Universe Building

I would think, once a weapon is forged, it follows its design, but the design can't allow spell-slinging.
Now, if some mystical objects are sentient...then that could be interesting.... where you could bargain with an item... but... it would be of a very different flavor than bargaining with a mystical animal-- that's my first reaction to that.

Take Fume for instance. Perhaps it is sentient. Like the concept of a Zanpakuto from Bleach. Perhaps a death blow struck by the Blade cleanses a soul of Karmic obligation.

Oh, I'll keep that option open.. maybe for now Torc has no idea....

I like the list so far. Here's a couple ideas for additions:

YES to visions of the past/present

NO to clear/vivid visions of the future (oracles/dreams/vague visions of things that can be interpreted in many ways are okay). This doesn't rule out a character thinking that they have clear visions of the future.

NO to travel back in time (time skips/travel to the future is okay, but I won't put that in Yes because I'm not specifically interested in that, I just won't rule it out. If we do skip forward though, no coming back to the original time). This doesn't rule out writing flashbacks, etc, from the players/authors perspective, but the characters can't travel backwards through time or influence the past.

NO parallel universes (they might exist, but we can't interact with them in any way). I'm not ruling out other realms/planes/planets, but they are the same universe, not parallel.

A couple clarifications about magic:
Did we decide if humaniods can use magic? My impression is that they can use the alchemy/forging variety or can use beast magic if they have the favor of that beast. To be clear, what is meant by spell slinging? Does that basically cover attack spells? Where do airships fall into this, forging I guess? Or are they scientific/engineering feats?

I'm okay either way on megafauna. If they exist, perhaps that's why airship travel is so important in the world, to avoid the megafauna in the wild?

I'm a bit confused about sentient objects. To me, you can only assess/observe sentience if it can interact with the world. So would these objects talk or mentally communicate in some way? Can they act physically/magically in some way? In the Fume example that cleanses souls. Does it always do it, or it chooses to cleanse the soul based on circumstance. If it always does this, it seems like a regular non-sentient magic item, if it chooses to depending on the circumstance then it seems sentient to me.

I'm YES for religion, but I'm leaning NO for Gods (although open to discussion) in the sense they don't really exist, but that doesn't rule out people believing that they do. I like the idea that religions form because people are trying to explain the unknown/magic of the world, but they are misinterpreting reality. I.e. God blessed this healing fountain, but in reality the fountain is a forgotten forged-magic. It might also be interesting if some of the religions purposefully or accidentally interact with the favor of mystical beast type magic. If magic can be gained by the favor of mystical beasts, I can imagine religions forming around that.

I think we've agreed humanoids can't use magic, and I took that as spell-slinging, which I understood as classic RPG spell slots and such.

I would think there is some fun creative potential that maybe the sky ships are forged, that is part of what allows them to fly? (couple that with sentient magic items, and the thought of a sentient sky ship has got me really jazzed).
I'm open to either interpretation--or maybe what is Magic, and what is Engineering blurs. Scientific Magic, perhaps?

Sentience to me means it has a will and has some way to impose its will on reality.
Maybe there is a diversity of objects, some just have an impulse... whereas others have full-on personalities.
I'd be curious to discover the answer to some of your questions in play-- we could leave those as open questions?

I could work with this.
What does everyone else think?

Just spitballing, but--- maybe mystical beasts, are, in a weird way-- gods? And people worship them?

Thanks, Charl! I particularly liked your input on Visions and Oracles and time travel. I'm going to make sure I address those aspects in all my games going forward.

The magical beasts being Gods will make this even closer to final fantasy, where magic is learned by making a pact with such entities as, Shiva, Ifrit, Bahamut, Titan, etc.

Which is really fitting with the world state we are building.

https://youtu.be/RDMWp1oLoA0

See the video

Cool! I like how creative convergence finds certain themes and tropes.