Fantasy Gods, Races, Settings, Magic Systems and Miscellaneous

History... History is just the story of one man trying not to blow up the world with rock and roll lightning

edited 24th Jul '16 2:03:53 AM by matti23

edited 28th Jul '16 7:56:39 AM by Cyratis

I've got a lot of stuff for this fantasy story I've been working on. I suppose sharing it here can't hurt.

Magic: It comes in a variety of powers; the basic form is based on various natural elements, while some have access to Light Magic (able to blind foes or summon a Death Ray, depending on what mood the caster is). Raising corpses is possible, but like most forms of magic is considered a myth by the focus nation of Giedor. Then there's Dark Magic, which only those allied with the Darkseekers can use and is basically the evil version of light magic.

You need three things to use magic: the Spark, the Conduit, and the Sacrifice. The Spark is the ability to actually see and use magic; it feels tingly and kind of looks like rainbow smoke to magi, but is otherwise invisible. The Conduit is any sort of magic based item that acts as fuel for the magic reaction; special sand can be used as the base for a fire spell, for instance. All magic requires a little bit more in order to work, where the sacrifice comes in; for the basic forms of magic your internal energy will suffice, so using magic will make the caster feel really sleepy after prolonged use.

What could be known as necromancy requires flesh and blood given willingly (so the nation that uses it the most has a death cult among its warriors, who will willingly sacrifice themselves in battle so that they can fight on in death under the command of a necromancer). Using your own flesh and blood on a large scale will probably drive you crazy.

The sacrifice for Dark Magic is souls, yours or your enemies (if you are sufficiently powerful, and even then it's only a small fix).

Light Magic's sacrifice is your humanity; users gradually turn into either crystal or Energy Beings with prolonged use, though powerful or long-lived users can delay the effects for a time.

Races: there are humans, but we have other races to deal with. There are three Elder Races in the setting:

-The Dral'Leth are a mysterious race of mountain dwelling, red-skinned "giants" that were once allies of humanity. They cannot directly use magic, but are masters of manipulating magical substances and runes. As such, the Dral'Leth have beam rifles and carbon fiber armor in an era where the most advanced human nation has just perfected muskets and cannon. Due to a curse from their longtime enemies, the Madelle, their eyes and skin are hypersensitive to light and they are forced to live underground, no small feat considering they are all close to nine feet tall.

Despite their power, they are a dying race down to only a few cities in their original territories. This is due to low birth rates, their intolerance towards light limiting them to staying underground or travelling at night (and their bodies not having adapted well to being forced underground), and attacks from a race of Bee People that can match their technology pound-for-pound and have the numbers to swamp them.

-The Raptorians are tribalistic, sentient raptors, and some of the most powerful magic users in the world. They seclude themselves in the jungles of the far south, where they war against the Madelle, the beast hordes of the Darkseekers, and occasionally each other. The Raptorians specialize in light magic, and the most powerful of the Chieftains can vaporize a city with a word and some crystals.

Raptorians are incredibly secretive, as such they have not made themselves known to the rest of the world for almost three thousand years. They are fairly dismissive of the other races, though as their fight against evil goes on they are considering asking for help.

-The Madelle were originally created as the most beautiful of the Elder races. They had good skill with magic, good fighting ability, and long life, allowing them to perfect whatever skill they set their minds to. Unfortunately, they set their minds towards debauchery, entertaining themselves with whatever sick pleasures they could think up with (including preying on the early human nations for slaves and sport). Things went poorly for them when they began to challenge the Dral'Leth for dominance, and even with all their magic and martial skills they still lost out to the technological lead of their enemies. This led them to dabbling in dark magic for answers, unleashing the Darkseekers' beast hordes under Arkraalos the Demon King.

The Madelle lost that war, forced onto a small chain of islands off the coast. They still fight with the Raptorians, who have moved in to their ancestral homeland, but they are ultimately slaves to their own cruelty, vanity, and the Darkseekers' own agenda.

The Darkseekers mentioned before are extra-dimensional Eldritch Abominations that have gods as their main food supply. They were unleashed on the world nearly three thousand years ago, with the centaur Arkraalos the Demon King acting as their herald and leader of their armies. Currently their main conduit to the material world is the Gate of Infinity, which is sealed away somewhere in the southern jungles. If opened, the Darkseekers would be able to directly attack the realm of mortals and perhaps finish off the local God of Good, though one of their minions just needs to find the darn thing to do so, and with humanity rising they will have a hard time at it.

