Magic System Source

[Snowpoint]

(FYI - not Earth, even if I use France as an example) I have a fantasy setting where there are multiple "limited" systems of magic. Each country / region of the earth has a culture and magic system unique to them. Each system has a tight theme and ONE power they use to create however many spells they can manage out of that one power.

The problem is this. Everyone from Place A, has Magic A. Everyone from Place B, has Magic B. Why?

Is the source of their magic local? It can only be found in one place on Earth?

Is the magic a cultural phenomenon? French Magic only works for French people because they were born there and raised in that culture?

If magic is super localized to one place, does EVERY human there have magic?

There are a lot of questions I'm struggling with.

(FYI - Binders pull stuff together like magnets and ropes - Wardens make invisible shields.)

Binders believe everything is connected. That doesn't stop being true just because you were born in Germany. The Binders country is steeped in a religion and philosophy shaped by a small number of Spell-casters for whom the magic actually works.

Maybe the magic works for everyone all the time, but "Binders" are trained to do more with it. Like, Blacksmithing doesn't stop being real just because you don't know how to do it.

But then, Imagine you are from a place where the culture and religion was written by blacksmiths. Wouldn't every person there know how to make a horse-shoe?

I still haven't decided what the source is. The idea that everything is connected is a universal truth to Binders, but not outsiders. However, they still draw blood to cast spells. Implying that blood is a conduit to a third-party Supernatural being. Binders often use the blood of other people just to avoid pricking themselves. Does the magic ability stem from their understanding of a basic truth, or the reckless invoking of a third-party?

Binders draw blood and Wardens need fire to cast spells. Those things are a conduit to something else. But if the magic comes from a third party, does that invalidate the caster? If magic comes from a third party, then anyone could cast magic. The culture of the spell-caster, an element I want to explore, becomes a meaningless detail, if anyone can draw a pint of blood and work some Binding magic.

 

[Nameback]

I'm having trouble grokking what exactly your concern is, but I'll try to answer.

Many cultures approach the same things in different ways. Virtually all non hunter-gatherer cultures on Earth (except those in the New World) used iron. Their cultural practices and beliefs didn't mean they used it all in the same way, though, or that they valued it in the same way. The Zulu didn't use it for armor, but the Frankish did. Ancient Malians considered blacksmithing to be a somewhat mystical or sacred art whose skills were closely guarded, and in England at the same time it was just a modest profession. The Chinese used gunpowder for fireworks and the Europeans immediately deployed it for warfare. And so on and so on.

Cultural practices and beliefs change how people relate to a natural resource. They may differ in their ideas of what the physical nature of the resource is, what it should be used for, who should use it, when it should be used, how valuable it is, and so on.

Now, when it comes to speculation as to what something is, there can be right or wrong answers. Iron is either a gift from the gods or it isn't. The world is made up of atoms or it isn't. Malaria is caused by swamp gas or it isn't. Rats spontaneously generate or they don't. But all the other differences--in how, why, when, where the resource is employed--are subjective, and can't really be said to be "invalidated."

 

[Queshire]

Hmmmm.... Ok, so what you have written of Binders sounds more like something tied to culture than it is to physical location. If it was tied to location then it would be a big blow to their faith if their power ends up failing them after being stranded on a deserted island or something, or if they move to a different country and find that their kids don't have their sacred magic.

You said that the use of their blood for casting implied a connection to a third party supernatural being and then said that makes their culture meaningless. What if the blood is only part of the contract with the being? What if their entire culture helps appease the being? What if your powers are weaker if you don't celebrate the right holidays, eat the right food, dance the right dances, etc and so on. To use your real world parallels, McDonalds could very well be a weapon of mass destruction; weaking the local culture and their magic and strengthening the foreign one. You could also have the being be an embodiment of the culture, born from the collective psyche of the culture and giving their blessing to the culture that birthed them. Sorta like Uncle Sam only with magic.

 

[MVV]

First, what has come to my mind is that you could treat these various systems of magic as various languages (cultural codes). All languages make sense which is not limited to the location or the ethnicity. The only thing you need for the language to work is at least one other person that understands you... and this won't be an issue in case of magic, I guess.

Second, if you have a culture and religion shaped by spellcasters, isn't it exactly the reason why ordinary people don't know how to use magic? Take a look at the history of Europe. In the Middle Ages, the religion and many aspects of the culture were formed by the clergy who, among other things, were able to read and write and knew Latin. And the clergy was strongly opposed to all voices that suggested that the liturgy, for example, should be in a language that ordinary people understand. Make the spellcasters elitists (which isn't really hard) and your problem is solved.

