>The precursor race sacrificed themselves to bring magic into the world
>Magic is basically energy from precursor spirits and their technology
Interesting or cliche?
>>43717259
Sacrifice seems too cliche. Maybe some kind of accident or disaster caused them to be destroyed, and magic is them trying to reconstitute themselves. Hence why magic can fail or backfire.
>>43717259
>A precursor Alien Warlord sacrificed other alien races to bring magic into the world
>Magic is basically energy from precursor spirits and their technology
>>43717259
So it's Dust?
>>43717259
So, originally the precursors were the only ones with magic, basically being the elves/Fair Folk of the setting, but they decided to change the world so that people of any race could perform miracles like they could, and they sacrificed their lives to do so?
That's an interesting twist. I don't think I've encountered it before.
>>43717577
Actually I was thinking the precursors didn't have magic, only technology. They took some tech with them to whatever beyond they went to, and that tech causes magic to work in the material world.
The only reason to work in a precursor race is if they're still active ly impacting thr world in some way. If you want them there just as a reason to have magic it's as good as any, but why would anyone care? They're dead, they're gone, the ruins have been plundered, the important secrets are lost forever, there's nothing to do about them anymore.
>>43717733
Which is exactly the reason why people never ever give a shit about our weirdo ancestors, or obsessively dig up their remains in order to find missing links.
Glad to have finally cleared this up.
>>43717259
why would they sacrifice themselves so everyone else could have all the fun?
"Precursors" are overdone as fuck unless you have a serious twist, and "noble sacrifice to save others" is also pretty weird on a species scale.
>>43719243
The purpose is that their sacrifice created an etheral web around the world that traps souls in it. The more magic is used, the stronger the web becomes. Eventually the populaces grow, and time results in mass amounts of souls becoming adhered to the web.
Eventually the web is sufficiently energized to resurrect the precursors, who seek to retake control of the world using their new magical energy. The only advantage the other races have is that they have the experience of practicing with this magic for centuries, whereas the precursors will be relying more on their powerful technology with only a meager understanding of the magic they've essentially created.
This will ultimately lead to a time when people learn the truth and have to decide whether or not to unmake the web, essentially destroying magic.
>>43717733
>>43719243
I was always a fan of the Forerunners from Halo precisely because they wiped themselves out for a perfectly logical reason, and their technology and legacy played a major role in the story in spite of being utterly extinct.
Then Halo 4 brought the Didact out of a secret Time Lord freezer as a grandstanding Final Fantasy villain and put the kibosh on that atmosphere, but it was cool while it lasted.
have the precursors' consciousnesses coalesced into some sort of Force-like omnipresent field or something? perhaps they gave up their physical forms to become one with the universe and now allow a select few to tap into their power and use magic
>>43719301
I like this one
>>43717279
I like this more.
>Magic is basically energy from precursor spirits and their technology
Cliché.
>The precursor race sacrificed themselves to bring magic into the world
Interesting, but you need to decide WHY they did it. How did it happen?
>>43717279
Not mutually exclusive. The important part here is the reconstitution. Perhaps the leaders of the race decided to sacrifice them all, and magic is some of them trying to reform.
It also lets you do some interesting stuff with the relationship between mages and individual precursors. Then you have active precursors, perhaps related to mages who bear tiny amounts of their bloodline or a bit of their reincarnated soul (you can go Egyptian and have lots of souls) or something, and each magician has a precursor with a certain personality, neatly avoiding >>43717733
>>43717259
>The precursor race sacrificed themselves to bring magic into the world
You're telling me an entire species committed collective suicide so that other species' could play with their dead bodies. As if there weren't any members of this superior race that said "Well hey wait a minute now, I rather prefer being alive. Can't we at least leave some of us around just in case this whole 'bring magic into the world' thing doesn't work out the way we want it to?"
