Random fantasy & stuff discussion

[SolerFox]

true, but the border towns should be in better condition than what is implied. the town is, in the end, the first line of defense. though it would depend on how monsters came to be and how they spawn in the world if they spawn, to begin with. this would determine if the border town needs to be defense focused or if every settlement needs to be defense focused. I know magic barriers exist and could be used in place of a wall, but when the magic barrier is destroyed or the magic simply runs out then what will stop them. even then, it would depend on the spell, how magic works, and they type of monsters. the reason why is they there could be monsters that could tunnel under the wall, and possibly some that can teleport inside.

when you think about it, the border towns that face constant monster attacks should be better off than a lot of the other towns and maybe even a few cities. they would have a constant stream of monster parts flowing out of their town and would need a constant source of food, though depending on the story the monsters themself could be a source of food. the capital would more than likely fund the town, to prevent it from falling and having the kingdom pay the price. the roads too, from and inside the town would be in better condition as well. the reason being is that people would constantly be walking on them and that the kingdom troops may need to use it in an emergency. the town would be filled with adventures, magicians, alchemists, etc. simply because there would be supply, the monster parts, and demand, the adventures, etc..

I would imagine that a kingdom would want a strong and profitable defense instead of a slum area.

 

[drakensji]

I've read quite a few cultivation novels and i really enjoy those that have a well thought out and original power system. Birth of the demonic sword is the best one I can think of .With breath and its features seemingly perfectly crafted by the author. All the powers and techniques seem to follow the rules put in place . I love the world-building of this novel.

But I am having trouble coming up with my own power systems, at least those that follow a xianxia level power scaling.
I wanted to make a power system for a story about a peaceful world eater who infiltrated a magic world in order to learn special abilities to defend itself without using its world eating abilities. Cause the world eater wants to avoid eating worlds with life in them to avoid losing its rationality from absorbing too many personalities. But i now need a power system (preferably more than one to account for different world power systems) that follows xianxia scaling that starts off weak (or not, just not too strong) and eventually, very rarely, reaches the level of travelling between worlds and affecting entire worlds with their strength.
The world eater has powers related to space (cause eating empty worlds gives a greater affinity with the power of space and emptiness) so i wanted him to use those in the new power system and mess around in this world while trying to learn its power system. One of the things i most wanted to implement was a friend who is a thief, so has great escape techniques, and the ability to infiltrate and greatly affect space realms and other pocket dimension like areas. But anything i can think of would be too boringly vague and wishy washy.

 

[SolerFox]

I have a few ideas that may help, but right now, I don't know enough about the world he/she/it/they are going to and where he/she/it/they are from. Are there going to be multiple types of progression systems, ex: cultivation, magic, intent/aura/domain, soul energy, life energy, etc..
What are the abilities and consequences the world eater has? The stuff of this nature would help make a more believable system that would mesh well with the others. Right now, the answer I would give would be something standard, but I would bet you want something more unique than that.

 

[drakensji]

I have a few ideas that may help, but right now, I don't know enough about the world he/she/it/they are going to and where he/she/it/they are from. Are there going to be multiple types of progression systems, ex: cultivation, magic, intent/aura/domain, soul energy, life energy, etc..
What are the abilities and consequences the world eater has? The stuff of this nature would help make a more believable system that would mesh well with the others. Right now, the answer I would give would be something standard, but I would bet you want something more unique than that.

The world eater is born from a dying world that transforms into something similar to a black hole. It lives in the space between worlds, where other worlds are like bubbles floating around. The world eater survives by eating worlds for energy, and absorbs all the knowledge and "powers" of the worlds he eats, but eating worlds with life in them causes the world eater to lose control of itself due to the overwhelming amount personalities/knowledge etc inside the world. For this reason the mc world eater called Void doesn't eat worlds with life inside them (his core was based off an earth like world, so he has scientific knowledge but not much magical knowledge other than what he discovered on his own). This means he is weaker than most world eaters in almost all aspects, but eating empty/inorganic worlds greatly improved his "space" affinity, so he is the best at escaping.
Since all his abilities carry his black hole like energy anything he attacks will be partially absorbed, which is why he can't fight back against those gods and guardians that protect their worlds and try to kill world eaters on sight. If he does he will probably go crazy for a period of time, and while crazy he would eat other worlds indiscriminately and if he eats other life worlds he would go crazy for even longer falling into an almost never ending loop.

