What's your Magic Systems

[AlmondCrushPocky]

I'm having trouble creating a magic system and the logic behind it, as a result, I was curious about what other people did to create and flesh out their magic system.

 

[dummycake]

ok I will give you a real answer

I haven't used it that much or thought about it because it's not the focus.
but it mostly works by calling a favor from the World.
example: by saying "may the World emit fire" in latin, you will summon fire on your hand.
but, if you say it too loud, the spell will be stronger, say it too low, the spell will be weaker.
things like manipulating the position, form, velocity, or direction is done in the mind of the spellcaster.

 

[J_Chemist]

It's magical.

• Elemental based system where individuals naturally create mana within themselves via "mana sources".
• Different races/creatures make different forms of mana, some more powerful than others, but through poor breeding/cultivation magic has diminished significantly in terms of overall power across the world.
• Elemental affinity is based of genetics and is randomly selected from the parents. However, certain children have affinities for both. Children who's parents have dual affinities have a chance at triple or even quadruple affinities, though the chances are low.
• Affinities reflect within one's mana. The mana within a person changes color, density, and strength to accommodate the natural load of their elemental affinity. I.e.; Rock element users have denser and thicker mana than Water element users.
  
  
• Spells themselves can be cast in three ways; Verbal Incantations, Sigil/Rune Casting, Silent Casting.
  • Verbal Incantations rely on the reading of spells and chants, working much like programming does in modern day computer work. The mage chants the Words of Power which are essentially just the properties and variables of the spell. By adjusting words, the mage can increase/decrease certain traits within the spell. However, doing so requires more mana and higher control.
  • Sigil/Rune Casting works by the Mage essentially drawing out their spell and infusing mana directly into the instructions. When provided ample amount of mana for the spell to be cast, it automatically activates.
  • Silent Casting is the most difficult form of casting but is more efficient and more powerful. It works by the mage internally processing and forming the spells they are aiming to cast. All calculations and manipulations of the spells are done internally or externally and the mage themselves directly shapes their mana into the spell they wish to cast.
    
• Failure to properly cast a spell may result in an explosion, which can be as minor as a few burns or as major as the mage's mana flow being obliterated. Death, loss of limbs, and other vicious side-effects can also occur.
• Mana poisoning may also occur should a mana lose control over their mana source. Mana sources are naturally set to fill the mage's mana flow to a certain point. Should the mana source begin to overproduce or produce outside of the mage's mana flow, there is a high chance of Mana Poisoning to occur, which will cause internal organs to fail and lead to death.

 

[dummycake]

ok I will give you a real answer

I haven't used it that much or thought about it because it's not the focus.
but it mostly works by calling a favor from the World.
example: by saying "may the World emit fire" in latin, you will summon fire on your hand.
but, if you say it too loud, the spell will be stronger, say it too low, the spell will be weaker.
things like manipulating the position, form, velocity, or direction is done in the mind of the spellcaster.

also I don't call it "magic" because it's not magic in that World.
magic is things we can't explain, spells are things they know what are and can explain.
technology might as well be magic for someone who comes from a different world

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

Just write multiple techniques you thought interesting and fit the lores, mix it up and make everything vague until it's shown.

It's not like the world is just consisting of singular magic source, and even single magic source have different method to extract, and every method have different spell and scripts mechanism.

If your world doesn't have SI Metric as standard for measurements and science (a.k.a your story set in fantasy world), that means nearly every other province and kingdom would have their own adaptation to money, measurements, and of course their uniquely standardized magic application and system.

It's like Imperial vs Metric measurement, or like coin currency between kingdom and how Distribution of wealth differs between rich city, poor village, small City, and rich village.

 

[georgelee5786]

Magic exists, and manifests in three forms, spell magic, rune magic, and elemental magic. All three are made of pure magic, but neither of the three are related beyond that. That's essentially it

 

[NotaNuffian]

... piece of advice, set some rules and that's it.

1. How to cast?
2. What cost?
3. How to bulk/ level up?

1. For example: using D&D, casting can be done with speech, hand gestures or both like Supreme Magus. You can use them as a limit for your characters, such as when they are unable to cast with words etc.

Or you can pull the "chantless cast" and let your characters go to town with warping reality.

2. What is the cost? Mana from one's pool like the JRPG and cultivation stories? Put mental strength in instead of Mana? Whatever the cost is, make it simple unless you have an actual plan of fleshing out and displaying your system.

3. How to level up? You can't just have a novice casting Meteor at level one. There has to be progression from Fireball and the story becomes how the character grow. Read more books and learn more techniques from teachers? Do more breathing exercises to expand your "pool" or evolve your "core" like Supreme Magus?

