Need help how do I write about the evolution of magic

[Zenomew]

I am writing a story about an female Archmage reincarnated as a baby a couple thousand years in the future

I bet you know the general plot an incredibly skilled sage decided to reincarnate thousands of years in the future. Unfortunately, it is also discovered that mankind's knowledge of magic and swordsmanship has drastically deteriorated in this era; only shoddy magic equipment can be sporadically found, while even the most basic spells have been forgotten. To add insult to injury, the current crest/eyes/job/whatever special proof of greatness once hailed as the most powerful, is now viewed as the worst....so our MC goes Royal Academy. Shattering prejudices, he promptly makes ripples in the academy and beyond. However, the former sage uncovers signs of dark forces(possiblely MC's old enemy the enemy)working in the shadows, and with humanity weaker than ever, it is up to MC to thwart their evil plans.

NO!

The demon/dark lord is very dead

Magic has evolved to be more efficient and useful

the MC is an Archmage but doesn't know anything about the current magic system (but she is learning fast)

But I hit an unexpected roadblock

How am I supposed to explain how magic has evolved over the years from singing and chanting spells to automatically using magic circles to unleash devastating spells

like how did people discover drawing circles in the air with magic text inscribed in them was better than singing your lungs out



I need help please

 

[Rhaps]

How develop is your society? If its modern/urban fantasy, then I can help you since I developed something similar.

 

[Zenomew]

from bronze age to late medieval age

 

[Rhaps]

I read a bit of your story, I think I can cook.

You use Runes which is very flexible, having them as the language of the world would make things easier. Language is the important part here. Chanting and writing conveys one thing, language of magic. When people are chanting they are resonating with the world through their voice, and writing/drawing magic circles resonate with it through imagery.

People just find it more convenient to draw Runes and adapted it in place of chanting.

For how civilization discover magic circles, you could have people discover these strange letters not used by anyone else in the world, some ancient buried ruin would do. Once the discovery part is done, mages would absolutely get their wrinkly brain on how Runes operate.

For magic circles, you could have the mages reference the formations the Runes were found in, as irl Runes are written in specific ways, and go from there to make circles. Destructive spells are easier than it look with Runes, stacking a bunch of Runes like Sol would be unstable, yes, but a bunch of Sol? You could spawn a sun with that.
(Some mage must be crazy enough to try at least once to stack Runes)

My advice is to reference things irl, for the evolution of magic, you can look into the evolution of electricity. From the power of the divine brought down to level of mortal, that sort of thing.

 

[Zenomew]

The reincarnated Archmage needs to learn magic circles | Scribble Hub

here the link to the story

 

[kokiboki]

To explain how magic has evolved over the years, you can introduce an event or a catalyst that sparked this change. For example, perhaps there was a magical breakthrough or discovery made by a mage or scholar who realized that drawing magic circles is more efficient than chanting spells? < 3

 

[Rhaps]

To explain how magic has evolved over the years, you can introduce an event or a catalyst that sparked this change. For example, perhaps there was a magical breakthrough or discovery made by a mage or scholar who realized that drawing magic circles is more efficient than chanting spells? < 3

This could also work, linking the death of the MC's previous life directly to her current life.

Losing one of their greatest Archmage in the war made the mages realize they need to improve so that a tragedy like this cannot happen again

 

[Zenomew]

I read a bit of your story, I think I can cook.

You use Runes which is very flexible, having them as the language of the world would make things easier. Language is the important part here. Chanting and writing conveys one thing, language of magic. When people are chanting they are resonating with the world through their voice, and writing/drawing magic circles resonate with it through imagery.

People just find it more convenient to draw Runes and adapted it in place of chanting.

For how civilization discover magic circles, you could have people discover these strange letters not used by anyone else in the world, some ancient buried ruin would do. Once the discovery part is done, mages would absolutely get their wrinkly brain on how Runes operate.

