Laws of Magic
In this page we present the laws that govern magic in SAGA's universe. We begin with a chapter presenting our reasons for having clear and self-consistent laws, despite the complexity these laws add to the game. We continue with a step-by-step presentation of source of magic in SAGA and the most prominent magical phenomena that players of the game are likely to encounter in their adventures. Our discussion of magic continues in Spells and Spell-Casting, where we present the phenomena used by wizards, and provide a catalog of spells for use in SAGA advenuters.
Here we present the laws of that govern magic in the SAGA universe. Neither the dramaturgist nor the other players may violate these laws. If the dramaturgist wishes to amaze the players with magic, she must do so by applying the existing laws in new and ingenious ways. The rules of the game prohibit her from inventing new magical phenomenon. We have made every effort to give SAGA clear and unambiguous Laws of Magic. We tried also to keep the laws simple, so that they might be easier to understand. Nevertheless, you can expect to spend several hours studying the Laws of Magic before you understand them well enough to act as a dramaturgist. We can hardly blame you for asking why a silly adventure game should require several hours of study before you can start to play it. Before we embark upon our presentation of the Laws of Magic, we will present our reasons for making the magic precise and detailed.
If the Laws of Magic were poorly-defined, pragmatic players would find themselves unable to assess the risks of confronting magical phenomena. They would have only two ways to deal with magic. Either they would have to avoid it, or they would have to entrust their characters to the benevolence of the dramaturgist. Relying upon the benevolence of the dramaturgist detracts from the immediacy of the game. This is not a game for children in which the dramaturgist acts as a mother to the players, judging the quality of their play, and keeping them safe from harm. For example, suppose a party of adventurers stands before a gateway to another world. Can they step through it safely? Can they get back? If no constraints are placed upon the behavior of the gateway, they cannot justify going through it. Couldn't it chop them in half? Couldn't it vanish behind them? Why risk losing their characters? But surely the dramaturgist would not put a gateway in their way unless it was safe to use? Clear Laws of Magic give the players a chance to realize that someone is deceiving them about magic.
If the Laws of Magic were incomplete, players would be unable to judge when something they see is impossible. Suppose the adventurers are relaxing in their camp. A crow lands among them and starts scratching letters in the dirt. "It is I, Godfried. I have been turned into a crow by the evil witch Gertrude. Go kill her, and the spell will be reversed. I will make you all rich." The players think about this for a while. Their wizard says, "The crow is possessed. It is true that killing the possessor will break the possession, but it is not true that the crow will turn into a human. It is just a crow. Whoever is possessing the crow is trying to mess with us." Another says, "How do you know it isn't a demigod?" The wizard says, "I scanned its head. It's chemical."
If the Laws of Magic were vague, it would be impossible for the players to determine when they were being deceived on magical matters. Players enjoy seeing through deceptions, but their ability to see through deceptions is contingent upon their knowing what can and cannot be done with magic. Furthermore, once it is established that the players have no-one to blame but themselves when they are deceived, they take responsibility for their own survival and recognize that the lives of their characters are not at the mercy of the dramaturgist. Such players will not allow their characters to walk blindly into danger. Meanwhile, the dramaturgist is free to deceive the players through the actions and statements of her non-player characters. Suppose the adventurers find a bottle of green liquid marked, "To find the treasure you seek, drink this." The players say, "Nobody's going to drink it. If we can't find the treasure some other way, we'll go home." If the dramaturgist's adventure relies upon the characters drinking the potion, the adventure goes no further. It would be pointless for the dramaturgist to try to persuade the contenders that it is okay to drink the potion. Who do we know that goes around drinking unknown green liquids from mysterious bottles?
Another advantage of clear Laws of Magic is that the dramaturgist knows what magic looks like, feels like, and smells like. She can give accurate and self-consistent descriptions of magical effects. Effective dramaturgy is like effective writing. It does not say, "The goblin is angry at you." It says, "The goblin spits at you and draws his weapon." Similarly, it does not say, "You've just been hit by an Enveloping Sponge spell." It says, "The air around you seems to become solid. Your body is gripped in an invisible cast. You can't hear the din of the battle around you. You are caught mid-stride and topple over, but you don't hit the ground. Instead, you settle a meter above it, face down. You can still breath, but with difficulty."
If you are not yet convinced of the importance of clear Laws of Magic we invite you to look at our Invisibility spell. This spell bestows invisibility, with some limitations, upon its user. Invisibility may seem incredible, but it is possible with SAGA's magic, and at the same time, unambiguous in its implementation. You can imagine exactly what it would be like to use, and deduce its limitations and powers for yourself in any situation. Take a look at the questions following the spell. Wizard players are supposed to be able to answer these correctly.
Another advantage of clear Laws of Magic is that they allow the contenders to use spells in new ways, and to invent new variations of spells that suit their purposes. With clear Laws of Magic, problems in SAGA can be open-ended. The dramaturgist does not, for example, have to set up each trial with three possible actions, two of which lead to disaster and one of which leads to success. She can set up a problem that appears intractable, and leave it to the contenders to figure out some way to solve the problem. The contenders can use magic in ways that the dramaturgist did not anticipate, and there is no problem with them doing so, because the laws that they must follow are clear, so that the new uses they propose are either possible or impossible. It is, of course, for the dramaturgist to decide whether the new uses are possible or not.
Assuming you are convinced that clear Laws of Magic are worth the study, you will agree also that when a contender playing a wizard does not have a thorough understanding these laws, he is dependent upon the dramaturgist to explain what the magic can do. The timing and content of these explanations require the dramaturgist's concentration. The dramaturgist is distracted from her central task, which is to keep her non-contender characters moving autonomously and accurately. It is up to the dramaturgist to decide how to handle wizard characters when the controlling player knows little of the Laws of Magic. One way to motivate the player to study the Laws of Magic is to pose questions about the spells that he must answer. Each wizard spell we present on this page is accompanied by several such questions. Failure to answer the questions posed by the dramaturgist could, at the dramaturgist's discretion, result in the contender being forced to wait until his wizard is next awarded experience points before he tries the test again. This mechanism might frustrate some players, but on the other hand, it encourages study of the Laws of Magic, and also simulates the sometimes frustrating study of magic that wizards must perform in order to advance as wizards. The questions posed by the dramaturgist need not be specifically related to the spell at hand, but could be a general question about the Laws of Magic. Here are some general questions about magic.
