to showcase how they could be used.

For the people who dislike it there is no middle ground.

Your question is too vague. There is no one answer. There could several different answers depending on which specific setting you're talking about.

First, get a printing press - even one that doesn't use movable type is a huge bonus, especially if you can manage a quick turnaround from manuscript to book (sandcasted plates works well). Without that, you have little impetus towards literacy, which makes magic much rarer.
With higher literacy rates (as long as your system is not ideographic, basic literacy becomes self improving with enough information availability), most people can dedicate a few hours a day in the evening to learning a few basic spells - the obvious ones are any that help around the house.
To properly industrialize, you need a person that recognizes one thing: build complexity from simplicity.
That's actually part of why, in AD&D, high level spells took so long to cast - you had to cast and hold the simple spells that made up the spell before casting the combining spell and releasing the total effect.
To properly industrialize magic items with low-level casters, you need to research how to stack the deck. Multiple crafters, the right correspondences, the right circles and ingredients, even modifying the spells needed into simpler forms that can build upon each other. More expensive, yes, but you have more crafters. That means more total production and more research into driving down costs, even just as a side effect of making them.
I could go on, but I'm losing track of my own thoughts.

What if magic is super common, but there's widespread government OSHA-type stuff that requires the building of ladders, in case someone for whatever reason suddenly can't levitate any more?

But wouldn't levitating a large quantity of items or an extremely heavy item require a lot of mana? If that's the case then the need for wagons would be necessary because transporting a high quantity or an extremely large item through levitation would be too painstaking.

The average citizen would probably know a few handful of spells. Also certain tasks would require a shit load of mana to complete. Therefore the need for mundane stuff would be necessary.

Read a good book series that kinda investigates these lines. In that particular universe what was going on is that magic is a very restricted level of knowledge that a country only allows faithful citizens to learn. So each country had some technological innovations but not all of them. Trade helped disseminate it but magic was based off of the usage of a rare substance so the ability to mass produce helpful products was limited without significant financial backing. Think of it kind of along the lines of plumbing and electricity. It is well known that giving everyone both of those things will greatly increase production and efficiency but a lot of countries still don't have it because, even if the raw materials are present, a certain level of knowledge and work is required to implement them. Both of which are at a premium in underdeveloped nations as most are just trying to survive and those that aren't see little reason to fix the current systematic issues ie. most of Africa.

That is really interesting. Can you tell me the name of the book?

Also wouldn't the threat of war force the change in the current system that setting. The more magically advance a nation is the more likely they would win a war with the other nations.

Thats dependent on how powerful magic of the setting is

Its not that far off the mark.
Industrialization requires manpower, knowledge and somehow getting enough tech/rituals/routines to make it happen.
For magic, printing press -> literacy -> adoption of basic magic -> industrialization of basic magic
I think thats a good chain to do it.

And even then you still get God Wizards, because specialization enough to ascend, is a rare course of action.
The demand for rookie and advanced magic is also huge.

It's not so much knowledge that's needed but infrastructure, which requires organization and wealth, which are really, really hard to come by in underdeveloped nations. Corruption bleeds wealth, frequent upheavals prevent organization, etc.

You also need to produce enough food per farmer to provide the sustenance required to support the population required to provide the work. The more surplus food you consistently have available, the more non-farming workers.

They would just get conquered by the more developed Nations. The prospect of greater wealth, enhanced beauty, greater lifespan, and an easier lifestyle is more than enough motivation for the State to start funding the resources and infrastructure needed for Industrialize Magic.

Humans are always trying to better their life. In settings with Elves in it I would assume that the "beauty of the Elves" would be enough to get the whole thing going.

Using simple spells to increase the amount of crops is a good starting point.

You know, every time I see this type of thread come up, I mention something: these spells, probably in a ritual form to boost their power, most likely exist in every fantasy setting, but aren't mentioned because they are of no use to adventurers. Because even wizards see the use in making sure there's enough food.
When I do see them created for settings, they're restricted to powerful casters because the economic power of these spells changes the base assumptions of the setting, and are thus put at a level where players make more money adventuring than they would at playing economics.
But yes, such spells would be developed, and probably made into rituals to lessen the number of trained casters required (thus allowing more farmers to use them).
Also, don't forget magical genetic research. Transmutation (to cause changes), Divination (know more about the base plant, and to see if your changes will have the effect you want), and a basic theory of evolution are all you need. Get far enough along, and you can get chimeric plants that breed true. Get even further, and you get entirely new crops (imagine a very fleshy tree that you can eat and it tastes like hickory smoked beef).
You would also get monstrosities, but that's what causes adventure.
Minimise the infrastructure to something that you only need a starter kit to build from (follow the instructions, and three years from now you can build your own kits), you can get a magical post-scarcity society.
Along with plenty of madmen and people who can't follow safety regs releasing monstrosities, but that's what adventurers are for.
I suppose the main thing is this: just because magic is commonly available doesn't mean everybody is a wizard. Its like programming: dedicated casters are the people who can write a program on the fly, because they know their stuff that well. Everybody else takes a while, and works better in teams.

