we built this city with wand and scroll

A fascinating discussion was instigated over at Compromise & Conceit and continued at Monsters & Manuals and Dreams in The Lich House about using magic to create a post-scarcity fantasy society.  While Lord Faustus has big ideas yet modest aspirations (only 20 in his harem?), his baseline assumptions and ethics would create a dystopia worthy of Orwell or Zamyatin. As a thought exercise, this does go some interesting places.

The baseline uses the resources of a small city (about 10,000 people) and the modern aspirations of a typical developing nation, namely:

• reducing maternal and child mortality.
• improving agricultural output.
• developing infrastructure.
• access to universal healthcare

I'm interested in the idea for the following reasons:

1. GAZ3: The Principalities of Glantri was a brilliant sourcebook and took the idea of a magocracy in fun, playable, directions.  The question of 'why don't we create settings like this?' is perhaps best answered by two observations.
• They already exist but we don't recognise them - examples include: 
• D&D (Glantri, Alphatia, Waterdeep, Halruaa, Eberron)
• Magitech (Amazing Engine)
• Technomancer (GURPS)
• Rifts
• World of Darkness (Mage)
• A baseline is needed to make the unusual stand out.  If everywhere is Faustusville, accessibility is a consideration (one aspect of GMs as information architects) so that players can understand the setting and enjoy playing in it.
2. Seeing how utopias break makes for fun settings, entertaining stories and cautionary tales for aspirational players who try to recreate them.

So, assuming your spell casters work harmoniously to improve your society without internal dissent or corruption, you've persuaded the druids and paladins working together is a good thing, the powers behind the divine magic are OK with your plans and the town has sufficient assorted gems and silver, let's rock.  I'm using d20pfsrd.com and patching any holes with the Dungeon Master's Guide 3.5.  While I could max the possible levels of my NPCs, I'll take the average to keep things smooth between rules.  So no spell casters above 10th-level in our small city of 10,000 souls. 

To quantify the resources available to a small city of 10,000 people we go to the 3.5E DMG and learn that we have access to the following spellcaster types.  As we're a small city we roll twice, hence the split between people at higher levels and the multiplier effect on paladins and rangers.  Also paladins and rangers below 3rd-level don't get spells but have other stuff

Table 1: Spellcasters in the small city
	10th	9th	8th	5th	4th	2nd	1st
Adept	1	1		2	2	8	16
Bard	1	1		2	2	8	16
Cleric	1	1		2	2	8	16
Druid	1	1		2	2	8	16
Paladin			2		4	8	16
Ranger			2		4	8	16
Sorceror		1	1		4	8	16
Wizard		1	1		4	8	16

Maternal and child mortality - The presence of casters with aid, assorted cure wounds, repel vermin and remove disease will improve maternal mortality.  Child mortality might also be reduced.  In any event you'll need plenty of casters.  With modern European population rates about 16 people per 1,000, you get about 200 new people a year in the city.  Using modern European mortality rates of 10 people per 1,000 you get 100 people dying.  Reducing this by 20% for maternity-based mortality simplifies the maths, so you're adding 120 people to the population each year.  Births are likely to be seasonal (pesky fertility rites) and the wealthy get priority one way or another so it will be all hands on deck after the rich have squirreled away the good ones.

Improving agricultural output - Plant growth boosts agricultural output by a third - an advantage depending on what you grow.  Create water yields two gallons per level. Create food and water feeds three people or one horse per caster level.  Goodberry creates healing meals.  Allocation of these to needy, soldiers and wounded makes this less of a cornucopia than originally feared, with a one day duration, create water sustains farms or temple gardens.  Baleful polymorph (cool name for a spell) turns irredeemable criminals into pigs or sheep to be put out to stud.  Druids may summon nature's ally for breeding stock while other spellcasters may offer half-celestial or half-fiendish breeds by using summon monster instead.  For preservation, purify food and drink can't be beat but salting or pickling may be more efficient for the long haul.

Developing infrastructure - Minecraft players will have their own ideas about the fabricate spell.  For construction, wall of stone is self-evident.  Wood shape and stone shape enable simple, rudimentary crafting rather than fine detail and if there's moving parts beware!  Continual flame provides light but best applied to cumbersome objects to limit theft - large civic statuary or water fountains.  Permanency can be applied to objects as well.  The statue of a celebrated paladin may be surrounded by continuous recited prayers by ghost sound and permanency.  With minor creation's limited duration, it's best use is creating high-value consumables (e.g. Greek fire, wine) for immediate or short-term use.

Access to universal healthcare -  When it comes to healing lethal injury speed is of the essence.  Few farm workers have rapid access to spellcasters without help.  Potions and scrolls come into their own here and serve as a powerful incentive to tax temples in this manner.  This is especially true for disease.  In Pathfinder, paladins are immune to disease at 3rd-level and remove disease at 6th.  Even with earlier editions where the lowliest paladin cured the weekly pox, the cured may be re-infected by environment.  Virulence, social stigma and patient ignorance keep disease a viable threat.  There are always more rats than paladins.  An annual 'sheep dip' for 10,000 costs millions regardless of delivery system - though wands are the cheapest option, potions and scrolls give you the fastest treatment of an individual outside a successful Heal skill check, depending on what you're treating.

The upshot of this, that a small fantasy city with civic-minded spellcasters will not spontaneously become a magical utopia but is more likely to draw the attention of the truly powerful by providing opportunities for expansion.  The following features may appear in such places.  For all to appear suggests unusual levels of collusion between disparate factions or the presence of player characters.

• Architecture created by or enhanced with magical effects.
• Expanding agriculture; droughts minimal, famine offset by magically-enhanced crops and stock.
• Festivals where magic is used to benefit the community for short-term (e.g. fountains of wine).
• Growing population with nearly-eliminated infant and maternal mortality.
• Limited stocks of low-level healing magic for emergencies.
• Monuments with permanent ghost sound lit by continual flames.
• Noble & mercantile patronage of spell casters in return for favoured client status.
• Paladins and allies with half-celestial steeds or pets*
  

*or infernal equivalents for blackguards and other evil types where local ordinances permit.