Magical limits

[Draconian]

Hi, I'm new and was wondering what magical limits should I have for my story.Like should I have an unlimited magical power source or should I have something that prevents them from using other peoples magic?
Currently magic in my world can only be used by a select few and certain descendants of a magical race.They mainly can do stuff like heal the swords wounds or broken bones and maybe poison. They can create fire or shoot lighting from their hands. They also can freeze and heat stuff too, along with create gusts of winds. Very large groups of mages can also distort space and open portals to other places. Along with that I have a sickness that only magically gifted people can contract. So i'm eager to see your rules or limitations for magic and what magic can do in your world. So feel free to post me your ideas and feedback.

[Black Dragon]

Welcome Draconian!

Your idea of a "sickness that only magically gifted people can contract" sounds promising. If you approach this in an original manner, it may yield great results.

I always lean towards avoiding an unlimited magical power source. By creating limits you are creating obstacles, which forces the characters to find ways to work around them. If handled correctly, this can make for clever storytelling possibilities.

[Derin]

When I use magic, I tend to use a sort of energy that moves through everything. Living being generate it and it likes to collect in certain materials (like water), and people can learn to manipulate the energy to make things happen. (Yeah, I use magic circles and soforth.) This is effectively a near-unlimited power source, but it raises the issue of control. The more power you manipulate at one, the harder it is to manage, and like computer programming, one error can ruin your spell or make it do something unpredictable. It's quite easy for overambitious magic-users to kill themselves by accident.

[Draconian]

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that in my world their is a device with a huge amount of magical power but the device can't be used properly by mages and the only ones who can use this device properly are descendents of its creations and even then the device often causes bizare and often dangerous side effects like the magic sickness or the user going insane or being killed or going into a coma. By the way the device can create rifts in space to other dimensions and also it created a whole race of magical beings. The most terrify thing of all it can do or i should say did is basically cause a very large land mass to be reduced to nothing but sand and rock (killing all life and evaporating the water in and under the land leaving the land worthless and uninhabitable).

[Hans]

I normally have a "magic is dangerous" setting. Everyday people will not have everyday magic. That's just not my style.

In one setting magic is very susceptible to side effects. From a theoretical point the world can be seen as a swinging structure and magic directly influences these waves. That spreads in all directions, not only the wanted one. Also it has some very technical limits like the energy needed does with the square of distance and so on.

In my other world powerful magic is demonology. Demons try to get independent from their summoner. Then they have their own urges. Like transforming the world into something they like and where very few "normal" live can survive. Or eating that tasty living flesh. It's not that they want to be evil, they just don't care. They are evil in the same sense a man eating tiger is evil.
And of course a more powerful demon is harder to control.

[TWErvin2]

I agree with Black Dragon, that there should not be unlimited magic. It can really distort a story and cause endless plot problems and the creation/resolution of conflict.

Draconian, you appear to have the basics established, but you should really have them refined--how and why a user of magic contracts the sickness. The cause of rifts opening. Although the reader may not end up being privy to the knowledge, having such will keep the world and the way magic functions consistent.

Revealing how magic 'works' is something that can be presented over time in the novel, as needed for the reader to understand. It's often something readers have an interest in, and will keep them reading to find out more.

In the world contained within my novel Flank Hawk, users of magic take on/suffer effects based on the magic they use and how powerful they become. Seers, for example, lose their physical sight as they increase in magical strength/skill. Enchanters are more susceptible to magic used upon/against them, and often hide their identity/fact that they are an enchanter. How 'fun' would it be to become a powerful necromancer?

[Draconian]

I think I figures out how magic works in my world. Magic users have a certain amount of magic in them to use in their bodies and going over the limit causes you to age because the
magic will use your lifeforce to fuel a spell. You do recharge the magic in your body by resting or eating or sleeping and over time you will have more magic in your body. However their are other sources to use for fueling a spell such as another magic user or certain magical tools like magic circles or amulets or crystals. Basic magic like making a fire doesn't really have any side effects but doing something more complicated can result in many different side effects if you make a mistake. Along with that there is often many different ways of doing the same thing. I still haven't figured out how my magical sickness or opening rifts work yet though.

[Derin]

Sorcery sickness is a common theme, so you have a lot of background material to work with. In some stories, people get a horrible fever and can die if they overstrain themselves. In others, magic weakens the body and merely makes them susceptible to other infections. Some mages go insane over time. In Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire, seers that overwork themselves go temporarily blind.

You could have a certain amount of latent magical energy necessary for stabilising reality, and monkeying about with it too much in one place causes possible tears. This would require magic to be regulated, as magicians need to work together as far as magical consumption goes or risk damaging reality. Combined with a sickness based on how much magic you do, illegal magic could end up with somebody severely sick being found out by their illness and fined or jailed.

[SeverinR]

In my world,
The individual energy a mage uses is limited but can use a mage battery for extra. Possibly a device to unite several mages energy. Energy is based on ability, experience, and race of the mage. (or is it more efficient use of the set energy a person has?)
Ancient dragon mage would have alot more energy then a 17 year old apprentice human mage.

When they use to much of their energy, they act similar to a low blood sugar in a diabetic. Dizzy, disoriented, lose conciousness, etc. There is the possibility of magic pulling to much energy from a person that they die.
This applies to Arcane and mental magic, spiritual magic uses some bodily energy but most is from the god bestowing the power.
But this magic is limited by fear of drawing the gods attention for abusing the magic bestowed.

I do like the idea of a magical disease. D&D had a magical creature that if you used a lot of magic would draw them to the spell user. Maybe a magical parasite?

[BeigePalladin]

my magical limit works a bit like the desiese:

magic is a naturally building energy that things can tap into (though in most places it's so weak that casting anything worthy would take about 10 minutes), but 'mages' are capable of storing magical power in their own bodies.

the downside is that each mage has a limit, and there's no way to stop the energy from accumulating, so eventually , if they go too long without casting, they start to suffer effects ranging from illness, to uncrontroled magical outburst, to death at the worst case - and the stronger the mage the more catastrophic the effect.