Explain your magic system

[Chaos_Sinner777]

Feels like I'm trying to do different things in every story. For instance, in The Ocean of Chaos, while I haven't explained it yeeeeeet. There is an important difference between "Mana" and "Magic". Mana is basic. And or complicated. There is basic mana and various forms of elemental mana. But Mana or any elemental mana used by itself only does a little action. Like a puff of flames blooming outwards from the hand. However, add a little Ki to make Fire Magic instead of fire mana and you can throw an explosive fireball at a distance. If you add Spiritual Energy instead of Ki you get Spirit Magic, which is extra effective against ghosts and the like, and is sort of, nearly self aware in trying to fulfil its purpose. Fire Mana plus Fire attuned Natural Energy and you have Wild Fire Magic. The magic is wild, not the fire. But, it'd feel clunky to say fire wild magic. Nee? Ah. Hard to control, but potent. Mana plus Ki and Spiritual Energy makes Heart Magic, which essentially IS alive in its own right. Still possible to just lob a fireball with it, and that'd work great, but why settle for that when you can go nuts and send out a blazing Super Ghost Kamikaze Attack?

And in another story I haven't started posting yet, current working title "Rise of the Dungeon Admin", "Magic" is an individual energy type in its own right, that is used to Distort laws or rules. Mostly Dragons have "Magic" and another energy, like "Ice". Use Ice and Magic together and you can make ice that won't melt naturally, or ice that is COLDER THAN ABSOULTE ZERO. Incidentally, in that same story "Divinity" is an energy type that Reinforces Laws, so Divinity has an advantage over Magic, buuuut if you have boooooth. . .

 

[TheEldritchGod]

No

Why?

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

Magic in a story I'm keep brainstorming with is both of the individual and of the world. It's like a feedback loop for the flow of mana. People make more complex constructs using magic and the world slowly grows to make it into the new normal. Even with that relationship, the world uses magic as a background process and isn't fully attached to the people. So, while people can conjure up magical water out of nothing, it eventually dissipates back into the world. Meaning that after people desperate enough to drink it the water would also vanish inside them. Their bodies would have absorbed it and it basically turns into an addict issue to stave off magical reverse cancer.

It's also set. As in people can get ???? classes and spend all of history never knowing it until it's suddenly revealed. I'm using this as a concept to show technomancers existing in a medieval setting. Thus forcibly bringing the world into a more victorian frankenstein levels of civilization. Anyone with even more futuristic classes either get vaporized by their class during the first few hours of them being born; or usually turn into a demi-god for the world with powers that still can't be made sense of.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Okay. As I do everything, I have a top down approach. I start with the cosmos as a whole, then figure out my alternative physics, the nature of reality, how many dimensions, what parallel dimensions, what those alternate dimensions mean, etc etc etc. Also, I think it is important to determine the nature of Time.

Currently I am going with a six dimensional model. There are three dimensions for normal matter and another 3 dimensions for Memetic Matter. I use the standard physics model for real word things, but I do not have Time nor Gravity.

Time is absolute (sort of, but that's another discussion) and exists along side movement. Gravity is not the fourth force, but an emergent property for the base state of the world. I enjoy using the theoretical Planck Tetrahedron because... well... not bragging, but I invented the concept back in 1990. Well, I had the original idea in 1982 with my grandfather, but I expanded it in 1990. And the theory got completely destroyed in 2012 with the discovery of Gravity waves.

Sigh.

However, there are still people out there running with the idea and still think it is viable. So if you have an interest in alternate theories of Quantum Gravity, look up Planck Tetrahedrons on youtube. I've already been convinced the very theory I created was wrong, but I am glad other think it still has potential.

The irony being that it does SUCH a good job solving so many problems with quantum mechanics without fucking up anything or needing a stupid 12 dimensions like fuckin' M Theory and Loop Gravity is for losers...

...

Sorry. I'm still a little bitter over the whole LISA array thing.

My point is, LOOK INTO DEFUNCT SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. Trust me, Using alternate physics is a wonderful way to make your world unique and different. Perhaps you can repurpose Monads, like I have, or reuse the concept of
Luminiferous Aether for how light travels and then use that as a branching pathway for your magic system.

But I digress.


So, I use the concept that Nothing is the Logophysical. Matter is the physical. Life is the Metaphysical.
Living things produce thoughts, which are a tangible force. Mana, in other words, but in system it is Memes. Memetic energy. Living things produce thoughts that produces memes.

So what is a creature made entirely of memes?