For magic circles, you could have the mages reference the formations the Runes were found in, as irl Runes are written in specific ways, and go from there to make circles. Destructive spells are easier than it look with Runes, stacking a bunch of Runes like Sol would be unstable, yes, but a bunch of Sol? You could spawn a sun with that.
(Some mage must be crazy enough to try at least once to stack Runes)

My advice is to reference things irl, for the evolution of magic, you can look into the evolution of electricity. From the power of the divine brought down to level of mortal, that sort of thing.

the language of the world is not one unique mother of all magic language language is a contradictory medium. A large number of users creates rigid meanings, while few users allow the meaning to become more flexible and increase its power. However, once there are only few or no users left, the language becomes ambiguous and inconsistent.

magic existed before humans even put a name to it. Countless species, from elves who lived for millennia and dragons who considered even elves children to old gods tied to a hollow eternity, all used magic under different names. But each magic system was unique to their species...

ancient language is only a small part of five hundred and twenty ways of using magic(yes I made all 520)

 

[Rhaps]

the language of the world is not one unique mother of all magic language language is a contradictory medium. A large number of users creates rigid meanings, while few users allow the meaning to become more flexible and increase its power. However, once there are only few or no users left, the language becomes ambiguous and inconsistent.

magic existed before humans even put a name to it. Countless species, from elves who lived for millennia and dragons who considered even elves children to old gods tied to a hollow eternity, all used magic under different names. But each magic system was unique to their species...

ancient language is only a small part of five hundred and twenty ways of using magic(yes I made all 520)

What do you think about the natural selection of magic? Some magic work better than other but some have specific niches to them.

Mages favoring other types of magic and developing them further. Finding the connection points between different schools of magic to make modern magic?

 

[Zenomew]

What do you think about the natural selection of magic? Some magic work better than other but some have specific niches to them.

Mages favoring other types of magic and developing them further. Finding the connection points between different schools of magic to make modern magic?

Yes thanks a lot that's exactly what I needed ? ? ? ? ?

 

[Rhaps]

Yes thanks a lot that's exactly what I needed ? ? ? ? ?

I look forward to your story, it has a lot of potential.

 

[OokamiKasumi]

...How am I supposed to explain how magic has evolved over the years from singing and chanting spells to automatically using magic circles to unleash devastating spells

like how did people discover drawing circles in the air with magic text inscribed in them was better than singing your lungs out

There is No Easy Way to do this.

Seriously, making up a full history, or even a partial history, of how early magicians progressed from using a shamanistic style of magic; rituals and prayer incantations, into condensed mana imprints: spell circles cast on thin air, especially when there's a thousand years of progress between them, is a Big Project.

What you're trying to do here is similar to coming up with the history of how humanity went from using bows, swords, and horses to conduct warfare, to modern warfare using sub-machine guns, tanks, and helicopters.

To even attempt this, would take massive research.

Just to start with: How much do you know about the History of actual Magic?
-- Not make-believe magic, like what's found in Dungeons and Dragons, but Real, historical Magic as it is currently practiced here on Earth?

Here's a very basic Summery:
-- The earliest form of magic was basic shamanism practiced by the native people of the world. Shintoism for example, is a somewhat advanced form of shamanism.
-- Then you have Judaic ceremonial magic which works with the heavenly powers using prayers and songs recorded in the Torah; the precursor to the common bible, utilizing the Tree of Life as a progression map.
-- From India came the sutras; massive, long, and convoluted prayers that induce a meditative state so strong --and useful-- that the entire far east jumped on their bandwagon, branching out into thousands of different forms of Buddhism. When the native forms of Chinese shamanism were added to Buddhism, Taoism happened. (Keep in mind, I'm being VERY general here.)
-- Meanwhile, the Europeans developed a magic system based on a mix of Judaic ceremonial magic and mathematics. This form of magic used heavenly powers and demonic powers through basic addition and subtraction --called Magic Squares-- that were later made circular and stamped on medallions. You can find a bunch of these in the Ars Goatia, also called the Lesser and Greater Keys of Solomon. THIS is where all those fancy circle spells you see in manga and anime comes from.
-- Speaking of numbers... Geometry --developed in the Middle East, and later snatched by Rome-- was considered Celestial or Sacred Mathematics, and was kept as a secret for over a thousand years by the Masons; the people who designed, and built, all those massive temples and cathedrals. There was an actual reason for this. Because you couldn't build a temple, a cathedral, or a grand mosque, without knowing how geometry worked, and only the very wealthy had the money to build one, this knowledge was a literal goldmine for any archetict that knew it. The 'Order' of the Free Masons had their start here. In fact, if you look at any modern mason ring you'll see the big "G" for Geometry in the middle.
-- The British isles developed two distinct forms of magic. Witchcraft; based on native shamanistic rituals, and Ceremonial Magic, which was pretty much a cleaned up and polished version of what was being practiced in Europe mixed with Masonic rituals. Currently, the witchcraft forms are called Wicca and Paganism respectively, and the ceremonial forms are mostly under the headings: Masonry and/or Golden Dawn with thousands of variations under both types of magic.
-- Then you have the far more modern forms of native African shamanistic magic mixed with prayers and songs from the King James bible, such as Voudun, (voodoo) and Rosicrucianism.
-- Oh, and modern Satanism. This was invented by one man using the common King James bible mixed with Dante's book Infero, and Dante's other book, Divine Comedy, plus European magic squares with a smattering of basic Golden Dawn ceremonal magic to make it pretty -- Anton LeVay in 1969.