Do you have any idea how stupid this would sound to an independent person living in such a society? Like, imagine a precursor. He has a job, he has family, hopes, goals, dreams, hobbies, hot precursor babes he wants to bang. This is his life, he has things to do. Then the government rolls up and says "Hey everyone, lets all kill ourselves. That way ants can have lots of fun picking apart our deceased bodies and looting our possessions." Do you really expect that people would throw their entire lives away for such an insane and nonsensical request?
Really depends on how you play it, as others have pointed out. How does this affect the present day? Are the precursors perceived by the other characters as sympathetic or alien?
Whatever you though, just don't go all:
>The BBEG is a warped, twisted remnant of the surviving precursors, their most evil member or one of their creations gone out of control and hellbent on taking over/destroying the world
because that?
Now that's what I call a cliche.
>>43717259
incomplete. that a race would end itself just to make magic available makes no sense. there needs to be a reason for them to feel that their sacrifice was necessary, even extreme altruism won't work because magic merely being present is more of a neutral thing than a good or bad thing.
maybe they were about to go extinct anyways and decided to leave a legacy that would last till the heat death of the universe.
maybe there is some kind of horrific recurring existance wide threat that can only be defeated through magic or high technology, and they wanted to make 100% sure that the means to defeat it will always be present. (can combine well with the previous option)
maybe it was an accident, or byproduct. the event that created magic was meant to do something else, maybe it failed, or maybe it succeeded with an unforeseen side effect.
maybe they're not really gone, and they find allowing bits of themselves to be used to cast spells amusing, and the ability to watch over ( and maybe subtly influence) younger races forever a fulfilling existence.
or maybe this was done to them, and their existence is an unending agony inflicted by a forgotten race as punishment for a forgotten crime.
some sort of motive is needed, even if the pc's never find it there should be some reason, or several reasons that it may have been with no way to know for sure. the reason will probably determine if its interesting or not.
>>43717259
You know, if you want to use this as "that's where magic comes from in my setting", sure, whatever. Nobody cares, unless someone's some kind of autist it will pass without comment.
If you want to use this to go "look how deep and original I am guys, isn't that epic and momentous setting backstory? Aren't you all impressed?" it doesn't make the cut.
God died and the precursors are his attempt at resurrection. They were to live, grow, die, return to his metaphysical corpse until he had enough energy tobresurrect.
But it turns out that if you believe hard you can use magic. Since the godly essence responds to belief. The use of magic is using up a piece of his slowly replenishing soul and preventing another precursor child from being born from that energy.
>>43717279
>sacrifice too cliche
>precursor race wiped by accident or disaster
You seem to be confused as to what concepts are too cliche.
>>43721000
That could be cool, as it does lead to such things as religious groups who hate magic because they want to bring back god, and magical groups who seek to prevent that god's revival. Possibly other people trying to shape that godly essence into other gods.
>>43721024
And they're all fucked anyway since god's bits and pieces are finite.
>>43717259
Precursors are magic.
Magic is nanomachines.
Welcome to Endless Space/Legend/Dungeons of the.
Precursors were devoured by an ancient space lifeforms which fed on organic matter. It would travel from planet to planet consuming all life. The precursors were ultimately eaten by said creature, and it's excrement after devouring them became stuck in the planets atmosphere, and then humans learned to harness the magical properties of the space beast shit
>>43717568
Endless Space/Legend?
>>43719301
Why would they unravel the web?
>>43721131
Holy shit in not the only one who's played them?
>>43722129
Endless Legend evangelist, checking in.
>Interesting or cliche?
Irrelevant. The creation myths(true or false) rarely amount to anything more than some background information, so it doesn't matter if it's cliche or not - in fact, some common elements may even make it better, since even in real world, the creation myths often share common elements.