That is a pure metaphysical creature. And what would be avout the Metaphysical? The Pataphysical.

So we have, in order of reality Logophysical, Physical, Metaphysical, and Pataphysical, or Below Reality, physical Reality, Mental Reality, Above Reality.

These are the four layers of my cosmos. Inside the cosmos we have universes, which contain all the "reality" of a given subset. They are singularities. On the surface of the singularities, reality is one dimension lower than the singularity, so it is unaffected by the hyper-reality it exists on. So, in our world, all 3-dimensional singularities have a 2-dimensional universe on its surface. We exist on the surface of a 4-dimensional singularity.

These are floating in a 6 dimensional framework, that is projected onto a 7th dimension that no one can access, because it is The Substrate Of Reality. Or DARK MATTER.

Dark Matter is the very bedrock of reality. It is CLARITY.

Now quantum mechanics has the concept of Uncertainty. This means that you really can't measure something without the attempt to measure the something affecting it. How do you measure the exact position of a proton? You have to hit it with something then measure what happened to what you hit it with what every you shot it with. Using electrons to scan something works great when it is big, but not for a single proton.

So, memetics depend on this uncertainty. Life is quantum fluctuation. Memetic energy is stronger the further you are from Dark Matter. So I have "Streams" of universes that "Flow" through Dark Matter. How strong is the dark matter? Well...

Did you know that Pi for a square is 4? Now if you put 4 squares together, you get Pi = 4, again. But what if you arranged 64 squares so that only the corners or one edge touched so that it looked circular and THEN measured Pi? Well, It comes to about 3.21. And the more Squares you add, the closer you get to a "real" circle. The more squares, the more 'true round' you get, and the closer and closer you get to pi as we know it. However, you will NEVER reach pi, as long as you are making your circle out of squares, or in other words, PIXELS.

(As a side note, there is strong evidence the real world is pixelated. But that's a discussion for another time.)

Yeah. In a universe with Planck Tetrahedrons, reality is pixelated. There are no perfectly smooth circles. Therefore Pi is not infinite. The more pixelated the universe, the Higher Pi is, and the more you can use magic. Did you know that you only need to have pi out to 10 places and you get circles that look like circles out to a light year across?

So the amount of usable magic is dependent on how much Dark matter is near by, and the way of determining the amount of magic is usable in your given universe is determined by measuring Pi or the universe you are in. (Infinite long pi is only possible in a universe that is perfectly smooth.)

Okay. So. Now we get to the Metaphysics of it.

Like normal physics that is made up of things like quarks, electrons, disappointment, and photons, memetic energy can be broken down into fundamental building blocks as well. We call these monads. There are six in particular. Up and down are your most common. Think of them as the foundation of Mana. I won't bore you with the particulars, even if it is quite fascinating. What concerns us, and Toshi in particular, are the monads that make up a living, intelligent being. The four 'soul' monads, as they were. Specifically referred to as Demonic, Weird, Angelic and Top.

Mana is made up of Up and down Monads, but life depends on one of the other four. Human Souls are made up of Top monads, and you can guess what the other 3 are. A normal soul is Top, Up, Down, but there are Top, Up Up and Top Down Down.

I'm not going to explain those last two. SPOILERS. Lets just say that Logophysics, the study of the void below reality, relates to this. And I have not gotten into the Logophysics plotline, so I'm not going to explain that either.

Anyrate, The amount of monads has a raiting on 0 to 10. Think richter scale. A 1 is one normal human soul. a 3 is 100 human souls. So if you have a soul rating of 10. You are ten billion souls in one body. This is your Soul/Monad rating. This is the basis of your fundamental core strength rating. However, HOW your Monads are arranged also a factor.

Anything with a rating of 1 produces more mana than it consumes. Anything below 1, consumes more mana than it produces and is an over all drain on reality. There are exceptions, but this is a hard and fast rule.

It is important to note here that Monads are the framework you need to use magic, but you still need ENERGY to use magic. The energy to use magic is Mana. So if you have a big framework, you could do anything, but you might not have the mana to do it. A small framework of limited scope uses mana more effectively and would work better under certain conditions.

This then results in the frameworks that you can use to organize your monads.

Magic works best when not observed. Now this doesn't mean you can use magic in front of people, it just means it gets harder the more people observe it, or high amounts of dark matter inhibit magic. So, the easiest magic to use is body enhancing magic, or aura.

Then we get elemental. This is the second frameworks of magic to manifest. It is usually based around a single 'element', but it is mostly what the locals think of as an element. If your element is water, normally you are limited to water. But with enough power and individual strength, you might expand into Ice, or steam.