The basis of all magical phenomena in SAGA's fantasy universe is a family of sub-atomic particles called maeons. The interactions of maeons with one another and with ordinary matter, give rise to all the magical phenomanon of SAGA's universe, which include prescience, magical materials, space bridges, and spell-casting. There are free maeons, which are heavy, and atomic maeons, which are light and always bound to many other atomic maeons.
All maeons have magical charge, which can be positive or negative. This magical charge creates an aura field. When maeons move, the movement of their aura field creates a dweomer field in the same way that the movement of electrical charge causes a magnetic field, except that the strength of these fields is far less for the magical fields that it is for electric and magnetic fields. Disturbances in both aura and dweomer fields propagate at light-speed, just as to changes in electric and magnetic fields.
Maeons are generated by a magical metal called Mithril. Mithril in the molten core of a planet causes the spontaneous generation of high-energy maeons, making the planet a magical planet. The maeons are generated in pairs. One is negative, the other is a positive. The two maeons fly off in opposite directions at the speed of light. They pass through the core of the planet, through the mantle, through the crust and out into space. The continuous passage of such particles through the surface of a planet, and off into space, is called the planet's maeon wind. The strength of the wind is measured in maeons per square meter per second.
Mithril is the magical element. It is the source of all magical phenomena in that it is the creator of the magical particles that are the stuff of magic. Mithril in its pure form is soft, shiny, gray metal. It occurs naturally in its pure form, but more often as thin veins of mithrilite, a gray crumbling ore that smelts easily to provide the pure metal. Most often, mithrilite is found in small quantities with other ores. The best mithrilite veins are those that are mixed with iron ore, because separation by smelting is comparatively straight-forward. But the most common deposites are mixed with lead and tin. Smelting results in molten metal with a tiny proportion of mithril. The mithril must be separated chemically. This separation is complex process, and contributes to the great cost of mithril, which is around a million Olympian dollars per kilogram on Clarus.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Symbol | Mi |
| Density | 18 g/cm3 |
| Melting Point | 1400°C |
| Smelting Point | mithrilite: 1000°C |
| Atomic Number | 150 |
| Atomic Mass | 364 |
Mithril atoms catalyze the spontaneous generation of magical particles called maeons. The energy and mass required to create maeons does not come from the mithril atom. Nor does it come from any other known source of mass or energy. There are negative maeons and positive maeons. They are produced in pairs, one positive, one negative. The particles move off in opposite directions. One kilogram of pure mithril produces 1019 pairs of maeons per second.
Chemical protons and neutrons stick together to form the nuclei of chemical matter atoms, and surround themselves with electrons to complete these same atoms. Maeons stick together to form the nuclei of magical matter. Positive maeons join together to form spirit matter atoms. Negative maeons stick together to form conjured matter atoms. Mixtures of the two are also possible, as are mixtures of chemical and magical matter. The nucleus of a chemical atom has electrons orbiting it. The electrons and the nucleus together make up the atom. But the nucleus of a magical matter atom has nothing orbiting it. The atom is made up entirely of the nucleus. Pure spirit matter contains only positive maeons, and pure conjured matter contains only negative maeons.
Spirit matter is so-called because it is the vital constituent of things called spirits. Conjured matter is so-called because it is easy for wizards and sorcerers to create out of the maeon wind, or conjure. The physical properties of maeons and maeon materials are responsible for all that is magical in SAGA's universe. Chemical atoms are many times smaller than spirit atoms and spirit atoms are many times smaller than conjured atoms. Spirit and conjured matter has negligible mass compared to chemical matter.
Spirit matter's most natural color is a sparkling gray, but it can be given certain iridescent colors as well, with a little more effort in the act of creation. Transpatent spirit matter is the most difficult to make, but is possible. Spirit matter can be liquid or solid, but no matter how solid it is, it is never more dense than air. It does, however, have substantial weight, because the core of a magical planet always has a negative magical charge, and so attracts spirit matter. The weight of spirit matter, combined with its lack of mass, makes it unlike any chemical material in the way it handles and moves.
Conjured matter's most natural color is complete transparency, so that what we see is the air that permeates the conjured matter. But with a little effort in the act of creation, conjured matter can be given certain bright colors. Conjured matter does not bend light, so if it is transparent, it is invisible. Conjured matter is always solid, but it can have the consistency of foam through being a slurry of small particles. All conjured matter is even less dense than spirit matter. Instead of being attracted by the negative charge of the planet, it is repelled by it, and so has negative weight, but this negative weight is far less significant than that of spirit matter, so that conjured matter is not so surprising to hole and manipulate as is spirit matter.
There are three fundamental interactions between maeons and chemical matter, and they are particular to three forms of chemical matter, these being mithril, gold, and diamond. The study of these interactions form the foundation of alchemy, which is the study of the interaction of chemical matter and maeons, magical materials, and space bridges.
Maeons interact only weakly with matter. Most maeons generated in the core of a planet will pass through the entire core, mantle, and crust, to emerge at the surface and pass out into space. Of the maeons that don't make it to the surface, most have been absorbed by gold, scattered by diamond, or transformed by electric fields. The flow of high-energy, or hot, maeons out of a planet core is the planet's maeon wind. The table below lists the properties of hot maeons, both positive and negative.
| Property | Each Negative Maeon |
Each Positive Maeon |
|---|---|---|
| Magical Charge | −1m | +1m |
| Rest Mass | 10−27 kg | 10−30 kg |
| Speed | 0.5c | 0.999995c |
| Lorentz Factor | 1.15 | 577 |
| Momentum | 1.7×10−19 kgm/s | 1.7×10−19 kgm/s |
| Kinetic Energy | 1.4×10−11 J | 5.2×10−11 J |
| Effective Half-Life | 1.15 s | 577 s |
The strength of a maeon wind is measured in Yardley (Y). In a maeon wind of 1 Y, 1021 positive and 1021 negative maeons pass through each horizontal square meter per second. A magical planet is one with a maeon wind of 0.01 Y or more. When we describe the effects of spells in the sections below, we assume a maeon wind strength of 1 Y unless we say otherwise. The planet Clarus is the default setting of all SAGA adventures, and its maeon wind strength is 1 Y, named after Jules Yardley, a wizard of Clarus who measured the maeon wind strengths of a number of planets.
