Magic System Ideas

[DeepWater]

I'm working on a magic system for an upcoming fantasy story that consists of 3 parts.
1. Mana - Mana exists as a combination of different energies, the most important being the ether which exists in the air and the different energies that exist within the body. So in order to use mana you need to be able to breathe well and have a genetic predisposition to it.

2. Mental - Once the mana for the spell is ready, the caster needs to visualize their spell and it's intention. Without a visual, the mana will simply dissipate, and without an intention the spell cannot be actualized.

3. Word - Lastly, in order to cast a spell into the physical world, the caster must speak. This works kind of as a detonator, and the actual words themselves are of little importance. By the action of creating a physical sound and breath from your thoughts, so to will the spell pass from mental to physical.

What are your thoughts on this system? Do you think it will work?

 

[GlassRose]

Gotta be careful it doesn't end up too OP where every caster that's even half decent can do anything they can think of. I'm not even talking about raw power, just, utility, if the scope of what magic can do is too broad things start to break down and it becomes a massive crutch.

 

[DeepWater]

Gotta be careful it doesn't end up too OP where every caster that's even half decent can do anything they can think of. I'm not even talking about raw power, just, utility, if the scope of what magic can do is too broad things start to break down and it becomes a massive crutch.

I just won't give people a huge amount of mana. Also thinking about how heavily I want genetics to play into it. Maybe only certain families use fire spells because only they have access to that kind of energy. ?

 

[Arch9CivilReactor]

Why not go for there being a link between the physical body and the astral body that uses Mana?

That way you can combine the ‘Mental’ aspect with Mana initially, then expand into it when this particular part of the system becomes very necessary to learn. You can have things like having a strong physical body being required to store more Mana.

You can also split how different cultures have leaned into the spiritual aspect. How their words are either self-hypnotic, faith-based, or really dependant on ‘control’ than the ‘stored amount’.

I remember UQ Holder had this thing where you can use infinite magic if skilled, but none if you’re a novice. Taking years to master basic breathing and masteries over their techniques (though that went extreme into the concept and wasn’t shy in being all over the place).

Either way, having a spiritual world to draw Mana from might explain why you need to have a strong mentality and ‘words’ to affect it.

 

[Biggest-Kusa-Out-There]

I'm working on a magic system for an upcoming fantasy story that consists of 3 parts.
1. Mana - Mana exists as a combination of different energies, the most important being the ether which exists in the air and the different energies that exist within the body. So in order to use mana you need to be able to breathe well and have a genetic predisposition to it.

2. Mental - Once the mana for the spell is ready, the caster needs to visualize their spell and it's intention. Without a visual, the mana will simply dissipate, and without an intention the spell cannot be actualized.

3. Word - Lastly, in order to cast a spell into the physical world, the caster must speak. This works kind of as a detonator, and the actual words themselves are of little importance. By the action of creating a physical sound and breath from your thoughts, so to will the spell pass from mental to physical.

What are your thoughts on this system? Do you think it will work?

When you say "speak" and then specify "the actual words themselves are of little importance" and "physical sound and breath from your thoughts", could a voiceless alveolar fricative (S of Sit) or a voiceless gutural fricative (the KH of Christ) count since they are both consonants of speech?

If so, then magic can be as silent as possible? A child trying to be "secretive" about magic could find this out as easily as finding out lying works. You know how children are, lol. Even a tongue click (a voiceless fricative) could work.

Adding speach without framework lends itself to be extremely reductive for the purposes of convenience and simplicity, something humans are incredibly good at. This is why traditional magic has an incantation of sorts along with it that is either a specific sentence or word.

I mention this because it seems redundant to have a spoken component that can be circumvented by simply sighing, even a deaf or mute person can do that.

 

[DeepWater]

When you say "speak" and then specify "the actual words themselves are of little importance" and "physical sound and breath from your thoughts", could a voiceless alveolar fricative (S of Sit) or a voiceless gutural fricative (the KH of Christ) count since they are both consonants of speech?

If so, then magic can be as silent as possible? A child trying to be "secretive" about magic could find this out as easily as finding out lying works. You know how children are, lol. Even a tongue click (a voiceless fricative) could work.

Adding speach without framework lends itself to be extremely reductive for the purposes of convenience and simplicity, something humans are incredibly good at. This is why traditional magic has an incantation of sorts along with it that is either a specific sentence or word.

