Re: Madrigal OOC Chatter
Oh, interest in the actual world! This is unexpected and thrilling.
Honestly, Madrigal is like... a what-if alternate planet to another world that I created (and wallpaper here really made shine
). So I'll field this one.
Technological development:
This world runs on magic as opposed to high technology. And there's not a lot of it, but what's there can get very complex. Magic literally comes from the dragons and the demons so they're the primary users (though daemons have the ability to suck the magic away and use it themselves, they tend to get beat on if they try it without permission from the creature they're 'borrowing' from); thus these species have a much higher level of 'technology' than, say, humans or magicless hybrids.
The magic itself, taking the place of technology, can do a whole range of things. There's no overall parallel to a particular stage of development in human history that I can draw, but magic can do most things that you can think of. Hence complex textiles, sped-up gestation and maturation, all kinds of things. (The chocolate was, well, I don't really think Madrigal has cocoa plants, but we'll let that one slide. X3 I'm sure they have some delicious equivalent.) They do have things like food preservation, instant communication (even for people without psionics, which is distinct from magic), advanced medical knowledge (albeit from a different 'angle' than scientific medicine)...
Speaking of SCIENCE!, scientific knowledge is shit-ass bad and the pursuit pure science is generally seen as kinda loopy, like New Age stuff is now. No one's bothered with alchemy because magic allows, as said, a different angle of approach in understanding the world around them. Magic has equivalencies, though; that said, understanding of the natural world has reached maybe Renaissance levels and is advancing more quickly among dragons than anyone else.
Scientific
technology, that's easier. Mechanical things are known to the point of sailing ships, horse and carriage, with various magical advances for the more privileged folks (aka limited self-power for ships and such). There are certain steam-powered machines around, but they tend to be heavily supplemented by magic even more so, and so again they depend on wealth to buy magic, or cooperation from magical creatures. Much manufacturing is done with magical systems that are comparable to mid-1900's level factories -- I mean, in a literal sense, nothing like them at all, but with the same basic idea of standardized mass production and the removal of cottage industry from the equation. About a quarter of farming is the magical equivalent of mechanized.
This all said, I'll mention that humans and daemons kind of get the shaft in technological manners. Humans and most daemons don't have access to the basic resource (magic) and thus have not gotten even the chance to advance to the level that dragons and demons have. It's kind of comparable to first-world versus third-world countries. Lower technological advances and lower standard of living. They get what they can; rich humans can buy things to make their lives easier from the magical species, but with the exception of a higher level of sanitation (humans tend to share cities, at least, with demons and dragons), the living conditions of humans are comparable to Renaissance conditions, complete with upper and lower classes. Daemons have less trouble, with their high levels of specialization from generation to generation, they can generally fill all kinds of niches with ease.
I guess the whole thing makes for a hugely disparate world in terms of technologies. Dragons and demons have stuff we don't have yet in current human history, but humans are waaay behind. I think they end up dependent on what trickles down from the magical species, rather than doing a whole lot of trying for themselves. The lucky humans are looked out for in certain societies...
which brings us to political and social sections! this fucking thing is turning into an essay!
As with any planet, there are all kinds of societies around! And things are
messy. Politically.
In the past there were huge, and I mean HUGE wars between dragons and demons drawn on species lines, obviously. Religious hatred goaded on by a (now absent) pair of goddesses meant massacre and endless fighting, everywhere, because the species vied for territory everywhere. This was about 2500 years ago and is a time of myth -- according to all reports, both dragons and demons were even bigger and more magically inclined in those times.... of course things get amplified over time, so could this possibly just be myth? In any case, the fighting stopped for reasons that are still argued today. The main event, though, was that there was a gradual but marked absence of the goddesses. They just stopped showing up to their followers, which, until then, had happened as a matter of course. These divinities were not mythical up until then... if you trust religious history lessons, of course. Plenty don't, now.
In any case, echoes of that come forward. Dragons and demons as a stereotype don't get along, but it's more complex than that. There are movements to unify the two species, movements to re-start the ancient wars, basically a million different viewpoints on the whole thing. Generally the people who believe that the species hatred should be continued are those that still believe in the goddesses and the ancient teachings, and those that abhor hatred on species lines are, well, atheistic or believe in alternate pantheons. (fun fact: some demons are allergic to dragons, and vice versa, just like some people are allergic to cats. Which some believers take as proof of incompatibility, of course!)
Humans, by all accounts, showed up after the wars at some point; some texts say they began to show up as the wars petered off. Goddesses only know.
Daemons were around as long as anyone can remember.
All the species are intermixed all over the world. There are nations that are more friendly to dragons or demons, and even a few small nations that exclude the magic-less species, but for the most part everyone is everywhere. Humans tend to try and settle around or in demon and dragon cities; daemons too, but less restrictively so as some are adapted to live in the wilderness just fine and really, it only takes a generation or two to for daemons to program in the skills to survive outside of civilization.
There are a few nations where the magical species look out for the non-, comparable to places here where there is universal heath care and a general standard of living; humans contribute what they can and get to live in a comparable manner to modern humans here. There are some nations where humans are simply ignored unless they get wealthy enough to buy magical amenities (there IS a universal Madrigal currency, by the by). Most places fall somewhere in between, but honestly, immigration laws to the good places are pretty strict and so the higher human populations are in the less awesome places.
Politics as we know them happen mostly between dragons and demons, as the 'ruling classes'. I would hazard a suggestion that Madrigal is slightly more socialist than Earth, but I know very little about economics so I'll leave that there. The political structure is more socialist, anyways. However, in a number of places monarchies still reign, and in some places a form of feudalism is practiced, though globally everyone plays by the general political rules or they get smacked down by everyone else.
There is some amount of globalization due to the technology afforded by the magical species, but this is almost exclusively a dragon and demon thing. More dragons than demons, too, as dragons tend to be better politicians.
As for geography, fuck it. XD I'll come up with that another night if people are interested!
Bonus section!
Socially, humans are widely seen as inferior. However, expression of this ranges from paternalistic (aww we'd better help them or they'll all die, poor dumb things!) to contemptuous (slaves and slavery) to just letting 'em do their own thing. Generally humans are too worried about staying alive to bother lobbying for equal consideration (which in the vast, vast majority of places they do
not have under the law), though in the nations that are the most human-friendly there are the beginnings of these stirrings, comparable to early suffrage movements.
Generalizations that might come in handy from the human perspective, taken as stereotypes rather than universal truths:
Demons tend to respect the self-made-man kind of outlook, and are less likely to help you out. If you need help, you are obviously too weak or stupid to do it yourself and should just die.
Dragons are easy marks for charity. They are more inclined to be socially active. They are great places to go for help, as long as you don't mind them talking down to you.
Daemons will socialize with anyone but tend to be more into the barter system than anything else.