So in order to gain the ability to fight back, he infiltrates a world that he knows has produced people capable of guardian/god like powers. He compresses himself to a minuscle degree, finds a person he likes, and decides to copy his body and follow him around in order to learn how to use this worlds powers.

So the requirements for this power system are:

It has to have space related abilities or at least allow Void to create such abilities by imitation.

It has to have the potential for interworld travel. It doesn't neccessary have to be "galaxy destroying" levels but it has to be sufficiently high limit that teleporting infinite distances, changing your size from molecule to galaxy, destroying planets, etc are all wothin their scope. Though one can argue that the space between realms has such different rules of physics that a regular person could destroy a world like popping a bubble (if they can survive a place full of chaotic energy and no atmosphere).

I want there to be pocket dimensions, like those "small worlds" and similar artificial dimensions in cultivation novels, just so i can have Void mess with them using his space and world eater abilities. Like entering them when they aren't open, destroying them easily, moving them around at his whim, controlling where it teleports the people that enter etc.

I wanted Void and the guy he copied to become a sort of dynamic thief duo. With the thief being a somewhat morally grey mentor, but Void using his abilities and world eater perspective to help the thief become stronger. (as a world eater, he pretty much can see all the laws of physics and magic written clearly in the air, but being able to see the words doesn't mean you can understand what they say.) so there has to be abilities that help thievery in some way, but anything goes for now. Though Void will definitely have teleportation and "item box" like abilities so he's good on that end.

There can be different types of power systems, but the one that Void cares about are those that can reach world class level and that don't require contracts with higher(lol) beings or assistance from something like a spirit. Essentially he wants something he can learn and carry out of this world with him and fight/defend with. His escape abilities are already top level so no need to learn high levels of those.

I wanted there to be a personification of the will of the world (like a heaven and earth god, heavenly dao being etc.). And there would be abilities to percieve/commune with this will, and things become hilarious when these people/this god meet Void because they would be the ones to know that if Void takes off his human shell the whole world goes caput in his stomach. This means that if Void gets killed the world ends.

There are essentially two ways to reach world class levels of power: one is to fuse with one or more worlds, gain all the knowledge and abilities of the fused worlds, and pretty much become a god (world eaters would be a mutation of this, and sentient worlds would be the naturally born version).
Two is to gain power manually until you are as strong/stronger than the entire world and can survive in the space between worlds. This is more difficult but once someone else has fused with the world its pretty much the only way.


Last thing is that the story isn't supposed to be heavy or overly serious. Silly rules for the power systems are fine though i prefer logical ones.

 

[SolerFox]

abilities:
for traveling to different worlds. I believe that the world eaters would have a more powerful version of this. When they are in the space in-between worlds, that means that all the laws of physics don't apply. As you described, he would be an outsider looking in; this would mean that before the world eater enters a world, this being would have the option to travel to any when and any where. Of course, he can only travel to any when, when he is outside of the world, he would still be able to travel anywhere. I believe he would act as a singularity and that other world eater and time travelers wouldn't be able to travel through time.

Since the world eater's main powers are space and void, this being would easily be able to hide his entire being and be able to travel anywhere. This being would be able to turn himself/herself intangible and go through anything solid. This being would be able to travel through the void to shorten the distance in whatever plane of existence he is in, as well as to travel to other planes of existence. The reason why he/she would be able to travel like this is that every plane of existence would be connected or can connect to the void.

Since this being has a high control in the space element, it would make sense for him/her to create a pocket dimension to store his/her stuff.

As the saying goes, 'you stare into the void, the void stares back.' from this, he/she would be able to tell who is using a divination spell on them, or in other words, spying on them.

as for the system, you could base it on a black hole or something similar. he just needs to keep on consuming whatever to keep on getting powerful; matter would be converter into energy, even light would be converted.

What do you think so far? I still have a few more thoughts on the matter if you want to read them.

 

[SolerFox]

gravity spells
void spells
space spells
dark vision
energy vision
life and/or soul vision
mana manipulation
space manipulation
void manipulation
gravity manipulation

I believe he/she would have earth manipulation and it variations ex: earth, metal, sand, etc..

he/she might have fire/magma manipulation.

