Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-6986530-20180408191009/@comment-6986530-20180408191651

I've written down my set of proposals for how to handle magic and magic pages from this point on. Please read all of these solutions in their entirety; I propose that we:

1. Remove pages that describe general magic effects

In the past, an entirely new page has been created almost every time that we're given a kind of magic that we haven't seen before. Not a different kind as in a different technique, but as in a different effect--acceleration magic, fire magic, ice magic. This has resulted in a lot of pages. In some ways that's something we can do to make sure the wiki is totally comprehensive

But because they have to comprise all their own articles, many of these pages are fluffed up--often to a point of saying things we can't actually say for certain. Even worse, by their mechanics sections they misrepresent the way that magic works in Evillious (that is to say, it suggests that spells are separated by their results rather than how the spell is cast, as some pages lump many different casting types together as if they are all the same spell (it's especially galling in the Mind Manipulation area which combines the Lust demon's power and Eve's hypnosis that already has its own page. ))

That's why I suggest all of these pages be removed and their contents included elsewhere (see proposal 2), or at least reevaluated and restructured to list the different mechanics seperately.

This proposal includes, more or less:


 * Creation Magic
 * Defense magic
 * Acceleration magic
 * Detection magic
 * Fire magic
 * Healing
 * Ice magic
 * Lightning magic
 * Lock magic
 * Mind manipulation magic (it might belong more in proposal 3 with all the hypnosis stuff removed; suggested renaming to "brainwashing")
 * Plant magic
 * Projection magic
 * Sealing magic
 * Telekinesis
 * Transformation magic
 * Water magic
 * Wind magic

In addition to stopping people from lumping all these different mechanics together, I want to make it more clear to people that we don't have examples of lots of people doing these kinds of magic. The novels imply that mages undergo a lot of specialization, and that skill in one area or another is required, moreso than just magic ability, to pull off certain spells. For example, Eve is the only mage with lightning magic that we know of, and Elluka only gains the ability after absorbing her. This ties into some things that I say in proposal 2.

2. Expand on and possibly restructure pages that describe methods of casting:

How do you do magic in Evillious? As we're learning from Praeludium and Praefacio, there's rules that mages follow and memorize. Casting a spell usually requires some kind of physical action--song, gestures, spells, runes, and using magical tools. Magical tools have their own category and treatment on the magic page, but all those other forms of casting don't.

I'm not saying we make them have their own category, but I think in tandem with Proposal 1 they can have their own pages. They would include the specifics for what this method of casting entails. It would also include, in a list or otherwise, the range of effects that can be achieved by these spells--i.e. gestures can be used to unlock doors and summon objects, incantations can make projections and are used in Eve's Lightning Magic, etc.

As you can see, this would also include listing pages from proposal 3 where appropriate (for example, the Clockwork Lullaby is a technique in itself, but it's also explicitly a spell song. Similarly, the body swap technique requires at least an incantation and possibly a gesture in touching the person you're swapping with. And so on)

This proposal includes, more or less:


 * Inscription Runes
 * Spell Songs
 * Incantations (this doesn't have a page, but if we organize magic this way then it should; it would include a list of known incantations and their effects)
 * Gestures (possibly)

Keep in mind that these forms of casting aren't exclusive to each other. In Praefacio we have examples where you can put inscription runes on something which will have an effect on its own, and we have examples of combining runes and incantations.

I would like to completely scrap Users from these pages, as it would be more or less a list of who can and can't do magic, which would be better placed on the actual magic page. If proposal 1 is carried out, this also means that the only pages with users listed would be from proposal 3 and magic tools pages -- I'm okay with this. You should be able to look at a character's skills and abilities to know what magic effects they specialize in.

3. Set apart pages that describe specific spells/magic abilities with specific mechanics.

A lot of magic pages are just concerned with "results" of the magic, like in the various magic effects pages, but some of the magic pages are so-called techniques, arts, and abilities. I think some of them conflate some different things still (for example, possession has info that would probably go better on the Swap technique) but there's a core technique there that should be treated as its own thing and not a specific result of magic with different ways to cast it.

We've kind of done this already? So this proposal is more just asking that we clean this pages up.

