"Well, good people would do good in general, right? If you think of... you wouldn't know him but like. He's good and he does good? Are those things really different? People should probably not be getting magic for needing goodness in their lives? They should get friends! Money, if needed, or the ability to get to a safer place, or things I'm not thinking of but I don't think that a person that needs help will be best served by having magic? Especially because... in my mind magic is a lever. If you're in a bad place you need a hand, not a lever?"

"What Kami should be... they should be somewhat understandable, but not fully? Like, a kami of a fireplace will want warmth, family, peace, but maybe they're also fond of ashes, and something else we don't know about? I really like the idea of kamis. Wouldn't it be adorable to have... a small kami of river pebbles? They're not powerful, or well known, but they're absolutely enamored with the shiny ones, and will ignite people who will be good to nature, healing and curiosity..."

"Ooooh, what if, what if! Finding your kami should be a Journey! So that people who want magic need to understand what they want to be about and find a place that calls them? So I may find mine... in a library, but probably not my local library but rather... a secret or ancient one?"

Well, now they're straying well away from the whole "nature of Good" question, but she is just a child.

"What kinds of places end up developing a kami? How does one go about finding your particular kami?" he asks, flipping to a fresh page.

"My intuition tells me that both a fireplace and a mountain should have one. So it's not people living there, nor being remote. Hmmm..."

"Stories! Kamis should be born out of places that have a story to tell. So a house can have a story if it's old and has seen generations of the same family, but probably not if it's some apartment for rent that people just live at for a while. Places of worship should have kamis - oh, that's going to be so confusing for believers if it happens. And mountains will also have kamis, older and more powerful than most, but also less... human, less understandable and more slow to action, unlikely to ignite someone."

Hammond dutifully takes this down.

"Alright, let me see ... we've covered how people should receive magic, what exploring and using magic should be like, what magic should be able to do or not do, and some aesthetic opinions ..."

He flips through the rest of his clipboard.

"Are there any other ideas for how magic should work that you want to talk through? Or important questions I seem to have missed?"

"Probably magical energy and power? Oh, and how it interacts with technology!"

"So, because complex magic requires more study and/or complex diagrams I think magic users should be able to - in principle - cast all possible spells, mostly limited by experience and practice. I'm not a fan of the idea of power level being an extrinsic thing like with D&D, so I don't think there should be "spell levels" or such. Spells will be simpler or harder but if you focus your learning on a single spell you should be able to just use it even if casting a different spell of the same complexity on the fly would be impossible to you. Which probably means that most spellcasters would have some very fancy spells that they perfected or modified and then know the most common ones... I like this æsthetic! It still implies more experience means you can glance at a spell diagram and cast it if it's below your 'level' - but it doesn't limit what you can do, it's just a trade off, specialized versus generalist!"

"Sorry. I got sidetracked. The thing I wanted to mention is how many magic systems have a form of 'mana' or 'magic reserves' and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Probably yes? But then I'm not sure how I'd answer questions like 'how many spells per day?', 'does it grow with age or experience?', 'is the maximum size personal or universal?'. I think I dislike the idea of people being born with more or less mana. It feels... racist? Like, not racist but. All men are created equal and such. But yeah, I think there should be some form of mana. Would also explain why some spells can only be cast by more people. It would also mean that like... a big, country-scale ritual probably requires a lot of people, which I like as an idea."

"And I think you should be able to store mana? Maybe? Oooooh, should we have something equivalent to D&D scrolls or wands? Maybe! Decisions, decisions..."

"So no intrinsic concept of a 'level', but some spells are more complicated than others. Spells need mana as fuel, but everyone should have the same potential for generating and storing mana. Some spells need more than any one person has," Hammond summarizes.

"When you say 'store mana', do you mean in a person, or in an artifact of some kind?"

"Oh. Oh no. Sorry, not your fault but. Just thought of something. I don't want death-fueled magic. Kamis would be unlikely to ignite someone who'd do that but I really, really don't want that to be a temptation ever. Nope."

"I think mana stored in a person would just be... normal energy? Like, casting a spell or doing pushups should use the same kind of energy?"

"Oh, but then you'd give an advantage to men because of hormones and stuff and people would do excessive budybuilding. No. Bad idea. Mana energy should be separated from normal calories."

"I don't think you should be able to store mana in a person? I don't see how it would work, but maybe I'm not being creative enough. It should be possible to store mana in artifacts, yes. Gems, probably? But I don't want it to be diamonds, getting mana batteries shouldn't be a thing reserved to rich people. I think quartz is common enough? But then you'd risk big companies hoarding it... Maybe it should be possible to create mana crystals, just directly out of mana? And then you could power spells by tapping into them... and they should be stable, I don't want 'mana crystal bomb' to be a thing the world needs to worry about to be honest."

"Okay! No death magic, mana can be stored in mana crystals, but those can't explode. Do mana crystals come in different types, or are they all one thing?"