The rest mass of negative maeons passing through each square meter of planet surface per second per Yardley is 1 mg (10−6 kg), and of positive maeons is 1 μg (10−9 kg). Although maeon generation violates the law of conservation of energy, it does not violate the law of conservation of momentum. The momentum of the negative and positive maeons is equal: 170 kgm/s per square meter of planet surface per second. If a square meter of some material were able to absorb all negative maeons in a 1-Y wind, it would experience a force of 1700 N, enough to lift 170 kg. If the sheet absorbed both positive and negative maeons, the force would be 3400 N. If the same square meter were able to convert the kinetic energy of the negative maeons into heat, the heat generated would be 14 GW, enough power to provide electricity to a city of a million people. The kinetic energy of the positive maeons would provide 52 GW. But maeons interact only weakly with a few forms of matter, with electrical fields, and with other maeons. It is difficult to harness even a tiny fraction of the momentum or energy carried by the maeon wind.
The maeons of the maeon wind are unstable. When they at rest, they decay with a half-life of one second. When they decay, they vanish, leaving no trace of their existence. We call their disappearance maeon disintegration. There is no release of energy in maeon disintegration. The mass and energy of the maeon, which came from nothing, returns to nothing. To an observer on the planet surface, the half-life of a hot negative maeon is 1.15 s, as a result of its relativistic motion, and that of a positive maeon is 577 s. Ten light seconds from a planet (three million kilometers), almost all of the negative maeons of its maeon wind have disintegrated, leaving only the positive maeons, which can be detected thousands of millions of kilomaters from the planet surface.
Because hot negative maeons are moving at half the speed of hot positive maeons, they take longer to leave the planet. Consequently, there are twice as many negative maeons in the planet at any moment than there are positive maeons. The planet has a net negative magical charge. In almost all planets, maeon production is symmetric with respect to the planet. That is to say, the production of maeons is centered upon the center of the planet. These planets are surrounded by an aura field whose lines of force radiate from the center of the planet. The field pushes negative maeons away from the planet, and pulls positive maeons towards it.
A planet's maeon repulsion is the repulsive force per microgram of slow-moving negative maeons at the planet surface. Its maeon attraction is the attractive force per microgram of slow-moving positive maeons at the planet surface. The maeon attraction is always one thousand times greater than the maeon repulsion because the magical charge of 1 μg of positive maeons is always one thousand times greater than that of 1 μg of positive maeons.
The maeon repulsion of Clarus is 10 N/μg. Its maeon attraction is therefore 10 kN/μg. In Clarus's gravity of 10 m/s/s, 1 μg of slow-moving negative maeons experience an upward force sufficient to lift 1 kg, while 1 μg of slow-moving positive maeons experiences a downward force equal to the weight of 1000 kg. The maeon repulsion constant of a planet is proportional to its maeon wind strength, and inversely proportional to its
Most spirit and conjured matter has density 1 μg/m3. A microgram of spirit matter occupies one cubic meter and weighs the same as a cubic meter of water. A microgram of the most common forms of conjured matter made by wizards will occupy one cubic meter also. It will experience a force sufficient lift a 1-kg mass. On Clarus at sea-level, where the atmospheric pressure is 100 kPa, conjured matter provides the same lifting power per unit volume as hydrogen gas.
The maeon wind, W, maeon repulsion constant, R, and the gravitation acceleration, g, of a habitable planet are related to one another by the average density of the planet, ρ. The mass of the planet is proportional to ρr3, where r is the planet radius. But gravity is proportional to mass divided by the square or distance, so g ∝ ρr3/r2 = ρr. The density of most habitable planets is close to that of Clarus, which is 5.5 g/cm3. Meanwhile, R is proportional to the excess number of negative maeons within the sphere of the planet, which together act as a concentrated magical charge at the planet center. The excess charge is proportional to the number of maeons leaving the planet surface, which is in turn proportional to the wind strength multiplied by the planet area, and therefore proportional to Wr2. The repulsion decreases with the square of radius, so R ∝ Wr2/r2 = W. For most habitable planets, we have R ≈ kW for a constant k. We obtain the value of k using Clarus as a reference point, k = 10 N/Yμg.
The maeons produced by Mithril are fast-moving, and we call them hot maeons. A hot maeon can lose its momentum by colliding with other hot maeons, a process we call maeon arrest. Maeon arrest takes place only in maeon winds of strength greater than about 0.01 Y, and in the presence of a catalyst of some sort. The catalyst can be an electrostatic field, a dweomer, or the edge of a space bridge. The slow-moving maeons produced by maeon arrest are called cold maeons. Cold maeons are in all respects identical to hot maeons, except that they are at rest with respect to the catalyst that took part in their arrest. Hot and cold maeons move individually through space. We call them free maeons. All free maeons are unstable, with a half-life of one second. Cold maeons of opposite magical charge can destroy one another in a process called maeon annihilation. Maeon annihilation produces electromagnetic radiation that ends up as heat and light.
When cold maeons are brought together, they are likely to turn into atomic maeons. Hot maeons can do the same, but with less likelihood. Atomic maeons are lighter versions of free maeons. A negative maeon turns into a negative atomic maeon, and a positive maeon turns into a positive atomic maeon. Atomic maeons bind themselves to one another in structures called magical atoms. The formation of atomic maeons is always accompanied by the formation of at least one magical atom, because atomic maeons exist only within magical atoms. The creation of magical atoms is called maeon combination. Unlike free maeons, atomic maeons are stable, so long as their magical atom remains intact.
Magical atoms are the constituents of magical matter. Of particular interest to wizards are two pure forms of magical matter called conjured and spirit matter. Conjured matter is made of negative maeons. Spirit matter is made of positive maeons. There are forms of magical matter that combine positive and negative maeons to form compounds with properties that neither conjured nor spirit matter can attain on their own. Contemporary wizards can make only pure spirit matter or pure conjured matter, but creatures such as the illuminati contain more complicated magical compounds.