I mention this because it seems redundant to have a spoken component that can be circumvented by simply sighing, even a deaf or mute person can do that.

Trying to be quiet wouldn't work because your intention will effect the spell. You have to speak normally. And grunting wouldn't work either because it wouldn't have the power to draw out the spell into reality. If you're trying to create a fireball saying something like "fire" would help because of the association in your mind, although technically not necessary.

 

[RecursiveDescent]

Gotta be careful it doesn't end up too OP where every caster that's even half decent can do anything they can think of. I'm not even talking about raw power, just, utility, if the scope of what magic can do is too broad things start to break down and it becomes a massive crutch.

I went too heavily into the word aspect and ended up there. It's hard for me to give my main character any challenge because my pacing was also too fast and my mc became a literal god so fast.
The only way to have another antagonist was for me to create an Aizen.

 

[Biggest-Kusa-Out-There]

Trying to be quiet wouldn't work because your intention will effect the spell. You have to speak normally. And grunting wouldn't work either because it wouldn't have the power to draw out the spell into reality. If you're trying to create a fireball saying something like "fire" would help because of the association in your mind, although technically not necessary.

?????
So your statement of "the actual words themselves are of little importance" is no longer true, and you've added a word-reality link that still holds little water to actual words...
"Hi" is fire in Japanese (pronounced "hee"), and is the same length verbally than a sigh.
Language would develop a secondary means of conveying meaning if it exists alongside your magic system for at least a decade. People would create the shortest possible word to convey complex concepts/actions, or further shorten already shorter words. You MUST consider how convenience-seeking people all, even Elves or whatever the race is unless there are actual repercussions to it, like God smiting you into vapor for shortening the incantation.

Then again, what purpose does imagination have if I need to verbally manifest what I want to cast even after imagining it? If I think of fire, and have to say "fire", then it has no purpose because the very word fire evokes that image in the caster's mind.

That is inconsistent and at best anglocentric to the point no other language would be able to use magic in your story (a very interesting possibility, mind you), or, conversely, there would exist a magical language that ppl would need to learn.

Your system unfortunately has glaring holes you need to hammer down on.

 

[GlassRose]

I just won't give people a huge amount of mana. Also thinking about how heavily I want genetics to play into it. Maybe only certain families use fire spells because only they have access to that kind of energy. ?

Just limiting how much mana you give people doesn't really work, the issue is that even low-level magic can be too useful and take over every aspect of how people do things. It's such a multitool that it becomes boring and disingenuous, the solution to every minor problem, it will eat up any other more interesting form of problem solving. And any character that you give more mana, will just be that much worse to handle, and you'll end up in a situation where they're too powerful and there's just too much that it's possible for them to do that the only way to nerf them is make them stupid and miss easy solutions, and readers hate that because it's not satisfying.

Oh also this magic system would completely gatekeep people with aphantasia, aka no internal visualization. Not necessarily a bad thing if you're already limiting who can use magic, but something to keep in mind. Could also be a plot point, someone who 'should' be able to use magic due to bloodline or whatever, but can't.

It's also important to understand why each part of the process is necessary, what's the fundamental reason that each part works the way it does? Why would an fundamental piece of reality be affected by speech? Is it truly necessary, does it truly make sense? I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't do it, I'm saying you should ask yourself if it makes sense why it works the way it does, and if not, either change it or go deeper to make it make sense, so your world-building has a stronger foundation.

In my system, there's an underlying force separate to mana that affects and shapes it and allows for things like intent to work on it. Allows for a manipulator of magic to do more than shape it manually (the difference between manually using life magic to weave and generate specific types of flesh to heal someone, versus directing magic at someone and telling it to heal them). It's the very concept of, well, concepts. Meaning itself (or, well, it's not important to the discussion, but that's not all it is, it's more like, connections between things, like, karma. Meaning is just a facet of it's application). Unified and originating from the being that created existence, whom a part of resides at the core of every soul, which is what allows people to access it's power and unifies what meaning is. That lore isn't necessarily important for the story itself, what is is that the way it works has implications. The spoken word is merely one vessel for meaning, but there's also writing, music, painting, sculpture, dance, and all of these things can carry meaning, and thus shape magic. Word is the most common just because it's so specific, but anything that can convey meaning can work.