Humans are divided into numerous kingdoms. There are four that I will discuss here:

-Giedor is the largest, most advanced nation of men. Four hundred years ago they defeated Arkraalos the Demon King, but now they have grown complacent and ignorant to the threats of the world around them. As such, they have no magic tradition, no faith in any gods, and no belief in monsters and races of old (though that is about to change).

Giedor is highly adept at fighting other nations of men; their army is comprised of a core of musket armed infantry, supported by light cavalry and heavy artillery. Heavy cavalry, such as lancers, are all but gone from the Giedoran Army, save for a few holdouts here and there. On paper they are all but unbeatable, but they have not fought a serious war in almost sixty years, and their lack of belief in the more fantastical things in the world will come back to haunt them.

-Dragul was once a prosperous nation, until an invasion from Giedor under King Bertram IV "The Fat" destroyed the aristocracy and threatened to wipe out the nation. They were saved by a sorcerer known as the Necromancer, who raised an army of the dead to battle the Giedorans. He failed to take the Giedoran's main stronghold of the Shadowpoint Mountain Keep, but continued losses were enough to convince Giedor that sticking around was not worth it.

Since then, Dragul has been nothing more than a collection of Iron Age tribes and chieftains, watched over by the necromancers and their armies of undead. Dragul warriors embrace death, giving their lives willingly so that they can fight on even in death.

-Dak'rai is a desert nation to the southeast of Giedor. The only nation to compete with Giedor in size and population, Dak'rai once controlled much more territory until they lost it in a series of wars following the reign of Allestir the Great of Giedor. Dak'rai has fallen on hard times, the government constantly threatening Giedor with hollow claims and great boasts. The two sides occasionally raid one another, but never to an extent to be considered a grounds for war.

-Tahienn is a small nation west of Dak'rai, and is much more peaceful than its belligerent neighbor. Tahienn trades extensively with Giedor, and is considered one of the nation's best allies. Tahienn's sultan has been trying his best to keep Dak'rai peaceable, even marrying his daughter off to the new king of the neighboring nation, though there is speculation as to how long his appeasement will last.

That's a lot, but it's my own, I suppose.

edited 8th Aug '16 12:57:20 PM by iowaforever

You can use the blood of others to imbue a weapon with their soul. Someone has the idea to use the blood of his enemy when forging a flail. Now the striking end of the weapon gravitates towards his face. Should he ever let go, it will wedge itself with great force into his frontal cortex. Guess it wasn't so clever to use the blood of his enemy.

Another weapon smith attempts to make a special sword by quenching it in a slave. The weapon causes everyone within a 6000 km radius to suddenly be overcome by an irresistible urge to murder it's wielder. To make matters worse it somehow has fused itself to his hands.

How dangerous is the wildlife in your world? Does your world have a points of light like situation where only the strongest venture outside the cities? Are people able to wander freely in the wilderness? What are the main threats to a intrepid traveller? Are there any threats to civilization? What kinds of things have people tamed?

Wondering what you guys thought of another setting I'm working on? Any suggestions?

A zombie apocalypse in a fantasy world. At first it sounds pretty mundane, zombies are a common sight in fantasy. This particular setting is a zombie story in a more modern style.

There is no big battles between nations and the undead, no big push to drive the undead back. The apocalypse has already happened and civilization has collapsed. Survivors walk the world in groups of a few dozen at most and scavenge supplies wherever they can find them. Violence between wandering groups is common and cannibalism is rife in the low food environment. There are no necromancers in this setting, the zombies have no overall purpose. They have an unknown origin and simply entered this world via the portal network.

Even at it's height, the world's civilizations could only harness magic through Enchanting and nothing else. This means that humans innately possess no magical ability and magic can only be used by combining components in the right combination. So long as you know the process, anyone could theoretically make any item given the correct materials. Most magical components need to be extensively refined to be useful. In this way the use of magic was linked to the industrial capacity of a society and post collapse useful magical items are vanishingly rare.

