Building an organic(literally) Magic system?

[Logos&Eidos]

There several different magic systems in my WIP, the one used by the demons has left me scratching my head in trying to figure out just what they can and should be able to do; and equally important how to convey the flavor of demons and their magic.

Demon: is the layperson term for the extra-planer beings native to the remnant of the proto-cosmos,a mercurial realm where spirit and flesh never separated.

The demons are eldritch abominations and their magic had to be reflective of this. To further separate demon magic from mortal magic(Inaction),demon magic is not a "technique" it's a facet of physiology. Demons are transmogrifiers, they reshape themselves(and maybe environment) to accomplish their goals. They can teleport innately because not even their position in space is a fixed thing;fortunately they seem to be rooted in time. As an adaptation to living in a mercurial reality they can sense changes to their environment and themselves, and counter act said change;giving them a very effective form of counter-magic.

Despite their fluidity there is some consistency to demons they have four Paradigms(Animal,Vegetable/Fungoid,Mineral,Energy) and Caste(Leader,Warrior,Rouge/spy,Worker/servant). Paradigm and Caste influence how their magic manifest.

 

[ascanius]

There several different magic systems in my WIP, the one used by the demons has left me scratching my head in trying to figure out just what they can and should be able to do; and equally important how to convey the flavor of demons and their magic.

Demon: is the layperson term for the extra-planer beings native to the remnant of the proto-cosmos,a mercurial realm where spirit and flesh never separated.

The demons are eldritch abominations and their magic had to be reflective of this. To further separate demon magic from mortal magic(Inaction),demon magic is not a "technique" it's a facet of physiology. Demons are transmogrifiers, they reshape themselves(and maybe environment) to accomplish their goals. They can teleport innately because not even their position in space is a fixed thing;fortunately they seem to be rooted in time. As an adaptation to living in a mercurial reality they can sense changes to their environment and themselves, and counter act said change;giving them a very effective form of counter-magic.

Can you explain what constitutes change in the environment. If I start making food and chop up some veggies for a soup then later put the dishes in the sink to soak, I'm lazy, that's a lot of change in the immediate environment. how would that be counter acted or do you mean magical changes in the environment.

Despite their fluidity there is some consistency to demons they have four Paradigms(Animal,Vegetable/Fungoid,Mineral,Energy) and Caste(Leader,Warrior,Rouge/spy,Worker/servant). Paradigm and Caste influence how their magic manifest.

I read this and immediately began thinking of the carrot in the fridge being a demon and trying to kill me by zipping through the air and plunging into my chest. I'm a little creeped out by the idea of killer vegetables. I guess parents will never stop hearing "I told you so" by their children after this.

I think it would suck to live in your world, I cannot imagine the stress of never knowing if everyday items are demons out to kill. You could do a lot with this idea from the absolutely horrifying to very comical.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

Can you explain what constitutes change in the environment. If I start making food and chop up some veggies for a soup then later put the dishes in the sink to soak, I'm lazy, that's a lot of change in the immediate environment. how would that be counter acted or do you mean magical changes in the environment.

I mean that demons who have a strong enough atunement to an area will begin to influence it as though they were a genius-loci. I may need to cut this ability because I'm having trouble figuring exactly what this environmental-sympathy should and how powerful it should be; it has a lot of potential for "abuse.


I read this and immediately began thinking of the carrot in the fridge being a demon and trying to kill me by zipping through the air and plunging into my chest. I'm a little creeped out by the idea of killer vegetables. I guess parents will never stop hearing "I told you so" by their children after this.

I think it would suck to live in your world, I cannot imagine the stress of never knowing if everyday items are demons out to kill. You could do a lot with this idea from the absolutely horrifying to very comical.

Oh living in my world does have it's moments of suckage, the planes slowly move into alignment over the course of many centuries. When the conjunction happens demons pour into to the world and because they have no true form in this cosmos. They must fuse with a compatible host or quickly dissolve.