However, I also limited who can use it, and how much. A person can only use a concept that they have formed a significant connection to, though the barrier to entry is lowered by the user's power (someone who is capable of influencing the world around them more, has a higher karmic 'weight' to them, and thus have an easier time imposing their will, intent, and drawing on concepts. Note this doesn't just mean raw magical power, political and economic power counts too). Going back to the healing example, only someone who has truly enveloped themselves in what it means to heal, or is so capable of healing that they have an inherent authority over it, can just invoke the concept of healing and let it happen. If just anybody can use any concept, then magic becomes way too flexible and eliminates challenges, and thus conflict. And stories are all about conflict and overcoming challenges, so making magic too flexible hurts your ability to tell a story. If the common mage can wave and hand and the person is healed, then injuries stop mattering, but if healing can only be done slowly, by those who are extremely well trained (like to the level of a real world doctor/surgeon), then all of a sudden it matters when someone gets hurt.

...I like nerding out over my magic system don't judge me

 

[DeepWater]

?????
So your statement of "the actual words themselves are of little importance" is no longer true, and you've added a word-reality link that still holds little water to actual words...
"Hi" is fire in Japanese (pronounced "hee"), and is the same length verbally than a sigh.
Language would develop a secondary means of conveying meaning if it exists alongside your magic system for at least a decade. People would create the shortest possible word to convey complex concepts/actions, or further shorten already shorter words. You MUST consider how convenience-seeking people all, even Elves or whatever the race is unless there are actual repercussions to it, like God smiting you into vapor for shortening the incantation.

Then again, what purpose does imagination have if I need to verbally manifest what I want to cast even after imagining it? If I think of fire, and have to say "fire", then it has no purpose because the very word fire evokes that image in the caster's mind.

That is inconsistent and at best anglocentric to the point no other language would be able to use magic in your story (a very interesting possibility, mind you), or, conversely, there would exist a magical language that ppl would need to learn.

Your system unfortunately has glaring holes you need to hammer down on.

A lot of this is just silly. Unless mages are standing right next to each other there is no point in shortening the words. People will stick with what works. Maybe some people will experiment, but to squeeze out a second or two? Never going to catch on. The purpose of imagining fire is because you have to give it form. If you say fire without thinking of how the fire will look, then what are you drawing from mental to physical? The vague idea of fire? That won't produce a spell. Saying it is to help you actualize what you are already visualizing.

Just limiting how much mana you give people doesn't really work, the issue is that even low-level magic can be too useful and take over every aspect of how people do things. It's such a multitool that it becomes boring and disingenuous, the solution to every minor problem, it will eat up any other more interesting form of problem solving. And any character that you give more mana, will just be that much worse to handle, and you'll end up in a situation where they're too powerful and there's just too much that it's possible for them to do that the only way to nerf them is make them stupid and miss easy solutions, and readers hate that because it's not satisfying.

Oh also this magic system would completely gatekeep people with aphantasia, aka no internal visualization. Not necessarily a bad thing if you're already limiting who can use magic, but something to keep in mind. Could also be a plot point, someone who 'should' be able to use magic due to bloodline or whatever, but can't.

It's also important to understand why each part of the process is necessary, what's the fundamental reason that each part works the way it does? Why would an fundamental piece of reality be affected by speech? Is it truly necessary, does it truly make sense? I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't do it, I'm saying you should ask yourself if it makes sense why it works the way it does, and if not, either change it or go deeper to make it make sense, so your world-building has a stronger foundation.

In my system, there's an underlying force separate to mana that affects and shapes it and allows for things like intent to work on it. Allows for a manipulator of magic to do more than shape it manually (the difference between manually using life magic to weave and generate specific types of flesh to heal someone, versus directing magic at someone and telling it to heal them). It's the very concept of, well, concepts. Meaning itself (or, well, it's not important to the discussion, but that's not all it is, it's more like, connections between things, like, karma. Meaning is just a facet of it's application). Unified and originating from the being that created existence, whom a part of resides at the core of every soul, which is what allows people to access it's power and unifies what meaning is. That lore isn't necessarily important for the story itself, what is is that the way it works has implications. The spoken word is merely one vessel for meaning, but there's also writing, music, painting, sculpture, dance, and all of these things can carry meaning, and thus shape magic. Word is the most common just because it's so specific, but anything that can convey meaning can work.

