Do note that sharing elements with other works of fiction is near impossible to avoid, magic has been used in so many stories so the chances of whichever power you think of not being used already are very slim and those which haven't been used might not even be worth using in the first place. Trying to do anything that involves pushing against or even breaking natural law will require aid from outside forces. Nonhumans might think in ways that make little sense to humans. I also specifically mentioned that I was not including conservation of energy in my system, but you assumed it in your comment. Those who do contain their power are called Gluttons, based off of glutton for punishment (could someone help me with the names, im horrible at naming things). This suggests that telepathy and telekinesis (at least if I go with something like your suggestion) imply some form of teleportation. You neednt appropriate any that have extant adherents, of course, but looking at what people believe can be a touchstone for how an invented system of magic could work. Accio and depulso, for example, are taught one-after-another: pretty straightforward. If they need to gather energy beforehand, they cant just build a wall of ice without any preparation (which limits their powers). If thats the case, youll want to make animal spirits more common and less powerful like plant spirits, and air spirits rarer and more powerful like water spirits. I will admit my system does need more development to round it out some. Although, I have made some changes. 7 Considerations for Writing Fantasy Magic and Magic Systems. Ask yourself what kind of problems magic will cause your protagonists, and whether your antagonist will use magic to achieve their goals. 2. In most, if not all movies, there clearly arent rules for magic, or if there are, there arent many. Another possibility is that some kind of complex structure is involved that can navigate to a desired destination. Then it may not feel weird that there isnt a god specifically of dirt, because the earth goddess hasnt had children yet. Cant help but feel its lacking in creativity and complexity, but thats for another day. While I have thought of several different magic systems, Ill present the one I conceived of first. Sandersons Third Law. Of course, its possible. Of course, I wholeheartedly believe that considering each element of your story is the surest way to craft an engaging novel. However, it had similar things to our universe, stars and planets and lifeforms that could look somewhat like ours, so it needed to follow most of them, at least, the ones that allowed for these things. ^_^. Technically, the limitation is actually the minds belief that lifting huge objects is difficult. In addition, exposure to sea water improves magical ability for humans slightly, especially childhood exposure, so the strongest spellcasters are all in coastal areas. A combination of both is also perfectly possible and used a lot. I think Tolkiens magic also confuses people because, as you say, its not until you read in the unpublished material and the material that WAS unpublished at the time of Tolkiens death but has since been released as the Silmarillion, etc. There are roughly two types of fantasy. There are a few online articles about this: the ones I remember off the top of my head are Universal Fire and Universal Law, found on LessWrong. I just thought of something related to teleportation, however. He learned that as long as a person eventually restored the balance towards which nature is always striving, he or she could be enabled to have control over the elements. Obviously you can also combine both ideas, just because you can combine spells doesn't mean you have to. The mystery is in the water that the Living Mother leaves behind on the plants when the sunlight returns again. Your story may also include a chosen one thats extra special. The main question becomes who set this up, and why? On the other hand, there could be a group of people allergic to the plant. But because of Saurons _spiritual_ and _moral_ corruption, ADDED to the fact that dis werent no ordinary Elfk, Luthien was able not only to win handily but to pretty seriously humiliate Sauron before his boss (no other than Morgoth, the Satan figure in Tolkiens universe, Old Scratch himself) by the pathetic ease by which she shelled him? Magic certain individuals acquire the ability to issue new instructions to existing nanites, whether in the environment or within others bodies. Mandrake, which is featured in the second book, has historically been associated with witchcraft. Chris Winkle mentioned Avatar as an example of a rational magic system, because its elements (fire, water, air, and earth) are natural classifications. Finally, there are magic uses who seem to draw magic from the earth itself. You make good points about the gap between different kinds of magic. What do you think? All of Creation is born from a single point in time, that exists both Space, Time, Existence, or Consciousness, what we call The Sephirot, or The Spark, or the Egg of Creation, it goes by many names. Can they absorb a gust the then use that to start a fire, or can they only use it to create a stronger gust? That guy was supposed to be a REAL nasty bugger in terms of, you know, nobody whos ever gone to hunt this creature has ever come back alive, and all that jazz? Thats a larger imbalance. powerful mages who control transportation but do not rule (again, difficult). Have holy magic as something humans can gain through service to the gods, but have the gods as some random element that cannot be influenced at all. Fantasy worldbuilding Magic systems Scifi worldbuilding Make Full-Time Passive Income From Book Sales FREE Creative Writer Class: How to Write & Publish a Fiction Book Taught by a Bestselling Author