It would be impossible to steal from him/her since the void never gives back what it takes.

this being might not need sleep and since they can eat anything, they could eat air to help with their hunger, they could do the same thing with mana with the added benefit of increasing their mana pool if they have one.

this being may not need to breathe or at least to breathe as often since they are able to live in the void.

since the void is able to eat anything, this would include knowledge. that means that he/she could eat a book and they would know all the information in that book.

this being might have a unique relationship with souls. you can interpret this however you like.

 

[drakensji]

abilities:
for traveling to different worlds. I believe that the world eaters would have a more powerful version of this. When they are in the space in-between worlds, that means that all the laws of physics don't apply. As you described, he would be an outsider looking in; this would mean that before the world eater enters a world, this being would have the option to travel to any when and any where. Of course, he can only travel to any when, when he is outside of the world, he would still be able to travel anywhere. I believe he would act as a singularity and that other world eater and time travelers wouldn't be able to travel through time.

Since the world eater's main powers are space and void, this being would easily be able to hide his entire being and be able to travel anywhere. This being would be able to turn himself/herself intangible and go through anything solid. This being would be able to travel through the void to shorten the distance in whatever plane of existence he is in, as well as to travel to other planes of existence. The reason why he/she would be able to travel like this is that every plane of existence would be connected or can connect to the void.

Since this being has a high control in the space element, it would make sense for him/her to create a pocket dimension to store his/her stuff.

As the saying goes, 'you stare into the void, the void stares back.' from this, he/she would be able to tell who is using a divination spell on them, or in other words, spying on them.

as for the system, you could base it on a black hole or something similar. he just needs to keep on consuming whatever to keep on getting powerful; matter would be converter into energy, even light would be converted.

What do you think so far? I still have a few more thoughts on the matter if you want to read them.

Time is something i dont want to mess with. Maybe each world will have different time dilations but going to the past is impossible in any way shape or form. At most you can slow down time, travel to the future (enter stasis and reappear when the time is right), or accelerate ageing.

When he first enters the world he has a near omniscient view of the world and chooses his thief friend through that. Afterwards he restricts himself with the worlds laws and becomes a mortal. He cant initially use his powers unrestrictedly because his mortal body would break down (his space rifts are hardly smooth tunnels, and pass through chaotic void) . Pretty much he starts off very weak (unless he gives up his mortal body and the safety of the world) . Of course this doesnt restrict his mental passives. He can see the world unlike any other creature, directly observing the rules and reality of the world (though he doesnt necessarily understand what he sees). All the space spells and void abilities are things he can do as a world eater or/and will eventually learn to do with the worlds magic/power system.

I dont intend for anyone to travel between worlds most of the time. The space between worlds is pretty boring and empty, and there is no reason to travel to another world until he finishes his business in the first world (not accounting for minor realms inside the world).

the anti-divination idea I really like, but i already had in mind that pretty much the world is scared shitless of him, so any divination about him would pretty much just be: "RUN! SCARY!!! BAD!!!"

your idea of the black hole system would pretty much be how his power as a world eater works, but he needs something separate from that so that he doesnt eat everything he attacks.

gravity spells
void spells
space spells
dark vision
energy vision
life and/or soul vision
mana manipulation
space manipulation
void manipulation
gravity manipulation

I believe he/she would have earth manipulation and it variations ex: earth, metal, sand, etc..

he/she might have fire/magma manipulation.

It would be impossible to steal from him/her since the void never gives back what it takes.

this being might not need sleep and since they can eat anything, they could eat air to help with their hunger, they could do the same thing with mana with the added benefit of increasing their mana pool if they have one.

this being may not need to breathe or at least to breathe as often since they are able to live in the void.

since the void is able to eat anything, this would include knowledge. that means that he/she could eat a book and they would know all the information in that book.

this being might have a unique relationship with souls. you can interpret this however you like.

gravity spells = yes
void spells = yes
space spells = main point
dark vision = his eyes work differently so darkness isnt really a thing to him, neither is light. he sees the world by its rules(think something like the matrix except golden and more magical) as well as being able to sense space. Of course he also has human eyes, but they are supplementary and whether they work or not isnt an issue.
energy vision = refer to the above
life and/or soul vision = refer to the above
mana manipulation = thanks to his observation of the laws he can figure out the rules of magic pretty easily, but he needs some help at the beginning
space manipulation = part of space spell
void manipulation = idem
gravity manipulation = idem

he theoretically has an affinity for all elements except for maybe mana because he is technically an amalgamation of worlds, one of which was earth-like so he has all the elements inside him and all the experiences and personalities of every living being, but space is his preferred element and his strongest.