There are different types of zombies, each from a different species. Zombies are monstrously hard to kill needing to lose continuity with roughly 12% of their biomass to be destroyed. This means if you cut one in half, both halves die. Human zombies are the most common. They can climb up vertical walls and continuously excrete a fog of highly infectious vapor which can turn a non immune person within 5 seconds. They can also vomit streams of infectious fluid up to 20 meters away. Otherwise they have strength, speed and toughness that is in the upper limit of normal for a human but they have 100 times the stamina of a human and have redundant, spread out sensory organs which will function even if the head is removed. What limited cognition they have is handled by redundant nodes throughout the body.

In most cases people are still fighting with swords and axes. The most common ranged weapon is a variant of a Chu Ko Nu which is powered by a cylinder containing a spring instead of a human operated lever. The most likely magical weapon you will find is in some police stations. A metal bolt which homes in on a target and releases most of the energy stored in the target's fat cells at once in the form of an explosion.

edited 30th Aug '16 10:55:28 PM by matti23

All of you people have such good ideas. Might as well share mine. I've been considering the idea of a sort of "Magic in a modern setting, and everyone knows and no one cares" thing. I believe the trope is called The Unmasqued World? I've been playing around the idea of different kinds of magic coexisting in this world. You'd have your nature magic (elemental magic, as well as things dealing with controlling time and space) and learn-able magic (stuff that's found in books, "classic" magic, having to do with spells and such). I'm also kinda thinking about political issues and things that would exist in a world like this. I still have a lot to think about. Thoughts, anyone?

i'm not sure if this kind of idea has been before but in a hypothetical 3d plat-former with rpg elements word of mine, there are 3 divisions magic:

• white magic: one of the more harder to master types of magic. white magic relies on using your mind to conjure up defensive light spells as well as using telekinesis to lift and move objects. unlike most depictions of white magic, it has little to nothing to do with healing and can't resurrect people from the dead. one flaw to keep in mind is if one was to use the healing components of white magic, their mind will slowly give out.
• black magic: this kind of magic is easy to learn yet hard to control and master. black magic requires one to focus on the body and soul in order to conjure damaging fire and dark spells that comes from it. the downside to black magic is it tendencies to drive a few people mad under it's influence if not used properly.
• gray magic: the jack of all trades kind of magic. it mixes the defensive mental capacity of white magic with the offensive kinetic prowess of black magic. however, it's more of a Master of None type of skill set but it does make it up by having a few additional things that aren't found between the two. (manipulating certain aspects of nature.)

note: the magic system was inspired by final fantasy's magic system with a few changes and twist. here and there.

In my setting (Called Project Nirvana), magic actually has a somewhat scientific explanation. To put it in short terms, magic is literally in the air, as a class of cells called 'weavelings'. Most weavelings are just the plain kind, but extremely mutable, so they can be turned into different kinds of weavelings. (Though they exist naturally too.) All weavelings can split themselves as well. Magic is the act of using some sort of stimuli that triggers the weavelings into doing something.

edited 10th Sep '16 12:50:38 PM by BlizzardeyeWonder

Oh interesting.

Humans build Hellgates for power. These are built over several levels of massive blender blades. When the demons rush through attempting to conquer earth they fall into the mechanism and are reduced to paste which is then burnt in incinerators to produce power. Occasionally these blades jam, leading to an actual demonic invasion.

Most employees are pretty nonchalant about it. Imagine a bunch of unimpressed looking guys or gals chainsawing their way through a horde of hell beasts, while discussing the weekend game or buying a house. The facilities even set their clocks and calendars to these invasions. "Warning: demonic invasion in progress... Happy Christmas"

Let's imagine our main characters like the characters in No Activity except instead of a stakeout they're being splashed with ludicrous amounts of demon guts... just two guys slacking off and who aren't really paying attention to their job. Welcome to the 125676th demonic invasion.

If that number looks big there's more than 100 facilities, they've been going for more than a century and those blades break down on a monthly basis.

edited 18th Sep '16 1:39:07 AM by matti23

Alright, so I have an idea about Eldritch Abominations. They have a common theme: the Destruction of the world, both in the metaphysical and physical sense, and they host multiple souls in their beings, just to comprehend certain subjects such as morality. So far I have (names pending):