with YEARS of experience doing JUST THIS! Both are checked on periodically by officials after. The way it goes is that the universe of our perception is just a projection, an illusion if you will, of the real World, the Sea of Energy. The primary purpose of a soft magic system is to contribute to the atmosphere of your story. Whether your source is limited or not is another important aspect you have to think about. If you are not creating a game, where you want a firemage be as powerful as a dark wizard for balancing sake, your magic doesnt need to be symmetrical. A very interesting and well laid out post, though I dont quote agree with all the recommended reading. When youre brainstorming magical costs, try to be creative. The only other limiting factor to the magic is that in order to produce the energy in the first place, is that you need Inspiration to help channel your thoughts & familiarity. The issues with this idea are a) adding more complexity to my magic system and b) giving more power to the side of the war that directly contracts spirits. Source Materials Who and what wields it How to wield it What are the powers? Telekinesis was also handy (pun intended) for explaining nonhumanoid creatures without hands or similar developing and using technology, because I am interested in the possibility of aliens very different from humans. This article will help you write a magic system for your fictional world that readers will remember long after theyve turned the last page. I want the magic of the world to feel whimsical (or horrifying) and ever present, but not the cure all to every problem. Strength no longer depends on physical brute force but many new factors make it so much more complex. If you dont have enough power to spare, the spell fizzles. Let the dragon ride again on the winds of time. Anyway, before I get onto the reply for this comment, Ill briefly reply to your other comment (the one which mentioned an alternate magic system for Harry Potter at the end, which I couldnt reply to in that comment thread). to be a Mind, whose role is to Think; and the Magic comes when it is possible to use that Thinking to affect what Is and what is possible to Be. I do hope that this comment will help you understand the angle Im coming from. One might be cost, but only if your magic source is limited. Its been a tremendous influence on pop culture, especially conceptions of ghosts. Vampires are electromagnetic, which is why they are hurt by sunlight (photoelectric effects), are solid but turn to dust when killed (they actually are dust, and their solid form is a magnetic shell), have superstrength (they can easily lift metal objects, and can use opposing magnetic forces to move their own body quite forcefully). In the series Rowling shows that wands and spells channel the magic within an individual so witches and wizards are not without magic if they dont have a wand. Ways to obtain magic: Another rare one is magic transference, my idea of that one is gaining an ability that an extinct race once used, examp. If you think of the Sea of Energy as like the actual ocean, than the Planes of Existence can be compared to the different depths, and the deeper you go, the more pressure that exists. Summoning rituals or teleportation spells for example, they too could change. I think that should cover it, and I hope to get more advice to help me become a better creator. Characters could control those energies by some kind of telekinesis (Thoughts & will) plus Mana energy. Magicians are taught to learn about the natural forces within magic if they want to better control them. Should I make what Interferers can do more specific (not just adding-energy-to-system)? Shapechangers all use either the strong or weak nuclear forces, and telekinetics and poltergeists use gravity. Maybe they are all for structural integrity, without them the world explodes outward into the vacuum of nothingness. However, those impulses are weak, and air is not a good conductor, so I dont think such a detection would work (Im not even sure in water). Group B dont have magic at all. In this world, soon to be named, certain people have access to an energy that is the personification of nature. If you fail to understand the role that . How could a magic user be defeated? In my plant-based system, there could be a lineage with the biological adaptation to absorb the magical substance directly, without using the plant as an intermediary. Now you have all the tools you need to create your own magic system. It is inspired from some character sheets that ask you a series of questions. My main question is whether you think the weaving should be specialized; i. e., should I break it up into different types of thread/weaving style/knots? Elements are a system which people understand easily, other systems would have demanded more explanation. Relocating energy (in telekinesis or telepathy) is, however, less of a problem than dissolving a body and recreating it at another place, to its not the same as full teleportation. Remember that energy doesnt dispense when its used it only takes on a different shape. If only a portion of the population can wield magic it could also mean the magic wielders are either the elite or the lower class. Do people get to choose their side in this case or are they born with the ability to wield one side? Everything in Tolkiens world is carefully designed to avoid being preachy; but most of it also has a carefully thought out moral and spiritual basis, and certain elements (like whether orcs have free will, and are therefore capable of redemption, and the implications of what that means in terms of how the good characters treat them and the conflict with the literary need for a clearly identifiable group of bad guys) troubled him to the end of his life and which he was never able to resolve