Summary
Every civilization upon
Veltrona must contend with one simple, but important problem: how to stop
veltron or
metal magical arts from destroying their buildings.
For anyone using veltron or metal in construction, everything around them becomes ammunition to any such practitioners,
mages,
cultivators, or otherwise. Fortress walls can be torn open like paper, battlements brought down in landslides, and whole buildings simply collapsed by removing certain support pillars. A city becomes a deathtrap in an instant when veltron magics are employed and such a problem became an immediately terrifying concern to everyone.
Throughout the history of the world, various attempts to combat this issue have arisen and fallen. Some worked at the time and place due to other factors, such as veltron magic being underdeveloped or slow-to-react to new types of structures made. Others tried circumventing the issue by employing alternative materials, such as crystal or wood, but found entirely different problems awaiting. Practically speaking, most civilizations developed two core methodologies as an answer: natural building and integral structuring.
Natural building gave up specialized attempts to resist magic. Such buildings were meant to be utilized by people in places where nature was the greatest concern, rather than people. It is most often taught as part of construction where defenses against natural disasters like
the weather or
the Relentless are needed the most.
Integral structuring would become the composite solution to inhibit or prevent these magics from dismantling buildings of important or strategic value. Its efficacy varied solely upon the complexity to which its designers made, creating a scalable (if increasingly costly) method. These associated costs would often be the reason integral structuring would see more limited deployment compared to natural building.
Incidentally, this methodology can apply to any form of structure that must survive against magic. Veltron and metal magics are simply the most common material families utilized, so most dialogue centers around them. In places of permafreezing,
ice magic can be the main magic of choice for construction and deconstruction efforts. The overall theory remains applicable to any form of structure that could exist.
Integral Structuring
Broadly speaking, the many approaches to integral structuring all boil down to the same set conditions:
Composite mixtures of different materials.
Complexity of construction (e.g, brick and mortar versus abstract cyclopean geometry).
Sophistication of magical enchantments.
Assymmetric defensive versus offensive applicability.
These four concerns have become the endless quagmire to which architects and military engineers have suffered for untold millennia. Very rarely does any one perfect solution arise and rarer still does it outlast the concentrated effort of one's enemies to dismantle it. If for no other reason than even if something perfectly resisted veltron or metal magics, what stops a huge bomb or massive rock being thrown at the building? Stopping one problem merely makes others that much more worthwhile to pursue, and so the suffering continues.
In the words of Abnultim de-Lop, a famous
keshlaen architect from
Lophern circa 2,700 years ago, "Warfare is as much about what is seen as it is not. As soldiers rage on the battlefield and guards fight upon battlements, magics collide underneath and around them. To any nation that wishes to survive, two concerns must be met: the capability of their own mages and the composition of the world being torn apart. Sadly, most only care for the former and little of the latter.".
It is that latter that forms a very meaningful concern. Someone who has learned the veltron ways of sands may struggle to learn the ways of clays, or stones, or fossilized materials, and so on. Magical arts built to specialized purpose often struggle to cross over to matters outside their intended domain, further complicating things.
Architects and engineers consider this truth when creating their composite materials. Intertwining even slightly different choices can create a layer of complexity that create an unfair cost-effort balance for it to be overcome. An iron bar reinforcement that is targeted by metal magic may end up befuddled by compressed stone rods, to which the mage isn't as easily able to interfere with.
Similarly, the intertwining of iron bars and compressed stone rods may create a structural complexity that is not easily undermined. Tearing one out means the other becomes the line of integrity, maintaining the structure and foiling hostile actions in the process. Is the structure weakened? Yes, but did it collapse or ultimately give the enemy what they wanted? If no, then the complexity prevailed.
Enchantments, while a great line of defense against magical arts, are also among the most costly and specialized. Preventing veltron mages from influencing the compressed stone rods may immensely increase material, skill, and craftswomanship requirements depending on how sophisticated the enchantment is. However, some forms of enchantments are made with the goal of the defenders' own magics being used in conjunction.
A good example is a type of reinforcement that amplifies a mage wanting to
keep the structure in shape, enhancing its resistance to change from other magics. Technically, either side could do this, but one side wants to keep the structure, the other wishes to dismantle it. This assymmetric relationship is what can massively bolster defensive efforts against hostile action. If the defender's one veltron mage can counter the efforts of ten, twenty, or more enemy mages, then their fortifications are that much stronger.
Hence, in the ways of war, such considerations are what give shape to the idea of fortifications, defensive emplacements, and the means by which they can prevail in magical combat. The harsh reality may also come down to that even if the constructed structure is ideal at thwarting hostile magic, how much can it withstand a trebuchet hurling boulders at it? An explosive barrel placed underneath a key location? An immense flood whose sheer weight crushes and sweeps away everything?
The luxury of a perfect defense is always fleeting, much to the agony of those who would rely upon it.
Comments