I'm fine with magic in Battlemaster in general. But it was my understanding when I joined that EC was the low-fantasy island. And I think that players should have at least one continent to choose from that is low-fantasy. I personally don't particularly care whether uniques stay or go, I'm even okay with some limited scrolls, though I think those should be rare at best on a low-fantasy island.
I have, admittedly, not had much experience with portal stones prior to this incident. They've generally occurred far off (except one humorous incident that lead to one of my lords in Perleone declaring his region - Ar Raqqah, I believe? - a nudist colony when the effects of a portal stone caused everyone to get naked and have some fun). However, prior to this incident, I'd never seen them used as anything more than a bit of RP flavor here on EC. Perhaps I simply haven't been paying attention, that is entirely possible. (EDIT: In fact, based on some discussion in the other thread on Magic in Bescanon, it's been brought to my attention that the portal stone that caused those 'humorous' events in my own lands also ended up with Isadril nearly emptied of population, I had forgotten that bit as it didn't particularly affect me)
However, so long as portal stones are capable of affecting game mechanics on EC in such a major way, I think they should be excluded from EC. If EC is intended to be low fantasy as I had always had the impression, portal stones should either be removed, or they should provide very minor buffs or debuffs to a region at best, sort of like some sort of 'divine blessing' or 'divine wrath' that slightly increases population growth or production or slightly decreases morale or something. (And to be clear, I'm not speaking of the CoH Divine, hence why it's not capitalized. Was just a possible explanation for the source of the effect for a low-fantasy continent, I'm sure there are other options)
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