And that's just skimming the surface of magic right here on this world.
-- If you want to know more about this stuff, Google is your friend.

My suggestion would Not be to invent a whole history; that would be a massive work all by itself, but rather focus on HOW the spells themselves went from incantations to mana imprints. Just coming up with how those mana imprints work will be headache-inducing enough.

As a basic direction, try looking up how the microchip works. It might inspire you as to how long arias and chants (simple circuitry,) became far more condensed spells, (the microchip.)

 

[GlassRose]

It could be that magic circles always existed, and were known about, but to use them it used to be that you had to draw them in the air, which required standing in one place and having a steady hand, whereas the singing option was more mobile and left your hands free, and both options weren't quick. So respectable mages would sing/chant, while the ones that were particularly bad at singing/chanting, were mute, or were just very deft of hand would draw, and probably have to put up with discrimination.

Then, someone discovered how to store magic circles, so in combat you just pull out your magic circle, in whatever form you desire, and channel magic through it and BOOM! And that revolutionized magic rapidly.

There's a couple different storage methods I can think of. You can store just one into a device, like a wand, and that's how magic items work too, there's scrolls for single, big magic circles (usually for more complicated spells, rather than more powerful), and then grimoires, which are books filled with pages upon pages of different magic circles, each ready to be cast. With good, war-mage grimoires being organized for efficiency, and with tabs to quickly flip to specific pages.

And then the most advanced caster's trick (could even be invented by the MC); using a Master Circle, to hold other magic circles at the ready for quick activation, maybe even automatic activation of certain spells, like shields and counterspells.

It also adds the possibility of non-mages designing magic. Of course, that'd be rare, since they couldn't test their magic themselves, and what self respecting mage would trust a mundane to write their spells! But it could lead to something interesting. Maybe it's too trope-y, but having the most renowned and reclusive spell-writer, known for their genius, secretly being unable to cast spells. Maybe they have a buddy who is a mage, acting as their proxy, while the identity of the real genius is kept a secret, both for their own protection (because they can't cast spells to defend themself), and because it would be a massive scandal.
And then you'd also have your mages who don't know how to write spells, they just cast others, which is common among the masses, so being able to write spells is a prestige thing. But it would be expected of upper-class mages to know how to write their own spells, NOT writing your own spells would be scandalous!

...

Also, your old-timey Archmages... must have made incredible rappers. I sure hope you do something with the old style of magic, even if it's just that it has translated into making the MC a great singing/rapper. It could be a nice bit of characterization, if she just, likes to sing, outside of magic. Maybe discovers/rediscovers a passion for singing that she never had/lost when singing was just the means to cast magic, never something to be enjoyed for it's own sake? Maybe, culturally, in the past no one would sing because it could have been magic and it was like walking into the center of town with a bomb, but now that sung magic isn't useful (relatively) in warfare, singing has become a common thing. Maybe performers use sung magic!

And don't completely phase out sung magic from the MC's skillset, being able to use magic circles AND sung magic at the same time could be incredible, and it allows your MC to hold onto her roots as an old Archmage. Because that is surely still a very important part of her identity, and without it she must surely feel lost. By letting her carry some of her past into her present, but still have to adapt, it can help her find herself in the new world, and have more realistic character than if she just dropped sung magic altogether, because that'd be like throwing away who she used to be, and it's very hard for a person to truly and completely do that.