Conjured and spirit matter atoms are toroidal. The rest mass of an atomic maeon is only a fraction of that of a cold maeon. The missing mass is accounted for by orbital kinetic energy of an atomic maeon in a magical atom. The effective mass of an atomic maeon is equal to that of a cold maeon. The orbital energy of maeons in a magical atom give it a gyroscopic resistance to distortion. This resistance gives conjured and spirit matter their physical stiffness despite being one billion times less dense than air.
Magical atoms are unstable. They are prone to break down with the release of energy or the creation of mass. This process is called maeon dissipation. It can be delayed by hundreds or thousands of years, but in the end, all magical atoms decay. The maeons released by maeon dissipation revert immediately into cold maeons with a half-life of one second. Maeon dissipation does not occur at random. If you could examine a magical atom closely enough, you could determine when it will dissipate. The calculation is akin to determining how long it will take a collection of similar pendulums to get out of beat with one another. We use the word dissipation to distinguish the dissipation process from that of maeon decay, which is an entirely random event, in which the likelihood of decay is independent of the age of the maeon. The age of a maeon atom and its initial state almost entirely determine the longevity of most materials used by wizards, although not all of them. The Bridge Suppressor spell uses a large conjured atom with random longevity.
Both the external size and the internal harmony of a magical atom can be affected by a dweomer field. The use of a dweomer field to affect magical atoms in this way is called maeon tuning. The longevity of a piece of magical matter is the length of time it will last without maeon tuning. Maeon tuning can delay dissipation indefinitely.
Both the conjured and spirit matter made by wizards has density of of the order 1 μg/m3 (compare to ≈1 kg/m3 for air). In a 1-Y maeon wind, the 1021 negative maeons that pass through a horizontal square meter every second has rest mass 1 mg, which is enough maeons to make 1000 m3 of conjured matter of density 1 μg/m3. The 1021 positive maeons that pass through the same square meter every second have rest mass 1 μg, which is enough to make 1 m3 of spirit matter of the same density.
Conjured matter has negative magical charge. It is repelled by the net negative charge of a magical planet. As we described above, the maeon repulsion of a planet is the repulsive force per microgram of conjured matter at its surface. In the spell descriptions, we assume that the maeon repulsion is 10 N/μg. The corresponding attractive force on spirit matter, called the magical attraction, would be 10 kN/μg. A cubic meter of spirit matter would weigh the same as a cubic meter of water, and a cubic meter of conjured matter would lift a liter of water (assuming gravity is 10 ms-2).
Pure mithril is a soft, malleable metal. It is extracted from various ores, all exceedingly rare. As mentioned above, mithril generates hot maeons at a rate of 1019 pairs per second per kilogram. When placed in a maeon wind, pure mithril catalyzes the arrest of both positive and negative maeons. It slowly absorbs the cold positive maeons until it is saturated with one nanogram of spirit matter per kilogram of metal. The spirit matter forms a strong mesh within the body of metal.
The generation of hot maeons by mithril occurs irrespective of the chemical environment of the mithril atoms. Mithril atoms in ores generates hot maeons just as fast as those in the pure metal. Only alloyed mithril, however, in concentrations greater than about ten percent by mass, will catalyze maeon arrest or absorb cold positive maeons.
The alloy of mithril and iron is called adamantine. Adamantine is almost always one part mithril to nine parts iron by mass. This is the minimum amount of mithril required to create a mesh of spirit matter in the metal. Mithril is expensive, and no blacksmith wants to use more of it than he has to. Adding more mithril does not improve the material properties of the alloy.
Adamantine that is ten percent mithril absorbs 100 pg (100 pg = 100 picograms = 100×10−12 g) of positive maeons per kilogram. A 5-cm cube of adamantine has mass roughly one kilogram. In a 1-Y maeon wind, enough positive maeons pass through this cube every second to make 250 pg of spirit matter. But the adamantine absorbs only a small fraction of the maeons that pass through it. It takes months for a blacksmith to saturate adamantine with spirit matter.
When the full 100 pg/kg is present in adamantine on a planet with maeon attraction 10 kN/μg, the spirit matter adds 1 N weight to the iron. If the gravity of the world is 10 m/s/s, the iron alone weights 10 N. So the spirit matter increases the weight of the adamantine by ten percent.
When adamantine is appropriately treated, by cycles of heating and hammering in a maeon wind, the spirit matter within it makes the metal as hard as quartz, while remaining as tough as mild steel. The surface of the metal is coated with a layer of spirit stone. This layer is only a few microns (millionths of a meter) thick, but it is as hard as glass, and replenishes itself within minutes of being chipped. It is impermeable to water and oxygen, so it protects the metal from corrosion. Adamantine tends to be far less magnetic than normal steel. The finest adamantine is barely magnetic at all.
SAGA's "magical swords" are made out of adamantine. They do not corrode. They are hard enough to cut through ordinary metal, and they are to some extent self-sharpening in that their coating of spirit stone replenishes itself.
Spirit stone coats the surface of any mithril alloy with more than 5% mithril by weight. Under the right magical conditions, this coating will act as a catalyst for the creation of conjured or spirit matter. The bridge rings wizards use either have a mithril coating, or are made of a mithril alloy.
Gold atoms absorb hot negative maeons. When a gold atom absorbs a negative maeon, the maeon forms its own conjured matter atom in the neighborhood of the gold atom. The maeon gives up most of its kinetic energy to the gold, which heats up accordingly. Absorption of negative maeons generates fifty watts of heat per kilogram of gold per Yardley of the maeon wind strength (5 W/kg/Y). A 4-cm cube of gold is too hot to touch in a one-Yardley (1-Y) wind, if carried in bag, and a large enough volume will melt from self-heating, depending upon how well it is insulated. Larger volumes get hotter because their surface area, through which they dissipate their heat, is smaller in proportion to their volume. All other things being equal, the temperature above ambient of a cube of gold increases as its width.
The heat-generating power of gold can be amplified a thousand-fold by the right magical conditions. The Hot Stones spell is an example. The spell stops the formation of conjured atoms within a thin layer of gold, by coating the gold with conjured material. Because the conjured atoms cannot form, the hot negative maeons that interact with the gold atom end up scattering away, losing half their kinetic energy, and making way for another negative maeon to interact with the same gold atom, but still heating up the gold material.
