Worldbuilding: Consequences of Cultivation

Every so often, when I’m building a new story ‘verse, I try to take a step back and consider consequences. Along the lines of, okay, I’m making it a Thing that X is real in the world of the story. And then what?

This had interesting knock-on effects in Tell No Tales, for one. In that story the ability to consciously do magic and the ability to gather and channel magical power are, in fact, two different genes. They’re close enough together in the genome that they’re usually inherited together – but “usually” is not “always”. Genetic recombination happens. And the results of such rare exceptions led to death, disaster, and later murder.

In Colors of Another Sky, the ability to manipulate the laws of physics – “magic” – is real. In East Asia including the Korean Peninsula, cultivation is one of the most common and organized ways to do it. But not the only one. Shamans, onmyouji, odd Buddhist and Daoist practices – there are a lot of ways to get similar results. And other lands have their own methods. For now I’ll just drop the hints that prayer and meditation are often closely related, Judeo-Christian religions tend to approve of self-defense, and Badass Bookworms appear to be a universal human phenomenon.

So. Cultivation, and cultivators. What are some consequences?

Well, for one, a cultivator may have a certain amount of trouble passing for a normal person. Cultivation improves general health; assuming they start young enough, cultivators will tend to be taller and stronger than the average run of the population. Chae, for example, can and does disguise herself as a man because she’s tall enough to pass as a short-to-average common guy. Lee Cheong, OTOH, has about as much chance of passing himself off as a commoner as a cheetah would impersonating a housecat. Half his family is yangban, the other half has a history of cultivation, and he stands significantly over six feet tall. Blending in is not an option.

(If you’ve seen any of Netflix’s Kingdom, note the Prince standing a head above most other characters. Yeah. Like that.)

So if you’re an average person in a setting like this, and you see someone tall and healthy, you’re going to keep an eye on them. They might be nobles, able to mess you up physically, socially, and legally. Or they might be cultivators, in which case having every bone in your body broken might be just the start of your problems.

Humans being human, anyone who can’t cultivate, or doesn’t want to (think serious athlete/martial artist/scholar level of time investment) is going to be looking for an equalizer. Guns are a good equalizer.

Nobles, therefore, are going to have guns. They are going to train with guns, and other explosive things, even more than they did historically. Swords are good, swords are elegant, swords are expected for formal dueling. But actual “I consider you my enemy, so I shall do unto you before you can do unto me”? Yeah. Guns.

Of course, there are a lot of other factors involved in whether or not said guns are effective. And there will be some cultivators who use guns, too!

Cultivation, of course, will have plenty of other knock-on effects, especially given arrays exist. And some of them don’t need a cultivator to activate them. Going to chew on those for another day!