In the end, you must be the one to decide how difficult the thing is. Because you are the one writing and unless you plan to fanfic, don't just rip a set of system off, study it first and try to write your own set on the side. I learnt that the hard way when I tried to force my characters into others' rigid yet vague rules and that killed my will to write.

 

[dummycake]

don't just rip a set of system off.

you're already ripping off watered down versions of Tolkien's races who cares

 

[Chaos_Sinner777]

I have a magic system problem myself. In that I come up with too many. How bout one where the basic idea is, each time you slay a monster you get a piece of a magic spell, effectively a single word, when you collect multiple words, you can fit them together to form a spell. At that point it is permanent, but you can put more together for stronger and more complicated spells. And different monster types have specific words that are more common, soooo. Slay basic Goblin, get the spellword "Sling", slay baby dragon get the spellword "Mystic Flame", put those together and you get a higher potency fire bolt. Put those with more words in specific order to make something more powerful, such as "Sling" "Oil" "Ignite" "Empower" "Mystic Flame" and "Explosion" For a napalm fireball. Or you can do something silly like repeat the same word ten times and yeet yourself through a castle wall with megasling.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

Math combined with theoretical physics.

 

[dummycake]

Math combined with theoretical physics.

that's disgusting

 

[AlmondCrushPocky]

Wow thank you for all the feedback! I’ve read through all the replies and it’s genuinely helped my thought process on going about this issue.

 

[NotaNuffian]

you're already ripping off watered down versions of Tolkien's races who cares

That is the part.

Watered down.

Watered down until it fits one's narrative.

We are all ripping off of one another for ideas, frankensteining it until it "fits" our "unique" story.

Douluo Dalu has the summon spirit thingie that ended up as one of the most BS thing because MC had a large mana pool due to being a freak and end up pwning all who he meets. Also he has other cheats.

Xianxia is taking taoism and give it a hard level in order for progression.

The LitRPG is to quantify and display growth.

We take the successful cases and plagerize the living hell out of them, taking note of the successful mutants and culture then once more.

 

[AlmondCrushPocky]

Math combined with theoretical physics.

Math is magical because I don’t get how it works. ?

 

[RepresentingPride]

I'm having trouble creating a magic system and the logic behind it, as a result, I was curious about what other people did to create and flesh out their magic system.

To create your magic system you have to ask yourself some questions.

Where the power come:
Is it from inside the body like a magic core? Is it from the atmosphere? Is it by using external tool? Or by using something like awakening ceremony or chirugical modification on the body?

What give this power more strength :
Is it through training your magic core and make it strongre? Is it by using the element particule in the atmosphere better or simply by understanding how to channel that energy?

What is the limit of your power:
Does anyone have a limit? Maybe the one who train earlier have more chance to improve as they grow? Or maybe their a limit to how much power a body can contain or use?

What is the level power of your system :
If you go with the mana core system you can create a level for each transformation of the mana core and include in it some improvement, like when the mana core reach lv4 the magicien can fly just by using his raw power, when he reach mana core lv 8 he can maintain his life in space, when he reach lv 6 he can fuse element etc.... If you chose another path what the level of your power system? Does using this high level magic make you an archmage? Or is it possible even for a low mage?

If there elemental magic, what are the element in your story:
If there water and ice separated from each other you can't have a water magician using suddenly an ice magic without explanation. You can go with a small amount of element but some variation of them when there enough training like for exemple water become ice with enough training, wind become sound, etc. If there element is it possible to someone to use two different element? If yes, is it possible to fuse them? Does that need training or not?

What is the origin of your power system? (This one doesn't need an answer) :
Is it here from the creation? Does that come from the gods?

There other small detail you can add to these question but with these you can roughly come with a power system.


My power system is based on cultivation.

Some people can have a special space inside their body called Spiritual world, inside this world, a crystal seed appear and can be awaken through a ceremony at the age of 18 for humans.

Once this crystal seed are awaken, people obtain a special ability and the crystal seed start to grow with the help of the energy in the atmosphere. When the crystal seed is awaken it start to create the same energy as the one in the atmosphere in a limited amount who are stocked inside the spiritual world.

After growing due to the cultivator (the name for people who cultivate with universal energy to simplify it) using the energy in the atmosphere, the crystal seed grow into a crystal tree and once it can't be nurtured anymore by the energy of the atmosphere, the cultivator have to evolve the crystal tree with some catalyst who can be multiple thing like ability coming from beast, beast skin, special mineral, etc, depending on the path chosen to evolve the crystal tree, the special ability given by it evolve in that direction, for exemple if someone ability is to transform into a wolf and when he evolve his crystal tree he use earth elemental mineral then the ability will evolve to let him transform into a wolf who can use earth element.