And when I say magical post-scarcity, what I mean is that anyone can learn enough to run the rituals and thus aren't tied down to a class of trained professionals to provide these services, not that magic would solve all potential economic issues (not that it would, pretty sure I had a rant in setting form about the tippyverse that covered that).

It probably wouldn't but the lifestyle of the average citizen would improve dramatically. Not the best looking person around? A simple spell can make you look more attractive. Need to get somewhere quick? An Enchanted Flying Carpet would do the trick.

I've promoted necromantic industrial revolution in Veeky Forums twice or thrice. It is based on the undead as a tireless labour force and essentially a perpetual engine. Galleys which don't need sails, elevators, mills, catapults, mine pumps, cranes, everything using steam power could use undeads.

In my setting, I have a god with sacred vaults where someone can store money in exchange for a bill from which one deducts expenses. It almost works as modern credit cards at times, but with divine backing up. Anyone which manages to breach one of them is cursed to never go faster than walking, losing the ability to read maps and no mounts will acept the curse bearer.

On the other hand, there are therapeutic curses, used to treat addiction.

The metereological assistance of the earth-goddess, either in the form of pollen storms, climate prediction or rain provided by sacrifice; alchemical fertilizers. These two I use to explain why the current Empire has about 80% only of their citizens working in the fields, a greater urban population and also greater literacy. In about 200 years, it might achieve an industrial revolution.

Also, alicantos and non-magic (I think) bats are used to sniff for gold, silver or iron ores.

GURPS has two settings that look at this. Banestorm is a medieval setting, and Technomancer is a magical/modern setting.

If there's such a nanny-state that they outlaw obvious uses of magic for fear of... liability... then I'm pretty sure COMBAT is out of the question.

You think they'd let you cast fireball, ANYWHERE, if they're trying to regulate the use of levitate?

I mean, there could be some dystopian hellscape sort of shenanigans where the royals/federalists can use magic for whatever they want but the peasants have rules and shit.

>require a lot of mana?
If you don't want magic to be widespread there's plenty of different ways to restrict it.

Avatar did it, with Legend of Korra.
What do you guys think?

Wouldn't the smell be terrible with all those rotting corpse walking around through?

But that isn't preventing magic to be widespread but making it so the magic itself works by some amount of logical means. Levitating a basket would be easy. Levitating a huge boulder would require more effort.

This was actually the intent behind my homebrew setting, although they're not at true industrialization yet (they're experiencing a "renaissance", but have not yet developed steam power).

Magic is inherent to almost everybody, but most people don't have much mana (that is, lack the power to cast big spells) and so the majority of the population lives a mostly mundane life. Most of the population has enough know-how from their pappy to conjure a small flame at their fingertips or call up a small light, but don't know how to cast much more. You're average merchant knows a few spells which do simple arithmetic if cast on a enchanted set of beads, or know how to enchant clothing to resist muck or wear or such, depending on how fancy the stock is and how rich the merchant, but for the most part only the super-rich can afford a proper university. Nobles on the other hand can usually afford college, excepting the poorest barons. College will usually teach both your basic combat spells - every noble knows how to cast "firebolt" for example - and other useful spells like "Detect Lies" and "Glamour". With the printing press freshly invented, most people foresee a boom in education and religion as textbooks and bibles come hot off the presses. The big-name spells like "Fly" and "Fireball" are generally the purview of college professors or those specially trained by sovereigns to be magical spec-ops, alongside martial weapons, gunplay, and for paladins a legal education on the laws of the not!HRE.

I never understood the need for technology like the printing press in a world where you could create things out of thin air with magic. Surely something like the fabricate spell could be repurposed to mass produce things.

Not necessarily. Even a tentative connection to physics would make Fabricate use a incredible amount of magic. You're making matter out of energy after all.

