Describe Your Magic System in a Few Sentences

Users of the higher magics are people (generically called seijins, because that's the most common type) tied to one of three sources. The powers of the Earth (seijins), the Celestial Heavens (tenjins) and to a force of corruption opposed to the Heavens (majins). Not all magic users are seijins, but these are the ones able to naturally command the force they link to and shape it into wondrous effects, wielding it like a variety of Magic Knight or wizard classes. Ritualists can use these forces by cookbook, but if you want real power, you need a spiritual link.

There's a grab bag of ways to become a seijin. For humans, being born with it or getting it by random chance is pretty darn rare - though elves are natural seijins (and Dark Elves are distinguished by being inborn majins), and someone born half-mortal, half to a spirit is likely to be linked to their spirit parent's power. The most common way is either through deep study and use of Ritual Magic and/or mystical initiation, the blessing and link to a magical spirit (especially tenjin, though some seijin gain power through bonding to a seirei), or through being corrupted by Makai and being a really lucky bastard (that's more likely to cripple your spiritual capacity than give you a majin link). Once you have a spiritual link, it's usually there for life, and allows you to develop your spiritual power further. Seijins usually have enhanced lifespans, physical and sometimes mental capabilities, as well as spellcasting powers.

Seijins are relatively rare among humans. There's no way to mass-produce them reliably unless you're an elf (or part of one particular tenjin family), the most reliable methods to become one require a lot of work and a bit of luck, and while the Art isn't a secret exactly, you still have to convince a teacher, a spirit or a god that you're worth trying to teach or empower and aligned to their ideals of how power should be used. Most seijins are thus either members of the nobility or a temple or sect of some kind (commoners with latent talent are absolutely a thing, but most of them are quickly co-opted), and most of the latter have ties to the monarchies - being a seijin of significant power is a fast road to status. That said, free adventurers are rarely persecuted if they don't want to join up; they're a known and respected profession and often join Adventure Guilds.

Magic doesn't have a moral aspect to it as such, but mahou is...well...The Dark Arts; celestial religions call Makai the embodiment of evil and terrestrial ones (focusing on the seirei) consider it a corrupting and dangerous influence, and the latter is correct. Makai is not really safe to mess with; it's a shortcut to power, often carries a price, and the necessary mindset to channel and control mahou involves a mix of intellectual detachment and analysis, willpower, and being able and willing to impose your will on the world and on other people - you aren't likely to find a humble majin, and if you do they'll be much weaker than they would be if they embraced the proper mindset. However, as I carefully noted above, these aren't evil traits; plenty of majin in the past have been great heroes. Meanwhile, while tenjin tend toward being deeply compassionate, connected to others and strong in faith, and they most often gain their powers by becoming clerics of beings who are generally trying to do right by humanity, these traits can go sour and create some of the worst villains. (In fact, the group who are inborn tenjins run one of the nastiest empires in the setting.)

when the plants hit:

Memory saves itself on every atom. Magic can be used to temporally recall memories and reset an object's inertia. Magic can not be used to permanently change an object's molecular structure or shape but can be used to put it into a state that would require it to be broken and then fixed in the same way. Things like Must Be Invited, Geas and I Know Your True Name work by a mix of collective understanding and legal definitions. Familiar Spirits are Special Toys brought to life with a golden dust that causes your memories of them to manifest into ghostly spirit that possesses them. All things with a conciseness turn into four dimensional ghosts when they die and can possess any object by going through it. Ghosts can possess objects that are less complex then their brains. Also they can make what their possessing bigger by changing the air molecules around them into solid matter which causes a Ghostly Chill. Species with two hemisphere brains can possess two objects at one. When a ghost possesses another living being they possess their brain and change it into the brain they had when they were alive. Zombies can created by forcing a ghost to possess it's own dead body. Also magic is a form of light that comes from all stars including the sun and is easier to manipulate when it's separated from ultraviolet radiation (like at night). Also there's Fairy Cloaking that causes technology to temporally short circuit and your eyes to instinctively look away or your mind to think what your seeing isn't worth thinking about. You can use a salve to mitigate this effect. Also all species have different capacities to use magic and some use magic as part of their biology. Also Glamour and illusions exist and can only removed by rubbing on them. Magic is mostly used by dwarf-sized fairies like elfs and dwarfs who hide themselves in the woods because witches have outlawed magic and went on witch hunts to destroy all witches.^note yes in this universe all humans (except mermaids) are witches (or at least used to be) Also Geasa can be applied to groups of people and is the reason why fairies Must Be Invited or else electric shock. There's also a zombie Santa who uses mental fairy cloaking to hide his existence from the adults.

Edited by Wild-Starfish on Nov 4th 2022 at 6:40:36 AM

Magic gives you cool tattoos. Color and design not negotiable.

Turns out Living Metal can be haunted.

Like physics, except when you expend more magical strength you get to bend more laws of physics. Go past your limits and your body falls apart at the subatomic level. Good luck.