The conjured matter atoms in gold have a longevity of an hour. When they dissipate, they release a cold maeon. Cold maeons are useful for refreshing conjured matter structures, especially conjured matter muscles. Creatures that use conjured matter muscles, such as demons and divine dragons, love gold. When they sit upon it, their muscles rejuvenate in a fraction of the time they would take in the presence of only hot maeons.
When certain gold alloys are held in a maeon wind of strength thirty Yardleys or more, the concentration of conjured atoms within the alloy becomes so great that the individual gold atoms separate, and the metal swells up to millions of times its original volume. The resulting substance is called swollen gold. It can be manipulated like putty. Within a few hours of its removal from the intense maeon wind, swollen gold shrinks down to its original size. Thaumaturgists use this phenomenon to make structures of gold thread so small that the conducting threads of gold imitate the conducting synapses of a wizard's brain, and so generate magical effects. To make the intense maeon wind, they use the Thaumaturgical Forge spell.
Crystalline carbon, or diamond, even in powdered form, will scatter hot negative maeons, generating light at a rate of fifty microwatts per gram per Yardley (10 μW/Y/g, and 1 g is 5 carats). The color of the light depends upon the orientation of the carbon lattice with respect to the maeon wind. A large, flawless diamond generates light from infra-red to ultra-violet, depending upon its orientation. The light generated by a one-carat diamond is clearly visible in a dark room. Powdered diamond generates white light. The grains are at all angles. The light-generating power of diamond can be amplified over a thousand-fold by the right magical conditions. The Luminous Stones spell is an example. Conjured matter at the surface of diamond particles greatly increase the chance that hot negative maeons will interact with the diamond crystals.
A space bridge joins two points in space at two flat surfaces. The two surfaces are the two halves of the bridge. Particles and radiation passing through one half emerge out the other. The halves are always flat. Because they are always flat, it is impossible to bring two space bridges into contact except at the edges. Bridges are usually circular, but they can other shapes as they are in invisibility tetrahedron. They are always of exactly the same size and shape. Their edges are infinitely sharp, although they are almost always enclosed in a sheath of magical matter.
Each half of a space bridge has two faces: front and back, although this naming is arbitrary, because there is nothing special about either face. Nevertheless, the back and front faces of the two halves are related in the following way: whatever passes through the back face of one emerges out of the front face of the other, and whatever passes through the front face of one emerges out of the back face of the other. A particle entering one half of a space bridge at a particular angle will emerge from the second half at the same angle with respect to the second half.
Although there is nothing to distinguish the two faces of a space bridge half, there is a way to distinguish the two halves from one another. The two halves of a space bridge are complimentary magnetic monopoles. One is a north pole and the other is a south pole, so we name them the north half and the south half. The two halves will naturally attract one another and come to align themselves if allowed to do so. The magnetic field arises at the edges of the bridges rather than on their faces, so it is the edges that will be attracted to one another with a force that grows stronger as they come nearer to one another.
All space bridges allow solitary chemical atoms and all subatomic particles to pass through undisturbed. Higher classes bridge will allow both chemical molecules and magical matter to pass through undisturbed. Electric, magnetic, gravitational, and magical fields do not pass through a space bridge. Indeed, the electrical and gravitational fields are entirely undisturbed by the presence of a space bridge. Their field lines, for example, follow the same course as they would if the bridge were absent. The magnetic field is disturbed only because of the magnetic field generated by the bridge itself, not by any passage of magnetic field through the bridge.
If one half of a space bridge remains stationary while the other is taken on a high-speed journey into space and back again, the half that traveled will be younger than the half that remained stationary, as predicted by special and general relativity. Stepping through the traveled half, one emerges from the stationary half at an earlier time. Thus space bridges can be used to make a time machine. It is not possible to use a time machine to go back in time and change the course of events. Outrageous coincidence is the means by which the harmony of cause and effect is maintained in the face of such endeavors by time travelers. Experiencing these coincidences is likely to drive rational creatures insane. Those who value their sanity, therefore, tend to avoid time travel altogether. Inter-stellar explorers, however, such as daemons, have no choice but to confront the paradoxes of time travel, since they carry with them, and make use of, many time-shifted space bridges.
The edges of a space bridge catalyze maeon arrest. A space bridge in a maeon wind quickly acquires a strong, springy sheath of conjured matter around its edges. The sheath has a circular cross section with diameter one hundredth the diameter of the space bridge. The sheath consists of one continuous conjured-matter atom made up of thousands of negative maeons. The edges of a space bridge are infinitely sharp, they can be stretched, moved, and contorted by pulling on the sheath. Physical manipulation of a sheath, however, damages its structure and reduces its longevity. If the sheath dissipates, the bridge collapses.
The longevity of a space bridge is the longevity of its sheath, which is a single conjured atom. This atom dissipates after a period of time in the same way that any conjured atom dissipates. Like any maeon atom, the sheath atom can be rejuvenated by maeon tuning. If we add maeons to the sheath, it expands, and the space bridge expands along with it. If we remove maeons, the space bridge contracts. The Tuning spell allows wizards to rejuvenate, enlarge, reduce, or deform existing space bridges. A bridge can be preserved indefinitely with repeated tuning. Tuning can also be used to change the class of a bridge, although wizards will not discover how to do this until 2510 AE.
A space bridge, if left to its own devices, will expire gracefully at the end of its longevity. It shrinks to nothing in a matter of seconds. If the sheath is damaged before that, the bridge will either expire immediately or its longevity will be shortened. So long as the sheath is intact, however, it may be repaired by tuning.
There are many ways to damage a space bridge sheath. Fluctuations in the maeon wind disturb the sheath and can cause it to vibrate and shatter. If the bridge absorbs energy and expands while it is constrained in a ring, the sheath will be crushed. If we slice the sheath with a knife, it will disintegrate. Bridge sheaths are fragile, and wizards must make sure they are protected, which is the function of the wizard's bridge ring.