"Probably different types? I think some tradeoff between density and rate of extraction could be interesting? You would have -  say - a tiny deep purple crystal that could power a whole three people ritual by itself but using it means it takes one hour for the full cast. Or you get a balloon sized almost transparent one, really unwieldy but it can discharge its power in a fraction of a second, which could be crucial if you want the effect to be quick. Like metaphorically quenching swords, for some processes you need that speed, but on the other hand you could power a magelight for months with a single fingernail-sized mustard seed."

"You're picturing both the wavelength of the color of the crystal and the saturation of the color varying continuously with charge, yes?" he clarifies.

"No, I think I'd like the wavelength to depend on density and the saturation on charge?"

"Oh, I see!"

He crosses a line out and writes this in.

"You mentioned wanting to talk about the interaction between magic and technology. What were you imagining there, and how do mana crystals play into it?"

"I'm not sure? Much like with mana versus calories and regular energy... I feel keeping them separate leads to less centralization? Cause unfortunately I can picture mana crystal sweatshops and I don't know if they would be more or less likely if you could convert mana into energy?"

"Wait, you can totally convert mana into electricity. If you can make fire you should be able to - at the very least - power a steam engine. So that's one direction. Now the question is whether you can convert electricity or some other form of energy into mana."

She pauses a paces a bit.

"I think... maybe? I'm still not sure. But you definitely need a living being to actually cast the spell, of that I'm pretty convinced."

"If you can convert other forms of energy into mana, does that lead to more concerns about fairness of access to mana?" he gently leads. "Earlier you were worried about men having a caloric advantage, but access to cheap energy is also not evenly distributed."

"Probably, yeah..."

Oh.

She's... she's going to lean on the wall next to the door.

"Magic should be able to create food. And water. And cure diseases and heal people in general. And protect from weapons."

And maaaaybe slide down until she's sitting on the floor.

"And in general make it possible to snatch peace from the jaws of war."

She's crying now.

"What do you know about Africa?"

Oh dear.

He can't exactly kneel to comfort her, since he's been tragically deprived in the knee department and they're more or less the same height already.

"Very little, other than I can guess from your reaction," he answers, speaking gently. "Being from another world and all. So I can't tell you that there's no need to cry — but I can say that maybe there won't be, soon. Magic can make things better."

"Yes. Please."

"It should also do contraception, and... honestly I'm not even sure it should do fireballs at this point. But it should definitely do personal protection and..."

"People are starving, and I was worrying about the impact of magitech on the economy."

"Fuck the economy."

She takes a moment to compose herself.

"I think that it would be nice for this to be one of the other forms of magic. Not the diagrams, not the programming, but a magic of healing, of growth. I'm picturing potions, mundane or magic ingredients mixed with love and intent to make a whole bigger than the parts. Instead of a potion of healing, why not a soup of healing. It can cure your wounds, but it can also fill your stomach. I still love the idea of the more... thinky kind of magic. It's nice to have technology and superpowers and big complex spells. But the world is crying and I also want a magic of soothing, of tending."

"Druids. Their magic to purify wells poisoned by mines. To clean the rivers foaming with chemicals. To free the birds from oil spills, and protect the sea from industrial fishing destroying the seabed."

"And are these magics also granted by the Kami? Or is there a different mechanism?"

"The kamis would still work as a mechanism but... maybe for healing magic we don't need as much filtering? Evil people deserve healing and health and food as much as anyone else. I think I'd like druidic magic to come from the Earth?"

"I have a cute idea which should also give us a lot of this kind of magic on day one: to be a druid you need to have planted a tree and tended to it for at least one year and one day."

"Ah, and your idea is that this would be retroactive to people who have planted trees in the past?" he clarifies. "Do you picture druidic magic as also being something that one can explore and develop over time, or would you want its capabilities to be available to qualifying druids from the start?"

"Exactly! Whereas the arcane one would require ignition by a kami, and I expect those to slowly appear into the world, from small ones to big ones. I think druidic magic should also improve over time, yes, but it should have a stronger starting point? I want to end famine as soon as possible. Reforestation and cleaning our human mess can take a bit more time, and it's fine if reversing climate change requires a decade or so. It would still be better than the default timeline we're on."

"Greta Thunberg should be a druid. Which means that 'has planted and grown a tree' should be a sufficient condition but not a necessary one maybe?"

"I just realize, the amount of gardeners which will get magic out of curating incredibly posh lawns of rich people. I don't think that's bad. Kinda funny, but not bad to have more food and more healing. Maybe the tree idea is more romantic than logical. Maybe the criterion should be... to care for communities? That would definitely include Greta and a lot of people. And probably many doctors. I like that."

"I still think the tree idea is neat tho."

"I have no idea whether Greta Thunberg has ever planted a tree, but I can definitely put it down as one of several sufficient conditions," Hammond agrees. "You've listed some things that druidic magic should definitely be able to help with; I can guess the things that it shouldn't be able to do, but just for clarity would you enumerate any limits on what druids should be capable of that you had in mind?"