First of all, big thanks to Dark Syaoran for giving the seal of approval for this thread.

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Modular World Building - Part 1

These are little bits of world building ideas that do not have to rely on plot and therefore can be safely added to almost any story. These can be used separately or together, your choice.

Think of them as mods for a video game. Except in this case the video game is your Fic and the mods are these little pieces of world building.

This time I'll show two of them, just to start things. Expect to see more in the future.

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Mod #1 - Magic Mirrors!

While many wizards, especially traditional purebloods, don't like muggle ideas and the way they are influencing wizarding culture a good way to get around this is to have wizards come up with them first.

But what are Magic Mirrors? Well, let's look at the history of their development to find out.

In 1847, one French wizard took several mirrors and started experimenting with them, eventually developing Two Way Mirrors, which allowed for instant communication with anyone in the world. The idea catches on, the wizard patents his invention and Two Way Mirrors become very popular and widespread in the magical world. Much more popular in canon, actually. Owls are still used, but less than originally and seem to start losing their significance.

Initially, Two Way Mirrors were limited in that you had a pair of linked mirrors and you had to send one to someone by owl post. This changed when in 1856 a German witch managed to develop a way to link more than twenty mirrors at once, assigning a name or a number to each of them. To prevent intrusive viewing, she created a block which would have to be temporarily removed by the receiver. That meant that if you wanted to contact someone using a Two Way Mirror, he would have to answer and allow the viewing instead of you simply spying on him without his knowledge. This made the Mirrors even more popular and widespread, owls once again became less popular.

With wizards having a working method of communication which not only allowed talking but actually seeing the other person in real-time, news traveled faster than originally. It also traveled far. Suddenly, the British Minister for Magic could speak with his Japanese counterpart without having to wait until the next several days for answer via owl post. With Apparation not working over such large distances, Mirrors were becoming more and more convenient.

In 1864, a British wizard took development of Mirrors in a different direction. He used a variation of the Protean Charm to link one mirror with several others, but in a way that made only one mirror transmit, while the others were simply receivers. As the mirrors were big enough, they could be used as entertaining portraits. One mirror (protected with the Imperturbable Charm) was put on a wall in Diagon Alley, while the others people could have at home. This allowed your typical witch or wizard to simply tap their Mirror at home with a wand to see what was going on in Diagon. As sort of live viewing without leaving your home.

In 1865, only a year later, the idea was improved and now the Seeing Mirrors were put in major magical areas (and sometimes non-magical) in the world. While the Showing Mirrors were given an option to shift between the location they would show. This was made in the form of a glowing rune which would be touched with a wand to shift between visions. A wizard in Hogsmeade could, through his mirror, see London, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, Warsaw, New York and many other locations.

However, these were only locations, which wasn't that interesting. The next step was for business-minded wizards and witches to find a way to make a profit of this in a more significant way. Through the following months and years, Seeing Mirrors were put in theaters, magical zoos, operas, teaching classes (with scheduled hours for lessons view-able through mirrors), book reading clubs, Quidditch stadiums, wizarding chess competitions, the list grew and grew.

Eventually, in 1873, one witch from Greece thought to herself "What if there was a Mirror that not only displayed things, but could also be interacted with?". It took her several weeks, but she modified her Showing Mirror to have another option in addition to displaying various Visions. When this option was accessed with a wand, it showed a black background with three floating words. Pictures, Sounds and Motion. The Pictures option allowed for paintings and photos to be absorbed into the mirror to be viewed later (like an interactive photo album, except the paintings talked). Sounds of course did the same for sounds, allowing for speeches and music to be stored in the mirror for later listening. Finally, the Motion option combined the two in a new way, as it allowed to record Visions shown in the regular part of the Mirror to be stored for later viewings. You could save a theater play or a school lesson on your Mirror and view it as many times as you wanted. Eventually, options like the ones in omniculars would be added, with rewinding, slow motion and speeding up.

More options would be added later, as the Interactive Mirror gained popularity. In addition to original Picture/Sound/Motion options, Text, Memories, Dreams and other original functions were added. New Mirrors were given a form of enchanted sentience to them, offering fashion/hygiene advice, solving quick math problems, reciting entire books or latest news and doing a hundred more things.

With easy linking of all mirrors, a kind of a new community/network was starting to get established. Wizards could suddenly not only speak with each other, but share pictures, texts, sounds, visions, dreams and memories with people on the other side of the planet.

In 1881, Albus Dumbledore is born to a world in which wizards have had the magical equivalent to videophones, television, computers and the internet long, long before muggles would.

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Mod #2 - Card Battles!