Edited by AwSamWeston on Feb 26th 2023 at 10:08:10 AM

For the webnovel I'm currently calling Biome Artists: All "magic" is, at its core, some manipulation (and maybe creation/destruction if very powerful) of matter or energy; it's all telekinesis in some way, no Time Travel or any sort of abstract powers. Every person (maybe some animals, haven't ironed that out just yet) could use it, but they need to train a lot in order to accomplish anything with it. There's over a hundred races in this world, with most of them having an innate connection to a specific "biome" of the world, and generally find it easier to use magic of their own tied native biome first (the type of plant, soil, etc common there; mages in wetter locations tend to lean on water powers, mages in rockier locations are better with stone than sand, etc) — magic when grouped by the environment is called the "Biome Arts," and the users the titular "Biome Artists." The two exceptions are the "neutral" races: humans, and a race that's basically just humans but color-inverted (their skin are various shades of azure, their sclera are black, their blood is cyan, etc). But anybody could potentially learn the magic of any biome. In practice, the differences between the 100+ races are so minute that they don't even matter. Generally plants are the easiest to manipulate/grow/etc, then soil/water, then chemicals, then like small flames or minor electric shocks, then animal matter. Two of the hardest powers to master are "pure energy" — particularly lightning, considered different from "electrical shocks" — and controlling people. The latter could come in the form of people puppeting, dream entry, controlling emotions, etc. Another "easier" but still high-ranking power is flight, controlling yourself in the air. The main character can sort of do this by the start (he can float around, but he can't shoot himself in the air or go across whole countries without some kind of vehicle or something to help). Lightning blasts are considered extremely dangerous and illegal in some of the world's nations (most are called "Regions"), while people-manipulation is flat-out illegal worldwide for its danger and various ethical reasons. MC's "rival" of sort is good with lightning, while the main villain has mastered people controlling in secrecy. Both MC and the rival are good with "pure energy" magic, and they commonly make shields and swords (respectively) from this fire-like energy of theirs. Generally, you can only shoot outright lightning at someone or something if you have 100% intent to do so, and are focused; otherwise it has a high chance of backfiring and electrocuting the user.

Also involved are these seemingly mystic gemstone-like objects that are a major source of energy, but any living being except a few select people that directly touches them gets vaporized. The energy of them is instead drawn out through machines, as the energy from these stones — the Relics — do not damage inorganic matter. At least not by default. The Relics are deliberately written to seem like some out-of-place Plot Coupon, but as the story goes on it turns out that they still technically fall under the magic system that is established, and the true story behind them is darker than the "These are special stones created by the god of this world" that the people in-universe are given. Finally, all of the races are for all intents and purposes humans with different color schemes and a few minor extra features; it's not relevant to the immediate story and I might change this, but I have the idea that all of the sapient races shared the same ancestor, that being these humanoids whose bodies were kinda cell-like, who at some point in the distant past survived a planetary catastrophe by "merging in to" the land, eventually some stuff happened and they became the biome-themed people that walk around today. And finally, I planned out that magic-users could "enhance" themselves with a pure form of magic, giving themselves super strength and durability by default, which is mostly just an excuse for why the heroes would pull off superhuman feats and survive things like having boulders get thrown at them with no armor.

TLDR: Yeah I'll admit it's kinda like Avatar: The Last Airbender with extra steps. But one key difference is that there's no spirits or any counterpart to them. Some things might look spiritual but they aren't.

Edited by greatpikminfan on Jun 6th 2023 at 9:15:38 AM

basically is based around nature, basically to begin with everyone that has it starts with a power over a power over an element, these are based around 5 basic concepts, water, fire, wind, earth and mind, there are some who control the element on it's more basic form while others control a variant of it, for example a variant for water can be ice or a variant for earth can be metal.

As their power develops they can reach higher levels of power by unlocking their spirit animal which is different depending on the user's personality and the emotions they were feeling in the moment in which they awaken their spirit, after they get they get their spirit animal they can fused with it in different forms, each one more complex and difficult than the last but also more powerful, the evolution of their powers is tied to emotional growth so the magic system is basically based on character development.

Nobody had access until magic started to leak into human world. Then select individuals get access to passive magic they can't control, such as dream walking, seeing auras, seeing ghosts, and getting involuntary future visions. And because this is just a spontaneous occurrence, these people are more or less seen as freaks if people find out.

See [1] for reference.