It would be impossible to steal from him cause nobody has better space skills than him, any attempts to break through his item box would be instantly detected and countered. There is no inherent "what is mine is forever mine"unless he absorbs it, but then it is destroyed.

He creates a body that follows the laws of the world to the best of his ability, so he has all the weaknesses and limitations of a mortal body with some exceptions. his body still needs sleep and food, at least at the beginning.

absorbing mana is very easy to him once he figures out how, but he still needs someone to explain the basics of the worlds power system cause he never felt it beforehand.

Eating books for knowledge is a good idea.

He wouldnt have a particular relationship with souls. As a world eater he can absorb anything, but souls would bring the same problem that eating a living person would bring. Souls are just another life-form to him.

I say him even though he technically has no gender (or is all genders and animals and inorganic matter) simply because he takes a male form when he transforms into a human (copies the thief).

What i need is a secondary power system for a world eater that has comparable power (at least by the end of the story) but follows different rules and isnt focused on "absorbing/eating". I want it to be related to space, or at least it is among his possible abilities, but isnt the same as his world eater abilities.

 

[drakensji]

Time is something i dont want to mess with. Maybe each world will have different time dilations but going to the past is impossible in any way shape or form. At most you can slow down time, travel to the future (enter stasis and reappear when the time is right), or accelerate ageing.

When he first enters the world he has a near omniscient view of the world and chooses his thief friend through that. Afterwards he restricts himself with the worlds laws and becomes a mortal. He cant initially use his powers unrestrictedly because his mortal body would break down (his space rifts are hardly smooth tunnels, and pass through chaotic void) . Pretty much he starts off very weak (unless he gives up his mortal body and the safety of the world) . Of course this doesnt restrict his mental passives. He can see the world unlike any other creature, directly observing the rules and reality of the world (though he doesnt necessarily understand what he sees). All the space spells and void abilities are things he can do as a world eater or/and will eventually learn to do with the worlds magic/power system.

I dont intend for anyone to travel between worlds most of the time. The space between worlds is pretty boring and empty, and there is no reason to travel to another world until he finishes his business in the first world (not accounting for minor realms inside the world).

the anti-divination idea I really like, but i already had in mind that pretty much the world is scared shitless of him, so any divination about him would pretty much just be: "RUN! SCARY!!! BAD!!!"

your idea of the black hole system would pretty much be how his power as a world eater works, but he needs something separate from that so that he doesnt eat everything he attacks.



gravity spells = yes
void spells = yes
space spells = main point
dark vision = his eyes work differently so darkness isnt really a thing to him, neither is light. he sees the world by its rules(think something like the matrix except golden and more magical) as well as being able to sense space. Of course he also has human eyes, but they are supplementary and whether they work or not isnt an issue.
energy vision = refer to the above
life and/or soul vision = refer to the above
mana manipulation = thanks to his observation of the laws he can figure out the rules of magic pretty easily, but he needs some help at the beginning
space manipulation = part of space spell
void manipulation = idem
gravity manipulation = idem

he theoretically has an affinity for all elements except for maybe mana because he is technically an amalgamation of worlds, one of which was earth-like so he has all the elements inside him and all the experiences and personalities of every living being, but space is his preferred element and his strongest.

It would be impossible to steal from him cause nobody has better space skills than him, any attempts to break through his item box would be instantly detected and countered. There is no inherent "what is mine is forever mine"unless he absorbs it, but then it is destroyed.

He creates a body that follows the laws of the world to the best of his ability, so he has all the weaknesses and limitations of a mortal body with some exceptions. his body still needs sleep and food, at least at the beginning.

absorbing mana is very easy to him once he figures out how, but he still needs someone to explain the basics of the worlds power system cause he never felt it beforehand.

Eating books for knowledge is a good idea.

He wouldnt have a particular relationship with souls. As a world eater he can absorb anything, but souls would bring the same problem that eating a living person would bring. Souls are just another life-form to him.

I say him even though he technically has no gender (or is all genders and animals and inorganic matter) simply because he takes a male form when he transforms into a human (copies the thief).

What i need is a secondary power system for a world eater that has comparable power (at least by the end of the story) but follows different rules and isnt focused on "absorbing/eating". I want it to be related to space, or at least it is among his possible abilities, but isnt the same as his world eater abilities.