There 15 ranks in my power system meaning there 14 evolutions of the crystal tree.

The minimal power are like a human while once at the top you can destroy planet easily.

And that part was just the cultivation basic system, adding to that I have an elemental power system who can be trained in the side which are related to elemental particules in the atmosphere as well as elemental affinity that a cultivator have.

And the last part was the soul system who are a way to improve the soul and make it stronger.

 

[georgelee5786]

Math combined with theoretical physics.

Nerd. I bet you value realism in your story and research topics too

 

[NotaNuffian]

Math combined with theoretical physics.

That is leaning too hard on hard magic.

To create your magic system you have to ask yourself some questions.

Where the power come:
Is it from inside the body like a magic core? Is it from the atmosphere? Is it by using external tool? Or by using something like awakening ceremony or chirugical modification on the body?

What give this power more strength :
Is it through training your magic core and make it strongre? Is it by using the element particule in the atmosphere better or simply by understanding how to channel that energy?

What is the limit of your power:
Does anyone have a limit? Maybe the one who train earlier have more chance to improve as they grow? Or maybe their a limit to how much power a body can contain or use?

What is the level power of your system :
If you go with the mana core system you can create a level for each transformation of the mana core and include in it some improvement, like when the mana core reach lv4 the magicien can fly just by using his raw power, when he reach mana core lv 8 he can maintain his life in space, when he reach lv 6 he can fuse element etc.... If you chose another path what the level of your power system? Does using this high level magic make you an archmage? Or is it possible even for a low mage?

If there elemental magic, what are the element in your story:
If there water and ice separated from each other you can't have a water magician using suddenly an ice magic without explanation. You can go with a small amount of element but some variation of them when there enough training like for exemple water become ice with enough training, wind become sound, etc. If there element is it possible to someone to use two different element? If yes, is it possible to fuse them? Does that need training or not?

What is the origin of your power system? (This one doesn't need an answer) :
Is it here from the creation? Does that come from the gods?

There other small detail you can add to these question but with these you can roughly come with a power system.


My power system is based on cultivation.

Some people can have a special space inside their body called Spiritual world, inside this world, a crystal seed appear and can be awaken through a ceremony at the age of 18 for humans.

Once this crystal seed are awaken, people obtain a special ability and the crystal seed start to grow with the help of the energy in the atmosphere. When the crystal seed is awaken it start to create the same energy as the one in the atmosphere in a limited amount who are stocked inside the spiritual world.

After growing due to the cultivator (the name for people who cultivate with universal energy to simplify it) using the energy in the atmosphere, the crystal seed grow into a crystal tree and once it can't be nurtured anymore by the energy of the atmosphere, the cultivator have to evolve the crystal tree with some catalyst who can be multiple thing like ability coming from beast, beast skin, special mineral, etc, depending on the path chosen to evolve the crystal tree, the special ability given by it evolve in that direction, for exemple if someone ability is to transform into a wolf and when he evolve his crystal tree he use earth elemental mineral then the ability will evolve to let him transform into a wolf who can use earth element.

There 15 ranks in my power system meaning there 14 evolutions of the crystal tree.

The minimal power are like a human while once at the top you can destroy planet easily.

And that part was just the cultivation basic system, adding to that I have an elemental power system who can be trained in the side which are related to elemental particules in the atmosphere as well as elemental affinity that a cultivator have.

And the last part was the soul system who are a way to improve the soul and make it stronger.

That is just cultivation.

I hate that magic now is just cultivation. I know the only difference between them is literally western and eastern. But I hate it. Even in xianxia I can see magic with wizard towers but they are all still the same. Suck air, mutant one's body, golden tumor, cloned fetus, peanut.

I hate it even more when I tried to do a wizard vs cultivators and the english side is saying wizards imba and the chinese side is saying taoism imba.

While repeatedly throwing shit at the other side instead of explaining what exactly is going on.

Mages weave the fabric of reality.

Cultivators improve one's body until godhood.

 

[RepresentingPride]

That is leaning too hard on hard magic.

That is just cultivation.

I hate that magic now is just cultivation. I know the only difference between them is literally western and eastern. But I hate it. Even in xianxia I can see magic with wizard towers but they are all still the same. Suck air, mutant one's body, golden tumor, cloned fetus, peanut.

My power system is a cultivation system that what I said. If you're talking about mana core then yes that pretty much the adaptation of cultivation into western magic system

 

[RepresentingWrath]

@Jemini It's your time to shine.

 

[RepresentingPride]

@Jemini It's your time to shine.

You come here like nothing and you summon someone. No wonder you're The Princess.