I'm just now coming up with a few ways to break the system, but my general idea of limiting mana to create an interesting system is based on real-world principles. There is an idea that scarcity leads to diversity. If mana is scarce it forces people to come up with interesting applications, rather than everyone using it the same way.

 

[GlassRose]

A lot of this is just silly. Unless mages are standing right next to each other there is no point in shortening the words. People will stick with what works. Maybe some people will experiment, but to squeeze out a second or two? Never going to catch on. The purpose of imagining fire is because you have to give it form. If you say fire without thinking of how the fire will look, then what are you drawing from mental to physical? The vague idea of fire? That won't produce a spell. Saying it is to help you actualize what you are already visualizing.

Silly? Never gonna catch on? Hardly. You sound like a stereotypical skeptical naysayer talking about a new technology that in the next decade will revolutionize the world. Need breeds innovation. A second, less, is all that separates life and death in a fight. Efficiency is everything. It would catch on. Fast. Those that don't adapt, would be left laying dead in the dirt.

I'm just now coming up with a few ways to break the system, but my general idea of limiting mana to create an interesting system is based on real-world principles. There is an idea that scarcity leads to diversity. If mana is scarce it forces people to come up with interesting applications, rather than everyone using it the same way.

There is a problem in quantifying how much mana someone has and what can be done with that mana. It's vague and arbitrary, so it really shouldn't be used as the only limiting factor. And mana being scarce won't force people to come up with diverse applications, it will force people to come up with efficient ones, which will more reasonably lower diversity.

And why does word matter? Why is it necessary? What is special about it, that makes it capable of initiating magic? What makes it so other actions can't enact magic?

 

[Biggest-Kusa-Out-There]

A lot of this is just silly. Unless mages are standing right next to each other there is no point in shortening the words. People will stick with what works. Maybe some people will experiment, but to squeeze out a second or two? Never going to catch on. The purpose of imagining fire is because you have to give it form. If you say fire without thinking of how the fire will look, then what are you drawing from mental to physical? The vague idea of fire? That won't produce a spell. Saying it is to help you actualize what you are already visualizing.

I'm just now coming up with a few ways to break the system, but my general idea of limiting mana to create an interesting system is based on real-world principles. There is an idea that scarcity leads to diversity. If mana is scarce it forces people to come up with interesting applications, rather than everyone using it the same way.

Silly? So you still use Cassettes? Floppy disks? Flip phones? Windows 98? Do you not engage with peak human invention and efficiency? Why are you not replying by letter or smoke-signs?????

I don't know what in the aphantasia you're talking about, but SPEAKING things brings the picture to mind for 99% of our world population. Saying "fire" gives a firm, solid idea to mind. Language shapes worlds- that's worldbuilding 101.

The fastest to draw the proverbial gun wins, be it farming crops, building houses, shooting a fireball, or forging a sword. Efficiency in farming techniques, civil construction, warfare, and transportation are one of the things we humans fixated on in History, and those who didn't are DEAD or CONQUERED. People stuck with progress. The pursuit of all things productive is ABUNDANCE, not stagnation. In that sense, shorter spell-casting equals more time to cast other spells.

Your system is too soft and you double down on the holes we're poking into it. I'm done trying to help, but I wish you and your story the best!

 

[Gryphon]

This sounds like a pretty basic magic system. Almost too basic, lacking in critical detail. For instance:

• What do you mean by energies? Mana is a culmination of energies, but the energies themselves don't have a name? You said there is a separation between the energy of the outer world and the body, but why does that separation exist, how are they different, can one take more energy out of one than the other, and does taking more out of one affect the spells at all?
• So there's a mental component to being able to cast spells. Makes sense, most magic systems have this detail. But then you talk about the "intention" of the magic? So does that mean a fireball can only ever be casted to harm someone? What if you want to use a fireball to start a fire or to help with forging? Does that require other spells with the designated intention? If the intention is a spell is more specific, does it make the spell stronger?
• This vocal ritual just sounds weird to me. The act of creating a sound in itself is the detonator; the words themselves don't matter? So exhaling slightly could cast a fireball? If the vocality is this lax, why implement it in the first place?

I recommend thinking a bit more about the system and to expand it further. I also recommend giving more weight to the vocal part of the spell casting, or just axing it entirely with how it is right now.