Next we get Modular frameworks. Basically, you can do anything within a general concept, but you have to LEARN it ahead of time. If I am a wizard, I can cast "spells", but I have to learn the spells first. If I am a Robot Jock, I can build many toys into my giant robot, but I need to BUILD THEM FIRST.

The final framework is Cosmic. You can do anything, BUT, it is the least efficient form and typically is still limited by the perceptions of the people of the reality you live in, as well as your own mental limitations.

The overall magic framework is them limited on a universe by universe basis that limited how the three foundational aspects combine.

So we have Soul Strength, Frameworks, and finally, Mana or how much power you can put behind what you are doing.

Factors regarding mana are: How much can you hold?, How much can you use at any given time? How effective are you are using your mana? What do you do with the used mana?

Yes. Using mana results in 'depleted mana' which builds up in the user. Think of it as fatigue poisons that build up in your muscles if you use them faster than oxygen can get to them.

However, Normal Mana results in depleted mana, but Demonic Creatures are dependent on using 'Depleted' mana. Demonic magic is magic that has evolved to 'feed' off of 'poisonous mana'. Think of Yin and Yang.

Demonic energy and demonic magic is much more fluid and variable than normal magic, but it is also subject to local beliefs to a far greater degree than normal magic. In normal magic, someone from another universe could drop into your world and use his powers to some extent, because by sheer force of will and with a strong enough Soul Rating, simply push your way through.

Demonic energy is very versatile, but they cannot produce depleted mana. They need other types of creatures to make normal mana, use it up, then they can use the depleted mana. Demons are dependent on non-demonic life for survival.

Weird Monads make up Fae life, and is in many ways like Top Monads, but they are inherently unstable. They are not as resistant to local beliefs as Top monads, so fae life tends to be 'pushed around' by the myths and beliefs of ordinary humans.

Angelic Monads are second only to Top monads, and are very powerful, in pure memetic areas. In the parts of the cosmos where there is no matter, Angelic Monads rule the metaphysical. However, they are weaker when you get to a physical universe and react very poorly to Demonic energy. This is the primary material of Gods. ironically, as powerful as gods are, they are at an inherent disadvantage to the demonic in the physical plane. Furthermore, they also are very effective at making Mana.

Top Monads are the king of making mana. This makes Humans the very plankton that creates the 'oxygen' that the other forms of memetic life need to 'breathe'.

Well. that's the off the top of my head explination. Hope that gives you some ideas.

And in another story I haven't started posting yet, current working title "Rise of the Dungeon Admin", "Magic" is an individual energy type in its own right, that is used to Distort laws or rules. Mostly Dragons have "Magic" and another energy, like "Ice". Use Ice and Magic together and you can make ice that won't melt naturally, or ice that is COLDER THAN ABSOULTE ZERO. Incidentally, in that same story "Divinity" is an energy type that Reinforces Laws, so Divinity has an advantage over Magic, buuuut if you have boooooth. . .

Anti-Cold?

 

[DarkeReises]

Why?

Don't have one

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Sorry. Had to feed the cats.

So. To continue, Lets give an example of a world in this magic system with no magic
I'm going to directly quote you part of FTS:

Spoiler: FTS - Prologue Book 2

The Dark World



There were many worlds over the eons that had been called that name. Of those there were few that could honestly be said to have earned the moniker. However, recently there was one world in particular that had not only earned that name, but was almost universally accepted as the one and only Dark World.



A particular large chunk of rock called Earth, third major celestial body from its primary.



The humans living on that dirt ball didn't even know they had attracted any attention in recent times. A mere blink of an eye by the standards of some. Time is a rather fungible commodity and far more subjective than most biological life forms understand. Only true, pure, memetic life forms of sufficient size and power can truly fathom the fundamental nature of hyper-dimensionality.



The most common of these beings are called simply 'Gods'.



Of course the term wasn't accurate. Biological life rarely managed to be 'accurate' when it came to communication of any sort, as far as pure memetic life was concerned. Communication with such creatures was always complicated and fraught with danger. Misunderstandings were the least of the problems that could arise. Imagine trying to have a conversation with a self-aware and intelligent microbe without accidentally killing it and you'll get the scale of the problem. Which is to say, biological life isn't insignificant. True, one single algae isn't that important, but if all the algae on your world were to perish, there are few multi-cellular life forms that would survive the ecological collapse.



That includes most of you, by the way.



