Fantasy Gods, Races, Settings, Magic Systems and Miscellaneous

I'd say any name that gets typically associated with "bimbo" type characters, like Tiffany or Brittany, or similar.

I'd agree that Oban definitely is a good mix of sci-fi and fantasy.

While my personal setting is still sketchy in a lot of ways (worldbuilding is not my forte) I have thought up a few systems and setups for magic. I wanted to share a couple, though, partly to see if there are any potential holes I've overlooked. One is called Bardic Magic, and its usage in-story ties directly into the powers of a humanoid race in my setting, the Wildkin.

As its name implies, Bardic Magic is music based. However, it is also extremely finicky and requires near perfect execution to be effective. For this reason, most of the magic-using community in my setting dismisses it as Awesome, but Impractical. A member of my setting's Big Bad Ensemble, mostly unnamed but I call this one the Songstress as a placeholder, is a true master of the craft. Its mostly affects the mind and emotions of others, but it can have other more magic-type effects as well, for those who can use it effectively.

The wildkin are a race of humans/humanoids that are strongly in tune with nature. Specifically with beasts and animals. Their powers allow them to take on the traits and abilities of creatures they bond with. General example that comes to my own mind is like Gau from Final Fantasy VI. As children, this starts out with minor things. Maybe more agility or fingernail claws from a pet cat. Speed from a rabbit, and simple things like that. With age and training, a stage of actual transformation can be included. Actually growing a tail or ears of that creature or at least appearing to (my main wildkin character's hair often becomes more pointed, cat ear style, when she uses catlike abilities). At the most advanced, a battle between two wildkin could potentially resemble a battle of Body Horror. They can take on abilities of creatures mystical and mundane alike but, in the cast of mystical, you also become susceptible to their weaknesses, be they legit or Weaksauce.

As an example, my wildkin protagonist, Ruby, gets the eyes of a cockatrice. Rather than full Taken for Granite (which might be overpowered here) it simply coats the target or target area in stone rather than turning them into stone. In the case of weaknesses, Ruby's eyes do not effect mustelids (or wildkin using mustelid abilities) since weasels (iirc) are immune. She's also vulnerable to the crowing of roosters when the powers are active. It won't kill her, but she registers it as so loud it's deafening and debilitating.

The way these two magics come together in-story: The wildkin, to a man, are susceptible to a Bardic Magic spell that compels them to obey anybody who plays or sings the right notes. Obviously the Songstress can do this. She can also enchant whistles or other instruments to produce the spell when played. Though in that case, due to the finicky nature of Bardic Magic, it's possible to resist if the instrument isn't in good condition. This was accomplished by the Songstress, in some far off past time, coming to the Wildkin and teaching them songs that, though they do not realize it at the time, make them vulnerable to that control. That music has since become a large part of their culture. From celebrations, to funerals, to lullabies. So every time a wildkin sings these songs, they're only perpetuating the effect and continuing to make themselves vulnerable.

Now, this may seem at odds with my above point that Bardic Magic is extremely finicky to perform and won't work if not done exactly right. But then, I remind you, the main skill of the Wildkin is mimicry. Even the Wildkin who realize this can't do anything about it because the control over them compels them to sing these bardic songs whether they want to or not.

Ruby discovers soon after joining the heroes' party that she, and she alone, is immune to the power of the Bardic influence. There are theories for this in-universe, such as her gaining the powers of a dragon, a mythical creature Wildkin have not encountered in living memory. The real reason is just that Ruby's mother realized the truth and got her to a place where no wildkin lived when she was still an infant, going so far as bite out her own tongue to prevent the "sing like or not" compulsion.

As an adolescent (about 12/13-ish) Ruby is immune to the compulsion effect largely because she was never exposed to it until after her brain/mind has developed enough to be able to resist it. She feels, at worst, a slight headache when exposed to the bardic spell's music.

I've got a few other magic systems and options in mind, but these two are probably the most developed since they form a major part of one character's arc.

edited 9th Apr '17 4:51:00 PM by sgamer82

Very interesting. Your approach feels fresh. Congrats.

So I'm not sure If I've mentioned Resonance magic before but I might as well post it again.

So the idea is that underlying all of reality is this endless song of impossible complexity and beauty. Everybody hears it at birth but most learn to block it out due to My Skull Runneth Over. Some people learn to hear it again and by mimicking it they can use the Eternal Symphony to affect the world.

In theory, using this magic is pretty easy. All you need is for the Listener (caster) to play part of the song in tune with the actual Song and hear it and the resonance between them will cause magic to happen. Because the Song underlies absolutely everything Resonance magic can do absolutely anything and for free no less.

The trouble is the Song is a fickle bastard and doesn't come with an instruction manual. You can only use sections of the Song that are currently playing and not all of them are playing at once. In fact, the more powerful ones rarely play at all.