 

[wordwalker]

One question is, how separated is the magic itself? To take two examples:

In Avatar, there are four elements, and one power in your genes, period. If you aren't an airbender's child (or the one Avatar), you'll never control air, and this is enforced by simplified genetics (we've seen an air and water couple produce an air, a water, and a mundane child, but no combined gifts). Illusion, teleportation, and so on aren't among the four, so they don't exist. --Or in the show's past, power wasn't genetic but was specific gifts from the spirits, same thing.

In the other extreme, what if all magic uses the same forces and even the same techniques, but people are taught different approaches to doing the same thing? I've heard it argued that many modern weapons were invented by Americans, refined by Germans, and made affordable by Japanese-- very rough statement (let's leave it at that), but when you consider that this is talking about the large concept of a rifle or a plane and how the technology might be developed different ways, you see the idea. With magic, the differences might go even further: maybe one people use barrier spells for slowly-built, long-standing construction purposes, and another grew up playing TK-Dodgeball and can snap up a shield spell in a second. Maybe it's only partly training, and the first person might be halfway to a combat spell or the second to a permanent spell if they just took seriously the idea that it's possible. Or maybe both are already do both, but each is a lot better at one.

You decide how much it's belief, and training-- and also how much it's affected by things like genes, ambient energies, local materials for wand types, whatever it may be.

 

[Svrtnsse]

One way you could bind a source of magic to a land/location is to make it dependent on the local animal and plant life. It could be that there's something there that affects the inhabitants in a way which makes them stronger in certain kinds of magic. You can even add in cultural differences based on how things are cooked in one part of a region as opposed to another.

Let's say that the binders all like to eat rabbit. However, the binders in the south like to grill it while the binders in the north like it dried. The rabbit meat will make them all able to access the magic of binding, but the dried meat will make the northerners more powerful at keeping things together for a long time while the southerners are better at bringing things together with great force.
The rabbits they eat may be indigenous to the area, or they may exist all over the world. If they exist all over, then it may be that it's only in binder lands that they have access to the food that allows for their meat to provide magical benefits.

Food for thought?

 

[wordwalker]

One way you could bind a source of magic to a land/location is to make it dependent on the local animal and plant life.
...
Food for thought?

Which came first, the pun or the tip?

 

[Svrtnsse]

Oh dear, I completely missed that...

 

[wordwalker]

Welcome to my life. I started one RPG with the first line my wizard character spoke asking a rather vague courier "You're looking for an apprentice in which craft?"

Which --I mean "and that"-- brings us back the OP.

 

[buyjupiter]

Would it be helpful to think of each countries' magic use as a school of philosophy? As in, all the magic comes from the same place, but the aspects that each system focuses upon are different thus the different uses of the magic?

 

[Snowpoint]

Sorry if my OP is hard to understand, or if it is hard to write comments to it.

There is the possibility that all magic is Binding magic on some level. (Shield magic would either be reworked into Binding magic, or written as the antithesis of Binding - to isolate.)

So all Magic, or most magic, is Binding magic. Different countries have different spell casters -each with unique ways of "binding".

Nature binds itself together to form "Nature Avatars". People could bind themselves together to form a "Community Avatars". Like the difference between the Genius-Loci of a Forest and one of a city. (Not that modern humans would be aware of this.)

* In addition, there could be some awe and mystery surrounding Ancient "All-Binders" who had all the magic, but like Babel the power was divided like so many languages.

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Posting here really helps! You might see a blending of posters ideas in my conclusion.

Binding Arts I know of:

1. Adhesive - Gluing two thing together with magic force.

2. Leash - Like an invisible rope tying to things together with a limited range of motion.

3. Trace - Following blood back to its source (from paternity tests to manhunts!)

4. Food-Based Telepathy (literally synchronize your meals to tune into psychic channels

5. Dreams - Standard "Dream Walking" deal

6. Contracts - Leonine blood pacts that kill you if you misbehave. (3 guesses who has the brass balls around here.)

 

[Zak9]

One way you could bind a land's people and the land to each other is for the land itself to have the magic. For instance, the air could have particles of magic within it, which it's people use to power their magical abilities. Or the earth itself could have magic pouring out of it, but it never leaks into the other lands or it will dissipate. Just some ideas.