 

[WooHooMan]

eldritch abominations

Ok, so once I googled that term I came to the conclusion that your demons are Lovecraft-esque entities.
The thing with Lovecraft monsters is that they don't really follow the known rules of nature. They do fit into the rules of nature but not in a way that humans can understand. That's basically the defining aspect of Lovecraftian monsters.

So, assigning a coherent, understandable magic system to them seems like a pointless endeavor.

Lovecraft's mythos follow a set of symbolic rules, not a technical system. It's all about what "feels" right, not what makes logical sense. And even then, "what feels right" is pretty inconsistent.

I've also created a group of eldritch creatures and had to figure out how they and their magic work. "Dream logic" was the conclusion I came to.

So, there's my two cents.

 

[Mythopoet]

demon magic is not a "technique" it's a facet of physiology.

I'm a bit confused here. You linked on the word "physiology" to the tvtropes article on "Powers as Programs" which is definitely more of a technique type magic than a physiological type magic.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

Ok, so once I googled that term I came to the conclusion that your demons are Lovecraft-esque entities.
The thing with Lovecraft monsters is that they don't really follow the known rules of nature. They do fit into the rules of nature but not in a way that humans can understand. That's basically the defining aspect of Lovecraftian monsters.

So, assigning a coherent, understandable magic system to them seems like a pointless endeavor.

Lovecraft's mythos follow a set of symbolic rules, not a technical system. It's all about what "feels" right, not what makes logical sense. And even then, "what feels right" is pretty inconsistent.

I've also created a group of eldritch creatures and had to figure out how they and their magic work. "Dream logic" was the conclusion I came to.

So, there's my two cents.

I see your points. I have vowed not to use concepts and tropes until I can make sense of them. I have written down the rules for mortal-magic and wanted to do the same for demons as well; which hasn't been easy. I did consider dream logic as a basis for demon magic, but that's one to difficult to set down iron clad rules for,and not quite the flavor I want.

To a little more back story, mortals and demons were once related species, in the beffore time of the proto-cosmos. there were two races the shapers, who could transform and mutate themselves to suite their need, and the singers. who were less adaptable and resilient and had but only one shape, however hey could sing with their souls. they sung to earth make shelter, they sung so plants to gain their bounty, they sung to animals to tame them and ward off those that could not be tamed. They could sing to the elements to call or quell storms.

These two races being very different from each other, to point of finding them the other something eldritch,rarely got along.

The proto-cosmos at some point cracked splitting into physical and spiritual, the shapers being highly attuned to their environment couldn't survive the split and died. the singers however did survive becoming the very distant ancestors to the mortal races. The split in the proto-cosmos wasn't an even one a small region remained as it had been this became the demon world.

The Demon magic from their point of view isn't magic at all,just their natural physiology. Translating demon biology into the mortal results in some very supernatural capabilities.

 

[WooHooMan]

So, like Western (and to a lesser extent, East Asian) style magic is very word-focus. Incantations, magic words, runes, etc.
That's the Singers' magic - human magic.

With Shapers/demons, I'm thinking you could base their magic off of Indian yoga. Very physical and mystical. Like how yoga is portrayed in the ancient Hindu myths. There are myths about asura demons sprouting 10 arms and five heads on a whim then doing battle with a different weapon in each hand.

So, there's a suggestion.

With my eldritch guys, I made their magic thought/imagination-focused as opposed to human's action/ritual-focused magic. They do the same things, they're just handled differently.
I think magic is less about the actual rules and more about how it fits into the narrative. Y'know, you can just have a basic gimmick like "magic is actual weird physiology" and just leave it at that. But it depends on what you're going for, I guess.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

I'm a bit confused here. You linked on the word "physiology" to the tvtropes article on "Powers as Programs" which is definitely more of a technique type magic than a physiological type magic.

Allow me to clarify Demons don't perform Incantations, they mutate themselves in order to generate metaphysical-organelles;which let's them perform supernatural feats as an extension of their physiology. These organelles and the gene-sequences that correspond to them can be disabled or removed entirely. The mutations that a demon is capable is determined by their Paradigm, Caste and strength.