The important question is: does the creation myth in question have any important implications for the setting? Show, don't tell. So magic comes from the spirits, or souls, of the precursor race and their advanced machinery. Does magic always work the same? Were the precursors a hivemind, then, or is there some other explanation for that? Maybe the spirits should retain at least some of their individuality - perhaps this individuality is rather muted in areas where magic is heavily concentrated, but exaggerated when there are only a few spirits to maintain magic. Maybe creating magic items is just binding a single spirit - and all its quirks - into the item. That could mean that all magic items are not only unique, but carry some traces of sentience. If you carry a magic item, you'd better take good care of it, and carrying too many such items might be a bad idea unless you're really careful to ensure that they all get along.
Or perhaps the spirits DID lose their individuality - what implications does THAT have? Perhaps great power ALWAYS requires sacrificing part of individuality. So great mages all tend to be somewhat alike. Perhaps such loss is always required to do great deeds - if you sacrifice yourself to stop an invading demon horde, the stories of your deed will become a legend that can last for eternity, but no-one will speak your name again.
>>43720428
Fantasy races, especially the more mythical ones (like a precursor race) don't usually act like a human or think like a human.
The precursors are still around and there are actually several different species of them, all of them have seats in the space Security Council in the space UN. They use the lesser civilizations to fight proxy wars against each other because any open conflict would quickly result in a galactic MAD scenario with self replicating FTL relativistic kill vehicles, exploding suns and black holes.
Most of them are pretty dickish about it.
>>43717259
>precursor race
Cliche.
>>43722103
>>43717568
Destiny? Because I'm pretty sure that's just System Shock's Nanites.
>>43717279
>>43717259
Pretty good.
>>43717259
>precursor race
Why must literally every single fantasy and sci fi setting have these? Just once, I'd like to see one where there wasn't a lost civilization that was better than everything that came after it.
>>43717259
So Numenera?
>>43722313
Agreed.
>>43722313
If you don't have an advanced race to pillage then there's no point to combat besides fighting for resource deposits and settling scores.
Hell thats why they even exist, so people with swords with no other marketable skills can 'save' society by fighting evil bosses and activating the one relic that saves the world.
Crappy writing really, based off denial of the fact that most war is never glorious or constructive of society as a whole.
>>43722545
Then have advanced current civilizations you can pillage. Also, it doesn't really have anything to do with war, you dumb dolt.
>>43722545
Lol wut
Precursors, or even just an extinct magic orientated race become wiped out, cursed or in some way stuck in an incorporeal form. They reside among the world as invisible, ethereal beings that have minimal influence. In certain times such as natural disaster or heightened emotional empathy, they can interact with the real world, rescuing a child or killing an attacker, but only in extremely rare instances. Some might call them miracles or divine intervention.
But some bond with individuals. Choosing to pair their being with a living lifeform and to share their thoughts, knowledge and power with them. Essentially granting the human magic abilities.
Or some shit
>>43717279
This. People need to put fuckups in their worldbuilding. History is full of fuckups
>>43722545
Stopping a new evil from arising.
Protecting a settlement from hyperintelligent lizard monsters.
A conspiracy to sacrifice an entire city in the dead of night is near fruition, you need to raid the lairs of five evil sorcerers in one night to shut down the pentahex.
A short-lived rave of forest creatures thinks humanity is the ancient forerunner race after finding an empty house near the woods. Stop them from plundering the locals' houses in search of 'artifacts.'
Those were off the top of my head and had nothing to do with plundering ancient forerunners (except the last as a joke.) If that's really the only possible rpg plot you can think of you're limiting yourself in a very arbitrary way.
Why aren't these Precursors the evil ones? Magic is their attempt at resurrecting themselves using the bodies of mages/magicians.
The more magic that's used by a person, the easier it is for a Precursor to gain a foothold in that person's mind. Magic makes changes to the body, slowly but surely, this is the Precursors' using it in a way to shape the human/whatever's body to what their originals were. Because their souls are only able to be housed in the 'original' housing unit.
Mage Guild hands out jewlery to initiates to begin their magic training. The jewels on said jewelry actually contain the spiritual essence of precursors.
Free precursors and lose all magic?