Space bridges can do work for you. They can raise objects and impart kinetic energy. You can use a molecular bridge to transport water from a point downstream of a mill to a point upstream of the same mill. You can use an atomic bridge to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. For example, suppose one half of a molecular bridge is stationary, and the other is moving at 9 m/s. You roll a 1-kg ball at 1 m/s through the stationary half. The ball emerges from the moving half. It emerges from the side of the bridge that faces its direction of motion. It moves at 1 m/s with respect to the bridge. Its speed is now 10 m/s. In passing through the bridge, its kinetic energy increased instantly from 0.5 J to 50 J. We note, however, that in the eyes of an observer traveling with the fast-moving half, the ball's energy decreased instantly from 50 J to 0.5 J.
When an object passes through a space bridge, its passage has associated with it a transport energy. Sometimes, as in the example above, the transport energy as seen from one half is the negative of that seen from the other half. In other case, such as the dissociation of hydrogen and oxygen, the transport energy is the same with respect to both halves.
There are limits to the amount of transport energy a space bridge can supply or absorb. Wizards use the following rules to estimate the time at which a space bridge will expire through the action of transport energy. When the total transport energy delivered by the bridge, as seen from either half, exceeds the bridge energy, the bridge is likely to expire. When the power absorbed or supplied by the bridge exceeds the bridge power, the bridge is likely to expire. By experiment, wizards determine the energy and power of the bridges created by their spells. A normal space bridge, for example, has bridge energy 1 MJ/Y/m2 (one megajoule per square meter per Yardley of maeon wind strength) and power 1 kW/Y/m2 (one kilowatt per square meter per Yardley of maeon wind strength).
The Vacuum Thruster spell uses air pressure and vacuum to extract work from a space bridge, in violation of Newton's Third Law. The bridge has energy 10 MJ and power 10 kW. A wizard uses a such a thruster to raise himself and a bench 1000 m into the air. The mass raised is 100 kg. The bridge sees a 1 MJ transport energy. The thruster forces him through a head-wind with thrust 1 kN at 10 m/s. The bridge is delivering 10 kW, so he is going at his maximum speed. After 900 s, the total transport energy is 10 MJ. The bridge is near to expiring, and it begins to lose area and thrust. He detects this and allows the thruster to descend 500 m. The transport energy drops to 9.5 MJ, and the bridge is no longer about to expire. He can navigate safely to a good landing spot.
To the first approximation, we can restore bridge energy lost through transporting an object or by doing work by transporting an object the other way or by allowing work to be done on the bridge. But this process is not entirely reversible. If we pass 10 kg of rock one way through a bridge, and 10 kg of rock back again, we can hope for 90% of the transport energy to be cancelled, but not much more than 90%.
All magical atoms are unstable. When atomic bridges destroy spirit and conjured atoms, they are merely liberating the energy stored in these atoms. This does not require any work. The transport energy is zero. The space bridge, in destroying such an atom, is merely accelerating the process.
But the same is not true of chemical molecules broken apart by atomic bridges. When water passes through an atomic bridge, it is almost entirely dissociated into two hydrogen and oxygen gases. On the other side of the bridge, these may burn immediately to form steam, or they can drift off without burning. In both cases, the space bridge has provided the energy to transform water into hydrogen and oxygen gas, and this energy has the same effect upon the bridge as transport energy. As a rule of thumb, passing one kilogram of water through a space bridge requires 10 MJ of bridge energy. Burning the resulting gases will generate 10 MJ of heat. The Fire Lance spell describes how this heat can be used as a weapon.
In SAGA's universe, "every action has an equal and opposite reaction," only if no space bridges are involved. Space bridges can generate forces in violation of Newton's Third Law. The Vacuum Thruster spell uses air pressure and two halves of a space bridge to generate a force without a reaction. The vacuum thruster is an example of a class of force-generating space bridge arrangements called space bridge thrusters.
A simple form of space bridge thruster consists of the two halves of a molecular bridge and a length of rope. We tie one end of the rope around a tree, pass the other end through the space bridge, and tie it to another tree. We move the bridge halves until the rope is stretched tight. You can imagine two people cooperating in the experiment, each holding up one half of the bridge. They experience no force upon the bridge as a result of the rope passing through it. Suppose one of them steps away from the nearest tree, so that the length of rope required to reach her space bridge is one meter greater? Where does this extra meter of rope come from? There is nowhere for it to come from. The rope stretches out, pulling upon both trees. The rope might break. The person holding the space bridge can break any rope or pull down one of the trees without exerting any force upon the rope herself.
In the previous example, there is no reason why both ends of the rope cannot be tied to a single tree. One person could hold both halves of a space bridge, one half in each hand. The rope passes into one and emerges from the other. She backs away from the tree until the rope tightens, and then continues to back away. The tension in the rope increases until the rope snaps or the tree uproots.
We will leave it to the reader to figure out how a system of levers, rods, and molecular space bridges could be used to create a flying ship with no wings, or to give a will-o-wisp its extraordinary powers of flight, or to propel a daemon through space.
It is easy to see how a molecular bridge can be used to create a thruster, but atomic bridges can be used to obtain the same effect, using the fact that gases will pass through atomic bridges without dissociation of their atoms. The Vacuum Thruster spell uses a vacuum and atmospheric pressure to produce a flying bench for a wizard to fly on. As with any bridge, the Vacuum Thruster has a bridge energy and power, and the wizard must keep track of how much work his bridge had done if he is to anticipate its moment of expiration. But because he can lower himself, and so restore energy to the bridge, the Vacuum Thruster will always allow a controlled descent.
All space bridges created by wizards are atomic bridges, otherwise known as Class I bridges. Light, sound, and chemical atoms pass through atomic bridges intact, but large chemical molecules split apart, and magical atoms dissipate. The sheath of a space bridge is made out of conjured matter, and so cannot survive passage through an atomic bridge. Once a space bridge loses its sheath, it closes rapidly and ceases to exist. Consequently, the space bridges created by wizards cannot be passed through one another.
A normal bridge is one that has assumed the size, shape, and class that is most natural to it in the prevailing maeon wind. All normal bridges are atomic and circular. In a 1-Y wind, a normal bridge has diameter 1 cm and longevity 8 hr. The diameter of a normal space bridge is proportional to maeon wind strength. Its longevity is proportional to the inverse of its area. On Olympia, the maeon wind is 2 Y. Normal bridges have diameter 2 cm and longevity 2 hr.