to his own satisfaction. Anyway, an Order ofMages (havent thought of a proper name yet) is working in overdrive to contain the outbreak, taking the dying, destroying corpses, etc to prevent the spread of the blight Or so you think A being of a higher Plane has the opposite effect, their presence and consciousness being far too much for the Universe to handle, and so it would just collapse on itself wherever the being would go. I want to encourage writers and worldbuilders to stray from this formula. Havent figured out the second point quite yet. Maybe incorporate the Lawful Chaotic axis, too? However, as we are all well aware humanity and its constructs are fragile things and some event happens that upsets the norm; war, a terrorist attack on these factories, solar flare, etc Regardless this event causes a change within these factories, the main computer systems get a little bit fried, perhaps even gain a modicum of self-awareness. Someone could gain double the magic in half the time. You don't have to have an exact cost, like making the average human able to cast 20 fire balls before being tired, but having a cost relative to each other spell will help make sure your magic system is at least relatively realistic in the sense that there's a logic behind it. Also, I have another magic system that sort of more on the traditional side that Ive been wrestling with for my story. Sorry for the late reply I had went out for the past few days. This is what making sense means when it comes to magic. But, in general, all those energies are more-less equally distributed everywhere. Can spells and other forms of magic be combined and if so, how much does it increase per added person? Rewriting and revising is what turns the idea into something worth reading. I think the easiest way to explain how magic (any kind, really) affects the world is through will. And if youre a goddamn god with a controller, it can pull a star destroyer into a planet while at the same time swatting aside oodles of TIE-Fighters (still the only sore point in The Force Unleashed 1 for me). When the nanites were first created, their creators by which I dont mean their society, but their specific inventors failed to contain them, resulting in a plague similar to the Grey Death. For now, Im thinking that the energy will be a 3D field spreaded around (basically, just a math function). Humans have it too, but they are a small piece. What important historical events in your story world were affected by the use (or failure to use) magic? Dispel | Spiritual | Fire | Creature For a similar reason, simple exhaustion, without any other defined limits, is generally a weak way to limit an ability in the story. As such, a being of the Physical Plane cannot exist in a Higher Plane, as their Consiousness isnt on a high enough leven to be able to sustain itself, you wouldnt even be able to think of yourself as an actual being, and so you just, cease to exists. Hell make it rain if your rain dance impresses him, but he wont strike someone with lightning no matter how impressive your dance is. Feats of telekinesis should leave your characters a little exhausted the more energy needed, the higher the exhaustion. You can also use that fickleness, maybe, and some other things this answer mentioned, to weave in logical limitations on emotion-based magic that will make it perhaps more palatable to your readersin fact, in ways directly related to the example of exhaustion. Because minds were immaterial, physical brain damage wouldnt really affect thoughts, personality, and so on, instead mostly things such as the ability to move and regulate basic bodily functions. Just because there are rules doesnt mean theyre rational. Most magic systems fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. The audience has no idea what they can do other than what theyve been directly told, so if they do anything new in a crisis, it will look like a deus ex machina. Because the powers are not very hard to control, Givens are feared and supposedly taken care of by the government. Their technology and motivations could be very different from human ideas. Do magic users have their own language, religion, festivals, and/or other cultural hallmarks? We were ripped out of the (literal) fabric of reality, shaped into a forbidden-to-visit pocket dimension. dragon glass can kill them and both weapons were forged by dragon flame. As far as the potions issue, again, these are based off historical ideas about magic and potions. Professor of Political Theory in Star Trek, contradicting something shes already invented, distill and concentrate the plant down to an elixir, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, heres a fun chart showing the details of magic systems in the most popular works, Building the Raksura: How Martha Wells Fell Into Toxic Tropes, Five Tips for Using an Arbitrary Magic System, Building Wings of Fire: How Sutherland Propped Up Her Plot, Building Hyperion: How Simmons Scattered His World, Building Roshar: How Sanderson Bungled Culture, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi_hcwB8i64, https://mythcreants.com/blog/how-to-create-an-eclectic-magic-system/. In Avatar, most benders can only manipulate pure water, earth, air, and fire. They weave certain spells out of the fabric of reality. Gandalf didnt use his powers to destroy the One Ring, so readers didnt need to know how his magic worked to find the ending of The Lord of the Rings to be believable. The system I created is very similar, with some differences. Many fantasy authors incorporate magic into their stories simply because fantastical abilities are a fun means of escapism. Since there are clear rules in the Harry Potter series, we dont wonder why Harry doesnt just make up an all-powerful spell.
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