Or enslave them for eternity to be used as a tool
>>43722627
>>43722577
>>43722588
Then how do you acquire powerful relics without having said powerful civilizations kicking everyone's asses like IRL history has show?
Because it sounds like y'all ain't addressing the real issue of the logical dissonance of powerful races somehow getting their asses kicked and pillaged to your PCs without simply pulling the protagonist card.
Ancient evil counts as precursors btw because they are former powerful forces that can kick everyone's asses.
I'm in the process of brainstorming a world where the Ancients won a war in their own universe, but their enemies, in a final act of spite, set off a universe destroying bomb. The Ancients fled to our universe, overriding our old laws of physics with theirs. This gave them the ability to alter the fabric of the universe as they saw fit, as they had done so in their home universe. This led to them creating networks of essentially leylines that fueled their technology/FTL travel and communication. Magic is simply people using the bare minimum power of these leylines. The Ancients are aware of this use, but are fairly benevolent and it's not a big drain on their power so they let it pass.
>>43719301
Why would they not just take over before everyone else shows up to the party?
>>43724412
>Then how do you acquire powerful relics without having said powerful civilizations kicking everyone's asses like IRL history has show?
Remind me again when in IRL history "powerful relics" were instrumental in "kicking everyone's asses."
I don't really see why you think relics NEED to be involved in the first place, really. Personally I've always kinda thought that most magic weapons were kinda lame. Yay, +1 sword, it's a sword that swords better. Woo.
>magic is precursor technology
>huge amounts of effort are spent trying to understand magic so modern people can use it
>despite centuries of study, no one knows more than a tiny fraction of the possible spells that can be cast
>the entire party are professors in an archaeology department specializing in researching the origins of magic
>the BBEG is the head of the department and has discovered the location of a complete intact user's manual for magic and the authorization codes needed to access the really powerful spells and alter the configuration settings for the system
>the party must race him to ensure they get tenure and stop him from ascending to godhood and taking over the world
>this is complicated by the BBEG not only having taught them everything they know, but also being able to accept or refuse their grant applications at a whim
Would you play it?
>>43727668
>not wanting the swordiest sword
>>43719301
That sounds a lot like Mass Effect, in tone if not in detail. Or Mass Effect as it should have been, at least.
>>43717259
>Magic is basically energy from precursor spirits and their technology
>Magic is ... technology
>Interesting or cliche?
Basically the worse kind of cliche. Sorry OP.
>>43729619
>+1 sword, it's a sword that swords better.
>Excalibur, it's a sword that swords better.
>Mjolnir, it's a hammer that hammers better.
>Spear of Destiny, it's a spear that spears better.
So boring. Why do people even put this bland uninteresting crap in their legends?
>>43730797
Now hold the fucking phone, my friend.
>Excalibur, blessed blade of the Lady of the Lake. A magical sword that is possessed by the true King of England. Paired with Avalon, a scabbard that protects whoever wears it from physical harm.
>Mjölnir, the Hammer of Thor, God of Thunder, said to be the only one worthy of lifting it. None else can heft it. He can throw it miles with a flick of his wrist and command it to return to him as he wishes.
>Spear of Destiny, the Spear which pierced the side of the Son of God as he lay dying on the cross. (I admit, I don't know much about this one's special abilities.
NONE of those are just "X that Xs better," so are you fucking stupid or just ignorant?
When it comes to actual powerful artifacts of yore, none of them are merely "it makes you hit the other fellow 5% more," which is why you never see such boring items in fantasy novels and why the proliferation of simple magical weapons with no truly notable properties is so fucking boring. Bite me.
>>43717259
Magic is a singular practice/energy source seems really cliche.
>>43717259
With a coherent consistent reason for why they sacrificed themselves that's interesting enough for fantasy settings. And potentially annoying for hard sci-fi settings, although I guess you did say magic OP; so hard sci-fi is a bit of a non issue there.