Chocolate Frogs are a very popular form of food among children, teenagers and even adults. While they are no doubt very tasty, the main reason for their popularity are the cards that come with them. With each chocolate frog comes one from a wide variety of cards. These cards show famous wizards, witches, goblins, centaurs, vampires and many other beings and creatures.

While some people only collect them as a hobby, most folks use them in a game called simply Card Battles.

This is made possible thanks to a special wooden plate which is bought separately. The plate can be used by up to four players, as it has four sides. Each side has five 'slots' for cards. Players insert cards into these slots and the plate immediately creates small illusions of the characters from the cards in the middle of the plate which is a 'battlefield'. From that moment the battle begins. The game is played similarly to Wizard Chess, as the 'fighters' obey the commands of each player (though they can also fight without commands).

Players can form teams, or can play a free-for-all battle in which the last player standing is the winner. The game has no time limit, however the most common rule is that if a character from a card has been defeated, then this card can no longer be used in that game. This allows for players to end the game when they run out of available cards. Another rule is that players are only allowed to use a deck of 20 pre-selected cards per game.

Card Battles are popular among Hogwarts students and there is even an official Card Battles Club (they meet on Saturdays) and small tournaments with various rewards. There are also actual, official tournaments (both national and international) with bigger rewards and prestige.

An upgraded version of the game, which would allow up to ten players, each using twenty characters at once is currently in development and is expected to hit the market on Christmas 1992.

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Mod #3 - More Magic Food!

Let's be honest, eating is a pretty awesome activity. It not only provides much-needed nutrients (therefore preventing starvation and death) but it also, if prepared properly, can taste heavenly.

Naturally, if magic comes into the picture, then as one might imagine, meals are upgraded to a whole another level.

While Every Flavor Beans and Chocolate Frogs are no doubt impressive in their own ways, they are just sweets, which not always are the first choice when one is thinking of breakfast or dinner.

But how about a glowing bread? That's right, using water which glows in the dark, wizards have created a bread which glows as well. However, this isn't just a fancy effect, it also has practical uses. For one, the Glowing Bread remains always fresh and warm as if it was just taken from the oven a minute ago. Additionally, the person who ate such a bread will also glow (albeit faintly) for the next several hours. This comes very useful at night when someone wants to read a book but doesn't feel like casting Lumos.

Self-peeling fruits or vegetables are a thing. Imagine grabbing an orange and only taking the good part, while the skin is left behind as an empty shell.

How about a self-roasting chicken? You take a chicken wing, put it on your plate and it immediately becomes roasted according to your liking! The same goes for chicken eggs, you crack an egg to your plate and it comes out already fried and salted.

Magic Milk which detects how warm you like it adjusts its temperature accordingly, perfect for cereal!

How about a tomato soup which makes you hear your favorite tune in the background while you eat it?

Then there is the Wizard's Fast Food. Fat-free and which actually lowers your cholesterol when you eat it.

And hey, any society which has anti-gravity moon cheese which makes you lighter than air after eating it, is pretty awesome in my book.

 

I really like the idea of Chocolate Frog cards being a competitive TCG.

 

I bet Voldemort would be an OP card, but no way would the blood traitors and mudbloods let him get a card of his own.

 

A game like that would have to have a hell of a resource system to balance things...

 

Mod #4 - More Dragons!

Let's talk dragons.

Any fairly educated wizard will tell you how many types of dragons there are: four.

Flame Dragons which are your standard fire-breathing, red lizards, Ice Dragons which are white and covered in blue crystals and which breathe a thick mist which freezes anything it encounters, Storm Dragons which are black as the night, fastest of them all and can summon thunderbolts and finally we have the Sea Dragons which are green, amphibious creatures and can summon and control water by will.

Dragons can be fed a special potion which prevents them from growing in size, making them always small (they still age obviously). Some other potions can be fed to dragons as well, like the one which decreases their hostility, another one which makes them more obedient. This has helped wizards have these dwarf dragons as household pets.

However, some people have found other uses for dragons. For example, playing Qudditch on Dragon Mounts became so popular that it eventually evolved into a separate game called Dangerball (the name being chosen for obvious reasons).

Dragon racing is also highly popular and has spawned several gambling enterprises.

The overabundance of dragons has also led to an overabundance of dragon-related resources, like dragon heart strings, dragon skin, blood, bones and other body parts. Having your entire clothing made from dragon skin is nothing outstanding.

 

You reminded me of some story that I read really long time ago. In that story, there were very rare mirrors, presumably created by some alchemist ages ago, that could answer truthfully any question, but only once. After that, they would become useless. It was mentioned in that story that Regulus Black found Voldemort's horcrux-locket by using one of these mirrors. I think that Harry found one of them to find out some information that led to Voldemort's defeat, but I am not sure. It was very, very long ago since I read it.