If you were to render it in game form, you'd be rolling dice every turn to see what kind of spells are available to you with simple things like creating light available whenever you roll an even number on a d6, fireballs being usable with a a d12 roll higher than 7, and bringing the very recent dead back to life on a 3 on a d100.

Listeners spend days on end listening to the Song, memorizing verses, learning to anticipate them, and playing these verses to figure out what they do. Most have enough to never be without some magic but the nature of Resonance magic means they can never rely on having a particular spell on hand at any moment.

tl;dr it's really unreliable song magic.

How old do you prefer having your top gods? Merely around thousands of years old or older than the universe itself?

Belisaurius, that sounds really kool. And it's funny, because I literally use dice to determine things in my stories. Nifty

I think it depends on the nature of the gods/religion. A one or two God religion will likely have a "from the start of time deal". There may be at least one of there's a full Pantheon, but other gods likely come later.

What's cooler: a badass giant ground sloth mount that can turn into a small, modern tree sloth so it accompany its rider indoors, or a T. rex mount that can turn into its modern descendant—the chicken—for the same reason?

I don't like sloths that much, so the T-Rex. But both do sound cool.

I find the idea of a sloth mount super cool, personally. But a T-Rex turning into a chicken is way funnier.

Why not both?

But... if you insist on only including one, tree sloths are the cutest animals ever, and ground sloths were the most badass motherfuckers of the Cenozoic Era, so that gets my vote.

Oh, man, it's a tie! I still can't make up my mind.

Tree sloths are a more unique mount, but people love T-Rex, probably more than they like sloths. So if you're going for uniqueness value I'd do the sloth, and if you're going for coolness factor I'd choose the dinosaur.

I like the sloth more for the unusualness. Though I admit the chicken is funnier.

Question: What makes more sense/seems more logical: Varying types of magic being just that, different types of magic; or all of it being the same magic, just applied in varying ways from person to person or group to group.

Along with the two I described above, I have about 3 other types of magic that are all significantly different.

So you can see why this question's come up. Doors it make more sense for these to be their own thing or variations on the same thing?

Kind of sounds like the idea I had for familiars.

So, I'm doing this thing where I basically watch a movie or TV show and change the vampires into witches, vampirism into witchcraft. I'm doing this because my uncle challenged me to write a story about vampires, but I haven't been interested in writing about vampires for ages. Then, I remembered that in some folklore, witches were barely differentiated from vampires ( and werewolves ( and fairies and demons, for that matter )), so I decided to conduct this creative experiment and I actually really like the results.

I wrote a fanfic called "Razor" based on Blade, and "Razor Returns" is Blade II ; I hate Blade Trinity, so I didn't even bother with that Dumpster fire.

Underworld and Underworld: Evolution are going to become "Helios" and "Helios Rising" ; I hate Underworld: Awakening, and I haven't seen Underworld: Blood Wars, so those will be excluded, and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans will become "Niyakul's Origins".

I'm also excited to work on my adaptations of From Dusk Til Dawn, Fright Night ( 2011 ), and my most ambitious concept : Bram Stoker's Dracula.

what kind of vampires?

I've done something similar at times. One way I'll come up with powers and abilities is look at something in a series I like (book, anime, what have you) and try to work out how that same thing would work in my own setting and within my magic systems rules.

I have found that it inspires me to go in directions I wouldn't have otherwise thought to go. It makes me think about things in a different way.

I tend to like more folkloric vampires, and I'll also consider turning any vampire-like humanoid into a witch. For example, in faery lore there is the leanan sidhe, who feeds off the devotion of artists and musicians whom she inspires. In demonology, a succubus can be thought of as a spirit who feeds off its victims through sex. Both could easily become witches in this experiment.

The hardest part is deciding which attributes should be specific to particular covens and which should be universal. I think a lot of the folkloric weaknesses should be coven-specific but the abilities should be universal, so all witches can change into beasts but only some witches are compelled to count particulates thrown in their line of sight. And none of these abilities or weaknesses is rooted in the witches' bodies ; even their superhuman strength comes from the craft.

I decided to choose the T. rex/chicken, and work giant ground sloths into some other part of the story, because I like them too much to get rid of them entirely. Thanks for the feedback, guys.

I've been toying lately with a magic system lately. It's essentially the basic idea of Gods Need Prayer Badly, but applied to mortals (in fact, an entire people).

• Magical power is gained by having other people "believe in you": respect you, love you, fear you, etc.

• The more people who have these sentiments toward you, the more powerful you are. With a few hundreds "followers", you would just seem unusually lucky; with a few millions, you are a Person of Mass Destruction.

• Opposite sentiments — hate, ridicule, etc — don't have a negative effect on powers. Getting your people to hate your rival won't diminish his powers; getting his people to stop respecting him, however, will.

