@JDługosz not anywhere close to that yet. So far just writing a rendering engine on top of OpenGL. Mostly out of fun and to understand how it all works. Currently I'm not able to render a simple triangle anymore

@dot_Sp0T I think we've discussed that before, yea.

Have you looked at any of my scribblings?

Apparently we're not allowed to ask questions looking for the "best" of something. Too vague. How can a reword my question so it doesn't have multiple possible answers?

No. And I feel worse about it with each day. But I gotta be egoistic, and while it wouldn't take much time to go through some of it I presume I am still too much involved with sinking every free minute into coding..

@Geo define criteria on which you judge answers

I fear your question is unanswerable. You are asking what can cause a weakness to a made up magic system.

There are hundreds of equally good answers.

@Geo In general, I have a meta post on that.

I guess I'm looking for a biological system that can be effected by a real toxin, drug, or injury. So a good answer would include real biological facts about a system and how it is affected by toxins, drugs, and injuries, the practical details of what a wizard would need to avoid in that world.

affected

@dot_Sp0T Yeah, it takes me vast deliberate effort to avoid doing that.

@Geo Maybe you would be best omitting the magical part and just asking about the organ system.

@Geo see worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4623

@Bellerophon How would I do that? What would the question be?

What organ system can I temporarily affect the functionality of without killing the person?

@Geo you're deliberately using the wrong word?

@Bellerophon I see your point! Surely that would have to be an entirely new question, because making that edit would absolutely ruin all the existing answers, but I like the thought.

@Geo It would need to be a new question.

@Bellerophon I wonder if it might even be better asked on the biology stack exchange.

@Geo Possibly. I don't really go over there.

But really the problem is that any question with multiple possible answers is still going to be called vague and broad. It's really hard to search for something when there's more than one thing that would satisfy your needs, ironically.

Even if I remove magic from the question, it's really hard to narrow it down to one exact biological system without already knowing what the system should be.

Well, you can probably rule out the brain and heart,and maybe the lungs as their are too any potentially deadly side effects.

The liver might be a good one to go for.

@Bellerophon The liver? Really? Why?

Because it's robust

It is a recognisable organ. A lot of substances get into it so the toxin shouldn't have to have a weird way of administering. It is good at recovering.

What sort of chemicals/drugs/injuries affect the liver? I've heard that alcohol affects it.

Alcohol is the main one. A knife in the liver would affect it injury wise. Pyrrolizidine alkaloids damage it quite badly if taken over a long period and cause cramps and vomiting if a lot is ingested at once.

What's shakin wubbers?

The North Atlantic Ocean.

did i miss another earthquake?

Another good point for the liver is that a lot of drugs can do damage almost immediately after consumption.

@James Only a 5.8.

@Bellerophon That is a good point! That's very useful for this.

@Bellerophon Ok I was half joking...time to check the news.

You know ther's plenty of quake's that dont make the news, rit?

@Geo You can get the drugs from certain plants. Borage and comfrey seem to be the main ones.

@dot_Sp0T Well yeah but now that I know I want to check it out.

so thanks for that.

Particularly ones that are way out in the Ocean.

search for volcano belt

They never make the news.

Yet they make lots of new ocean floor

Maybe I should ask a question about how to base a magic system around the liver and the various injuries/drugs/toxins that affect the liver. I'm starting to think I don't have the necessarily skills to ask a question here and I'd be better off just reading some biology textbooks.

Biology is fun.

@Bellerophon Certain parts are...

@Geo msdmanuals.com/home/liver-and-gallbladder-disorders/…

Am I crazy, or does the liver just not feel important enough to be the seat of magical power? Reading about toxins that affect the liver is great and interesting, and yes any of these could be the kryptonite for my wizards, but I keep hoping to find something more exciting.

The choice that jumps to mind is the pituitary

What drugs affect the pituitary?

@James The pituitary gland is in the brain. I wonder what might affect it without killing the person.

Some hormones do. Couple of the menstrual cycles ones.

Hormones secreted from the pituitary gland help control: growth, blood pressure, certain functions of the sex organs, thyroid glands and metabolism as well as some aspects of pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, water/salt concentration at the kidneys, temperature regulation and pain relief.

the metabolism bit tied to magic intrigues me

@James The pituitary gland is an important thing for certain, and having it be the vulnerability of a wizard would make a lot of sense, but it's not clear how to exploit that vulnerability. I'll have to look into those hormones.

@Geo Just pick a hormone as the 'magic' hormone and then inject them with the inhibitor hormone.

Any changes would be super dangerous to the caster, the pituitary controls a lot of basic bodily functions

temperature regulation jumping out in particular.

@Bellerophon I see what you're saying. Each hormone has an opposite. I'll have to look at the exact effects of each hormone and figure out which seems more plausibly connected to magic, but it's a good place to start.

"Questions need to be specific and answerable. If a question can have more than one answer, it isn't specific." Is that really true, that questions which might be answered in more than one way are forbidden? If so, how would one get around that problem in the way we ask questions?

@Geo Worldbuilding is a little more lenient on that rule.

Remember to say how you will judge the best answer. That often helps get around the problem.

How should I be judging this answer?

What is the question?

I suppose I'm looking for an answer that specifies real biological facts, a system/process of biology that might be connected to a system of magic, and the real world toxins/drugs/injuries that are relevant to it that a wizard might need to be aware of in my invented world.

@Geo Too many questions. Just ask one at once.

What's the other question?

@Bellerophon I appreciate the principle of asking only one question at a time, but I'm not sure how to apply it here. I'm only aware of one question, so if I ask fewer questions I'll end up with zero questions.