If we consider void as a black hole like magic inherent to his race as a world eater, what he needs is a power that controls a different energy or technuiques to use and craft a sufficiently powerful weapon capable of fighting beings of similar strength to a world eater (world eaters don't usually try to fight eachother because it would be a messy attrition battle of who can eat eachother faster, and whoever wins would still be much weaker than before the fight). Anything that he can contain, control, create, seperate from his void body/energy is what he needs to use in order to fight without eating something alive and going crazy.

 

[SolerFox]

why not just create a box of harden space and just shrink it until whatever inside is dead?
you don't need to directly damage anything, try going for indirect damage.
you could make a sword, or whatever weapon, of harden space that would be empowered by void.

 

[SolerFox]

for defense, the mc could just shrink a lot of space around him/her. so when someone tried to attack him/her the attacker would just stop. they would technically still be moving but since the vast amount of space is not just, let's say, a few feet, their attack would slow down drastically. since the attack is slowed down, their body would act like a regular person running into a brick wall. a person would technically be able to get through it, but it would take an unreasonable amount of time. since the attacker would be either stuck, slowed, or rebounded off, the mc could just attack them regularly. this would be a matter of perspective, to the attacker the mc would only be a few feet away but in reality, it would be a vast distance, say a few thousand meters, to the mc the attacker would be and is a few feet away.

another way to look at this is that you are using distance as a defense and that defense would be irrelevant to you but not to the attacker.

 

[SolerFox]

The mc can attack with space fractures; they are impossibly sharp and invisible to anyone without a space affinity, a high-level vision skill, or some kind of specialized machinery or the magic equivalent.
The mc can use this as a trap and help him/her strategically retreat into a more favorable position.
The mc can use this on a bladed weapon to help them cut something that should not be cut.
Since they can control space, then they can create anti-gravity, this is powerful on mortal races, even the ones that can fly. The only ones that this might not work on would be aquatic races.

 

[drakensji]

for defense, the mc could just shrink a lot of space around him/her. so when someone tried to attack him/her the attacker would just stop. they would technically still be moving but since the vast amount of space is not just, let's say, a few feet, their attack would slow down drastically. since the attack is slowed down, their body would act like a regular person running into a brick wall. a person would technically be able to get through it, but it would take an unreasonable amount of time. since the attacker would be either stuck, slowed, or rebounded off, the mc could just attack them regularly. this would be a matter of perspective, to the attacker the mc would only be a few feet away but in reality, it would be a vast distance, say a few thousand meters, to the mc the attacker would be and is a few feet away.

another way to look at this is that you are using distance as a defense and that defense would be irrelevant to you but not to the attacker.

The other option for defense is to simply seperate the space so it is technically impossible to pass through, or bend space so that any attacks would fly elsewhere. Creating subjective distances wil probably be one of his most common tactics. For the enemy he is a thousand meters away, for him the enemy is in arms reach. Nice idea.

The mc can attack with space fractures; they are impossibly sharp and invisible to anyone without a space affinity, a high-level vision skill, or some kind of specialized machinery or the magic equivalent.
The mc can use this as a trap and help him/her strategically retreat into a more favorable position.
The mc can use this on a bladed weapon to help them cut something that should not be cut.
Since they can control space, then they can create anti-gravity, this is powerful on mortal races, even the ones that can fly. The only ones that this might not work on would be aquatic races.

Space fractures and super sharpness are an obvious application of space ability. Though they wouldn't be invisible, though they also wouldn't be particularly noticable. They would look like distortions in the air due to the light bending through the distorted space.

Anti gravity would fall under gravity magic. Theoreticallly you could weaken gravity on a person by creating more distance between them and a planet, but in order to take away their gravity would require a lot if mana and it isn't cost effective when you can just use gravity magic.

Also i wasn't really looking for applications of space magic, i can think of plenty on my own, what i was having trouble figuring out was a training/power system, how the magic of any kind works in this world, how do people gain magic abilities, how do they improve it, what are its limitations?

Just now i thought of a pretty good one thanks to your discussion!

To use magic a person must pretty much copy a worlds law (like those cultivation stories of contemplating Dao) and control it. But while for regular people this would be like meditating, sensing the air, absorbing the worlds laws and then applying them in their battle techniques. For Void its more like watching a programming script and try to figure out the programming language by watching how the script runs.

This would mean that he can sort of create his own laws of physics, though it would require practice or preperation.