That is how gods view most intelligent life forms. They are the very algae that form the bedrock of memetic existence. Without intelligent life, there are no ideas, no concepts, no stories, no FAITH. The very 'air' that Gods breathe depends on the existence of intelligent life. This is the odd relationship between gods and men. Gods need men, but men don't need gods. The existence of intelligent life creates memetic energy. Magic, if you will.



Which brings us back to the godless and forsaken 'Dark World'.



Did that world ever have a god? It wasn't clear. It most likely did at one point, but that god either died or abandoned it. In the vast intricate structures that make up hyper-dimensionality, there are tendrils and rivers of existence that snake and wind themselves through the dark matter reefs. Dark matter is a type of matter that normal matter cannot interact with because it is the very bedrock of reality. The density of dark matter effects the amount of 'CLARITY' you experienced in a given section of space.



Big ships need deep water to safely float. Get too close to shore and you might run a ground. One needs to be mindful of that because if a given area has a massive build up of coral, you might not know you are about to run aground. Sometimes the dark matter breaks off and floats about like massive icebergs. An Iceberg that can turn a planet into a version of the Titanic. Life creates magic. Magic permits the existence of life. Magic works best in ‘deep water’. The fuzzier your reality, the easier it is to create, use, and manipulate magic. Dark matter removes uncertainty. Magic cannot exist without uncertainty. Life does not exist without magic.



Dark matter is the enemy of life.



Occasionally a world or universe, or only part of one, will wander too close to the dark matter reefs. When this happens, magic dies and life follows suit. The more fantastical creatures perish first, then intelligent life, eventually all life just dies. Higher life usually abandons such a world, if it can, as it is near impossible to change the ebb and flow of eternity. In the case of The Dark World, it wasn't that sudden. Its path was at a very shallow angle and it took thousands of years to completely fall into the nearby dark matter reef. However, eventually it was still swallowed up and it was never to be seen again.



Until recently, that is.



Humans, who live on mountaintops, over generations adapt to the environment. They have larger lungs and more red blood cells. The same thing happens to people who live in deserts, or above the Arctic Circle. A similar thing happened on Dark World. Over thousands of years every single creature that was on that planet became spiritually stronger. Humans with weak souls died out and only the strongest of souls remained. Trapped within the dark world and unable to reincarnate anywhere else, these souls kept getting recycled over and over. This form of natural selection turned ordinary men into spiritual beasts. They may not have understood their lot in life, but they were like nomadic tribes wandering an endless desert, unknowingly passing from oasis to oasis in an attempt to survive.



Until World War Two.



Two nuclear bombs dropped and about a quarter of a million souls met their end. Never before has so many died in one spot in such a short amount of time. The first bomb poked a hole in eternity. The second widened the crack and shattered the astral firmament itself. A rift was born and it announced itself to the wider audience with a BANG. A blazing beacon of energy never before witnessed, lanced out from the dark matter reef in which the dark world was trapped. It lit up the hyper-dimensional skies like a spiritual supernova.



It was a world with billions of people, each one possessing a soul thousands of times stronger than the typical soul found in any other universe. It was a universe brimming with ideas and thoughts and memetic energy the likes of which the rest of the universe could only imagine. It was a world with no magic, powered by strange and unknown sciences and technology that few gods ever dreamed were possible. There were multiple civilizations, teaming with humans, living in an impossible place.

Now what does this mean? Well, I don't know if you know, but there is a thing called a Kugelblitz. It is when you put 4.16 x 10^46 joules of energy in too small a space. It skips the whole matter phase and goes straight to a singularity. Remember when I said soul/Monad strength is listed from 0 to 10? Because at 10, you are pumping out so much mana, you should collapse into a Kugelblitz.

Remember how I said that universes are on the skin of a singularity?

The amount of mana stored up on Dark World (The "real world") is so much, that when it finally broke open and the mana started beaming out, it came out in 'frequencies'. You know how light comes in different colors? Same concept. And as the mana streamed out, it separated into it's different 'colors' and, naturally pooled. When enough got together, it went a collapse and formed a universe.

That's right, by reading books and day dreaming about stories, in universe, people pump out mana, which sometimes (or is deliberately manipulated) forms a universe which will be based on what the majority of the mana was 'the color of'.

So on The Dark Earth, there is no magic, but there is mana.

---

Now as an example of a universe slightly above that, we have Flip the script. In this universe, there is only Aura manipulation, because that universe is so close to the Dark world/dark matter that's all it can muster. There is an exception, which I will not explain because of spoilers, but in a very low magic world, you would only have aura users, or basically martial artists.