 

[Zenomew]

It could be that magic circles always existed, and were known about, but to use them it used to be that you had to draw them in the air, which required standing in one place and having a steady hand, whereas the singing option was more mobile and left your hands free, and both options weren't quick. So respectable mages would sing/chant, while the ones that were particularly bad at singing/chanting, were mute, or were just very deft of hand would draw, and probably have to put up with discrimination.

Then, someone discovered how to store magic circles, so in combat you just pull out your magic circle, in whatever form you desire, and channel magic through it and BOOM! And that revolutionized magic rapidly.

There's a couple different storage methods I can think of. You can store just one into a device, like a wand, and that's how magic items work too, there's scrolls for single, big magic circles (usually for more complicated spells, rather than more powerful), and then grimoires, which are books filled with pages upon pages of different magic circles, each ready to be cast. With good, war-mage grimoires being organized for efficiency, and with tabs to quickly flip to specific pages.

And then the most advanced caster's trick (could even be invented by the MC); using a Master Circle, to hold other magic circles at the ready for quick activation, maybe even automatic activation of certain spells, like shields and counterspells.

It also adds the possibility of non-mages designing magic. Of course, that'd be rare, since they couldn't test their magic themselves, and what self respecting mage would trust a mundane to write their spells! But it could lead to something interesting. Maybe it's too trope-y, but having the most renowned and reclusive spell-writer, known for their genius, secretly being unable to cast spells. Maybe they have a buddy who is a mage, acting as their proxy, while the identity of the real genius is kept a secret, both for their own protection (because they can't cast spells to defend themself), and because it would be a massive scandal.
And then you'd also have your mages who don't know how to write spells, they just cast others, which is common among the masses, so being able to write spells is a prestige thing. But it would be expected of upper-class mages to know how to write their own spells, NOT writing your own spells would be scandalous!

...

Also, your old-timey Archmages... must have made incredible rappers. I sure hope you do something with the old style of magic, even if it's just that it has translated into making the MC a great singing/rapper. It could be a nice bit of characterization, if she just, likes to sing, outside of magic. Maybe discovers/rediscovers a passion for singing that she never had/lost when singing was just the means to cast magic, never something to be enjoyed for it's own sake? Maybe, culturally, in the past no one would sing because it could have been magic and it was like walking into the center of town with a bomb, but now that sung magic isn't useful (relatively) in warfare, singing has become a common thing. Maybe performers use sung magic!

And don't completely phase out sung magic from the MC's skillset, being able to use magic circles AND sung magic at the same time could be incredible, and it allows your MC to hold onto her roots as an old Archmage. Because that is surely still a very important part of her identity, and without it she must surely feel lost. By letting her carry some of her past into her present, but still have to adapt, it can help her find herself in the new world, and have more realistic character than if she just dropped sung magic altogether, because that'd be like throwing away who she used to be, and it's very hard for a person to truly and completely do that.

Thanks, singing magic might actually be pretty useful in a battlefield probably like the place the MC is staying is under siege and all MC needs to do is find a good safe spot and start singing

The enemy would probably ignore or be confused by what they think is a crazy girl singing after all it's not like she is creating magic circles in air....then all hell breaks loose

 

[GlassRose]

Thanks, singing magic might actually be pretty useful in a battlefield probably like the place the MC is staying is under siege and all MC needs to do is find a good safe spot and start singing

The enemy would probably ignore or be confused by what they think is a crazy girl singing after all it's not like she is creating magic circles in air....then all hell breaks loose

Well, that depends on if sung magic has been completely forgotten, or if people know what it is but it's seen more like a historical curiosity, practiced by historians and geeks and whatnot, kinda like how people see HEMA these days. Though, with thousands of years having past, it wouldn't be strange if it were forgotten outright in most places.

And, I was thinking, dual casting, like, singing magic at the same time as you use your magic circles, to be able to increase your rate of fire, or use another different spell while you cast one. Of course, with magic circles multicasting might be possible on its own, but adding in sung magic will allow a free extra spell in there.