This also allows for different types of power users (classes) and for magical races/beings.

A person can try and sense the laws, then copy it to recreate natural effects, and with practice alter it (mage). Or they can absorb the law, altering their body to become part of that phenomenon and thus controlling magic would be an extension of controlling their body (warrior). Then there would be lazy/lucky people, who encounter a spirit (pretty much a living amalgamation of laws or smth) who can form a contract and pretty much do the magic for them . So the person would ask for a fireball and the spirit would do all the work (summoners/druids/sorcerers).

By this logic Gods, wills of the world or elements, spirits etc would be AI's of the world, and world eaters would be like a highly corrossive acid that melts their hardware and there is little they can do about it. While Void transformed from acid to virus, that is trying to analyse and copy their programs and language.

Now that I've got a good idea, you can suggest applications or ideas of abilities. Thank you for your help XD

 

[SolerFox]

that could mean that the undead or monsters could be the errors of the world. the more corruption of mana, programming laws, the more errors appear, the more monsters spawn somewhere in the world.

 

[SolerFox]

corrupted mana:

corrupted mana can take on many forms

sentient races:
a minor form or corrupted mana would be like magical or physical cancer
from medium to a large amount usually involves a cult that is either trying to summon something or is experimenting, the cult could be experimenting on themselves or on others.

curse mages can deal with a temporary form, debuff, or a permanent form of corruption, slowly killing a person

Naturally corrupted mana can either spawn monsters or create a mana dead environment that would be deadly to most living beings.

dungeon cores could be used to clean the corrupted mana

the undead could be made from using the corrupted mana as well as other monsters

Regular monsters can become sentient if they are not made or corrupted from corrupted mana.
regular animal-> monster -> sentient monster -> etc.
regular animal-> tainted by corruption -> becomes a mindless monster-> etc.
regular animal-> gains a lot of regular mana -> becomes a magical monster-> etc.
corrupted mana -> corrupted monster
corrupted mana-> corrupted gems
etc.

there are magical metals and therefore can have corrupted variants

corrupted mana could come naturally from the sentient races, in other words, from their negative emotions
it could come from inexperienced mages when they mess up setting up a spell, incomplete or nonsense logic from the spell.
it could come from an evil or foreign god/goddess
it could come from powerful monsters
it could come from the infernal realm
etc.

cursed weapons could be weapons made from corrupted metals, rituals from cults, from foreign gods, from dungeons in rare cases, necromancers that are seeking a way to ger around death, etc.

for cults, corruption mana can make them, or any sentient race, stronger, magically and/or physically, but it would be a race against the corruption. the person in question would either find a way to stay sane and beat the corruption or the corruption would make the person go mad and go on a killing rampage.

 

[drakensji]

that could mean that the undead or monsters could be the errors of the world. the more corruption of mana, programming laws, the more errors appear, the more monsters spawn somewhere in the world.

while there would certainly be errors, the spirits/gods resolve them pretty quickly, thats why they are there. so most undead and stuff would just be a manifestation of the law of Death or smth similar, or a ghost taking control of a body thanks to strong will.

i figure that the physics and micro of the world is much simpler than our world (/the world Void knows) and these gives room for errors (not many) but im not yet sure what those errors would do. Maybe cause undead like you said? But undead are a pretty staple fantasy phenomenon.

corrupted mana:

corrupted mana can take on many forms

sentient races:
a minor form or corrupted mana would be like magical or physical cancer
from medium to a large amount usually involves a cult that is either trying to summon something or is experimenting, the cult could be experimenting on themselves or on others.

curse mages can deal with a temporary form, debuff, or a permanent form of corruption, slowly killing a person

Naturally corrupted mana can either spawn monsters or create a mana dead environment that would be deadly to most living beings.

dungeon cores could be used to clean the corrupted mana

the undead could be made from using the corrupted mana as well as other monsters

Regular monsters can become sentient if they are not made or corrupted from corrupted mana.
regular animal-> monster -> sentient monster -> etc.
regular animal-> tainted by corruption -> becomes a mindless monster-> etc.
regular animal-> gains a lot of regular mana -> becomes a magical monster-> etc.
corrupted mana -> corrupted monster
corrupted mana-> corrupted gems
etc.