There are three other classes of space bridge besides atomic. They are molecular (Class II), spirit (Class III), and conjured (Class IV). Even though wizards will not themselves make bridges of the higher classes, they will certainly be dealing with them in their adventures, because gods and daemons, and even some sorcerers can make them.
Summoning bridges, which we describe in another chapter, are connections with divine agencies. These agencies, through the use of daemons and gods, tune summoning bridges to higher classes. Conjunctions are conjured bridges made by pairs of inter-stellar beings called Celesti (See A Brief History of the Galaxy). Conjunctions, and the passage of bridges through them, are central to the economy and law of the Celesti Sector. The Effect of Space Bridges Upon Matter table lists the effect of the four classes of space bridge upon the three classes of matter: chemical, spirit, and conjured matter.
| Bridge Type | Effect upon Chemical Matter | Effect upon Spirit Matter | Effect upon Conjured Matter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atomic (I) | Quiet atomization and variable recombination | Violent annihilation | Quiet annihilation |
| Molecular (II) | Unaffected | Quiet annihilation | Violent annihilation |
| Spirit (III) | Unaffected | Unaffected | Quiet annihilation |
| Conjured (IV) | Unaffected | Unaffected | Unaffected |
The higher classes of space bridge are thicker than atomic bridges, which is to say that they communicate fields over greater distances. The thickness of an atomic bridge is less than the length of a chemical bond. Given that chemical atoms are many times smaller than spirit atoms, and spirit atoms are many times smaller than conjured atoms, progressively thicker bridges are required to pass chemical, spirit, and conjured matter without destruction.
When you pass chemical matter through an atomic bridge, the bonds between its atoms can be broken. Wizards believe the bridge is too thin to convey the inter-atomic attraction. Oxygen and Nitrogen gases are not separated into their constituent atoms, but carbon dioxide is dissociated into carbon and oxygen, so that atomic bridges accumulate black dust. Water passing through an atomic bridge is almost entirely separated into hydrogen and oxygen. Dragons use this effect to breath fire. Wizards use it in Fire Lance and Fireball. We discuss the source of the energy for these flames in Bridge Energy.
The study of how chemical matter will behave when passed through an atomic bridge has resulted in the discovery of bridge invariant materials. These include the cegotun stones used by Hot Stones and the diamond glass of Luminous Stones. The study of bridge invariance, and materials that can be made only by passing chemicals through an atomic bridge, is an important branch of alchemy. The cloud stones of the Poison Cloud spell are examples of solid objects that produce a particular gas when passed through an atomic brige.
Air flowing through an atomic bridge heats up by about ten degrees Celsius. Its carbon dioxide turns into oxygen and carbon powder. Almost all its nitrogen and oxygen come out the same, but there are traces of nitrous oxide and ozone. A large atomic bridge is warm, smells of ozone, accumulates carbon powder at its base and gives you a mild rush from nitrous oxide. When you pass metal through an atomic bridge, it emerges as a dull lump accompanied by metallic powder. The fraction of of metal converted to powder varies depending upon the metal you pass through. Ten percent of raw iron becomes powder, five percent of copper, and two percent of gold. Dry wood is made of hydrocarbons. When you pass it through an atomic bridge, it turns into methane and hydrogen gases, with carbon powder. Living tissue is mostly water and hydrocarbons, so it turns into methane, hydrogen gas, oxygen gas, and carbon powder. A good-sized atomic space bridge is a dangerous weapon, as in the Circle spell.
The only conjured bridges in the Celesti sector are those made by the Celesti themselves. There are only two ways to get a space bridge from one planet to another. One is to have it carried by a daemon through space, and the other is to take it through conjunctions. The latter is preferred by most, because the bridge will not acquire a time shift of more than a fraction of a second. By daemon, it acquires a time shift measured in years.
Space bridges communicate fields only across their extremely narrow widths. For all practical purposes, external fields, such as gravity, magnetism, dweomer, or aura, are unaffected by the presence of a space bridge. The gravity of the place you see through a space bridge can never exert a force upon you. A remote cluster of casting bridges is completely unaffected by the existence of a space bridge between it and the spell-caster.
Space bridges are thinner at the center than at the edges. It is possible to have a bridge that is molecular around the edges and atomic in the center. Such a bridge could be buried behind the walls of a corridor.
Each half of a space bridge is a magnet. One half is a north pole, the other a south pole. They are the only known source of magnetic monopoles in SAGA's universe. According to wizards, it is impossible to create a single magnetic monopole. Such monopoles must always occur in matching pairs of equal strength. It is impossible, therefore to create a matching pair of magnetic monopoles, one north and one south, separate them by some distance, and destroy one of them while leaving the other intact. If you destroy one, the other must be destroyed at the same time. To make a space bridge, wizards first create a matching pair of magnetic monopoles. When they separate these monopoles, the space bridge is created. The space bridge is the means by which the destruction of one monopole will cause the destruction of the other.
Having separated the two halves of a space bridge, each half creates a magnetic field. The field arises from the edges of the bridge. Once we are a few diameters away from the bridge surface, the lines of force appear to radiate straight out from the bridge center and the strength of the field decreases as the square of the distance to the bridge center. Near the bridge, we find that the source of the magnetic field is spread uniformly around its edge. At any point on the surface of the bridge, the field generated by the monopoles on the edge sums to zero, so that the field across the surface of the bridge is zero. Thus the magnetic field generated by a space bridge at its own surface is zero, and no magnetic field passes through the bridge.
The strength of a magnetic field is measured in Tesla (T). The Earth's magnetic field is roughly 30 μT. The field in the ATLAS particle detector reaches 2 T. The field on the outer edge of a circular space bridge is 1 mT per millimeter diameter, and is independent of the class of the bridge. A normal space bridge in a 1-Y maeon wind has diameter 1 cm, so the field strength at its edge is 10 mT. At range 10 cm, the field is 100 μT, which is strong enough to dominate the magnetic field on Clarus, it being the same strength as that of the Earth. A 4-m diameter bridge generates a 4-T field at its rim, 0 T at its center, and roughly 1 T a meter away from the surface, directly over its center.