• The Lord of Light, the head honcho of the Anathema, which is what they are called, who can cause gamma ray burst, and who's full glory cannot be comprehended, turning near everything into either glass or ash. So basically, a living sun. Light Is Not Good
• Next, I have Avatar of the Void, a sentient black hole, focusing on gravity, darkness, and The Power of the Void.
• Then, there is the Tainted Tyrant of Treachery, who embodies the breaking of rules, meaning he can break the laws of physics, and subversion.
• Then there is the Encroaching Cosmos, basically Hostile Terraforming taken Up To Eleven, being another world in of itself.
• Then there is the Magistrate Gemini of Cycles, being simultaneously The Grim Reaper and a life-giving entity, though the latter is still bad because disease technically counts as a living thing, and there would be too much overgrowth. They specialize in The Plague and Zombie Apocalypse.
• Then there is the Grand Maw, which is a living maw, and a sentient locust storm. Their theme is Planet Eater, feasting on everything they can get their appendages on.
• Skipping a few, because this is all I have right now, is the Saint of Paradox, who has yet to be born, but somehow always been with his brothers and comrades. He focuses on Time Crash, and is thus a Time Master.

So any thoughts on what kind of Anathema could be added?

edited 29th Oct '16 8:02:53 AM by SkyHavenPath13

In the setting of my story, it's possible to use brainwashing/mind control on someone to make them serve you as a loyal follower. However, it isn't like in other settings where all it requires is the casting of a magical spell and it automatically works. To me, that would be a Story-Breaker Power and conveniently not using it on the heroes would invoke Forgot About His Powers. I could do it the Star Wars way and say it would only work on weak-minded people, but what constitutes a weak mind?

Here, for this to work, the will must first be broken. Often through means of extensive torture and isolation that would leave the victim as a shell of their former self. Then the "doors" are open for the magic to be applied, which allows the user to alter their mind and personality in any way they wish to better serve them. It's also because of this that brainwashing is considered one of the most deplorable forms of magic among mages, right up there with Necromancy.

Maybe something concerning less "nature-inspired" destruction, so to put it? Something like the Anathema of apathy, dystopia, war?

You need something that can warp physical space. And minds.

I have a dilemma.

Writing a team of high school aged superheroes who get magical fighting powers through a variety of deities. The gods/goddesses come from real world mythologies and I'll be using the really obscure ones that don't get much exposure. Greek Mythology is out and in fact that whole pantheon is one of the villains (with a couple of exceptions; imagine the Lannister family from Game of Thrones).

Now the powers the kids get are based around which godly mentor they end up tied too. We have Chang'e from Chinese Mythology, Shakti from Hinduism/Vedic, St. Lucia from Christianity (a patron saint but in my lore she's been upgraded to a guardian angel), Quetzalcoatl from Aztec etc.

My concerns are the following:

1. Is it better to just make my own gods/pantheons to basically avoid controversies (assuming this stuff ever sees the light of day)?

2. I actually want to get really creative with the powers and I wonder if I would be limiting myself my having one character have a single patron/mentor god. Can I shift and rotate with the kids getting and losing powers as the plot demands. Learning to adapt on the fly or would that be too convoluted and I should give them a stronger identity?

3. Kind of a tangent BUT I want my magical power rangers team (of six) to have a RPG squad dynamic. I know the video game SMITE sort of does this but can I get some suggestions on which gods would fit into the DPS/TANK/HEALER/MAGE etc dynamic?

EDIT:

Okay so another caveat in my world is that the mythological gods we know have an age old enemy called The Eldritch (wow! so creative right? /sarcasm) and yes they are Lovecraft-Lite entities. In fact it's revealed many of the gods are in hiding or disappeared or otherwise unable to help the heroes. And some are actively on earth but obviously not going around telling people.

The story takes place on an Alternate Universe earth where the Trinity Project i.e. detonation of the first atomic bomb caused the already weakened dimensional barrier to crack and allow all kinds of magical beasts to pour through; some benign while others not so much.

The dimensional barrier was set up as a way to protect/hide humanity as part of a multi-mythology pact. Obviously many tried to break through and hence it was weak. The barrier still functions and is the reason any deity walking the earth has his powers severely reduced as part of the above mentioned pact.

The Native American spirit called Coyote helps the scientists at ground zero of the event survive the initial wave and in return Coyote has been made the patron deity of the US Military & NASA. He doesn't do miracles though, just offers advice and ways to keep evil at bay while being his trickster self.

