Chanting spells

[CarburetorThompson]

What type of magic chant is better in a story

 

[NotaNuffian]

The poem style if the author is great with making up poem on the fly or be a total scum and copy famous authors.

The gibberish aka Latin if the author just wants to cut a break.

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

Religious scripture reading.

 

[xuduxixi]

Poems cause:

My spear, pierce upon her flesh
Bestow upon her three seasons without rest
And for the rest of her life, let her worry
For the bills, food, and money!

Impregnate!

 

[georgelee5786]

i like gibberish

 

[ikos]

Chants are amazing, and really help for immersion, but only if they're well done. If you're gonna make some slapdash poems I think it's better to handwave it or just do gibberish

 

[TransCatGirl]

I like poems because it tells your allys what your casting but -presumably- your enemies aren't familiar with your spells so may take longer to catch on.

 

[NotaNuffian]

Religious scripture reading.

I had seen chinese taoism text being thrown in for the lulz.

It is good mystic text wall, but in the end still just a text wall.

 

[TheKillingAlice]

I like both. Poem style can be cringey if overused, Gibberish depends on what type.
In my oldest lore, magic is based on the nature of the world, that "first language" that I made up in part (I'm not Tolkien, I was a child and came up with a bit of a basic vocabulary and rudimentary grammar) and most magic is chanted by using your human tongue to chant this old language. A real witch or witcher can use the language of the old as it was intended, but it's ineligible to human ears (a bit like reading welsh out loud and then actually pronouncing it as intended), that's the point it turns into real Gibberish and you know shit's going down. But in the end, all is just an order and there's "English" (or whatever your language is) chants for people who can't speak the first language, because it's a language more dead than latin. Nobody can speak the entire language, they are still working on encryption.

 

[BlackKnightX]

No chant is the best.

In a lot of stories I've read, chanting is usually done to help better visualize the spells. But once you achieve mastery, you can pretty much just visualize it perfectly in your head, so there's no need for chanting anymore.

Though, for complex spells, you might want to chant in a poem style because it has more details. Pretty dramatic as well.

For example, I freaking love the incantation for Juggernaut Drive in High School DxD. Pretty edgy, pretty dramatic, pretty badass.

That said, it's your rules. You can do whatever you want.

 

[Cipiteca396]

Any kind of chant just exists to make casting the spell less of a burden mentally.

So either works, it's just a question of which one you personally feel is less embarrassing.

 

[ThrillingHuman]

Mad rapz

 

[GlassRose]

Whichever, so long as it's done tastefully. (And if your 'gibberish' is a different, real language, make sure the translation is good. And if it's made up, make sure it looks like something that could be actually pronounced and spoken and could be a language)

 

[LilRora]

 

[Deleted member 84247]

First of all, I am tired of people Enheriting this logic that chants are cringe. Bring back chants, you scoundrels. (Coming from a scoundrel who also doesn't always make chants.)

But seriously, I think it is more cringe when the MC says it is cringe to chant.

 

[Tempokai]

Both are good. One for order (aka prose and structure) and other for chaos (aka Lovecraftian gibberish), together make a whole (aka good worldbuilding with intuitive understanding).

 

[aattss]

Chants come from the author thinking they're cool and mystical, and creating an in-universe reason to justify it. And then other authors were like, how about if people in my setting also chanted but my MC was special and had no weaknesses, so they decided that, for example, actually chanting is a crutch that makes you bad at magic and my MC's too smart or special to have weaknesses.

Same applies to skimpy outfits, or people good at magic being bad at fitness, or just specialization in general.

Anyways, as for the OP, imo made up languages leave more to the imagination, and give the impression of being more difficult for people to learn/understand in-universe than if it was just normal language.

 

[melchi]

Jibberish sacrifices clarity.

Clarity should be #1 priority

Hence, I think chants with actual words are superior. A cool cheat would be to have it be in Bulgarian or something. Then someone can have their cake and eat it too.

 

[Keene]

Give your MC the silent chanting ability and then you never need to come up with any chants, ez.

 

[beast_regards]

Nerd. Just scream the spell name at the top of your lungs like any other magical girl ....