A magical or magically automated printing press however would be well within the boundaries of sanity though.

That is similar to what I had in mind when it came to Industrialized Magic. Except on a more "grandeur" scale like the Emirates had in Mirage.

Fabricate uses raw materials. The wizard could essentially be the printing press

Its the amount of copies required, and the sheer variety. Fabricate is also a fairly powerful spell, meaning that the number of people capable of casting it is smaller than the number of people capable of building and running a printing press - and with all the other demands on their time, this creates a very limited literary infrastructure, thus limiting the total benefit we gain from the increased literacy.
It also depends on your edition or game, if fabricate is a permanent effect, and even if it requires raw materials or not. And again, the total number of casters who can cast it, less the ones who don't want to spend their days making books, and multiply by the number of average castings per day. Compare to the printing press. Press wins, because even a hamlet can spare a person to run a press full time, who only needs to be literate, the press is more flexible, etc...

yeah but a wizard can only go so long before his mana runs out and you have to bring in a new wizard while the old one recovers. You probably pay both of them a shitload because it's tiring as fuck and they could be out participating in research and shit and becoming the next wizard Newton.
A printing press never gets tired, and you dont even pay it, you just pay a couple mundane dudes to put fresh ink on the letters and move the paper

I like common magic but not industrialized magic.

Every village has a few wise men who do rain dances, a magical old woman who gets blamed for deformed children yet is the one casting spells to ease the pains of childbirth, and every noble has a court mage. That doesn't mean that you can create factories with 'magic' when it entirely comes from within the spirit of a living thing, and not everyone has enough talent to learn magic well enough to be considered a good Sorcerer.

>a magical old woman who gets blamed for deformed children yet is the one casting spells to ease the pains of childbirth
thalidomide

It's not as much factories with magic but more like using magic to enhance productivity and commerce. Simple spells are enough to grow better and more crops as well as increasing speeds of vehicles for faster delivery. Such a thing could also allow magic to spread to the masses and every citizen has to learn some spells for daily life and work.

I have no problem with that. Personally I love some of the harry potter style world stuff. Tons of magical trinkets and candies and do-dads are available to everyone, but where not everyone is a Wizard. I love the idea of women going out and buying magical makeup mirrors and men buying Brownie-in-a-bottle magic creatures that tend to their gardens and all that, but not everyone can make them. Not everyone can 'learn a few spells'.

Well considering that societal functions is basically running on magic from productivity to commercial to developments in infrastructure. Learning a few spells would become mandatory for regular citizens for daily lifestyle or work. Not everyone is gonna be this strong wizard or witch, but regularly citizens would be able to do some simple magic.

Well, I've also been mulling over having a version in a post-industrial early space age civilization, like modern humanity.

Of course, this is simply because I have a desire to see a Lizardman Paladin on a Motorbike fighting a ancient lich from the feudal era and saving not!America from literally Hitler the Skeleton.

You're still not getting it. You can't just 'learn a few spells'. You either do magic well, or you don't. It might help that my setting has classes indicated in the lore; like if you're a thief then all your "potential" magical power is going to your supernaturally good sneaking and agility, of if you're a fighter all your magical potential is going towards making you shrug off crossbow bolts and take axes to the head without much issue, instead of casting spells.

I also like it when settings have a few magical crafting or other forms of disciplines that are not inherently related to Wizards, such as creating magic items or making potions. Most settings fit these together but I think it's interesting if they aren't. But casting spells? No, you got to be a WIZARD to do that.

>Wouldn't the smell be terrible with all those rotting corpse walking around through?
Compared to what? Open sewers? Coal smoke? Tanneries? Depends. And one could use skeletons, or at least perfumes and incense.

But at the time, I had thought of undeads coming inside wooden boxes and even big barrels. The only acess to inside would be a gear which transmits the mechanical power the undead continually provide.

>I've promoted necromantic industrial revolution in Veeky Forums twice or thrice. It is based on the undead as a tireless labour force and essentially a perpetual engine. Galleys which don't need sails, elevators, mills, catapults, mine pumps, cranes, everything using steam power could use undeads.
yeah you'd get your ass beat by the majority of people who dont want to be used as slaves after they die

That was shallow, very shallow.

One can import the corpses, RL India exported a lot of them.

One can give benefits to living family members.

The society might not have any particular taboo against it in the first place.

The result would still be more humane than the real Industrial Revolution.