I suppose I'm looking for an answer that specifies real biological facts, a system/process of biology that might be connected to a system of magic. This is 1 question.

@Bellerophon But how could one ask either of those things without the other? Are they really separate questions? I mean, any system or process of biology might be connected to magic. What I need is to understand how that system connects to the outside world so I can work it into my system of magic.

@Geo The first question is opinion based. It can't be answered on the site.

There's no use in just having people say things like: "vascular system", "liver", "lymphatic system" and so on.

You need to choose a system.

Once you have chosen a system you can ask the second question.

But how can I choose a system without understanding all the systems?

Does it matter which system you pick? None of them can control magic so you could just pick any system and then make up a reason.

@Geo The system doesn't matter. For your purposes all systems are equal. That is why the question is a bad fit for this site.

I start off choosing the vascular system and doing research into that, but the more I looked into it, the more it became difficult to use for my purposes. It seemed like I'd just made a poor choice of system, at least from my limited education in biology. It's really not clear that all systems are equal.

But there is no objective way to say which system is best so it can't be asked on Worldbuilding.

@Geo Biologically they are different. As the source of magic in the body one is as good as another.

@Bellerophon The spleen is best.

Sources of magic are not all equal. A magic system has needs. It can't be just random rules. A good story needs to craft its magic system with care, and the choice of biological system affects the rules of the magic system.

@Geo Why does the choice of biological system affect the rules of the magic system?

@Bellerophon Because it determines how the wizards magic can be affected by real world chemicals/injuries/etc.

@Geo So ask a question that completely ignores magic about which organ system would be affected in the way you want.

hey there @Bellerophon

Hey @Shalvenay. How's it going?

But that would still have multiple possible answers.

@Geo A wizard is already affected by real world chemicals/injuries/etc. If they get shot they suffer from lead poisoning. If they get stabbed in the spleen their spleen is not going to work.

alright here, how're things going on your end?

@Geo But it could have a best answer.

@Geo If a wizard gets drunk they are drunk.

@Shalvenay Pretty good.

@Bellerophon I was specifically told that questions asking for the best of something are not allowed.

Only if you phrase it badly.

@Bellerophon What do you mean exactly?

All you need to do is state what kind of technology and chemicals are available, what kind of effects you want (short-term or long term, permanent damage or temporary damage visible side-effects or no visible side effects) and what kind of method you are using to administer the chemical and then ask which organ you should target.

@Bellerophon Interesting. I'll have to give that some thought. In the meantime I guess I should delete my current question, but it warns me that I might get banned from asking questions if I do that.

You could just leave it.

@Bellerophon True. It'll be painful to keep losing rep from it, though.

It occurs to me that if I ask a question that is too specific, it might end up being unanswerable. I mean, if I ask for an biological system that has X, Y, and Z specific features without knowing that such a system actually exists, then isn't there a good chance that there is no such system?

@Geo Just ask for one as close to those characteristics as possible.

Someone will come up with something.

That's very interesting. It's really the opposite approach to what I was doing before. Instead of investigating biology to try to figure out my options, I just take control, make a demand for what I want, and expect biology to provide what I'm looking for. Considering how wide and varied biology can be, it might actually work.

Asking questions here is a bit nerve-racking, though. Supposedly good answers are more important than good questions, but this site is pretty brutal to bad questions. At the same time draining rep from people whose questions get downvoted, and forbidding those questions from being deleted, as a permanent mark of shame for any who dare to ask a bad question.

@Geo Flourine-grenades comes to mind with all of those points.

@JDługosz What is that?

@Geo I was looking… see worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4878/885 and not shown is a backstory concerning a particular novice who won't be around again for a while.

@Geo Asking a bad question isn't a mark of shame. Everyone does it from time to time.

@sphennings It is if we lose rep for it and are forbidden from deleting it. It'll be tied to our names long after we know how to ask better questions.

I just spent a good half hour redoing some maths on water pressure only to realise I did it right the first time. Bed for me, I think.

@Geo you'll be able to delete it in a while, basically

@Shalvenay Really? But it says that doing that would deny people access to the answers to the question.

@Geo If you are active on this site for any length of time you'll stop worrying about it.

@Geo well, if you can clean it up, do so. deleting will deny access to the answers, but if the answer are not much good either, it isn't much of a loss

@Shalvenay It also says I will be banned from asking questions if I do it too many times, and doesn't say how many times is too many. That would be much of a loss.

@Geo having bad questions around is good for the site it provides examples that other people can learn from.

@Geo the ban isn't much of a worry with the passage of time and better questions

One up vote on a question will get you more points than you have lost.

Still I'm going to have to be super careful with my next question. I'm going to be looking for a chemical/injury and I need to know exactly what I want from it to fit the needs of my story.

@Geo If you want feedback about a question before asking it I suggest you use the sandbox.

I want it to affect some sort of regulatory system, some mechanism by which the body controls something. I want it to be effective instantly or nearly instantly, require a small dose, like less than a cup and the smaller the better, be applicable by skin contact, ingestion, or at least through breaks in the skin.

@sphennings Sounds like a good idea!

The sandbox is pretty well hidden! It really ought to be front and center for new users.

Is it good form to ask a question like: "Is there a chemical that satisfies these requirements?" followed by a long list of bullet points describing each requirement? I'm not sure how I would title or summarize such a question.

It feels weird to write a question like this. I'm deliberately making it so specific that any answer could only ever meet my particular needs, but I guess that is what it takes to be not too broad. I'm glad I discovered the sandbox so I don't risk asking this question directly.