Scars of War Dev Blog Update

A new developer blog update for Scars of War explains how the game’s setting is – in fact – not low-magic, but pretty full-of-magic.

It’s called an Uld Stone, one of many. You can find these stones all over the setting, wherever you find civilization, a great latticework of the things. Besides the gently glowing runes you won’t notice much else to distinguish them from ordinary rocks. If you touch them your fingers might tingle a bit, if you touched the runes themselves, but little else distinguishes them from any other rock or boulder you might find in the fields.

Yet these stones are the most influential, most important workings of magic in the entire setting. Destroying one results in a public flogging and a 10 year jail sentence. The mages who create these Uld Stones, a specialized sect known both singularly and collectively as Amandar, are greatly respected in society, nearly as much as healers and physicians. As they travel the lands, creating and maintaining the magic of the Uld Stones, they can expect to be treated with the utmost courtesy; no Amandar pays for his meals or lodgings while traveling.

What is it about these rocks that makes them so special? Why do their creators receive such reverence?

Simply put, because they make plants grow better.

From each stone emanates a subtle magical field, a gentle weave of magic which seeps through the soil, twining about the roots of plants, strengthening them, guiding their growth, warding off rot and disease. This great magical latticework, spread throughout field and farmland, has had a greater impact on the setting than any other working of magic. Fireball slinging and spells of invisibility may seem more impressive, visually, but they pale in comparison. The Uld Stones affect entire societies at a fundamental level.

You see, the fundamental basis of every civilization lies in food production. Here’s some interesting reading to go along with this post, something I read a while back on the Codex that has stuck with me; try to spot the parts that directly inspired the concept of the Uld Stones.