Building your own Fantasy Utopia

[Jürgen Hubert]

Here's a small intellectual exercise. Let's assume the following:

Your party of adventurers have reached high levels and have become very, very rich indeed. Then they become rulers of a small kingdom or city-state, and decide to use their wealth to make their realm into utopia. A place where everyone can be happy, and not worry about starvation or violence.

Describe how you would use your wealth for this. Explain what kind of magic you would use to transform society. Figure out what the structure of this "ideal society" will be.

And then other posters can figure out how these described transformations can lead to social tensions and troubles. After all, just because you are in charge it doesn't have to mean your worries are over, right?


The point of this exercise is to figure out how magic and powerful people can change a "normal", pseudo-medieval society and transform it into something completely new - while still keeping in mind that people remain people, and problems likely will show up.

 

[Sir Elton]

I'd rally for a national boycott of all things clothist!! In other words, I'd use an Epic Spell to make everyone's clothes dissolve. Utterly! The magic will be so perfect that any cloth used for making clothes would decay instantly!

Come to think of it, that would be an Epic Spell worthy of an Evil Mastermind.

 

[Thad Enouf]

I suppose seeking a magical means for refrigeration would help with the food problem.

As for violence, it would seem that high level adventurers would be the last folks to try to take steps to eradicate violence, as they have spent any successful career splattered in others' blood. Does the end justify the means?

At any rate, I guess one way to end violence would be to ostracize (in an ancient Greek manner) those who partake in it.

 

[Edgewood]

I suppose I would start with making ressurection widely acceptable so that death is never a worry for the people. Second I would invest heavily in a justice system that would have to be swift and heavy handed on criminals as society needs to have consequnces for those who behave in a way that is counter to what a utopian society is. Third, I would use magic as a tool to provide food, to animate objects into something for mass transit and to perform all of the manual labour. This would allow the populace to freely explore to better themselves in literature, art, philosophy, music, etc until their heart's content. Anyway, that's just myy two cents.

 

[Aramax]

I'd rally for a national boycott of all things clothist!! In other words, I'd use an Epic Spell to make everyone's clothes dissolve. Utterly! The magic will be so perfect that any cloth used for making clothes would decay instantly!

Come to think of it, that would be an Epic Spell worthy of an Evil Mastermind.

Theres a very bad movie w/this plot
It was an update of Get Smart!.
it was called
The Nude Bomb.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I suppose I would start with making ressurection widely acceptable so that death is never a worry for the people.

What would you do about old age, which is something people can and will die permanently from?

 

[Edgewood]

What would you do about old age, which is something people can and will die permanently from?

I wouldn't do anything about it. Dying of old age is something that all mortals must go through. I suppose I should have qualified the statement by saying that I would make ressurection and other restorative magic available so that people could live without fear of premature death or disease. I don't think that immortality would make a utopian society.

 

[Sir Elton]

Theres a very bad movie w/this plot
It was an update of Get Smart!.
it was called
The Nude Bomb.

Maybe it worked differently. Chopstick maillots are showing up on the beaches of Japan (so small the women would look better without them).

 

[sckeener]

First let me say that I do not believe in utopias....

however if I was some evil Do Gooder, then the basics would be covered...

• Free basic food
• free basic housing (maybe something magical...auto cleaning, tap water, ovens, climate control)
• free basic clothes
• free basic medical (free cure disease, cure light wounds, restoration, resurrection, reincarnation, etc)
• free public education
• free library
• some public works stuff ...parks, free museums, free events- plays, dances, music, etc.
• free birth control
• free public transportation

Basically I'd create a base line or safety net for everyone. That way if people want to loaf they can, but for those that want more can work to achieve it.

So lets see what magic we can do to achieve those evil Good ends.

Free basic food....Heroes' Feast every hour on the hour in public feast halls. That will take care of the cure disease bit too.

free basic clothes....free Mending would be good for all
free birth control...check out the Valar Project's Book of E Fantasy
free public transportation....teleport or shadow walk or something
free public works....move earth, plant control, control weather, etc for the parks. For the plays (or music or dance) I'd have illusions of the best plays ever done on the stage playing when the stages were not in use.
The library would be like the one in Angle where you could call up copies of every book stored in the library.

etc....

 

[sckeener]

What would you do about old age, which is something people can and will die permanently from?

You can always reincarnate them...