Cut to modern day; humans can't do magic unless they purposefully get possessed by some demon or spirit and it's considered a huge crime to do so. Lots of paramilitary organizations wielding super science have popped up to keep the monsters at bay. Now it's one thing to use machine guns on Chupacabra's but they are helpless against the Eldritch and their cronies; that's where our heroes come in. And eventurally more like them.

edited 23rd Nov '16 9:40:55 AM by SmokingBun

ok, so I'm working on a magic system, which was nearly forgotten after the industrial revolution took hold. I was thinking of using some kind of bond creature/ mon sort of thing with how the magic works in this universe. for example, the user can channel the mons energy in order use spells as well as do a fusion dance in order to transform into a more powerful "mage" form. it was originally supposed to be based on some "spirit animal" concept, but because of "unfortunate implications" , I had to change it, since most native American tribes don't have such a concept. I tried asking them if they're was some examples of tribes that used this concept, but they said there were too many examples of this kind of thing.

This idea has been pestering me for a while. Can anybody give me some tips on what would be a good Fantasy Counterpart Culture for the human civilization on Mu? I'd appreciate it, thanks.

Well, Mu's supposed location is where the current Polynesia, Hawaii and all the other South Pacific islands are. Additionally, the creator of the idea of Mu suggested that the refugees from the continent's demise have created both Mayan and Ancient Egyptian civillization, and that Mu was the place where humanity and human civillization has originated. Additionally, it lies smack dab between Australia, Asia and the Americas, which means it'd be a point where many trade routs between those four continents would cross.

So I guess you're looking at some odd crossover between the cultures of South Pacific islands, Ancient Egypt and Mayans, with a dash of "we've been here since forever" and a slight merchant vibe.

Thanks. :)

Well, the Mu in my stories is a bit closer to South America, and it was once the ancestral homeland of the dwarves.

The Woods are a multiverse consisting of eight realms. The Wood of the Moon Above, the Wood of the Moon Below, the Wood of the Stars Above, the Wood of the Stars Below, the Timeless Wood Above, the Timeless Wood Below, the Changing Wood Above, the Changing Wood Below, the Deep Wood, and the Other Wood ; the Deep Wood and the Other Wood share the same sky with the same silver-purple sun. The Deep Wood and the Other Wood are collectively referred to as the Inner Woods, while the other realms are collectively referred to as the Outer Woods ; the Woods of the Moon have no stars, the Woods of the Stars have no moon, the moon and stars are always visible in the Timeless Woods, and the moon and stars move cyclically in the Changing Woods - the moon is black-blue, while the stars are white-red.

In the Woods, distances tend to be measured by the lengths of time needed to cross them twice ; there are mundane measures relevant to mortals and arcane measurements relevant to immortals - a small barony is one year across in mundane measures and one night in arcane measures, a large barony is twice that, a small county is four times a large barony, a large county is eight times that, a small duchy is sixteen times a large county, a large duchy is thirty-two times that, a small principality is sixty-four times a large duchy, and a large principality is one hundred and eight times that. The Outer Woods are dominated by umans, though nimals are more numerous and onsters are more powerful ; the Inner Woods are dominated by wizards, though imps are more numerous.

In the Woods, dreaming souls rise to the realms "over" them, while ghosts fall to the realms "underneath" them, so a being in the Deep Wood will dream in the Other Wood and become a ghost that haunts one of the Woods Below.

The Woods are horizontally infinite and there are always, always, always unexplored frontiers. The Other Wood is also vertically infinite because it contains innumerable other-woods generated by the fears, desires, and beliefs of dead Deep-folk and dreaming High-folk.

The Woods are inhabited by nimals, umans, onsters, ghosts, imps, sorcerers, and automatons.

edited 3rd Dec '16 12:49:49 PM by nekomoon14

someone suggest to me a pretty cool magic system on Reddit the other day

credit to allaboutmagic

That's pretty interesting idea. And I haven't really seen it done before, so that's kool.

yet, I'm not even sure how to execute it. (personally, this reminds me of a bit of Digimon if the spirit animals have physical manifestations.)

also, finally, I found an original idea!!

edited 5th Dec '16 6:06:58 AM by ewolf2015

It's a good one. It sort of parallels the shamanistic spirit journey and the more modern idea of out-of-body-experiences. So there's a plane of existence somewhere that basically consists of magic energy, and gaining access to this plane allows the magician to channel some of that energy back to this world. As a another benefit, it is the perfect vehicle for adventures in the plane of magic. Nice.