# Race Immune to Magic



## Androxine Vortex (Feb 21, 2015)

I'm developing new races for my one project and have come up with two. One race is humanoid birds called Avians. Their feathers are a beautiful combination of blue and green and are reclusive to their mountain temples. They are the most magically attuned race and have powers of foresight into the future (though they only see possibilities)

Another race i created was called the Drahl. When the world was created, each race was born from their own patron deities, taking on magic traits from them and skin complexion and so on. The Drahl however were born without a patron God or goddess and are soulless. Their skin is pale white and have silver hair and black eyes with while rings for pupils.

Because they do not possess souls they have no connection to magic and are incapable of harnessing it. At the same time they are immune to magic as well.

My problem is what are the limits of their magical immunity? Suppose a wizard shoots a fireball (original i know) at a Drahl. They would be immune. But what if the wizard enchanted a sword so it is on fire? Or what if he shot a fireball at an object and then attacked him with said object, would he get hurt because now the fire is burning from the object and not technically magic?

I also thought of maybe when magic users are near they can not cast their spells but i feel that's a little over powering.

Thoughts?


----------



## Hainted (Feb 21, 2015)

In My take on it? 

Fireball? No

Sword covered in magic fire? Only Sword does damage(since magic maintains the fire)

Setting branch on fire and  beating them with it? Blunt damage and fire damage


----------



## WooHooMan (Feb 21, 2015)

If there was some kind of Avian klu klux klan who said that Drahl were inferior, I'd be inclined to agree with them.  That's kind of the problem with saying one race is naturally more magical than another.  It's worse to say that one race doesn't have a soul.  There's like a weird racist undertone.  Maybe I'm thinking too hard about it.

I honestly don't understand how it works.  A wizard shoots a fireball at a Drahl and they're just ok?  What does it matter how the fire was create; fire is fire.

So, those are my thoughts.


----------



## Devor (Feb 21, 2015)

I think it raises some questions here about what magic is and how magic works in your world.  "Immune to magic" works great in a gaming system like Dungeons & Dragons because every attack has a "type" which makes it pretty clear what does or doesn't work.  But there are bugs in those systems which we can ignore because we don't scrutinize games as much as we do books.

Fire is kind of an easy example.  But let's say your spell creates a tornado that should pick somebody up off their feet and slam them into the wall all while smacking him or her in the face with debris.  How much of the tornado is magic and how much is physics?  The moment anyone even thinks to ask, you've broken immersion, whether or not you have an answer that works.

And immersion is everything.

So if it were me, I would try and nail it, in simplest terms, how this magic immunity thing works.  Right now, that phrase, "immune to magic," I think, will create more problems than it's worth.

But to offer an alternative, which I think would be better but may still not be quite bullet proof enough, I would say:

"Magic _fails_ as it gets close to them."

And I mean really close, like within a foot.

That should remove some of the conceptual problem.  In the case of the fire, they're not standing there "immune" as fire burns around them at sweltering heats, eating up their oxygen and filling up their lungs with smoke.  They aren't "immune" to a tornado as it whips them with 100 mph winds that rip up the house next to him.  Instead, the winds and fires would just die out, but the person would go "Ow!" to the burning blade, cough at the smoke, and duck from the debris that was coming at him and still has inertia from the wind that just stopped.

To me, that also seems more . . . . human, to cut the idea that they are "immune" to all these godlike phenomenon and see it as the magic failing instead.


----------



## ThinkerX (Feb 21, 2015)

This thread gets into the reasons why I moved away from AD&D style magic.

Put bluntly, it doesn't translate well to story writing.


----------



## Androxine Vortex (Feb 21, 2015)

@WooHooMan
Actually there is a lot of racism towards the Drahl because they are seen as inferior and because they are in fact soulless. And no the Avians aren't pompous or condescending they live their lives like monks and are very spiritual.


@devor
You make a lot of great points in your post and it's funny because the world I made was originally made for me and my friend's version of D&D so I guess I still have some of those elements in mind.


----------



## Laurence (Feb 22, 2015)

The only way I can really see this working is if your magic wasn't based around elements which have physical traits in the real world. If it was straight up harry potter magic then it'd easy to just void it.

If you're in to fireballs then just swap them out for blargballs etc. heheh


----------



## psychotick (Feb 22, 2015)

Hi,

You've got to define immunity and magic before you can go any further. My thought is that immune woul mean that magic can't be used directly on them. So you can't anchant them or hex them. But they can still be affected by things cast by magic. So your tornado because it's actually moving wind even if its powered by magic would toss them about. And your fireball depends on whether the fire is real fire held in a ball and hurled by magic, or whether it's actual magic fire.

Cheers, Greg.


----------



## K.S. Crooks (Feb 22, 2015)

Look at what you want your characters to go through then make the level match. If you make it that only direct magic use against the Drahl is stopped it allows for more things to be done when they are around. Having them nullify other magic when they are present would mean a lot of tracking on your part. Everywhere a Drahl goes would undo all magic around them, at least until they leave. Hope this helps.


----------

