Scrying and Player created Magical Nexus points.

[drakedude]

Edit: this would have to work in conjunction with either having a player or NPC who has consented or been created to let you see through their eyes (the harder of the two), with the nexus points increasing the ease with which you can do it, or utilizing magical artifacts which have been placed in an area and through which you can only see the direct area they look upon. If you looked hard enough, they would also be noticeable as magical even by unmagical persons, and thus you'd have to hide them for any effectiveness.

Scrying has the potential to be an intriguing mechanic, as it a. to a minor extent of course lessens the use of external chat systems, and secondly has the potential to be eavesdropped, though this is working on a basis that players are able to judge what they should say within a game and what they should keep outside of it. It also gives a whole new way of scouting; the problem is, it also gives a whole new way of scouting. Now, I've heard it mentioned in other threads, and indeed rituals seem to work on this basis, of certain places in the world where magic is stronger then it usually is, and of course will be much coveted, as well as feared and avoided, as a result. What i would like to see with scrying is being able to create your own, albeit with less power (unless your insane and unbelievably powerful) but more plentiful (if you're also insane). Effectively, as well as acting as minor magical conduits, they also act as relays for magic, with the right manipulation of the threads bouncing on your spells to the next, and so on, and being required if you wish to scry, or indeed cast any spell over long distances.

The downside to this is that firstly, the greater the distance and the more encompassing the scry, the more a of a target is painted on your head, and more importantly, if you make errors with your weave, you can potentially bounce your less then pleasant spell over entire regions, drawing vast amounts of unwanted attention as you do so, and secondly, as magical beacons, they'll draw some degree of this attention regardless, including the possibility of certain beings using hem for a plethora of ends, and unless you potentially want your entire network compromised, and likely the cursory destruction of your entire land, each one will have to be guarded and maintained.

Where it is impossible to take it for their own, or out of hatred of magic, some may seek to destroy them; and that's where things become even more dangerous. No one, and i mean no one, can know exactly what happens when such carefully threaded works of magical artifice are torn asunder, often with much violence.- only that it is almost always not worth the risk, under most any circumstances. Even the smallest of nexus points could have potentially catastrophic effects, and only the most learned and powerful of magi could have any idea of what form the resultant magics would take, and then only very loosely and with a high margin of error. As i said, such undertakings would only be done by the mad, the uncaring and the desperate, and woe betide the one who dares and fails in such an art.

[tbiggy]

Interesting, I think this is more difficult to engineer than you suggest as a mechanic. But, being magic is a catastrophic event in the first place, this sounds plausible in the interest of gain vs consequence.

[drakedude]

Edit: this would have to work in conjunction with either having a player or NPC who has consented or been created to let you see through their eyes (the harder of the two), with the nexus points increasing the ease with which you can do it, or utilizing magical artifacts which have been placed in an area and through which you can only see the direct area they look upon. If you looked hard enough, they would also be noticeable as magical even by unmagical persons, and thus you'd have to hide them for any effectiveness.