The strength of a magnetic field at any particular point is the force a one coulomb (1 C) charge would experience when moving perpendicular to the field lines at one meter per second (1 m/s). When a magnetic material like iron enters a magnetic field, it becomes magnetized, generating its own north and south poles of equal strength. The force acting upon the object is the sum of the forces acting upon its north and south poles. If the field is uniform, the object will rotate so that its south-north line is parallel with the field. But after that, the object will not experience no net force, because the south and north poles experience the same force in opposite directions. Only when the magnetic field is non-uniform will the object experience a net force and tend to move. The field around a space bridge is uniform at the center, but non-uniform elsewhere, with the greatest magnetic forces being generated near the edges.
A conjunction is a 4-m diameter bridge. Its sheath is 50 cm thick and made of spirit and conjured mater. When the conjunction is a single bridge of diameter 4 m, it generates a magnetic field so strong that it will wrench a carbon steel longsword out of a man's hand. The majority of conjunctions, however, produce very little magnetic force. They are made of two space bridges flush up against one another, in the combination called a doublet. The two celesti that generate the conjunction produce these two bridges, with the north half of the first bridge flush up against the south half of the second. The resulting magnetic field is a hundred times weaker than that produced by a single bridge. The Atomizing Barrier spell makes use of a similar arrangement, so that the barrier will not be revealed by the presence of a strong magnetic field.
The bridges made by wizards for most of their spells, however, are single bridges, or singlets. Such a bridge creates a magnetic field that pulls it into the center of an iron bridge ring and presses it against the groove cut on the ring's inner surface. The magnetic field of a spell bridge induces another field within the bridge ring. A south-pole bridge will generate a north pole on the inner edge of the bridge ring, and a south pole along the outer edge, so that the field outside the bridge is much the same with or without the bridge ring. The bridge ring, being a magnet, will stick firmly to a steel helmet or any other magnetic surface.
The summoning bridges provided by the gods of Olympia are also singlets. When expanded to a diameter of 2 m to summon a troop of orc soldiers, they generate a field of 2 T at the edges. The summoner typically holds the bridge in a copper-plated steel bridge frame resting upon the ground so that the bridge is held to the frame by its magnetic field. The copper allows the brige to adhere itself further through a coating of conjured material. But if any of the orcs were to bring steel armor with them, they would risk pulling the bridge out of its frame and damaging its sheath, possibly destroying the bridge. Furthermore, the summoner must stand well back if she herself is wearing steel armor or carrying iron implements. Even copper, gold, and silver coins will experience a force when they move within such a field, because the movement causes currents to flow within these metals, and the currents generate magnetic fields that tend to resist the movement of the metal. If we drop a gold coin near the edges of a 2-m summoning bridge, it will fall more slowly than usual.
Tiny, short-lived, space bridges appear continuously in a maeon wind. Space tunnels are created by the dweomer associated with bunches of hot maeons. They last for several milliseconds. The two halves of most tunnels lie along the direction of the wind. The distance between the two halves of a tunnel the tunnel length. One percent of tunnels have length less than one centimeter. Ten percent have length less than ten meters. Fifty percent have length less than one hundred meters. Ninety percent have length less than one kilometer. Ninety five percent have length less than ten kilometers.
The combined area of all the space tunnels in a cubic meter volume at a particular instant in time is called the tunnel density. In an infinite vacuum through which flows a maeon wind of strength M Y, the tunnel density is M m2/m3. The tunnel density in a particular cubic meter depends strongly upon the amount of mass in the cube. In an infinite body of air, the density is 0.9 M. In an infinite body of water, it is 0.001 M. To a first approximation, space tunneling does not occur between points with mass density greater than 10 kg/m3. The tunneling in the atmosphere at the surface of a planet is 0.5M, because tunnels do not form with points beneath the surface. One kilometer below the surface, in a cavity of air, the tunnel density is one half times ten percent, or 0.05 M.
During their short lifetimes, space tunnels experience dramatically asymmetric acceleration, and so become tiny, short-lived time machines. Negative maeons passing through the a biological organism interact with both its nervous system and the omnipresent space tunnels. A few seconds before a shocking sensation, an organism feels a faint forewarning of it. The prescient sensation grows stronger until the moment of the shock. Prescience allows adventurers to attain an invulnerability that would be impossible on a non-magical planet. In SAGA's combat system, prescience is represented by dodging points. An experienced adventurer avoids a shot in the dark by ducking at the right time. If he did not duck, he would get a prescient sensation, which would make him duck, and then he would never be shot, so he would not receive the sensation. He ducks for some other reason. Maybe he wants to itch his knee, and the arrow whistles over his head. The self-consistency of cause and effect are maintained by the occurrence of a simple coincidence, however unlikely.
Space tunnels dissipate high-pressure gasses in enclosed chambers. You cannot get a steam engine or a gun to work on the surface of a magical world. Internal combustion engines, steam engines, guns, bombs, and inflated tires do not work unless you are deep underground. Beneath the surface, the space tunnels become less common. With a kilometer or two or rock above you, there are hardly any tunnels at all. Not only can you make guns and engines, you have no prescience either. Dwarves can make steam engines work for them several kilometers beneath the surface, or in the heart of a mountain.When maeons encounter the strong electrical signals present in machines such as computers, electric motors, electric power lines, or electric generators, they react vigorously, generating heat and probably setting the electrical mechanism on fire in a burst of spraks and light. Electric motors and circuits do not work reliably anywhere on magical worlds, not even deep beneath the ground.
Another important behavior of space tunnels is trapping, whereby a short tunnel is preserved and enlarged when it appears within the dweomer field generated by circulating maeons. Spell-casters use this phenomenon to create space bridges.
A spell is any magical effect generated by a biological neural network. The two magical phenomena underlying spell-casting are the creation of conjured matter by electrostatic fields in the nervous system and the generation of space bridges by dweomer fields by exploiting tunnel trapping. There are several ways the brain of a biological creature can generate magical effects. A psionic has a permanent neural network in her mind that generates a particular magical effect. A sorcerer has trained his brain to generate magical effects through movement, singing, or certain thoughts. Most sorcerers generate one effect at a time, and they use the same part of their mind for each effect. A wizard has separate sections of her brain, each of which she can instruct to generate a magical effect once, but the time is of her choosing, and these sections can be instructed again, after they have generated their effect. We present the details of spells and spell-casting, primarily for wizards, in Spells and Spell-Casting.
