Say that on a fantasy world the light from the sun disappeared, either blocked out by a powerful spell or the sun just died out (or something else) and covered the world in darkness. A large group of powerful mages cast a spell to bring light (and hope) back to the planet (though the sacrified themselves in the prossess) and this spell became their light source, feeding of the excess mana of the world. If this was told in a fantasy story, would you be willing to believe it? This is just a random idea that came to mind when I was thinking about the map for my world. The other day, a thought of an equator line came to mind, just got me thinking, do I need to worry about it with a fantasy world - the answers I got here brought about this idea, but I'm not to sure if readers would be willing to believe it. I haven't worked anythng out about it just, but this is just the basic idea! Your thoughts would be really welcome! Thanks in advance!
an eclipse brought on by a spell could be believable, but that would darken only part of the planet... the sun just 'dying out' wouldn't be, since that would be the end of their entire world... most life can't exist very long without sunlight... those species that can [deep ocean and cave-living life forms] might take over, if the world was sunless for long enough, which could be an intriguing plot element!... or, humans and other sun-needed species might mutate/adapt... do the research... you may come up with a fascinating plot premise...
An idea is good but a well written story is better. I can suspend my judgment about most things if the writer can convince me to.....
The above posts by Cogito and Jowettc are correct: that's the fundamental thing here, whether you can convince the reader that the story is 'real' and not the story itself. That said, fantasy rules have to obey a logical set of rules or else they will become completely nonsensical and the reader will put the book down. One good set of rules you should always follow unless you are a very talented author are the basic rules of life: namely, that life needs food, water, and light. The first two come from the latter, so a world without light of any sort would be inconceivable.
Hi Pink-Angel, I think Gallowglass has it right on the dot. Fantasy is meant to be fantastic, but that doesn't mean it can be completely illogical. There has to be balance, or the reader won't like it. After that, it's all up to how well you work with such an idea. Remember that the sun provides more than just light to a world. It provides heat, other types of radiation, and a gravitational field for a planet to rotate around. If the sun were to just die out, the planet your inhabitants lived on would lack ALL these things, and one source of light created by mages wouldn't cut it. However, if the world was darkened by a spell of some sort, the light created by the mages might just work. Good luck!
When I originally thought of the idea, I thought the second spell to be cast a day or two after the world was thrown into darkness. However, thinking now that would probably depend on their level or technology and/or knowlegde. I want to create a world where advanced technology (something like which we already have) and magic are mixed together. I know I'd need to do planning for this and most likely research too if I decided to go a head with the idea, plus I'd need to write it so that it is believeable. I have other ideas to, so maybe I'll just have to see where the planning takes me...