Now to go slightly above that, we have HKN, my other book (now on hiatus). In this universe, we have Aura Users (most common) and Elementalists. In the universe, they have conceptualized it as 'mana cores'. So you have an aura core, or an elemental core. If you are an elementalist, you are limited to the classic four elements.

Demonic cores are basically Element: Demon. While this gives you a huge range of potential, it also limits you to what the planet thinks is 'demonic'. Futhermore, you are locked into a power set upon creation. The only way to get more powers is to 'eat' another demon's mana core.

Now the Dwarves are the exception. They have no Mana core, so it is assumed they can't use magic, but this is incorrect. They are, in fact, the only Modular magic users on the planet. However, their 'modular' magic framework is dependent on what they create. They can craft magic weapons and items that do just about anything (Theoretically), but it has to be an item and has to be powered by mana. So you need a mana battery, or the person needs to power it from themselves.

Currently, the way the understand the use of magic items, that limits it's use by the dwarves that make the items, and Aura users, who are the only ones who developed a way to 'connect' to the magical 'circuits' in the magic items.

Angels and Gods are very powerful, but if they aver very limited in the physical world because of the amount of dark matter nearby. So, in order to actually achieve any magical effect using Angelic framework, they have to pump in so much mana, that it is a danger to the stability of the area. They need the very 'fabric' of the area to be 'properly prepared'. In other words, they are limited to only manifesting in areas that are holy ground, or around very pious people. If they try to do it anywhere else, they cause all sorts of environmental damage.

Finally, I will include as a spoiler, we have the Fae, who also have Modular magical frameworks, but the use of 'spells' this close to dark matter is very dangerous. Using modular magic in this world results in so much 'depleted mana' that a single modular spell is likely to poison the user and kill them. They have figured out a way around that by Externalizing their mana core in a familiar. The Poisonous depleted mana used in Fae magic is thus contained in their familiar. The problem is, even with this, you might accidentally make too much poisonous mana and when you cross a certain threshold, you basically turn your familiar into a demonic beast.

The other downside is, your mana core is EXTERNAL. That means, if someone gets ahold of your familiar, you are fucked. Also, the smaller your familiar, the better it is at safely dissipating poisonous depleted mana. So if you have a giant Dragon for your familiar, You could cast about one spell a year. But if your familiar is a cricket, you can cast spells like a machine gun... at the cost of always being afraid your cricket might get stepped on.

---

Finally, I have I was Summoned By A Super Villainess To Another Universe.

In this universe we have the 'low end' of a universe with access to all Magic Frameworks.

The vast majority of people are aura users. Its so common, they don't even know it exists. They just consider aura manipulation to be a baseline human. Then you have elementalists, who are very powerful, but within a very limited set of powers. Your element could be Water, or plastic, or Mind Control, or Telekinetics, or Fish. Whatever it is, you can use monads in the most cost effective fashion possible, and have control over your 'element' to the point you can do multiple powers at once, easily.

Modular frameworks are far more broad, but you can't do as many things at once. An elementalist could control, say 6 powers at once, easy, but a modular could control 2, maybe 3 before they were burning so much mana they that they might pass out.

The final group is cosmic framework, however, the user typically is limited by how they view their powers. So they could do 'anything', but it will have a 'special effect' limitation. So a cosmic angel could shoot a beam of energy but it will be 'holy light'. He can't make it a laser beam.

Might not sound like much, but the limitation on 'special effect' does limit what you can do. Also, it is the least cost effective. If you had to compare an aura user, to an elementalist, to a modular user, to a cosmic user, if each had a 'Super Punch' and they had the exact same amount of Monads, the Aura User would crush everyone else, but the aura user will never be able to do anything that doesn't effect their own body.

Aura users cannot shoot blasts of energy like Goku. He would be an elementalist.

The Elementalist could shoot the most powerful blast of energy from his fist, but he could never change it. If it was a blast of fire, it would always be a blast of fire. The modular user could, with some time and effort, change it into an ice blast, or an acid splash. It would still be a blast of energy, but the type of energy, and it's secondary effects are fixed for an elementalist, but adjustible for a Modular user.

And finally, the cosmic user. These are typically someone who can copy someone else's powers. Or someone who can steal someone else's powers. Or someone who had 'divine blessings' so he is 'praying to god'. The power still comes from him, but he pictures the power as a blessing from a higher power, so it can be anything, but he might not believe he can control how it works. He just prays and something happens.


I hope these examples help you in trying to figure out our own magic system.