So, like Western (and to a lesser extent, East Asian) style magic is very word-focus. Incantations, magic words, runes, etc.
That's the Singers' magic - human magic.

With Shapers/demons, I'm thinking you could base their magic off of Indian yoga. Very physical and mystical. Like how yoga is portrayed in the ancient Hindu myths. There are myths about asura demons sprouting 10 arms and five heads on a whim then doing battle with a different weapon in each hand.

So, there's a suggestion.

With my eldritch guys, I made their magic thought/imagination-focused as opposed to human's action/ritual-focused magic. They do the same things, they're just handled differently.
I think magic is less about the actual rules and more about how it fits into the narrative. Y'know, you can just have a basic gimmick like "magic is actual weird physiology" and just leave it at that. But it depends on what you're going for, I guess.

I like your Ideas on a creative level.

The demons shaping magic dose have a few possible sources that I could barrow from. The game series Prototype and the Branch of Sin abilities from the manga/anime Deadman Wonder.

Some Ideas that i'm playing around with is the idea that demons have something fundamentally off putting about them. A type of "tell" that is all but impossible to mask. Also the that the many of their abilities are both psychic and material;like psychic spores.


I mentioned that demons when sufficiently attuned to a location begin to influence it through an environmental-sympathy. How can this be done without it becoming unbalancing.

 

[WooHooMan]

Is this for an RPG?

 

[Logos&Eidos]

Is this for an RPG?

Eventually I'd like to see my setting to become an RPG, for right now no. However "balance" isn't just for games it's all for keeping a story stable; like not having a protagonist who is overpowered relative to the threats that they are facing.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

Demon magic is meant to be something organic and more than a little squick. I suppose that bioware(the organic cousin to cyberware) could be a source for some of their abilities.

The Demons being shape shifters, are quite literally gender-fluid. On account of their fluidity they possess rather exotic body language; having expressive-hair is the most mundane element of this.

The only consistent thing about demons is Paradigm and Caste. Paradigm is what mundane existence they are closest to,Animal,vegtable/fungus,mineral, energy.

Caste is a bit more complicated, is both form and function, metaphysical programing that influences every aspect of their being.

The Current caste are: Leader,Warrior,Worker/support,Guile/scout.

I'd like each of the castes to have some abilities that were unique to them. But with the exception of leaders ( which I might cut) having a form of mind-influencing, I've got nothing.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

The Magic of the mortal races is called incantation, both the practice and the act of performing it.

This in addition to sounding cool,ties into the origin of the mortal races, a tribe of demons who were called the Singers; the word incantation has it's root in Latin, the word incantatio meaning to sing or recite.

Incanters, can project the energy of their souls outwards as patterned fields and or waves.
The configuration of these patterns determine how they interact with world.

The basic unite of these patterns is the note,of which there are forty nine(the number of musical notes squared. mundane music times itself equals cosmic music,simple but it seemed cool to me.) the note are then arranged into sets(chords) which are linked together to build a cantus.

Cantus are sorted into Domains based upon how effect they effect the world. The Domains being: heat,light,electricity, force,Matter,Spirit,Life,medium(which is space and time).

Every Incanter has their own natural tuning or affinity, which influences the eases at which they can learn and perform canti.

An alternative system of classification would be with classic elementalism. while on some levels this would make things easier, the uses and limitations on the "basic" applications of an element are easy to figure out.
What element would teleportation or creating pocket dimension fall under? What of alchemy, the best idea that I've got is that it would take all the elements(fire,air,water,earth spirit,wood) to transmute something.

The main issue that I'm facing is genre, the first model leans closer to sci-fi while elementalism is leaning towards fantasy.


As for how demon magic and mortal magic interact, not very well. Demons don't project make fields/waves,their power is entirely internalized; the effects are not. So Incanters aren't readily able to dispel or directly counter Demon magic.