there are magical metals and therefore can have corrupted variants

corrupted mana could come naturally from the sentient races, in other words, from their negative emotions
it could come from inexperienced mages when they mess up setting up a spell, incomplete or nonsense logic from the spell.
it could come from an evil or foreign god/goddess
it could come from powerful monsters
it could come from the infernal realm
etc.

cursed weapons could be weapons made from corrupted metals, rituals from cults, from foreign gods, from dungeons in rare cases, necromancers that are seeking a way to ger around death, etc.

for cults, corruption mana can make them, or any sentient race, stronger, magically and/or physically, but it would be a race against the corruption. the person in question would either find a way to stay sane and beat the corruption or the corruption would make the person go mad and go on a killing rampage.

the thing is, im not thinking in terms of Mana as the cornerstone of magic. Mana could be the term for pure energy or the stamina required to use magic but the world is built on "laws" that can be used to do magic, so an error in the laws would either cause a glitch or something that the world would consider an error, so undead are a possible idea, but i assume most errors would be relatively harmless unless you touch them and would just look like a glitching object/area probably cause by too many laws being used in an area and messing up the natural order.

If someone managed to figure out in what circumstances an error occurred they might be able to weaponize it, getting hit with a glitch could cause all sorts of problems and would be hard to destroy/defend with magic cause it would probably just exacerbate the glitch.

but ill keep your ideas in mind, maybe ill change my mind on the errors

 

[drakensji]

that could mean that the undead or monsters could be the errors of the world. the more corruption of mana, programming laws, the more errors appear, the more monsters spawn somewhere in the world.

while there would certainly be errors, the spirits/gods resolve them pretty quickly, thats why they are there. so most undead and stuff would just be a manifestation of the law of Death or smth similar, or a ghost taking control of a body thanks to strong will.

i figure that the physics and micro of the world is much simpler than our world (/the world Void knows) and these gives room for errors (not many) but im not yet sure what those errors would do. Maybe cause undead like you said? But undead are a pretty staple fantasy phenomenon.

(i was writing this on my computer and then forgot to send it, then later i saw your following posts and responded to that)

 

[SolerFox]

The only thing that I believe would fit your criteria would be a mix of cultivation, avatar the last Airbender, and regular spell structures.

the reason why:

1.) cultivation is self-explanatory

2.) for avatar the last Airbender, I thought it might blend well with cultivation and magic.

3.) for spell structures, I believe this can be used to mesh physics with magic.

Do you want to continue to talk about ideas or go back to how we used to do it? With one of us typing up their opinion on something and we discuss things. Who knows, you might be inspired for your story.
By the way, what is the name or potential name of your story?

 

[drakensji]

The only thing that I believe would fit your criteria would be a mix of cultivation, avatar the last Airbender, and regular spell structures.

the reason why:

1.) cultivation is self-explanatory

2.) for avatar the last Airbender, I thought it might blend well with cultivation and magic.

3.) for spell structures, I believe this can be used to mesh physics with magic.

Do you want to continue to talk about ideas or go back to how we used to do it? With one of us typing up their opinion on something and we discuss things. Who knows, you might be inspired for your story.
By the way, what is the name or potential name of your story?

I was thinking to change topics and ask about another worldbuilding idea, but if you have something to discuss like we used to, thats fine too.

I was definitely inspired for my story. The temp name for now is Dark Star Adventures (cause the appearance of Void is based off of the dark star skins in LoL). No need to look for it, i haven't posted the half chapter I've written anywhere (i haven't yet posted any of my writings cause i want to have the certainty i will work on it).

Any discussion is fine. If you don't have anything to discuss I can ask for advice on another story of mine

 

[SolerFox]

anything is fine, it is just that there was a lull in the conversation. let me know when you post it.

 

[drakensji]

anything is fine, it is just that there was a lull in the conversation. let me know when you post it.

It will take a long time, I will only post once i know the direction (start, middle, end) i will take the story and that might never happen.

anyway i wanted to discuss ideas on another world building discussion.

I wanted to make a pseudo cultivation story (i read a lot of those, and reading them makes me want to create hybrid western/eastern stories and watch the two different cultures clash) where a person from our world, Max, was summoned by a "cultivator" from a fantasy world (i later thought that it was better to westernize everything cause i didnt think it was respectful to half-ass the eastern parts).

