Re: Magical Light on Asteroid Cities

On Mar 12, 2007, at 5:35 AM, SUBSCRIBE REALMS-L tauster wrote:

> I need a reason for why PRIVATE, i.e. not government-approved magical
> light sources might be forbidden on an asteroid city(1). I found it in
> thatotherguys dragon rock writeup:
>
> "The final category of laws are the civil laws.  These laws are ones
> against littering, digging more than two levels deep into Dragon Rock,
> placing continual ligth spells or luminescent substances on your  
> of, and
> similar acts that regulate common order but have little to do with  
> actual
> crime (though it is, of course, a crime to violate these laws). "
>
> I'm not a native english speaker, so I have no idea what "on your of"
> means. Please enlighten me!

That doesn't mean anything - it was obviously a typographical error.   
The writer must have meant some noun where he typed "of".

> Anyway, I like the regulation of banning some "private" light  
> sources. It
> gives the city a unique flair. But I need a reason for the ban,  
> however
> flimsy it might be.

Aside from your mercantile (magical light sources are a profitable  
monopoly) and safety (torches use up air) reasons, there could always  
be a historical reason.  Suppose that spies, in the past, had been  
aboard the asteroid and had used magical lights to signal messages to  
ships entering or leaving port.  To fight espionage the government  
might have banned or restricted the creation and sale of magical  
light sources, and, though the time of spies was long ago, the ban  
had never been lifted.  The real world certainly has many examples of  
laws or bans which were imposed years ago for a specific reason which  
is now obsolete or forgotten.

So the situation could be that magical lights were banned 50 years  
ago to stop spies from communicating, and now the few wizards who are  
licensed to make magical lights make such a profit from their  
monopoly that they lobby the government not to lift the ban.

-- Benjamin Winkler