This proposal includes, more or less:


 * The Clockwork Lullaby (this isn't a straight example of what I'm proposing, because it's going to need an index like Gift's because of the confirmation that there's multiple variants)
 * Clockwork Secret Art
 * Demon Contracts
 * Exorcism magic (possibly; the special magic itself is manipulation of demons, may need to be rewritten and renamed)
 * Gula Disease
 * Hypnosis (possibly)
 * Possession
 * Prophetic Dream
 * Reincarnation Ritual
 * Swap Technique
 * Telepathy (possibly)
 * Reanimation (with emphasis that the only person who seems able to do this is the Demon of Gluttony)
 * Reincarnation
 * Borrowing Magic (this doesn't have a page, but it should)

4. Re-evaluate what is and isn't a "magic tool":

This is a minor problem, but one I want to point out here: the wiki in the past hasn't really acknowledged when something's a "magic tool" and when it's just "advanced technology." I think that there's a difference between something that interacts with magic or is powered by magic and something that can just do wild things because it's advanced (and the Heavenly novel seems to support a distinction between the two, as humans were given actual magic for the Third Period.) Let me list the three things I'm thinking about with this:


 * The Freezis: It's not said to be magical, at least assuming the translation of the bonus story didn't miss something. It gives the indication that this device is just a refrigeration unit. A cryo-chamber with the added bonus of being able to kill the subjects inside. I see no reason to call it a magical tool when so far it has had nothing to do with magic, and hasn't been said to be powered by magic.
 * The Sin/Climb One: It's a spaceship. Previously it was believed to be a magical tool because we believed some of the gods and others were sealed inside of it, that it could bring someone back to life, etc. We've since learned that it's just a spaceship; the gods were "sealed" in it because they were dead and needed a way to transfer out their spirit data, it exploded because of the Black Box, and can't bring anyone back to life. It has magical tools attached to it, that being the Black Box (even the Black Box is kind of just barely a magical tool by virtue of what it does) but it doesn't seem to rely on magic or connect to magic itself.

Contrast these clear examples of magic tools:
 * The Green Onion, which expressly is filled with magic and uses that magic to allow two parties to communicate
 * The Fireworks Gun, which Gumillia is said to have combined with magic to make her special "fireworks" come out of it.

Keep in mind, not everything made by the MKL has to be magic. They had televisions, too, but we evidently haven't listed TVs as a magical tool because there's absolutely nothing confirming that they're any different from televisions in real life. Similarly, Gumillia's fireworks gun is based on a model from the MKL, but it was her improvements that turned it into a magic tool. It's faulty to assume that something from Second Period earthlings or MK Leviantans has to be a magic tool just because we don't have a working equivalent it in the real world.

5. Revise and update the magic page

This is just a general thing that relates back to. We know things about magic and magic users that we didn't before, in part due to Price's translation of the DoE novels. Gotta rewrite the magic page to reflect that. There might need to be restructering of the page as well, depending on how much we act on the other four proposals (for example, adding a list of people with magic ability)

I understand that my proposed solutions are a lot of work. Proposal 1, in particular, would create a lot of red links. But it would also, if I'm thinking about all this correctly, clear up misconceptions and make clear how consistent mothy's magic mechanics in Evillious are.

It would also clear up something I've been seeing a lot where someone isn't sure if a character counts as a "user" in a specific technique or not, and that's probably because the magic pages as they are conflate different techniques as being the same magic.

If you believe that how we're handling magic right now is just fine and we only need to cut out the unfounded assumptions (I don't think that will solve the whole problem but that's my opinion) then feel free to say so and explain your reasoning. If you agree wholeheartedly with my proposals, also let me know. If you have other proposals different from mine, then please put them down on the thread as well. I am extremely open to suggestions on how to improve my existing proposals.

Because of how big these proposals are in terms of work and because I'm not sure I clarified it enough orz, I'm going to give people a week or two to agree or object before we start implementing them all, unless everyone already agrees.

I am going to be doing proposal 5 in the meantime, but that's to remove things that aren't currently supported by the text and is something that should have been done anyway.

As a final note, we can do these proposals individually (for example, we can do proposal 4 and none of the rest, if that's what people end up agreeing with) except for, I think, 1 and 2.