The question of what the curse, which is the only major plot driver we've yet discovered, does is really a very important thing to address. If the curse makes him physically weak, for example, he may well find himself growing despondent merely as a side-effect of the tie between mood and health. Alternatively, I came up with an interesting idea where the curse is sketching a forbidden rune into his flesh which, when complete, will utterly destroy him (beyond the ability to resurrect, which his friends might otherwise be able to do) -- and he has to cast and maintain a time-stop spell on the curse, crippling his personal magic to only a fraction of his previous power.
I really like that, actually. But in the interests of making it harder on the protagonist, we might decide that maintaining a spell for too long leads to casting fatigue. Alternatively, there's the problem that (assuming the time-stop requires constant attention) sleep is out of the question for as long as it takes to find the malicious individual behind his curse. And possibly the searing pain from having a rune burnt into his flesh would similarly impair sleep.
From this, incidentally, we've discovered that death is only an inconvenience -- to the sufficiently powerful, or wealthy, it is impermanent. This would logically have a host of implications. First, culturally -- death and the afterlife would be of less importance. Wizards might well hold religions in contempt, trusting their own power over that of the gods. This seems silly, but it's something that can be pictured without too much work, and assuming that people would do it requires only that they be blinded by pride, which is a very realistic assumption.
But it also means the more powerful people would reproduce less often, probably. Over-population is much less likely to be a problem in a society which has magic, but if there's a feudal system of some kind there will be some level of poverty, and poverty breeds ignorance and suspicion of anything complicated -- magic would almost certainly fall into the list of things peasants don't trust. Any sort of foothold in the hearts and minds of the ignorant masses would appeal to a certain sort of religious leader, so at least one major religion (to get the peasants on its side) would declare magic to be inherently evil. This would mean that magical food is less likely to be a solution than it otherwise could have been -- ignorant suspicion always gets between people and things that would have made their lives better.
Let's say that resurrection is ridiculously expensive to pull off, but possible -- and that there are perma-death methods available, or war would be even more hideous than it already is, with solders resurrected and throwing themselves at one another again and again endlessly. Which would be horrifying.
Of course, we still have to figure out from how great a distance such a curse can be cast. What materials or sacred sites are required for such a ritual. What manner of forbidden knowledge must have been found to make the spell possible -- and what must be done for Graham to discover it, so he can learn to undo it. Whether it can be traced back to its caster (probably not) and if such a trail could be muddied. Are there experts in the anti-curse field? Of course. Where are they, what do they cost, can Graham afford it?
So many questions. Next up, we introduce Darlough, the answer-man.
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