• The influence of a very powerful person can persist even in death, making them essentially minor gods. Of course, it still depends on belief from other people: if the person is forgotten, the power disappears.

This can lead to situations where a person can become very powerful very quickly. A general who is respected by his troops would be moderately powerful, but if he earns the love of a city after saving them from an attack, or the fear of enemy soldiers after a crushing defeat, he suddenly becomes a force to be reckoned with.

Conversely, a person might resort to drastic means to keep their power. A king who is starting to lose popularity could decide to make his population fear him instead.

I'm still not too sure if the powers should be more "flashy" and deliberate — making storms gather or dissipate, making the enemy army drop dead, or turn and flee — or more subtle and "luck-like" — always having favorable weather, always winning even the most unlikely battles, etc...

lately i've been working on a setting regarding well...regional gods.

gods being entities born spontaenously inside a region, and their life being tied to the region they were born to. generally their physical characteristics are tied to the creatures living in the land at the time of their birth.

currently there are 11 gods:

• Kalamc, The Ailing God, and father of man
• Yencyr, The Spire, mother of the horned ones.
• Fendr, The Crippled God of Iron
• Fencyr, The Leech, the theif
• Enrh, The Hollow God
• Ratil, The Unyielding; of One Eye
• Krhsil, The Fool
• Skarh, The Sun
• Milsyr, The Maelstrom, mother of the sea
• Sancrst, the Steadfast
• Galcys, The Serpentine; God of Change; The Undertaker

each god's region is nebulously defined, but not set in stone; Yencyr, once a god with a much smaller region, through means beyond her understanding, now claims the largest land of all the gods, while Fendr has since lost much of his land following the birth of Fencyr, who left him but a pittance of his land through a simple accident of birth. A god's life can be said tied to the life within his region, for Kalamc's health worsened as his land became more and more hostile to life; He made man to ease his loneliness after life began to fade, and his strength began to gave out, and yet it soon became apparant that for as adaptable as man was, they couldn't live in the conditions of their place of birth. Soon enough, Kalamc's barren wasteland contained not a single life, and so he too faded away.

Not all land belongs to the gods. A lot is unclaimed and when men began to spread across the continent many chose to return the disdain and mistrust the gods threw at them, and chose to live away from their influence. The gods themselves, many can be quite controlling over what occurs on their land (Yencyr, Enrh), and take different approaches to things. Enrh wanted none of her surface beauty touched, and so demanded her worshipped take from unclaimed land; Yencyr on the otherhand is quite overbearing; she allows her worshippers restricted access to the resources of her land but oversees all of it, ready to cut them off at any time. Some, like Fendr, no longer care, and force no restrictions upon those who live on his land.

The gods can be simply sorted into two superficial categories:

• New gods, those born after the spread of humans, and look hardly different from them.
• Old gods, who's appearance is an amalgamation of the life in their land, and can look quite inhuman, though human-like traits are a recurring element still.

Aside from humans there are other races; as mentioned Yencyr is the mother of the horned ones, a satyr like people, and Galcys is father to multiple races, lizardmen and lamia in particular. Milsyr is the mother of something, but ive yet to decide the specifics. In addition to this, worshipping a god while living on their land has gradual effects as generations go by; in the case of the Old gods, its often physical; Yencyr's human worshipper eventually grew in height, developed their own horns, and gained her complexion. For the New gods its often mental, though physical changes impossible; Fendr's worshippers have an...unusual lifespan, but in exchange tend towards his bleak outlook on life, so its common for Fendr's people to be morose, melancholy and apathetic, and they tend to lose their inhibitions the longer they worship him.

Worshipping a god can provide gifts, magic, essentially. Its not required to live on their land to be given their magic, though generally they need to acknowledge your worship first. In some cases, such as Kirst-Cyl, a city situated in a lagoon in unclaimed land inbetween Yencyr and Galcys's territory, they can set up a sort of 'contract' with the gods; they worship the god, and the god will provide magic to any worshipper born to the city, without need for the god to personally acknowledge the worship. In exchange, the gods make limitations on what other gods can be worshipped (a restriction present when an individual is approaching the gods for acknowledgement too). for example, Yencyr hates Skarh and Enrh, and as such would not acknowledge worship from someone who was already blessed with either god's gifts. on the otherhand, Skarh has no problem with Yencyr, and as such would acknowledge worship even if you already had her blessing— though she can just as easily revoke her blessing should she become aware of it.

edited 18th Apr '17 10:33:57 AM by Tarsen

Very interesting. I like that even the gods don't know all the rules.

I'd say go with subtly until they reach the million-follower milestone, then go big.

Very neat. Why are the gods from before the spread of humans different from the ones after the spread of humans?

Maybe influenced by human thoughts and/or prayers?

But why only humans, though? Why not other races?