Levels of Magic:

• Null/Void: Called such because it is essentially "power from nothing", having no sort of cost or drawback. It is the most powerful level. Some fantasia have limited access to specific applications of this level of magic via an "authority" over a specific aspect or concept. Access to the full range of this level of magic is tantamount to being omnipotent.
• Thought: Magic fueled by the power of thought and are heavily reliant on the fantasia conceptualizing in their mind what they wish to accomplish. Overuse can result in the fantasia being "mentally tired". Backfires are generally not an issue and only result when the fantasia grossly misunderstands the correct method to achieve a certain effect.
• Energy: Magic fueled by bodily/physical energy. Overuse can result in the fantasia being physically tired. The fantasia expends energy to shape their magic power a certain way; the more the intended effect violates what is natural, the more energy is required. Backfires are a serious danger and can result from not having enough energy to achieve a certain effect.
• Physiology: Magic that is sourced from a fantasia's body part. This is the weakest level and only capable of one type of effect.

Different ways for non-fantasia to access magic:

• Contracts/theurgy: Can theoretically access all four levels of magic, although actual accessible magic depends on the who the contracted fantasia is and is limited to what magic that fantasia actually possesses.
• Residual: Based on killing a fantasia and taking the parts of their body that contain physiology magic. The mage can access the same physiology magic the fantasia had while alive by using their body part that possessed that magic. A mage may also access energy magic by consuming the body part.

The foundation of the system is life force. Everyone has it, the amount you are born with varies, but can be increased with training, experience, or alchemical treatments. Losing all of it kills you. Used life force refills passively (faster in areas with high ambient magic). The life force of natural-born mages is several orders of magnitude above everyone else. Another aspect of life force is that once there is enough of it in one place or thing, that thing develops sentience or even sapience, giving rise to elemental creatures.

Everyone also has affinities for certain elements, which can be thought of as schools of magic. A stronger affinity means being able to do more with the same amount of life force. People are typically born with one or two major ones and sometimes with a few more minor ones. Just like life force, affinities can be increased through training, experience, or alchemical treatments.

There are seven normal elements, and another that normal people do not have access to.

• Fire: Control over entropy, heating things up, cooling them down, creating flames.
• Air: Control over flow, creating wind and electricity.
• Water: Control over properties of things around the caster, transmutation, healing (difficult, requires anatomical knowledge and focus).
• Earth: Control over properties of the caster's body, shapeshifting, invisibility, regeneration.
• Life: Healing (easy, just requires a lot of life force), telepathy, mind reading.
• Death: Necromancy, life draining, mind control.
• Reality: Teleportation, pocket dimensions, scrying, summoning. Is able to emulate any above magic, though at the cost of requiring a lot more focus from the caster up to the point of often being impractical.
• Void: Creating and changing laws of physics, reality warping. Effectively makes the caster a god.

Elements can be used in combination to create effects that they can't create on their own. To name one example, fire and death magic together can create a flame that burns life force.

There are two fundamentally different approaches to using magic, their practitioners being known as mages and witches respectively.

• Mages draw from their innate pool of life force to cast spells. In order to become a mage, one must first "awaken" their life force. As mentioned above, enough life force in one place creates sapience, and incidentally the body of a mage counts as a place. The awakening is the moment when this sapience actualizes, frequently in moments of danger or high emotions, but it can also be induced by other mages (often as the first step of apprenticeship). The awakened life force can not be considered an independent person, more of a magical extension of the mage's subconscious. An awakened mage is extremely unstable, only able to vaguely direct the will of their life force, if at all. In order to become a fully-fledged mage, it is necessary to merge the will of mage and life force. This often causes shifts in personality, though it is unclear whether this is a result of magic affecting the mage's mind, or simply hidden traits emerging.
• Witches take the opposite path. They disperse their life force into the environment, saturating it until the awakening happens, linking the witch's subconscious to their environment. Witches often live in groups, known as covens, and rarely move from their established spot. Thanks to their link, animals and plants will become protective and helpful, and with a strong enough coven, might even awaken as elemental beings themselves. While generally peaceful, witches are not to be underestimated since their spells are fundamentally the same as those of mages, only with a much larger, if location-bound, pool of life force to back them up.

Magic has special interactions with certain materials. Crystals of various kinds can be used to store life force, which enables the casting of spells without using innate life force, allowing even those with undeveloped pools to cast. Gold is highly conductive to life force, which combined with the properties of crystals to make mages frequent wearers of jewelry. Silver on the other hand dampens magic around it, preventing the conversion of life force, massively crippling the casting potential of witches. Mages are resistant to this, but if a mage attempts to cast with a silver weapon lodged in them, they receive "silver burns" that cannot be healed with magic.

Another magical danger exclusive to mages is magical overload. It is what happens when a mage attempts to push too much life force out of their body too quickly. At low intensities it causes discomfort and nausea, but if the mage keeps pushing, the metaphysical stress turns very physical, resulting in internal and external bleeding (Psychic Nosebleeds, anyone?). At the extreme end, the mage is torn apart by the force of their own spell. The higher a mage's life force and the stronger their affinities, the higher the risk of overload, though that is only if they decide to push themselves that far or cast a spell that simply uses that much life force.

Note that this form of magic isn't the only supernatural discipline in my world, there's also the aforementioned alchemy, and enchanting, which is like rune-programming.