I had a theory for the whole world system. That there were many parallel worlds that were differentiated by time dilation, and the slower time moved the more magic there was, because my theory was that "magic/qi" was the potential energy created from "stretching" time. so the further you "strecth" the time dilation the more magic energy there is (i imagined it like a rubber band, the more you stretch it, the more energy is accumulated). SO earth is the world moving at the fastest speed time-wise, so there is no supernatural phenomenon at all. While the world Max is summoned to is pretty slow, so there is magic/qi everywhere and there are some pretty ridiculous abilities. (of course the people dont Know that this is how magic works, they just think its magic).

Spoiler: tldr story beggining

Max is summoned by Su Min, who just got his sect destroyed on suspicion of being a demonic sect. The Nethergaze sect specialises in scrying spells that takes information from the nether realm (I had worked out a theory on various Qi types and stuff but later thought i should change things up to westernize it). the nether only gives lost information, so manuals that were destroyed, without distinguishing whether it was a forbidden technique or not. the nethergaze sect decided to record these techniques and seal them so that nobody else could find them using the scrying spell. So the righteous/orthodox sects used that as an excuse to brand them as a demonic sect (i havent decided yet if the righteous sect was simply overzealous or whether the leaders decided to frame the Nethergaze for their personal gain).

Anyway Su Min is dying after recieving a poisonous energy slash. he despereately uses a spirit summoning spell meant to call a powerful person from another person to posses you and save you in times of trouble, but since he had practically zero mana he couldnt summon anything magical, but accidentally found earth world and summoned Max.

Now Max is suddenly in the body of a dying person (and his body on earth just fell unconscious in the middle of a shoot out so he's dead), but he then recieves almost all of Su mins memories (i had some ideas on how this worked but havent completely decided how much and for what reason among various possibilities) and so uses the forbidden techniques in Su Mins memories to survive, that Su Min was unwilling to use because they were stigmatised as demonic.

So Max uses two different techniques and/or fuses them together to survive.
One being a soul technique (needed so that his soul remains and doesnt return to his now dead body back on earth). Now i had to figure out an ability related to souls and body while also giving it a plausible reason to be forbidden while also not being too morally reprehensible by Max's standards (which are pretty neutral) , it also had to tie into my general concept of what i wanted Max to be able to do, which will be explained later. So the idea i had was that it was an ability that fused the soul with the body, giving all sorts of benefits such as superb body control, various mind buffs due to connecting the soul and the brain, and other stealth related techniques from controlling your aura (necessary later in the story). The drawbacks and reason it was forbidden i decide would be related with reincarnation, as in you can no longer reincarnate because now that your soul and body are tied together the death of your body means the destruction of your soul. I also figured there would be other minor drawbacks such as increased sensitivity to pain because damage to your body is equal to damage to your soul. This would work because culturally not being able to reincarnate is very bad so the technique would be stigmatised, as well as being used for assassination (ghost like techniques) so it was destroyed and ended up in Su MIn's scrying spell.

the second technique is the core of my concept, and it is a beast transformation technique. He creates a concept of a creature and transforms into that creature. He needs to do this to survive the poison invading his (su mins) body. The creature in question is a shape-shifting creature that can absorb any energy and use it to attack. the inspiration is the picture below. the shape-shifting is more about size and body shape than actually turning into a completely different animal. also changing skin and organs to adapt to different environments. The theme is survivability.
here the forbideness is obvious, transforming into a "demon beast" or whatever (should probably make a different name) is cause for getting killed. also due to how the technique works i figured most practitioners would become bloodthirsty killing machines (cause that is how they imagine beasts to be) while Max doesnt consider beasts much different from humans so he retains his own personality (that or the souls technique gave him immunity to mental debuffs).

so i mainly wanted Max to be an assassin beast, who has high base stats, and kills using ambushes, tricky shots etc, but isnt particularly interested in martial arts.

Now you may have noticed that up till now my theory of time dilation has had no importance in the magic system, but the reason for mentioning it, is because Max's soul comes from a world in a much faster time stream, while he has been placed in a much slower world. SO i gave him the ability to control his perception of time at will (thanks to the soul technique) . His souls is pretty much working at light speed compared to everyone else in the world, and while he can slow it down, he can also speed it up. So he has a bit of an unfair advantage against everyone else.

there is also the topic of Su MIn's situation and powers but for now lets discuss the above first. What do you think? What needs clarification/improvement? what do you think should be allowed and not allowed in this worlds magic system? How would you westernize a chinese cultivation world?

(gad it took me so long to write this)