As an aside, I prefer stories where the ancient precursors turn out to be malevolent/antagonists, over the stories where the ancient precursors are benevolent benefactors. An ancient mysterious threat to be unraveled tends to be more engaging than an ancient mysterious group of nice dead folks.
>>43717259
>magic is basically advanced technology
Do you know how absolutely cliche this is?
>>43722314
>Numenera
You mean that shit that rips off Jack Vance?
>>43728362
I'd play it, but I'd have a very hard time playing along with the race to tenure goal without just trying to kill or destroy the department head through mundane means. The would be god would need some type of invulnerability to: character assassination, an assassin's knife, risen, car crashes, high caliber rifles, etc.
I'd prefer the BBEG be the precursors themselves trying to undue their sacrifice, and be reborn inside our universe at the cost of every living thing in our universe. The players are professors and academics specializing in researching the origins of magic, etc. When magical catastrophes start occurring all over the world they're charged with studying and, to a lesser extent, combating the new magical mayhem a la Ghostbusters and X-com.
You can keep the antagonist department head that wants godhood too; just have him be a willing agent of the precursors in exchange for godhood after he somehow made contact with awoke/them.
>>43717279
Perhaps they tried some form of mass ritual or communion to ascend to another plane of existence, and It worked, but not as they expected it
Adding to the idea pile. I once had a sort of digimon-ish world going where the monsters had powers but had to form contracts with people to use them and the reverse. The logic I put to it was that in some primordial era gods made the monsters and the monsters revolted; the gods took the monsters apart and sealed them away placing the souls into people, in effect making mankind's "sole" purpose a population of safe boxes to keep the monsters from getting their souls back. Everytime a human used their contracted monster's power they would unknowingly give up a little bit of that soul back to the monster which would gradually let the monster piece itself back together and power up. As the monsters got their souls back the humans became more base and animalistic eventually going from menally healthy and stable, to easily provoked into extremes of paranoia or anger or depression, to consumed by their afflictions, to stark raving mad or vegetative.
It wouldn't be so hard to turn a high fantasy setting's magic into something similar where every spell cast gives a little bit back to whatever ancient pool of aether magic sprung from in the first place, whether that's sinister or part of a greater cosmic balance. Or both. Generally I like weighing the priorities of like powered people with differing views of the. here and now -v.- the bigger picture/long run when the system itself plays into it, so it's not just an abstracted series of consequences with other equally contributing causes but a direct and easily tracable cause and effect.
>>43717259
Hey that pic is from that one movie right? Really slowly paced 'n' shit, cool concept but poor execution?
>>43735321
Infini. It was totally Infini. Not the right pic, but similar.
>>43730226
Mass Effect is based around the idea of the "great filter" in the first place. When civilisation reaches a certain point, something happens to drive them to extinction, OR they pass through the filter an continue on uninhibited. Except in this case, I could see this as the ploy to "jump" the filter.
The filter approaches and the precursor's "sacrifice" themselves to bring magic into the world. Once enough other races the precursor's resurrect (possibly after an apocalypse type event) and either magic stays in place now that another civilisation(s) have become the web, or magic is gone and the precursor's become the dominant race again, hoping that they skipped the filter, or hoping that with the help of the lesser races they can pass through it safely.
>>43720428
Maybe Precursor Jesus toldthem it's the way to salvation. Or it was a hip meme on the Precursorbook. Or there was some kind of philosophy about of cycles of life and death and their felt their lifes accomplished by that deed.
>>43717493
isn't that literally scientology
>>43731171
>I admit, I don't know much about this one's special abilities.
NONE of those are just "X that Xs better," so are you fucking stupid or just ignorant?
The Spear of Destiny is said to make you invincible as long as you can hold it. When you have the Spear in your possession you can conquer the whole world but if you lose it you die and lose everything. According to legend, both Napoleon and Hitler had this item in their treasuries at some point. They both did actually posses, in a loose sense of the word, the Holy Lance of Vienna. There are other possible Holy Lance candidates but the one in Vienna is possibly the most famous because of the Nazis.
